westworld continues the tradition of samurai films and westerns stealing from each other
how’s this for a timeline
growing up, akira kurosawa is a huge fan of john ford westerns and comes to emulate a lot of his film techniques
1954: kurosawa makes seven samurai (starring toshiro mifune as kikuchiyo and takashi shimura as kambei shimada) and it has an ENORMOUS lasting impact on the film industry
1960: the magnificent seven is a blatant remake of seven samurai in an old west setting, and is an instant classic of the genre. it stars yul brynner as chris adams, who is analogous to the kambei shimada character. (four years later, a fistful of dollars will copy kurosawa’s yojimbo with even greater success)
1973: the original westworld movie comes out, ALSO starring yul brynner as a killer robot gunslinger who is essentially a caricature of the chris adams character he played in the magnificent seven. like the outfit is exactly the same
2016: hbo westworld expands on the movie’s basic concept. the iconic gunslinger character is reimagined as ed harris’ man in black
2018: season 2 of westworld introduces a park with an edo period theme that reuses many of the same plots and character archetypes as the wild west park, as a nod to the weirdly interconnected history of westerns and samurai films
paramaline
