There was a very important book written some years ago, by a famous author (Michael Crichton) called Jurassic Park. It was very successful, widely loved, etc. Then it was turned into a kids dinosaur movie and that which was most important about the book was lost. Possibly forever.
The point of the book was a theme common to Michael Crichton’s work, demonstrated also West World: technology can get out of control before you even know it, and anything “too complex” will go out of control sooner or later. Mr Crichton’s theme could also be put this way: “by the time you know things have gone out of control, it’s probably too late.”
There’s some mathematics, some systems theory and even some just plain logic to back it up. He was an early proponent of chaos theory and one of the few who, at that time, actually understood its implications when applied to technology.
Problem with the movie is that the main conversation, what to me is the core of the book, never made it to the movie, any of the movies. Probably considered too serious for the “children” who were the intended audience for the movie. The movie was to be a tour de force of special effects (of the time), and not too much more.
Too bad, because the central message becomes more and more timely, more and more important as the years go by. The core message was this (quoted from memory, so it is probably not exact):
“We don’t have the power to destroy the world. We might have the power to save ourselves, and we might not.”
One wonders how Hollywood could have taken such a loved book, such an important message, and totally bury it under a few life-like 3D models, and a mere several billion dollar franchise.
There are also, quite ironically, now several firms working, in fact, to bring the dinosaurs back, using the very techniques Michael Crichton demonstrated to be so dangerous.
We really do craft the world we live in, as we go along, but the important messages sometimes get lost in translation.