Westworld (SPOILERS)

[Combine Hunter]

Even though I've put this in a thread marked (SPOILERS) can we please still use the spoiler highlight, just to be safe. I wouldn't want people to stumble on some of the reveals in this show.

So...

Spoiler: show

I love the slow realisation that the events you're witnessing aren't accruing in the same period of time, and the way they use Dolores's confused experience of time, and some clever editing, to visually hint at this. In fact this show is a masterclass in using editing and framing to convey information to the audience. I know a lot of people have said the fact fans managed to correctly predict some of the key plot turns, using that visual information, was a disappointment. But I think there is a huge difference between a show being predictable (in the traditional use of that word), and a show where the creators pack every single frame with vital information for fans to analyse and unpack. That's just great storytelling and a mastery of the medium you're working with.

The performances in this show! So many scenes where two people just talking is thrilling. Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris bring their A Game here, but a huge shout out to Evan Rachel Wood who portrays Dolores, who is definitely punching in the same weight class as those two. Also Louis Herthum's performance in episode 1 is chilling.

Such a great show!

[JaySevenZero]

Jeffrey Wright was a bloody revelation in his scenes as Bernard, some serious stellar acting throughout.

[KissMammal]

I've got to admit - I thought the show had enormous promise early on, and the pilot was amazing, but I eventually lost interest. The production values and the cast (with a few exceptions) are outstanding and there are a lot of very neat little touches, and even moments of brilliance, but for me the whole thing is built on very shaky foundations.

The biggest flaw was the character writing - in my opinion there were far too many characters, and they were little more than broad archetypes - none of them were particularly memorable or likable, and - surprise surprise -

Spoiler: show

the only one they gave any backstory or semblance of a life outside the park turned out to be (for me) a rather obvious red herring.

I can't quite escape the feeling that the showrunners of WW have tried to emulate the formula of Game of Thrones, but have perhaps misunderstood what it is that makes that show so popular and successful. The big shocking twists in GoT hit hard only because we care deeply about the characters that they impact. WW offered mystery upon mystery, and plenty of twists, but ultimately very little in the way of real human drama or conflict.

The enormous cast of characters in GoT only works because the world they inhabit is so clearly defined and textured, whereas the world of WW feels very loose and vague - even the 'rules' of how the park works never quite added up to me, and even flat out contradictory at times. I feel like they desperately needed a Tyrion or an Arya to ground the world and give the audience something to relate to.

It's hard to articulate exactly why, and obviously this is just my subjective take, but to me the twists in WW feel very coldly mechanical, and more like trickery than something that develops organically out of the plot. Eg the

Spoiler: show

timeline

stuff - in my opinion they can only get away with it because the storytelling and pacing is already so confusing.

[Todinho]

I've got to admit - I thought the show had enormous promise early on, and the pilot was amazing, but I eventually lost interest. The production values and the cast (with a few exceptions) are outstanding and there are a lot of very neat little touches, and even moments of brilliance, but for me the whole thing is built on very shaky foundations.

The biggest flaw was the character writing - in my opinion there were far too many characters, and they were little more than broad archetypes - none of them were particularly memorable or likable, and - surprise surprise -

Spoiler: show

the only one they gave any backstory or semblance of a life outside the park turned out to be (for me) a rather obvious red herring.

I can't quite escape the feeling that the showrunners of WW have tried to emulate the formula of Game of Thrones, but have perhaps misunderstood what it is that makes that show so popular and successful. The big shocking twists in GoT hit hard only because we care deeply about the characters that they impact. WW offered mystery upon mystery, and plenty of twists, but ultimately very little in the way of real human drama or conflict.

The enormous cast of characters in GoT only works because the world they inhabit is so clearly defined and textured, whereas the world of WW feels very loose and vague - even the 'rules' of how the park works never quite added up to me, and even flat out contradictory at times. I feel like they desperately needed a Tyrion or an Arya to ground the world and give the audience something to relate to.

It's hard to articulate exactly why, and obviously this is just my subjective take, but to me the twists in WW feel very coldly mechanical, and more like trickery than something that develops organically out of the plot. Eg the

Spoiler: show

timeline

stuff - in my opinion they can only get away with it because the storytelling and pacing is already so confusing.

So Im gonna be that guy that says "you just dont get it man" but I think you're judging the show through different standarts then the show it's set itself. If you judge it by game of Thrones standarts or any heavy character driven show you would be right but I think Westworld is a very delibaretly story driven show and by that I dont even mean the plot per se because it's pretty straight foward once you get down to it, the focus of Westworld is the whole human nature theme mainly focused on the question of sentience:

Spoiler: show

Once you get down to it all of the host characters deal with that emergence of thought,what's interesting about them isnt their character per se because that was written beforehand by someone they arent "real people" yet but as they start to have more "errors" and deviate from their set programing it's the momment where they start to emerge as real people,that to me was the most fascinating thing it's like watching a child learning how to walk the emergence of inteligence and so on.

The comparison that kept coming back to me was Plato's Cavern and Quest of Fire,Plato's Cavern is the classic allegory about the foundation of philosophy and it fits very well with Dolores arc,who has to go through this journey of pain,discovery and eventually enlightment and then come back to free her brothers and sisters. Quest for Fire also deal with the same themes as Westworld but instead of robots it's pre-historic humanoids it's a fascinating movie that a grew to like more and more as time went on,because much like Westworld the primitive caveman of that movie dont have much complexities at all but the fascinating things is seeing them develop inteligence and how that occurs that was also what was so fascinating about WestWorld to me to but with and added bonus of seeing people trapped in a pre-programmed loop break free from it.

If you look at every host character they go through this somehow and manifest their growing inteligence in some way,at first is seen as madness,glitches and so on. The human characters on the other hand are there to be the antagonist trying to keep the hosts chained or the ones who push them into developing that inteligence,the interesting thing is that it's the 2 most morally questionable humans that actually want what's best for the Hosts in the end,those being Ford and William,also it's really telling that the sign that a host has achieved full autonomy is being capacle to kill which once agains ties into the larger theme of human nature. To me everything in the show is built towards that central theme and while not every character might be well developed each serves a purpose in the larger theme the show is exploring.

I didnt even got into the "meta" aspects of the show in how Ford is the artist and William is the fan and Westworld is the art and how both of them want the art to literally come alive,how William at first felt the magic of that place when he first came but over time started to see through it all and wish for that magic once again in wanting the hosts be truly alive like he tought they were when he first arrived.

Not saying you're wrong but I think that if you see WestWorld through this lens,this first season at least, is a triumph in everyway.

[KissMammal]

I think the Game of Thrones comparisons are fair game - HBO is clearly hoping that Westworld is the heir apparent to Thrones, and the show as a whole is clearly influenced by it to some extent - they even used the same composer.

And I'd argue that all of the subtext and thematic stuff, and potential readings thereof you mention (and with all respect I think you may be giving the intelligence of the writing more credit than it deserves) is all irrelevant if a work of fiction fails to engage week to week on a dramatic/character level.

I don't know if you've ever seen the Red Letter Media Star Wars prequel reviews, but they very effectively demonstrate the weakness of the writing in the prequels vs the original trilogy by asking people to describe characters from both trilogies without saying what they look like or what their job is. When I apply this to the primary cast of Westworld, I honestly struggle to come up with anything other than the absolute broadest of descriptors like 'badass' or 'nice guy'.

I really wanted to love it - and as I say there were some moments of brilliance (for instance I loved the surprise

Spoiler: show

Teddy/Man in Black reversal

in the pilot), and feel like it could have been a really great miniseries if they had significantly narrowed the focus and chopped the cast down by at least half. As it was I felt it was too sprawling, too many characters that did nothing, too much emphasis on mystery box type storytelling.

[Todinho]

I get what you mean by the star wars prequel by I just dont think the characters suffer to that extent and I certainly believe the thematic stuff is on purpose there(the pieces just fit too well there,it's not like say the Tomb Raider reboot where the story is about something and the gameplay completely destroy any thematic consistency there) The mystery box aspect is what I think they used to keep the audience engaged while they focused on the main theme,but since I was much more interested in the later it didnt really bother me that the reveals were fairly predicatable.

[Combine Hunter]

I think it's fair to say that Westworld is more interested in philosophy than people, but I've come to expect that from both Nolans at this point. However, I did feel a emotional connection to a great many of the characters, and ultimately I just really like it when well written smart people talk about concepts and philosophy.

[JaySevenZero]

I'd say that it's partly due because Game of Throne's has had six seasons in which to build those characters to the depths they have now (not to mention the fact that they're based on Martin's books) but if you look at where the characters were by the end of season 1, I'd say that there wasn't that much between the two shows and their level of character development.

For myself, I enjoyed Westworld, as much if not more than I enjoyed season one of Game of Thrones, and it been the most successful first season for any HBO series to date including GoT

[DomsBeard]

I really enjoyed Season One. I do have one issue with it which could have been easily rectified

Spoiler: show

I didn't get the two guys releasing Thandie Newton, there was a point where one would have blown the whistle on the whole thing. This could have easily been sorted by revealing that Felix was a host planted by Ford all along

but this was the only story thread I didn't like.

I had a guess early on that

Spoiler: show

The man in black was William and still wasn't sure till the last episode

Think they need to re-evaluate what post credit scenes are for, that was a let down!.

Bring on season two

Spoiler: show

Going to miss Hopkins

HANG ON!

Spoiler: show

What if Ford made a host of himself and is still alive!!

[DomsBeard]

Still my favourite scene in the series:

[Combine Hunter]

This is the scene in episode 1 that let me know that Westworld was gonna be special. Chilling performance from Louis Herthum

[Todinho]

HANG ON!

Spoiler: show

What if Ford made a host of himself and is still alive!!

If that happens though I will quit the show,there's literally nothing they could do that I would hate more then that XD

[Combine Hunter]

I think the reverse is more likely

Spoiler: show

"...they simply became music."

[DomsBeard]

I think the reverse is more likely

Spoiler: show

"...they simply became music."

I agree it reminded me of

Spoiler: show

Killing off Sean Bean

[Combine Hunter]

Don't think you caught my full meaning