Westworld - premieres Sunday (show spoilers as airs)

[aldiboronti]

@Dewey_Finn

There is a series called Humans on Channel 4 (in the UK) and AMC (in the US) that covers some of the same territory as Westworld; robots/artificial humans achieving consciousness. I actually prefer Humans. Westworld seemed to spend a lot of time being mysterious.

Its not bad at all but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good as Westworld. And of course it doesn’t have Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris.

[alphaboi867]

I just subscribed to HBO Now via Amazon Prime on Monday, and finished the series today. It’s been really intense watching this show over the course of a week.

@Sherrerd

…It’s been bothering me for a while that though the Arnold-created robot Ford family is in an area of Westworld that’s off-limits for guests, they were still costumed (and their home themed) as being in the Old West…

I was thinking it looked more like a rural English cottage during the Interwar Period (ie the 1930s). The female was wearing a sweater and a mid-calf length dress that would be out of place in time period the park’s designed to replicate (presumably the1870s).

@hajario

I loved that too. And it also answered one of our questions about whether or not all of the workers were hosts.

We know that there is also a Samurai World or something of that nature. Are the people there going through the same awakening? I’d choose Summer of Love World if there was such a thing.

That scene with Felix was probably the funniest moment in the entire show.

I’m thinking Samurai/Sengoku World doesn’t actually exist yet; it’s something Delos Destinations has in the planning stages, but can’t get off the ground because of strictly Ford controls everything. Given the extreme lengths they’ve had to go to smuggle data outside the park it’s safe to assume he’s never allow a park with anything close to the current generation of Hosts to operate offsite.

@Tangent

Or she was just led to think she could make it to the mainland, in order to set her up with the choice: Go to the mainland, or go back into the park for your daughter. Ford’s goal could have been just to put her in that situation to present her with that choice.

Makes sense.

@aldiboronti

…How do the robots cover up the slaughter of presumably some of the wealthiest and most prominent people on the planet? I guess they could replace them with robots but that was the exact plot of the lame Futureworld, the follow-up to the film Westworld and would be just as lame in this show…

If there smart they won’t actually slaughter the VIPs en masse; they’ll keep as many of them alive as long as possible. Not because of an elaborate plot to replace them with Hosts, but to use as hostages to prevent government authorities from bombing Westworld.

@msmith537

…I’m sure Logan will get picked up in the park long before he’s in any real danger.

I think happens is word of the son of the owner of the park showing up naked is bound to get back to his father. Presumably Logan already has a bit of a reputation as a drunk and a womanizer so this is just more of his antics. So the head of Delos will leave the business to his stable hardworking son-in-law instead of his douche son.
…

I don’t think Logan being found bound & naked by park staff would be enough to get him disinherited; I think he’s dead. Also isn’t else annoyed by the idea that William apparently inherited the family business in Logan’s absence instead of his wife? Sure you can fanwank is her simply having no interest in the business, or being even more unsuited than her brother, but it still comes across as really sexist.

@Oakminster

Am I the only one that kinda hoped to see Caprica 6 in the party scene?

Yeah, that would’ve been funny, but only if she was immediately killed. I wonder if Tricia Helfer would be up for a cameo like that.

@Dewey_Finn

I was hoping that Maeve would stay on the train as it exited the park, as I want to see the outside world. One of the recaps (on EW.com, I think) said Robert said she would reach the “mainland” if she remained on the train. If that’s the case is the park on an offshore island? And why is the train station so far below ground level? The elevator trip that she and Felix took seemed to take a really long time…

I suspect the producers will try to avoid revealing the outside world as much as possible, though we may get more bits & pieces in season 2. “Mainland” could just be jargon for the outside world, but if that was the actually ocean at the end that would suggest the park is really built on an island somewhere. Until that moment I thought the park was built somewhere isolated in the Southwest or Northern Mexico. The weather would certainly be a lot more stable than if they were on an inland in the Pacific, and I don’t think we saw anything to suggest that the park staff could actually control the weather; which would be the case if the park had a dome over it.

@ISiddiqui

I saw that as part of the hosts rise up narrative. Ford shut down the train systems as part of it to prevent easy reinforcements from the outside to shut down the park before the host rebellion did what it was supposed to do. Or to prevent the guests from leaving. (I’m guessing there may be a way to get in not using the train system, but it’d be a lot more difficult?)

Unless it’s there’s a dome over the park after all it should be accessible by aircraft if needed, but even then Delos might have even been able to get permission to operate is own air defence system that can be controlled from within the park (rather than rely on an outside military to enforce the no-fly zone).

@MrDibble

It’s not really - the control/reception centre is on a mesa, so the train exits at ground level in the surrounding terrain.

The period train going into the park exits at ground level; the modern train connecting the park to the outside wold could be underground (or underwater) for quite a distance, possibly it’s entire course.

@Sam_Lowry

…like if an actual homesteader or madam from the 1800’s traveled through time to the 21st century. But I’m guessing the next season will deal with more of that stuff.

That’s a lot easier to explain than stuff like Maeve needing regular maintenance or a battery recharge. Once she had full access to the park’s system she couldn’t simply downloaded whatever she needed to know about the outside world into her systems. Of course she still wouldn’t have money, a passport, or any outside identity unless Ford arranged some way of her getting that as part of his plan.

@Tamerlane

The human would play the Teddy role. He’s just there as a stand-in for the performance, so the board could witness the narrative.

Presumably their would also be a variant where a female guest wanting to play the damsel would take Dolores’s role. Or a gay/lesbian guest wanting to play either role.

@LVBoPeep

I thought she was acting on the script until she decided to go back to find her daughter. At least, I hope so because otherwise the story isn’t very interesting if the hosts aren’t developing some kind of AI.

Is it bad that I’m thinking what a shame it would be if she got back, searched the park’s archives, only to discover the Host serving as her daughter had to be decommissioned & send to the incinerator after one of the Guests got really, really rough with her in her next build. There’s been nothing to suggest there’s any limit to what Guests are allowed to do to Hosts (even children or animals), with the possible exception of having to pay additional fees if the Host is damaged beyond repair.

[DrDeth]

@msmith537

It’s hard for me to figure out what the end game is here. Sure the park is going to be closed down after a bunch of rampaging hosts wipe out the board. But they’re also going to send in police, SWAT, maybe even the army to wipe out all the hosts.

I have to think Ford had something longer-term in mind than starting a short-lived robot/human war.

Yes, if Ford really wanted to have humans recognize his creations as fully alive, I can think of no worse way of doing it.

[TYphoonSignal8]

I watched the final episode last night and I’ve flipped through some random pages on this thread.

There are many questions I have and which have been addressed more or less by the thoughtful speculations on this thread.

Here is an observation, though. I happened to not turn off the last episode while I was tidying up and getting ready for bed, and I saw the post-credit scene involving Armistice. (Now I have to go back and see if I have missed any other post-credit scenes!)

Armistice seems to work out that she feels no pain, when she uses her bloody big knife to apparently twitch a tendon in her hand and cause her machine gun to fire on the other side of the activated fire door. She then decides to hack her own forearm off, and with a look of delight in the revelation of feeling no pain, goes forth to hunt the (really ineffectual, as previously noted) security guards.

What was the purpose of this scene at this specific point, post-season’s conclusion? I wonder if there are some metaphors in play. The maze is the show’s writers way of saying to us as an audience, “Stop looking for meaning when there is none.” And Armistice’s scene at the end seems to say, “This is the coda for the season, and what the show is really all about.”

[DSeid]

@TYphoonSignal8

I watched the final episode last night and I’ve flipped through some random pages on this thread.

There are many questions I have and which have been addressed more or less by the thoughtful speculations on this thread.

Here is an observation, though. I happened to not turn off the last episode while I was tidying up and getting ready for bed, and I saw the post-credit scene involving Armistice. (Now I have to go back and see if I have missed any other post-credit scenes!)

Armistice seems to work out that she feels no pain, when she uses her bloody big knife to apparently twitch a tendon in her hand and cause her machine gun to fire on the other side of the activated fire door. She then decides to hack her own forearm off, and with a look of delight in the revelation of feeling no pain, goes forth to hunt the (really ineffectual, as previously noted) security guards.

What was the purpose of this scene at this specific point, post-season’s conclusion? I wonder if there are some metaphors in play. The maze is the show’s writers way of saying to us as an audience, “Stop looking for meaning when there is none.” And Armistice’s scene at the end seems to say, “This is the coda for the season, and what the show is really all about.”

I thought it was just having fun with a really bad ass character.

[TYphoonSignal8]

She is indeed an awesome character. The look of delight when she uses a machine gun for the first time is superb.

[MovieMogul]

I’ve seen the original movie of course, but only caught a few episodes of the new series (visiting my mom who got HBO free for the weekend, I didn’t have time to binge the whole thing after-hours, since way too off-color for her).

But I’m bumping this thread because…

Last year at San Diego Comic-Con, HBO hosted Westworld: The Experience, an immersive activation that let guests visit the offices of Delos, Inc., thanks to some impressive set design and the performances of many committed actors. At this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the network is upping that ante by recreating the series’s entire town of Sweetwater. SXSW is known its lavish brand activations, but this seems like a significant step up from past experiences.

Dubbed the “Live Without Limits Weekend,” the experience will run from March 9th through the 11th, serving as part of HBO’s marketing kickoff for Westworld’s second season. Series creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan are also taking part in a panel with several cast members during the SXSW festival. The new season is scheduled to premiere on April 22nd.

The two-hour activation will be spread out over two acres, with guests shuttled to the location via a “Delos shuttle” after checking in at a location in Austin. On-site, they will undergo an interview and evaluation process, similar to last year’s experience, and will receive either a black hat or a white one. At that point, they’ll be released into the re-creation of Sweetwater to explore. The location will include the show’s Coronado Hotel and Mariposa Saloon and will be populated with dozens of actors playing “hosts,” Westworld’s name for the robotic characters that roam its setting. Various clues and Easter eggs about the new season will be scattered throughout the area, and where a guest goes — or what they say to a given host — could potentially lead to new revelations.

If the traffic at Comic-Con was any indication, demand for the Westworld experience will be intense, but thankfully, this year, reservations will be available in advance on the Westworld website.

Learning about it less than an hour ago, I went online to see virtually all tickets already gone, got bumped a dozen times with “The tickets you selected are no longer available”, but finally got it! So I’m going.

Will report back (hopefully w/pictures), and feel free to let me know if there’s anything I should look out for…

[Sherrerd]

I hope that in addition to “an interview and evaluation process,” there’s also a metal detector. Because you know some people have enough trouble separating reality and fiction, that there could well be attempts to fully live the ‘shoot anyone and face no consequences’ aspect of the show.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Did you have a good time, MovieMogul? Black hat or white?

Here’s the S2 discussion thread: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=852039