How Mars photos inspired the first CGI #SciFiSunday

Rad video from Vox.

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.