Michael Crichton is probably best known for writing Jurassic Park, a cinematic classic that spawned a rapidly deteriorating franchise whose movies make Billy and the Cloneasaurus seem like a good idea. But Crichton was never a one-trick Dilophosaurus, and his fingerprints are all over pop culture. ER reruns will grace our television sets for as long as civilization persists, his posthumous novel Eruption is being turned into a movie about a big ol’ volcano, and Sphere is easily one of the top five movies about a sphere ever made.
1973’s Westworld teeters on the brink between the Crichton yarns we remember (Congo, The Andromeda Strain) and the ones we very much do not (quick, what are Runaway and Looker about?). Long overshadowed by HBO’s ponderous four-season reimagining, and better recalled for its technical achievements than its content, Crichton’s tale of a robo-cowboy gone rogue is getting a second shot at cybernetic life thanks to a new 4K UHD Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
