Bad Robot/Jonathan Nolan Bringing "Westworld" to HBO

[DigificWriter]

I've seen a lot of people identify the opening V.O. interviewer as being Jeffrey Wright's Bernard Lowe, but I was under the impression that we saw the direct continuation of that scene after the shootout and in that scene, she was being interviewed by Luke Hemsworth's character Stubbs, so I'm a little confused.

 

[dark_b]

some questions answered
http://www.slashfilm.com/westworld-logistical-questions-answered/

 

[THUNDERSTRIKE]

the creepiness factor is very pervasive in this show...

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I've seen a lot of people identify the opening V.O. interviewer as being Jeffrey Wright's Bernard Lowe, but I was under the impression that we saw the direct continuation of that scene after the shootout and in that scene, she was being interviewed by Luke Hemsworth's character Stubbs, so I'm a little confused.

That was Jeffrey Wright at the start. I am pretty sure of it. So what I am thinking is what we are hearing is the normal protocol for such situations. So it is two different scenes. Now when the opening scene happens, we don't know. Could be the last scene of the season, after something horrific happens. Or perhaps it is right before she wakes up at the start.

 

[Joe Von Zombie]

Needs more James Brolin and Yul Brynner. But seriously, holy **** that was an awesome premiere. Is this a continuation or straight reboot? I could have swore they vaguely referenced the incident in the original movie.

Edit: the slash film article answered my question.

 

[Marvolo]

the creepiness factor is very pervasive in this show...

There is a sense of violation and rape as well. And I dont mean just physical rape. The park operators force the Hosts to remain naked when they arent in the park, they invade their minds, use them like dolls, kill, torture, literally sexually rape them, kiss them, eye them up and down, put them on display, hold them in glass walled rooms, deny them any sense of privacy or dignity etc. Frankly its disgusting, and points to a deep seated darkness permeating the whole operation.

 

[JtheDreamer]

the creepiness factor is very pervasive in this show...

Hell ya it is.

That final scene with Hopkins interviewing Dolores father was creep level expert and so well acted. I bet the interviews in general had so many retakes to get them right.

 

[squeekness]

the creepiness factor is very pervasive in this show...

Indeed, but I like it.

 

[Asgard]

Did anyone else find Elsie kissing Clementine way creepier than the scene where the customers are having sex with those robots?

With the customers, the robots are actually emoting a positive sexual response, but in the scene between Elsie, Clementine is just sitting there completely nude and able to do nothing except rub her finger against her lip.

Maybe its just me but that part really weirded me out.

 

[elgaz]

Did anyone else find Elsie kissing Clementine way creepier than the scene where the customers are having sex with those robots?

With the customers, the robots are actually emoting a positive sexual response, but in the scene between Elsie, Clementine is just sitting there completely nude and able to do nothing except rub her finger against her lip.

Maybe its just me but that part really weirded me out.

That was likely the intention. It was a perfect example of objectification and the way humanity is treating these near-sentient beings as nothing more than fodder for their own indulgences.

 

[elgaz]

Watched this last night and thought it was brilliant, one of the best pilots EPs I've seen. Great cast, great premise, great acting, lots of questions and intrigue, and enough shocks and brutality and otherwise to keep you hooked.

Few thoughts in spoiler tags below:

Spoiler

• Loved the casting, particularly the fact that some of the lead cast members have been in other roles involving a simulated reality.
  - Ed Harris - Played the man behind the Truman Show concept in the film of the same name, who was essentially 'God' to Truman and set up the simulated reality he lived in. Dressed in black in that too. In this he's playing almost a polar opposite.
  - Jeffrey Wright - was the brains behind the simulated reality in Source Code.
  - Anthony Hopkins - played a man living 2 realities in Slipstream.
  
  
• As a Soundgarden fan, I loved the instrumental version of Black Hole Sun on the player piano in the bar which was played near the end of the episode. Chris Cornell has said he wrote the song as a kind of 'surreal dreamscape', which makes it quite apt for inclusion in this. They also had Paint it Black by the Rolling Stones, a song about death and depression.
  
  
• The multiple instances of the robots pouring milk out, which provokes a kind of 'spilling blood' imagery - the liquids and fibres their bodies are constructed from are white just like milk
  
  
• There was a very blatant reference to humanity having the means to fix any ailment or disease, and a further reference which Hopkin makes about maybe being able to bring back the dead soon. Which I thought had to have some deeper meaning. I wonder if the overall purpose of the park (though marketed as recreation) is to progress and develop the robots to such an extent that their bodies and minds are imperceptible from humans - at which point there may be a means of transferring our consciousness into their bodies, and defeating ageing/death. We know that Dolores has been in the park 30yrs but hasn't aged at all. The entire park may be a giant testbed for humanity's future.
  
  
• The notion of Ford introducing glitches to the robots (allowing them to remember certain behaviours which should actually be wiped clean each time they're reset) reminded me of the simulated reality in the Matrix, where the Architect tells Neo that the first incarnation of the Matrix was, as he deemed it, - 'perfect'. And because it was perfect, humanity rejected it. They had to actually make it imperfect for the Matrix to work satisfactorily.
  
  
• Loved the opening scene with Ed Harris shooting down James Marsden's character. We're led to think initially that just like the original Westworld, Harris' Man in Black is a robot turned bad, and Marsden is a human visitor who came in on the train and dies as a result. So it's quite jarring to realise that Marsden is the robot, and Harris the human. Even flipped around, the scene still works - in fact it probably works even better as you have arguably more sympathy for Marsden as a long-suffering robot than a rich human indulging his whims.

I'm sure there's lots more things but I'm still processing it all and will need a rewatch. I can already tell this is going to be one of them rich, rich shows which just keeps on giving when it comes to picking it apart.

 

[elgaz]

I've seen a lot of people identify the opening V.O. interviewer as being Jeffrey Wright's Bernard Lowe, but I was under the impression that we saw the direct continuation of that scene after the shootout and in that scene, she was being interviewed by Luke Hemsworth's character Stubbs, so I'm a little confused.

Pretty sure it was Jeffrey Wright, he has a fairly distinctive voice and it really sounded more like him than Hemsworth.

The line of questioning from both was similar, albeit not identical. So perhaps it's just something they've been through a few times at the end of any particular day where the robots exhibit strange behaviour.

 

[#root]

Absolutely fantastic pilot. Everything was flawless. The effects, cinematography, acting, the score everything. Person Of Interest had a great use of music and I loved that Jonathan Nolan seems to have brought that here . That cover of Paint It Black was beautiful .

 

[Rowsdower!]

Finally got around to watching it last night and it was fantastic. Ed Harris is especially brilliant... he comes off like an evil Roland Deschain and I'm intrigued as to whatever this "greater purpose" is that Westworld has and that he's apparently searching for. A couple things left me confused, however. They might be addressed in future episodes but I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on them:

- That one article explained that the bullets that the hosts use are like really weak BBs and can't hurt the humans. Okay, but does that then mean that the hosts themselves are really brittle? Perhaps they're programmed to "die" whenever they are hit by a bullet (any bullet) but we see that one bandit's head explode when Thandie Newton's character shoots him, so the host bullets can clearly do damage. Unless she was actually using real bullets in that scene?

- I'm curious why the Man in Black is apparently able to roam free and do whatever he pleases without any interruption. That one guy in the control center is apparently obsessed with keeping the narrative, so it makes you wonder why no one seems to be paying any attention at all to this one guest who seems to be trying to throw Westworld into chaos. Maybe the Man in Black has some way of cloaking himself to the controllers?

 

[Marvolo]

Or the Man In Black has an inside man or woman keeping attention off of him.

 

[Teelie]

Having watched it the other day I'm surprised and pleased with how they managed the violence and kept some of the gorier stuff off screen.

 

[moviefreak]

This was a top drawer pilot --quite deep in term of story structures. Seems like that it could go anywhere.

The pilot is a clever self-contained loop --I wondered if this was intentional since the showrunner mentioned that this episode at least is from the point of view of the robots, specifically Dolores. Think about a simple (Bash) program:

#!/bin/bash
VARIABLE1="foo"
VARIABLE2="bar"
if [ "$VARIABLE1" = "$VARIABLE2" ]; then
echo expression evaluated as true
else
echo expression evaluated as false
fi

and apply it to the scenarios being experienced by Dolores.

Also, the pilot episode gave no hint at the the nature of the futureworld --we don't get to see the environment outside of the amusement park and no reference to the kind of citizenry outside of that environment.

I saw the original Crichton's Westworld several times since '70s. That film was way ahead of time especially in the F/X, AFAIK it was the first use of digital image processing. It also had the earliest reference to the computer virus and the first to use it conceptually in a movie.

 

[moviefreak]

Something that I noted after thinking about the pilot episode --this is a series about AI robots that were supposed to pass close to human in term of behaviours, responses and their interaction with human and/or AI robots. However, two or three things stick out:

--Delores' father became confused by the photograph of a woman in a modern setting.

--Delores does not seems to understand the question uttered by the young boy: "You're one of them, aren't you?".

--The robot AI seems to be programmed only with fixed narratives/scripts and they weren't supposed to deviate too much from them.

I'm going to guess that the introduction of a virus may lend to the Robot AI becoming self-conscious and in the process pass the Turing Test. It could be in the form of upgrade/update that the Ford character made to the AI.

 

[Bruce Malone]

Anyone kind of hope there's no "grand twist" to this? Like we don't find out this is all on a planet other than Earth or it's some alien simulation.

I like the idea the outside world is just ours but in the future, maybe similar to what we saw in Minority Report.

 

[Neno_Kos]

Finally watched pilot. Loved it. I found new series to watch

 

[harlequinade]

I really like the theory that there is only Ford, last man alive, and he is trying to make the humanity continue but the only way to do that is to develop extremely advanced AI

 

[Marvolo]

Future Seasons of HBO's Westworld May Explore Different Worlds

Afer what seemed like a very long wait, HBO's Westworld debuted this past Sunday to favourable reviews (check out our own Chris Bumbray's take on the first episode), strong ratings and left many wondering what the future of the series would bring. If you're familiar with the Michael Crichton film on which the series is based, West World wasn't the only theme park which Delos offered. Although much of the action took place in West World, the film also introduced us to Medieval World and Roman World. Based on the size of the park and amount of characters which populate it, HBO's series still has plenty to explore, but will we get to see different worlds in future seasons? Westworld production designer Zack Grobler recently told Inverse that it's possible, but just not in the first season.

"For the first season, we only explore the West World. There’s talk about in the future seasons, if there’s more, that there will be a different world. But we’re not sure what it will be yet."

As the series apparently already has its next five seasons planned out, I imagine that showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy know perfectly well which additional Delos attractions we'll see and when. Nolan told Deadline that "the film’s story was virtually limitless and so is television at this moment with audiences enjoying shows that break out of their traditional story structures. We definitely look to fully exploit that aspect of storytelling in Westworld.”

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/future-seasons-of-hbos-westworld-may-explore-different-worlds-219

 

[harlequinade]

Future Seasons of HBO's Westworld May Explore Different Worlds





http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/future-seasons-of-hbos-westworld-may-explore-different-worlds-219

So freaking exciting!!!!

 

[Sawyer]

Future Seasons of HBO's Westworld May Explore Different Worlds





http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/future-seasons-of-hbos-westworld-may-explore-different-worlds-219

But of course. Though, I'll be curious to see whether the whole cast sticks around or not. If you go, like, an Ancient Egypt route, good luck with that backlash if you try convincing the audience that Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden fit in there.

 

[flickchick85]

But of course. Though, I'll be curious to see whether the whole cast sticks around or not. If you go, like, an Ancient Egypt route, good luck with that backlash if you try convincing the audience that Evan Rachel Wood and James Marsden fit in there.

Something tells me they'd avoid Egyptworld for just such a reason.