How Mars photos inspired the first CGI #SciFiSunday
In this episode of Vox Almanac, producer Phil Edwards explores the history behind the groundbreaking CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) in 1973’s Westworld. The film drew inspiration from a surprising source: the photographs taken by the Mars Mariner flyby of the red planet in the mid-1960s.
Designer and artist John Whitney saw the Mariner photos and though their distinctive appearance was a good template — as well as technical model — for the computer vision of a robot character in Westworld. In replicating the NASA achievement, he notched his own historic first for CGI in film.
