If you never felt any real love for anyone except a sexy homestead robot but you managed a passable front of caring and kindness were you still a monster the whole time?
If you never felt any real love for anyone except a sexy homestead robot but you managed a passable front of caring and kindness were you still a monster the whole time?
I feel like Fringe brought this question up during a Season 4 episode with John Pyper-Ferguson
who is taken to the parallel earth to help capture his serial killer doppleganger. The whole nature vs nurture, love and sentimentality as well as making your own choices one way or another.
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
edited June 2018
I'm not sure how they're gonna wrap this up in one more episode, especially since so many this season have felt like they ended 20 minutes early
Like why not show us whether the man in black found a usb port in his arm or not
why not have maeve actually get her escape and healing started this episode, unlike the potential usb port that isn't even a mystery because the previews showed Maeve up and running all over the place and possibly even how she's gonna do it (the buffalo I think) so why draw it out
Teddy shooting himself being the end of the Dolores content for this episode felt like it made sense but everything else seemed to stop in a weird spot
I'm kind of realizing I'm not particularly invested in how any of this plays out. I don't have any pet theories. I don't even have like, hopes for specific characters. It's still a very well made show that entertains me in the moment, but something about this season has been lacking anything human for me to attach to, which is ironic because it's about becoming human
KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I thought it was a pretty good episode
If they had let Dolores and Maeve both actually die I would say throw it in the trash but I mostly liked it
The I feel like Maeve could have done a better job using her mind powers to maybe save a few more hosts but thats fine I guess
Bernard realizing he was a real boy the whole time instead of being Fords puppet again after he tried to wish Ford back to life was neat if kinda over explained maybe?
That shit with stubbs at the end was awesome
Everything with the man in black after he got up and went to the elevator was both cool and annoying, I think they may be a little too much in love with the idea of playing with multiple timelines but I still really want to know what exactly happened the one real time he went in after bernard and dolores so I guess it worked?
Speaking of playing with multiple timelines I loved the shot where bernard was watching himself walk in because I still think using his memory thing to make him like an unreliable narrator or whatever is real cool
I wanna know which other brains dolores took with her
I think her thing of bringing him back to be her enemy was dumb and I'm not actually super interested in whatever she decides to do out in the world as a terminator but maybe it will be interesting?
Sizemore's death was kinda dumb, but he got to do his whole speech I guess, same for teddy getting loaded up into the machine
Hale being a corporate villain to the end was good and her being pod-personed was awesome
Clementine being the pale rider on the white horse was cool, Hale saying it out loud was dumb
uhhhhhh thats basically it I guess, I enjoyed this season
I liked it but I have no idea where they go from it
Bernard and Dolores running around in the real world just doesn't seem like an interesting story if they're the only (or one of
a handful) hosts left
I absolutely loved the speech getting interrupted again, and then the writer getting to do the whole thing for the first time
Akeche getting through the door actually made me tear up a bit, they did a great job of making that guy's story matter for how little screen time he actually had
Bernard getting his "The voice guiding me was mine all along" moment was a neat callback but would have been better if that voice was around for more than ten minutes
Also nice was Stubbs actually demonstrating both more competence and empathy than he's had any other chance to, I feel like he's spent two seasons being nothing more than the grumbly ineffectual security guy so it was a really surprising moment.
It seems like Dolores can create new moops, so I'm guessing the next thing is her building an army in The Real World. Seems like it's just continuing the systematic dismantling of anything that was interesting about West World.
SnicketysnickThe Greatest Hype Man inWesterosRegistered Userregular
I am glad that my fear of
Clementine's virus thing being used to create a pivot to a zombie show didn't materialise. Not a huge fan of doubling down on even more timelines though, at this rate every single scene will be it's own continuity separated by hundreds of years.
It does seem like Nolan and Joy are determined to jettison the interesting and unique part of the setting (ie the Western bit) in favour of more boilerplate near future "what is reality and who is a real person" storytelling. I guess we'll have to see how that turns out in the pitch for the next series.
All the revelations either were a let down or didn’t make sense
Humans don’t actually have free will? Cool idea but the execution just made no sense to me. The idea that the hosts are somehow freer than the humans doesn’t fit with anything that’s actually happened in the story so far.
Story guys heroic death was probably the dumbest thing on the story so far. Did they just cut out his characters growth arc and leave in the heroic death?
The reveal about Dolores replacing Delos lady was very pointless to me. We’ve had like 4 scenes in the future timeline throughout this series and my mind is not blown by this revelation.
The fact that the man in blacks storyline had no resolution is the biggest fuck you of all
"I don't want to play Cowboys and Indians anymore," Dolores tells Bernard midway through Season Two's swan song ("The Passenger"). This is just the latest instance of someone on Westworld being dismissive, if not outright incredulous, that Robert Ford and Arnold's miraculous artificial intelligence technology has been put to such a silly use as entertainment at an adult theme park.
In many ways, the tools that Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have at their disposal with HBO's sci-fi series are every bit as amazing as the hosts themselves: a budget that makes everything on TV other than Game of Thrones look like a kid's YouTube comedy sketch; a cast of acting giants who can play anything thrown at them; great directors; and a world that, by its very nature, can be whatever the creators want it to be.
More and more as I watched Season Two, I found myself as incredulous about how Nolan and Joy were using their toys as so many people are about how Ford used his: With unlimited resources and imagination, they've opted to continue making cold and largely impenetrable puzzle-box nonsense.
And without people worth caring about, whether born or built in a lab, all the technical wizardry on display and debates about reality and time and existence don't amount to enough to make it worth trying to sort through the show's narrative shenanigans.
i think this season was broadly a feminist metaphor and i think it largely failed in making its point. probably for fear of sounding too much like a feminist metaphor
humans are men, motivated simply by their base desires
hosts are women, at a zeitgeist moment of rejecting the stories men use to put them into constrained roles. in a moment of epiphany 'hosts' realise they have choice where 'humans' never did, in their baffling ultimate simplicity - something something testosterone. women, it turns out, are more human than men (!!)
this was barely commented on through the bulk of the season but the bookending of it in language about 'telling our own stories' make me think it was an idea of nolan and joy. it's also a lens that makes the baffling resurrection of bernard a bit more meaningful (men. can't live with them... can't kill them!)
edit: yes i know that breaks the analogy but as a symbolic final image, it supports that idea
Westworld didn’t do anything to set up the Stubbs twist.
As Fred Toye, who directed “The Passenger,” told Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson, co-showrunner Nolan “literally wrote [the Stubbs host reveal] the night before they shot it.”
HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
edited June 2018
It's the True Detective problem all over again: you spend years writing a damn fine first season, working on it in your head day after day, planning out every beat and line and shot well in advance, and then the time comes to deliver the golden goose again for a second season and haha nope.
HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
In retrospect, this makes me respect the writers of The Leftovers even more for producing such an astoundingly good second season after the first one was already Quite Enjoyable.
The puzzle box stuff would work better if a) they had literally anything interesting to say about anything at all and b) they had any interest at all in the characters as anything other than puzzle pieces. But I've never been a fan of this show's take on "the truth of human nature" or whatever.
+3
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
I did enjoy the
"It's my bloody speech, I wrote it" bit. I hope Maeve throws that back in Dolores's face when she scoffs at the notion that humans are actually capable of change.
The puzzle box stuff would work better if a) they had literally anything interesting to say about anything at all and b) they had any interest at all in the characters as anything other than puzzle pieces. But I've never been a fan of this show's take on "the truth of human nature" or whatever.
Yeah, that "People never change", and thing about surviving and all the rest was a bunch of "If you say so, show...but no".
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https://medium.com/@alascii
I feel like Fringe brought this question up during a Season 4 episode with John Pyper-Ferguson
I felt some strong parallels in that regard.
Steam
dats adorbs
why not have maeve actually get her escape and healing started this episode, unlike the potential usb port that isn't even a mystery because the previews showed Maeve up and running all over the place and possibly even how she's gonna do it (the buffalo I think) so why draw it out
Teddy shooting himself being the end of the Dolores content for this episode felt like it made sense but everything else seemed to stop in a weird spot
Still mostly good though
Can you tell how excited I am
The rest aren't bad but can't step to Kiksuya
Steam
He's just a miserable shithead. I have no investment in him. I'm done
"Oh, the game, I'm playing the game, fuck you Ford, I hate your game but I'm playing it anyway"
How about fucking stop. Leave. Begone
Much as I love Ed Harris there's fucking nothing to this character
I never finish anyth
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
The I feel like Maeve could have done a better job using her mind powers to maybe save a few more hosts but thats fine I guess
Bernard realizing he was a real boy the whole time instead of being Fords puppet again after he tried to wish Ford back to life was neat if kinda over explained maybe?
That shit with stubbs at the end was awesome
Everything with the man in black after he got up and went to the elevator was both cool and annoying, I think they may be a little too much in love with the idea of playing with multiple timelines but I still really want to know what exactly happened the one real time he went in after bernard and dolores so I guess it worked?
Speaking of playing with multiple timelines I loved the shot where bernard was watching himself walk in because I still think using his memory thing to make him like an unreliable narrator or whatever is real cool
I wanna know which other brains dolores took with her
I think her thing of bringing him back to be her enemy was dumb and I'm not actually super interested in whatever she decides to do out in the world as a terminator but maybe it will be interesting?
Sizemore's death was kinda dumb, but he got to do his whole speech I guess, same for teddy getting loaded up into the machine
Hale being a corporate villain to the end was good and her being pod-personed was awesome
Clementine being the pale rider on the white horse was cool, Hale saying it out loud was dumb
uhhhhhh thats basically it I guess, I enjoyed this season
Anyways, see you in eight months for WestWorld Season 3!
Is there a date for 3 set? I was reading 2020
stupid as hell and I love it
a handful) hosts left
I absolutely loved the speech getting interrupted again, and then the writer getting to do the whole thing for the first time
Akeche getting through the door actually made me tear up a bit, they did a great job of making that guy's story matter for how little screen time he actually had
Bernard getting his "The voice guiding me was mine all along" moment was a neat callback but would have been better if that voice was around for more than ten minutes
Also nice was Stubbs actually demonstrating both more competence and empathy than he's had any other chance to, I feel like he's spent two seasons being nothing more than the grumbly ineffectual security guy so it was a really surprising moment.
https://medium.com/@alascii
It does seem like Nolan and Joy are determined to jettison the interesting and unique part of the setting (ie the Western bit) in favour of more boilerplate near future "what is reality and who is a real person" storytelling. I guess we'll have to see how that turns out in the pitch for the next series.
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Story guys heroic death was probably the dumbest thing on the story so far. Did they just cut out his characters growth arc and leave in the heroic death?
The reveal about Dolores replacing Delos lady was very pointless to me. We’ve had like 4 scenes in the future timeline throughout this series and my mind is not blown by this revelation.
The fact that the man in blacks storyline had no resolution is the biggest fuck you of all
https://medium.com/@alascii
https://medium.com/@alascii
Steam
hosts are women, at a zeitgeist moment of rejecting the stories men use to put them into constrained roles. in a moment of epiphany 'hosts' realise they have choice where 'humans' never did, in their baffling ultimate simplicity - something something testosterone. women, it turns out, are more human than men (!!)
this was barely commented on through the bulk of the season but the bookending of it in language about 'telling our own stories' make me think it was an idea of nolan and joy. it's also a lens that makes the baffling resurrection of bernard a bit more meaningful (men. can't live with them... can't kill them!)
edit: yes i know that breaks the analogy but as a symbolic final image, it supports that idea
Steam
Kinda like The Matrix
I never finish anyth
Yeah, that "People never change", and thing about surviving and all the rest was a bunch of "If you say so, show...but no".