Movie Info
Movie Name: Futureworld
Studio: The Aubrey Company
Genre(s): Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Mystery/Suspense
Release Date(s): August 13, 1976
MPAA Rating: PG
We shall call it… “Punch Out”
Delos has decided to reopen its controversial theme park after the destruction and death caused by the breakdown at the park. Reporters Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner) have been invited with a delegation of leaders and reporters to show off the new park including the Western World replacement Future World. Something is brewing in Delos, and Chuck and Tracy must uncover it before it is too late.
Directed by Richard T. Heffron, Futureworld is a science-fiction thriller. The movie is a follow-up to Michael Crichton’s Westworld from 1973 and received mixed reviews from critics but became the first modern American film to receive a regular released in China.
Westworld was a creative film that was ahead of its time. The idea of a simulated (almost video game) world where people live out fantasies with robots was cutting edge (along with some of its computerized special effects). A sequel seemed like a natural…but the story really doesn’t develop.
I wonder what she’s dreaming of?
Westworld had a lot of high concept ideas and Futureworld has some of those themes carried over, but essentially comes out as a big Stepford Wives storyline (but The Stepford Wives did it better). The movie’s pacing and storytelling is tedious and “action” sequences really are so mundane that it doesn’t spice it up. Even the “tense” ending sequence feels cliché and not surprising in any means.
Both Blythe Danner and Peter Fonda have done better. Their characters are rather paper thin (Fonda the dedicated newsman and Danner the TV reporter wooed by the visuals). I like Stuart Margolin but he is added too late to the plot (and I don’t see why he would be allowed to continue to operate in the park as long as he did). The movie features the last film appearance by Yul Brynner who reprises his role as the Gunslinger for a bizarre dream cameo sequence with Danner (as her fantasy man)…it is as weird as it sounds.
…I had to ask
Futureworld was damned from the start on visuals. Sci-Fi movies date quickly and Futureworld has the same problem. Unlike Westworld which was set in the past world, Futureworld is supposed to look high tech and edgy. None of that is true at this point if you go back and watch the film now, but I think even in 1976, it would have been a push (on a side note, they used a set from Logan’s Run for the bar sequence).
Futureworld is a blasé follow-up to a good movie. The movie works more as a thriller than sci-fi, but as a thriller, it isn’t very thrilling. Stick with the original Westworld rather than the sequel (or the 2016 TV series). Futureworld was followed by the short-lived series Beyond Westworld in 1980.
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