Forgotten Villains: Westworld’s Gunslinger

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

{hotos copyright Metro Goldwyn Mayer

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

I guarantee that fans of the current version of Westworld do not realise where the idea originated. Future Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton conceived and directed this movie where man again messes up with his hubris around technology. Humanity has created these machines in his own image and programmed them to think and act as they dictate. However as God discovered you cannot control the nature of a thing even nonliving ones and nature will always find a way as Jurassic Park showed. Humityan is flawed by his own arrogance and base nature so therefore anything he creates with his image and nature will also be flawed.

WestWorld is the ultimate adult fantasy as you can live in any era and interact with perfect doubles of humans. You can travel to Rome or be part of medieval England or as we discover. the Wild West. Paying guests can kill at will and indulge in debauchery with the robots which makes the whole idea of WestWorld a little uncomfortable. Instead of a static sex doll, you now have one that reacts to your every deviant wish. If you kill one it is taken away for repair and released back into the simulations. Here two men, Blane (Josh Brolin) and Martin (Richard Benjamin) pay for the western scenario. Their foe is the Gunslinger portrayed by legendary actor Yul Brynner of the King and I and The Magnificent Seven fame.

The character of the all in black gunslinger is based on his role as Chris in the Magnificent Seven. However something is wrong with the robots and they begin to kill everyone in sight.

The Gunslinger is a prototype Terminator. He never stops, says only the few words he has been programmed with and is hard to kill. In the original scenario, Martin kills the Gunslinger as part of the paying scenario. It is all part of the story they have paid for stroking their egos which are neglected in real life. Here they are big names in the Wild West, unstoppable and rogue mavericks. The Gunslinger simply pops up the following day ready to do it all over again. His programming makes him allow the human guests to shoot first to complete the story.

However this glitch spreads quickly. Blane takes his turn against the Gunslinger but this time is shot dead. Martin then runs but it is a game of cat and mouse now with the Gunslinger in pursuit. Brynner is electrifying as the Gunslinger, his expression impassive as he hunts down the humans. He is only carrying out his programming as dictated to by the human creators. As Westworld allows the indulgence of human vices, the Gunslinger is only continuing these behaviours by shooting guests in cold blood. That is the nature he has been given so in a way he is not a villain but a victim of human folly and hubris. The robots are not evil but helpless victims of human stupidity.

The Gunslinger brefly pops up in the sequel Futureland and makes an even briefer cameo in the short lived, very short lived, my God, so quick you missed it Westworld television series. His weakness lies within the materials he has been built with and Martin is forced to set fire to him. While his programming keeps the charred shell going, his mechanics cannot withstand it and it collapses dead, beyond repair.

One of the iconic moments that cements the Gunslinger in audience memories, is when the Gunslinger’s face is knocked off to reveal the robotcs beneath. Yul Brynner was a seriously handsome man so to see his exotic features masking circuits and fake eyes is a shocker, Indeed this image was carried on in the Bionic Woman and Six Million Man when they battled the Fembots and Robot Maker respectively. Doctor Who did it in the Android Invasion and Austin Powers had his own Fembot enemies. But every time we saw the faces fall off, all we could think of was the Gunslinger.

So track down the original Westworld and see for yourselves and glory in the original Terminator.