HBO's Westworld
- Thread starter tlwwake
- Start date
Looking forward to it. When I was a kid, I loved the movie (which starred Yul Brynner).
This is what the show is based on. Loved this movie when I was a kid.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070909/?ref_=nv_sr_2
I watched it. Thought it was very good. Should be a fun ride. Not quite sure what the deal is with Ed Harris' character.
I watched it also and I agree on the Ed Harris character. It's like he has free reign to do anything as a robot but not sure what he's really up to.
They're portraying him as a human, though. He says he's been coming for 30 years, and the bullets don't hurt him, just like with the humans. He may end up being a robot, but that would be a twist at this point.
Yup. Pretty sure he is human. Maybe he is working for a rival company? Or maybe he has an ax to grind against the company that owns WW?
I don't know. They're making veiled references to a bigger mystery than I would have guessed this story would have contained. The conversation between the writer and the director of the park mentioned management's goals differing from the customers' or shareholders' goals. And of course Ed Harris's character said something about a "deeper game," and the scalp he took had some kind of map on it.
I figured this was just going to be a Jurassic Park-esque story, where the attractions get out of control and kill people. I haven't seen the original Westworld movie in long time, but I recall it running along those basic lines. In episode one, we've gotten some little hints at something beyond that. I'm intrigued.
Thought it was badass, then I faded for the last 20 minutes.
Still not sure who's human and who's not. Thought (OSU's own) James Marsden was a human until the Gunslinger shot him.
Really happy to be out of my show hole.
I never thought about it prior to last night's episode (mainly because I did not realize that Crichton wrote the book on which the original WW was based). But, the similarities between WW and JP are significant. Basically the same story except that one has human-like robots and the other has genetically engineered dinosaurs.
Since I never knew what this was about or what GOT was about when HBO did them I have to say that I actually thought the first episode of this was 10X more entertaining. I'm definitely coming back again to watch this.
All that being said don't take my word for it, I liked Vinyl.
All that being said don't take my word for it, I liked Vinyl.
Many of Michael Crichton's books and movie scripts tend to follow the same "formula" to a large degree.
1. Bring together a "team" of scientists, often from varying fields of science.
2. Within that team, have some degree of "relationship" or prior working experience, with at least two of the team members (sometimes without the knowledge of other team members.) These prior relationships, professional dealings can be either positive or negative, with team members loving or despising someone else on the team.
3. Insert "crisis" within a "crisis." The original crisis being what called for the team to be assembled together in the first place.
From Andromeda Strain, Westworld, Timeline, Congo, Sphere to Jurassic Park and it's spin-offs, this is the commonality between most of his stories. (There's a few exceptions of course)
1. Bring together a "team" of scientists, often from varying fields of science.
2. Within that team, have some degree of "relationship" or prior working experience, with at least two of the team members (sometimes without the knowledge of other team members.) These prior relationships, professional dealings can be either positive or negative, with team members loving or despising someone else on the team.
3. Insert "crisis" within a "crisis." The original crisis being what called for the team to be assembled together in the first place.
From Andromeda Strain, Westworld, Timeline, Congo, Sphere to Jurassic Park and it's spin-offs, this is the commonality between most of his stories. (There's a few exceptions of course)
Thought it was great. They are obviously setting up a lot of stuff but the overall look of the show and the characters were great. We'll see where the story line goes. Ed Harris is definitely a human. I hadn't realized until the opening credits that Westworld was a Creighton deal, mostly because at 15 I probably didn't know who he was, but it makes sense. A lot of the same themes as his works always have. They've got a lot of room to develop story lines most of which were just hinted at last night. You've got the Robots developing AI and rebelling. You've got the humans being allowed to come their and be evil and how that effects them. You've got the evil corporation wanting to develop and use the technology probably for military. And of course you always have Murphy's law.
I'm thinking that Ed Harris's character is human.
The scene with Anthony Hopkins where he's talking to the original cowboy, "Old Bill" and discussing with the chief programmer how far they've come from the "originals" to the current state of their animatronic characters is the clue I focused on. It would indicate that if Harris were machine and around for 30 yrs, that he would not be nearly as "finessed" in finish and character as he appears to be. (He would be more "obviously" machine as Hopkins pointed out that their earlier efforts did not really fool people.) Hopkins also seemed to indicate that they had "retired" all of their old tech and he kept the cowboy around for old times sake.
I'm thinking that Harris is part of their "quality control" who enjoys playing the part and who is tasked with testing the park's "hosts" in ways that may be unique or unexpected in order to judge their responses. We know that the story-lines are created and written in a way that could play out in likely thousands (millions?) of ways depending upon what actions the visitors take. Thus, there would be a strong necessity of continuously testing the "hosts" to see how they respond to unexpected happenings or events.
The scene with Anthony Hopkins where he's talking to the original cowboy, "Old Bill" and discussing with the chief programmer how far they've come from the "originals" to the current state of their animatronic characters is the clue I focused on. It would indicate that if Harris were machine and around for 30 yrs, that he would not be nearly as "finessed" in finish and character as he appears to be. (He would be more "obviously" machine as Hopkins pointed out that their earlier efforts did not really fool people.) Hopkins also seemed to indicate that they had "retired" all of their old tech and he kept the cowboy around for old times sake.
I'm thinking that Harris is part of their "quality control" who enjoys playing the part and who is tasked with testing the park's "hosts" in ways that may be unique or unexpected in order to judge their responses. We know that the story-lines are created and written in a way that could play out in likely thousands (millions?) of ways depending upon what actions the visitors take. Thus, there would be a strong necessity of continuously testing the "hosts" to see how they respond to unexpected happenings or events.
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My guess is that Harris is working for a competing company and attempting to steal the technology for them. He scalped the gambler host. The underside of the scalp appeared to have a built in circuit board.
I freeze-framed that scalp, and it's a human figure inside a maze. There's a real-life shot of the same thing in the previews of upcoming weeks. A woman lying in a large field of dirt with a maze carved into the dirt.
100 Tons,
I hadn't read your post, but I was just coming here to say the same thing.
I re-watched the episode with my son just now (his 1st time) and I froze that part and had him look at it (his eyesight is a bit sharper than mine).
He noticed right-away that there was an image in the middle, that somewhat resembled Da Vinci's famous "Vitruvian Man" (the man with arms extended inside a circle). We both remembered that when they were creating the "core" of bodies, they were mounted on a frame in that same position as they added the muscle fibers.
I guess it's possible it could have been a circuit board of some sort, but it appeared to be more of a simple maze to me. With someone that possessed technology that far advanced, that would be one hell of a large "circuit board" in the scheme of things. I'm thinking it's more akin to a map.
I hadn't read your post, but I was just coming here to say the same thing.
I re-watched the episode with my son just now (his 1st time) and I froze that part and had him look at it (his eyesight is a bit sharper than mine).
He noticed right-away that there was an image in the middle, that somewhat resembled Da Vinci's famous "Vitruvian Man" (the man with arms extended inside a circle). We both remembered that when they were creating the "core" of bodies, they were mounted on a frame in that same position as they added the muscle fibers.
I guess it's possible it could have been a circuit board of some sort, but it appeared to be more of a simple maze to me. With someone that possessed technology that far advanced, that would be one hell of a large "circuit board" in the scheme of things. I'm thinking it's more akin to a map.
Putnam City North HS in OKC. My brother went to school with him.
Additional piece of trivia. Olivia Munn also graduated from PC North. That means that more X-men attended PC North than any other high school on the planet.
Too soon to tell but my guess would be he is more of some type of psycho then working for someone. In one of the early scene on the train he tells one of the other visitors that on his second visit he went 100% bad guy and has been ever since. He then rides out to the ranch kills the father and drags Evan Rachel Wood off to the bran presumably to rape and kill her. He also made some comment about being disappointed her father gave it up so easy this time. The fact they couldn't kill him means he human. Seems like he keeps playing out this scene over and over every year. Probably pushing it farther each time. The host have no memories of each death so it a new game every time. This would tell you a lot about the guest and what the company is willing to cater to. Also sets up a story line of what he is doing between visits. My guess is the hosts will eventually develop enough intelligence and memories to fight back. Lots of possibilities.
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Yea, they are starting to glitch out (maybe sabotage by someone within the company?), so once they are self-aware they will start to work to take down the whole system I'm guessing? And since they really do exist outside of the system, they're going to be working on obtaining the freedom to live in the "real" world.
Cancelling Deadwood was HBO biggest mistake.
That show was so freakin good. I will say that it was clearly weakening as it went on. The first season was so damn good. After Hickock was killed, the show dropped off just a bit. Still good, just not quite as good.
That was not the Ed Harris character on the train, as he was basically indicating that his second visit had been fairly recent and that is when he went pure outlaw. IMDB, lists him (Man on Train) as being played by Jeffrey Muller.
His face is in shadow, but I slowed it down and he's a much younger man than Ed Harris and the voice is different.
As for "sabotage" I would point back to the original point I made about Crichton stories; it's almost always about the "mistakes" made by those who are trying to do something that relies on pure perfection. Just like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park had built-in biological controls to keep them alive only if they had lecithin added to their diet and making them all female prevented them from reproducing. Yet, those "controls" despite their best efforts, were overridden by nature itself.
The more "human-like" they (Hopkins) were trying to make them by adding additional programming, I believe that they had introduced just enough materials to allow them to become "self-aware." The dad on the farm was operating quite well and within their specifications, until he saw the photograph and after studying it realized it was an anachronism and delved deeper into his "mind" until he hit that part of his programming which he recognized as indicating he was living in a false "reality." But his programming for the love of his daughter, running parallel, caused him to try and warn her that she was not safe from the operators of the park. I believe she actually understood his warning and played "dumb" during her reprogramming. Couldn't hurt a fly, right up until she did.
His face is in shadow, but I slowed it down and he's a much younger man than Ed Harris and the voice is different.
As for "sabotage" I would point back to the original point I made about Crichton stories; it's almost always about the "mistakes" made by those who are trying to do something that relies on pure perfection. Just like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park had built-in biological controls to keep them alive only if they had lecithin added to their diet and making them all female prevented them from reproducing. Yet, those "controls" despite their best efforts, were overridden by nature itself.
The more "human-like" they (Hopkins) were trying to make them by adding additional programming, I believe that they had introduced just enough materials to allow them to become "self-aware." The dad on the farm was operating quite well and within their specifications, until he saw the photograph and after studying it realized it was an anachronism and delved deeper into his "mind" until he hit that part of his programming which he recognized as indicating he was living in a false "reality." But his programming for the love of his daughter, running parallel, caused him to try and warn her that she was not safe from the operators of the park. I believe she actually understood his warning and played "dumb" during her reprogramming. Couldn't hurt a fly, right up until she did.
Anyone else notice the music? I noticed covers of black hole sun by soundgarden and paint it black as well.
I thought the 2nd episode was better than the first. Liked that they showed a guest arriving at the park and how the process works. Liked a lot of other things about the episode as well.
One thing I was wondering about, that has not yet been revealed. Wouldn't someone miss "Kissy" the host that Ed O'neil scalped? It doesn't make sense that they can pick up on tiny little inconsistencies and recognize that a host is malfunctioning, yet one would go missing (or turn up scalped) and no one would miss him.
Unless I'm mistaken I thought I saw him walk out of the salon during the new visitors arrival. Also there was mention that the Ed Harris' character had just wiped out an entire posse and one of the management team says he can do whatever his wants so they know what happen to him they just may not have picked up on the significance. At this point I don't think there is anything the visitors can do that would shock anyone.
Time to anoint this the replacement to GOT, or should I hold off before watching the 1st episode?
What?!? There are only 2 episodes out??
No thank you...not today.
What?!? There are only 2 episodes out??
No thank you...not today.
Too soon to tell. I watched a few episodes of GOT (3 I think) and was instantly hooked. Have now read all the books twice and watched every episode. I would not say this is grabbing my attentions to that level. But, it is still very good.
