HBO’s Westworld has become an increasingly popular Sunday night TV show. This intriguing new show has people watching the screen for a whole hour every Sunday night as they follow through the mystifying plot of a sci-fi/thriller. However, this is not the first time this plot has been displayed. The TV show is based on the 1973 Michael Crichton movie of the same name and aspects. Both the show and the movie aren’t gory or too scary, but just enough to keep you at the edge of your seat complaining for more while squinting your eyes at the same time because some scenes are just too cringe-worthy.

The intriguing plot of Westworld displays a “realistic amusement park” similar to today’s Walt Disney World. Similar to how there’s Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom in Florida, imagine the same type of three divided parks but larger and more realistic. There are three places you can travel to during your stay: Western World, Roman World, and Medieval World. Westworld displays the old fashioned, wild west with your typical cowboy gunslingers, horses, bar fights, and the occasional tumbleweed rolling across the dirt road right before a duel. For Roman World, there are beautiful Roman fountains surrounded by gorgeous greenery and women dressed in togas being fed plump, purple grapes by the hand. Lastly, there is Medieval World. This is where princesses play the role of damsels in distress as a young knight in shining armor comes to save the day and where court jesters dance foolishly around the ballroom floor among other guests dressed in large dresses with tight corsets. Now, I know you might be thinking now, that doesn’t sound so bad, how can this possibly be called a sci-fi thriller film? Well, there’s just one catch, they are all robots. There are robots all around in these three, huge parks. This film has a very basic plot of one man, Peter Martin (played by Richard Benjamin) who pays to go on a vacation to see Western World. Once he gets there with a friend of his, he slowly adapts to the theme of the park. He dresses in a typical cowboy outfit and goes down to the saloon only to have his first encounter with an intimidating and realistic looking robot. After the robot picks on the star of the film he gives in and shoots him. In this theme park the guns given to everyone can only shoot and injure the robots, not the guests. Slowly, as the movie progresses in the plot, certain things stop functioning correctly. The robots begin to rebel and stop following their programmed orders. The intimidating robot gunslinger mentioned earlier (played by Yul Brynner) comes to Peter and his buddy, John, ready for a rematch. He shoots at his buddy only for both of them to realize that John actually got shot. He then dies in the middle of the dry, dirt road as Peter runs for safety. Little things like this throughout the movie prove how the controllers of the park have lost their force and authority over the other robots.

According to HBO’s homepage, “The one-hour drama series Westworld is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin. Set at the intersection of the near future and the re-imagined past, it explores a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged.”

In the new HBO TV show series, Westworld, a similar plot is displayed. In the pilot, an expensive and futuristic “amusement park” is made to look as realistic as possible to the south. It starts out with one of the main characters known as Teddy Flood, played by James Marsden (also known for playing Cyclops in X-men alongside Wolverine, Hugh Jackman) is a robotic host. He, like many other robots, do not know they are robots. They have the same programmed routine everyday unless their programmed has been changed to another one. They are their for the amusement of the vacationers who are meant to become engrossed in the ludacris trip. Similar to the 1973 film, the robotic “hosts” begin to realize what they are exactly and the role they play in the vacationers’ fantasies.

Both the film and TV show reveal many similarities and differences, providing quite the intriguing plot. Plenty of suspense and action filled seasons are yet to be debated throughout the next season, which is set to premier in late 2017.