HBO's Westworld

Surprised we don't actually have a thread about this seeing as though the trope page is being updated.

Lets commence the arguing about goddamn logos and timelines

I am somewhat amused how this film is getting as far away from feeling like Terminator when the Gunslinger is essentially the proto-Terminator.

So um, where hell are they? Is the park in a desert? Space? What?

The guests arrive by train and tunnel, which would suggest earth. I am pretty confident the entire park is a constructed landscape, and certainly the underground facilities beneath the park are just ridiculously extensive. I've seen a fair few suggestions it is an artificial island, which is a possibility. Heck, it could be an enormous cavern with a fake sky. These options might not actually represent quite as insane an expenditure of money as one would expect - They can build life-like robots, so they have got to have quite impressive autonomous machines for manual labor.

It's shaping up to be a fantastic Cyberpunk show.

And man, that opening.

So Teddy is pretty much the Kenny of Westworld, isn't he?

It seems that way. An young, idealistic crusader of justice, destined to always fail in saving the woman he loves- intriguing, isn't it? The guests probably think so too, or would, if they cared to pay enough attention.

edited 2nd Nov '16 7:13:04 PM by cake1

I wonder if the developers of Westworld will realize the hosts have become conscious and let them stay that way, so they can have better story lines. Delores especially, her "storyline" ever since she shot those guys has been the kind of things fans of Bioware RPG"s would eat up.

edited 4th Nov '16 5:56:23 PM by JackOLantern1337

But that's how Skynet gets started.

Unless that Dr. Ford's goal...

But why would they want to continue living inside this "bubble" and only functioning for the enjoyment of the guests, assuming that being fully conscious entails them realizing their true nature?

edited 5th Nov '16 12:41:31 PM by cake1

Presumably they'd try to make them "half conscious." Not saying that'd work out. Also JJ Abrams displays some pretty outdated prejudices about Gamers. I'm pretty sure most surveys of people in the Telltale games show that the majority of people choose to play as the "good guy."

Outstanding show, astoundingly strong cast. Loving it.

RE: gamers going "good": isn't that an Enforced Trope to a certain degree? Most games that offer a good and evil path don't make them particularly equal - the good path is most often the obviously "true" ending and the story usually gets better development.

Certainly most people would probably have a hard time showing zero empathy to anything that passes the Turing test, but they haven't bothered showing the presumably mundane exploits of most "white hats" who probably go off on harmless adventures or only shoot the bad guys.

Of course they don't show the white hats, because Humans Are Bastards.

I keep getting confused when people keep attributing this show to J.J Abrams. The actual creators and showrunners of the show are Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, not him. J.J Abrams is an executive producer alongside the aforementioned Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.

On the gamer concept, we do see a few of the more benign players occasionally, like the woman Guest who did shoot-them outs on the side of the law, the family trip people that Dolores meets, even the moron who kills Hector in the pilot, while a bumbling idiot, doesn't really do anything malicious.

A reason we see more of the assholes is because, well, the game is designed that way. A lot of it caters to our violent and lustful insticts (thus the choice of setting in a Wretched Hive of a Old West town full of prostitutes and criminals), so it's no surprise most players veer to that side. It's more analogous to GTA than to Telltale's games, in that regard.

Well there's a reason that I'm replaying Red Dead Redemption and keep imagining the whole thing is being overseen by Anthony Hopkins for his new narrative.

After episode 6, can we call Arnold the Big Bad? If we can, then he's an incredibly rare posthumous example.

Bernard is really a host and everything he has been doing from the beginning was because Ford has been controlling him.

Well that just got real.

HBO renewed it for Season 2!

Bernard is Arnold confirmed Two timelines confirmed Maeve approaching god status confirmed

Is this the episode with the highest Holy Shit Quotient to date?

This finale is going to be something else.

William is confirmed Man in Black. Photograph confirms it. This...has interesting implications for his character, especially how we saw him change this episode.

I have my doubts if Willaim is really the Man in Black. While the picture is pretty damning, a lot of things don't add up: A) Modern, dress-less Dolores met both William and the MIB, how? B) Stubbs is seen influencing both MIB and William within the same scene, time and sentence, he can't do that if they're in different timelines.

I think they're going to pull a fast one on us and say William is a Host designed after the MIB's younger self, incorporated to Dolores's cycle for some nefarious reason.

edited 29th Nov '16 6:15:56 PM by Gaon

Easy explanation for both. We've seen multiple times that Dolores is seeing things and can't keep track between her memories and the present. She's constantly seeing things that aren't there and remembering and reacting to injuries she isn't suffering from in the current cycle. Also, the scene in the church has her call out for William, only for the Man in Black to open the door instead. It'd be great foreshadowing for her to not have been wrong there.

You only explained one of them. Stubbs interacting with both timelines within the same scene is what lays havoc with the concept.

Who was that again? I'm afraid I'm terrible with names the first time I watch a show.

Though, without any context, my shots in the dark at an answer to that is 'Dolores is the viewpoint character for many scenes and she's hallucinating for all tense and purposes' or 'Stubs is a host and thus doesn't age'.

EDIT: Wait, he's the security guy. When did he interact with William and Logan? I know he interacted with Dolores, but I don't think we had a point of reference for that so it could have been at any time?

edited 1st Dec '16 2:34:30 PM by InkDagger