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[Westworld] has finally reached the centre of the maze
Bethryn
Unhappiness is MandatoryRegistered User regular
Unhappiness is MandatoryRegistered User regular
Spoiler Policy: keep events from the most recently aired episode behind spoiler tags. (may be updated as necessary)
Westworld was a 1973 movie written by Michael Crichton, the Jurassic Park guy, except Westworld came 20 years earlier, and the dinosaurs were androids, although otherwise the plot remains the same in that they go wild and kill the visitors.
Now HBO has made a new Westworld, a 10 episode series created by Lisa Joy and her husband, Jonathan Nolan, co-writer on The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and creator of Person of Interest, a surprisingly thoughtful sci-fi series involving mass-surveilling AIs and crime-preventing vigilantes. They're joined by the producers J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, both of whom worked also worked on Person of Interest, as well as things like The Force Awakens, Mission Impossible films, Star Trek reboots, and several other beloved sci-fi series, such as Fringe. All in all, when it comes to writing a sci-fi thriller, it looks like we're in good hands.
HBO's Westworld surrounds the new theme park, again an expansive Wild West theme park populated by androids, gynoids, and... equoids? Robo-horses. Rather than the old nuts and bolts, the "Hosts" as they are called are lovingly 3d printed, shown in an opening credits sequence to rival that of Game of Thrones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elkHuRROPfk
Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), is one of the Hosts of Westworld, an idealistic painter living on a ranch outside of town; she is romantically pursued by Teddy Flood (James Marsden), a "newcomer" just arrived on the train into town.
Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), the wanted leader of a group of bandits, guilty of murder, rape and grand robbery.
He's accompanied by Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), a spectacular sharpshooter.
Hosts play out pre-set repeating 'storylines' inside Westworld, which actual human players, known as "Guests" can take part in, in whatever way they choose. And there is an emphasis on "whatever" way they choose, as shown by the Man in Black (Ed Harris), a sordid veteran player who has become morbidly fascinated with the reality behind the fiction, and bearing a remarkable resemblance to Yul Brynner's gunslinger of the original film.
Meanwhile, ostensibly in control, are the programmers, security forces, and heads of business of Westworld.
Dr Robert Ford (Athony Hopkins) and Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) are the remarkably well-dressed creators of the artificial intelligence imbued in the Hosts. They're responsible for keeping the Hosts seeming as realistic as possible, allowing them a certain amount of adaptability to emergent scenarios created by the guests, and holding them in line with Asimov's First Law of Robotics, all while trying to bust any ghosts in the machine.
Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) are the respective operations leader and narrative designers, who oversee the entire operation and try to keep things moving smoothly and enjoyably.
With all that said, Westworld looks like a very interesting sci-fi thriller. One of the most obvious themes is the sensibility of violence and experiences in a surreal, fictionalised world, with Guests early on describing the pleasure of "going evil," a topic that has repeatedly come up in the sphere of video games that permit players to perpetrate terrible acts. The effects on the Hosts, so lifelike that the viewer buys into their fiction even within the fiction, is another obvious topic, along with the classic idea of artificial consciousness and its parallels with biological consciousness.
Westworld was a 1973 movie written by Michael Crichton, the Jurassic Park guy, except Westworld came 20 years earlier, and the dinosaurs were androids, although otherwise the plot remains the same in that they go wild and kill the visitors.
Now HBO has made a new Westworld, a 10 episode series created by Lisa Joy and her husband, Jonathan Nolan, co-writer on The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and creator of Person of Interest, a surprisingly thoughtful sci-fi series involving mass-surveilling AIs and crime-preventing vigilantes. They're joined by the producers J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, both of whom worked also worked on Person of Interest, as well as things like The Force Awakens, Mission Impossible films, Star Trek reboots, and several other beloved sci-fi series, such as Fringe. All in all, when it comes to writing a sci-fi thriller, it looks like we're in good hands.
HBO's Westworld surrounds the new theme park, again an expansive Wild West theme park populated by androids, gynoids, and... equoids? Robo-horses. Rather than the old nuts and bolts, the "Hosts" as they are called are lovingly 3d printed, shown in an opening credits sequence to rival that of Game of Thrones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elkHuRROPfkDolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), is one of the Hosts of Westworld, an idealistic painter living on a ranch outside of town; she is romantically pursued by Teddy Flood (James Marsden), a "newcomer" just arrived on the train into town.
Hector Escaton (Rodrigo Santoro), the wanted leader of a group of bandits, guilty of murder, rape and grand robbery.
He's accompanied by Armistice (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), a spectacular sharpshooter.
Hosts play out pre-set repeating 'storylines' inside Westworld, which actual human players, known as "Guests" can take part in, in whatever way they choose. And there is an emphasis on "whatever" way they choose, as shown by the Man in Black (Ed Harris), a sordid veteran player who has become morbidly fascinated with the reality behind the fiction, and bearing a remarkable resemblance to Yul Brynner's gunslinger of the original film.
Meanwhile, ostensibly in control, are the programmers, security forces, and heads of business of Westworld.
Dr Robert Ford (Athony Hopkins) and Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) are the remarkably well-dressed creators of the artificial intelligence imbued in the Hosts. They're responsible for keeping the Hosts seeming as realistic as possible, allowing them a certain amount of adaptability to emergent scenarios created by the guests, and holding them in line with Asimov's First Law of Robotics, all while trying to bust any ghosts in the machine.
Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Lee Sizemore (Simon Quarterman) are the respective operations leader and narrative designers, who oversee the entire operation and try to keep things moving smoothly and enjoyably.
With all that said, Westworld looks like a very interesting sci-fi thriller. One of the most obvious themes is the sensibility of violence and experiences in a surreal, fictionalised world, with Guests early on describing the pleasure of "going evil," a topic that has repeatedly come up in the sphere of video games that permit players to perpetrate terrible acts. The effects on the Hosts, so lifelike that the viewer buys into their fiction even within the fiction, is another obvious topic, along with the classic idea of artificial consciousness and its parallels with biological consciousness.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
Bethryn on
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Possibly among the best first episodes of any show ever.
They have me to the end of this season at least, I just hope they can cash the awesome check they wrote last weekend.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Did anyone else wonder if there was something else going on with the sub-levels? The area where they're storing the defective Hosts looks a lot like some sort of mall from an apocalyptic setting maybe? They did mention previous lives of the Hosts, but it was hard to tell if everything beforehand had been Western themed, or if other genres had been used. Given how (heh) no expense has been spared elsewhere, it was surprising to me how run down the sub-levels were.
It also made me wonder what the geography is supposed to be (especially as this ties into the Man in Black's map). Presumably the centre of operations is indeed somewhere in the middle of the Westworld 'park', meaning the Hosts essentially surround the staff. That seems likely to be fun when things do go to hell.
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I spotted the reference to Unforgiven with the Guest getting his picture taken beside Hector's 'corpse'. Anybody spot any other ones I missed?
ChrysK of the funny Game of Thrones pictures is also doing Westwood now.
As ObiFett said...
But apparently the A/C is broken (and for all we know, it might be underneath a stream or something).
And Second... If they are printing this people, can't they just reprint the same people? Why did they get a different bot to play Dolores's dad?
From the horse creation, it looks like everything is bespoke/handtailored. Probably for additional verisimilitude .
Me and my buddy watching this, who are both nerddorks working in nerddork fields, can only groan that these folks must have the worst devops setup and practices ever.
Silly nitpickery aside though, one hell of an engrossing start.
it has a lot of fun themes - not least how repetition renders tragedy meaningless, etc
V-- repost of even cowgirls get the blues from other thread
also did anybody notice thandie newton as one of the prostitutes
And you'll note they only rolled out the new software to 20% of the existing hosts so its not like they were completely careless with the new version.
Finished.
Nerddork speculation:
Also, the archive stuff should really be stored in a central server so they don't have to take robutt out and turn it on to ask WTF.
This is like me and my colleagues in the Graduate History Department in Athens watching House of Cards and aggressively picking apart the terribleness of Frank Underwood's ideal for peace of the Middle East, or groaning about the implausibility of the Frank's Russian counterpart.
I know how you feel. Resist the urge, friend.
Having never heard of the other thing until this started, you'll be fine.
(Warning: it's pretty terrible.)
It would be pretty silly for them to make watching the show dependent on also seeing a movie from the 70s.
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Story speculation:
- Ed Harris is the Man in Black from the original movie, has achieved sentience and is trying to find the Corporation's purpose behind running Westworld, which is why he tortures the gambler and sees significance in the maze-like pattern inside the gambler's skull.
- It is a common science fiction plot to have an inventor believe that humanity has reached its evolutionary dead-end and create a variety of constantly improving cyborgs to reach beyond mankind. Hopkins shows signs of this venerable old trope; is the Man in Black trying to uncover what Hopkins is up to ?
- Note the actor who plays the Abernathy robot. Omar, from LONGMIRE. I sure would like them to slide in an Omar reference.
Nope, not a book (there may have been some movie tie-in after the fact). It's weird how many people think it was originally a book. Michael Crichton wrote and directed the movie which was the original source, so I guess that's why?
But yeah, you don't need to have seen or know the original movie. The film is kinda fun in a 70s (very 70s) sci-fi movie way. Yul Brenner as a proto-Terminator is the best part.
The first act of the first episode frames Cyclops McSupercuck as a guest instead of a host and its supposed to be a shock that he isn't when he runs face first into Mr. Fogarty. Sucks to give that away as fleeting as it is.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Interesting--was not aware of that.
I thought the dialog was a little clunky at points but I can forgive it (and I don't mean when it was supposed to be
also, not the show's fault but I really hated what the preview gave away for what's coming up this season. something specific I was wondering about was just given away like nothing . booooooo.
edit - I was not clear on
On the spoilered
But if these bullets are shattering glass and blowing wood apart that makes my theory far less likely; I need to watch the big shootout again
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
personally as much as I am wondering about it this is not at all the type of thing that will get in the way of my enjoyment even if it's never answered but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of magical-logic to it.
Yes, this means we have both the tech to detect if we are aimed at a human and to create a bullet that is both effective normally but can also fragment effectively without still being dangerous as hell to the target. But then we have the tech to create sentient robots out of white goop, so.....
I'm going with it for now.
Either way, assume we're physically present in Westworld.