On Comcast This Week
If you have Comcast On Demand Cable, they currently showing Futureworld, uncut and uninterrupted. It's not in widescreen though.
shareThanks, just watched it. Too much of a soundstage look compared to Westworld. Furureworld doesn't look it's spread out and it's supposed to be huge compared to Westworld. It just looks like you go from one set to the next.
shareYeah, but you gotta love the "future bar" with the holographic chess pieces (is this easier than just moving pieces yourself?) and the real life "rock 'em sock 'em" robots. It probably looks nicer in widescreen. I wish they broadcast it that way.
shareIf you watch on a widescreen TV just change the viewing setting to zoom and you'll see how the film looks in widescreen. The film was shot open matte and just masked off the top and bottom when shown on the big screen.
shareThe imdb page says it was shot in 18.5:1 aspect ratio, which is a decent, albeit modest, widescreen...not anamorphic though. I was hoping it might have been the latter. So, if it were shown on TV in its true widescreen aspect ratio (not the stretch or widescreen zoom setting on a TV, however, which usually throws everything out of proportion), one should get a little more scope to the flick. Not much, evidently.
Just to compare, the original film, Westworld, was 2.35:1
1.85:1 is the intended aspect ratio, it wasn't shot with anamorphic lenses but flat 1.37:1 open matte. Choosing zoom (not stretch which) gives you a close approximation of what the theatrical showing would be with a matted projection.
shareThere are some specific sections that look pretty good, although maybe not practical. Like the chess game you mentioned, neat to look at, but players after awhile might start to figure out it kind of loses it's magic and it's quicker to just move physical pieces.
The 3D face rotation was one of those areas that impressed me, still looks good and one of those can't believe they had this in 1976 moments. That one was actually from ARPA. Probably cheaper to borrow government work than try to do this on the studio's budget. Wonder what the Defense Department was hoping to get out of that research?
Overall, there were just too few gems to make the overall project very memorable. Had a TV movie feel and too often I was thinking this looks like a soundstage to me with only a door seperating the worlds.
With Westworld, you got a more convincing impression. It helped it was shot outdoors. When Yul Brynner's cowboy is chasing the guys, it really gave the feeling that this was a huge world. Turn on Futureworld with the mention this is FIVE times bigger, but with it all filmed indoors having the trams as the only indication it's spreadout and it just didn't work.
Yul's cowboy in this as others have mentioned was just embarrassing. Those silvery eyes from Westworld really helped make the character. They're missing here. Maybe it's explained away by the dream aspect, she wanted him to be more human so the eyes had to be more human?