Amph Westworld series by J.J. Abrams and Johnathan Nolan

This was a trick Nolan used in Person of Interest was to reuse a lot of pop songs, to great effect, but the twist here izzat they're configured as old timey piano stuff. The opening sequence was fantastic and I kept thinking that Ed Harris' man in black is a robot who has achieved a higher-level of individualism, thereby thats why bullets don't work on him, but he's probably one of the upper-level people who are using Westworld for a nefarious purpose. Anyway, the bookened scenes were fantastic, and the final fly-swat is downright shocking considering what it implies. Jeffery Wright is always great as someone who is borderline kind of scary as he oversees these robots but it seems his push for creating something better is starting to have the robots glitch out rather badly. And the glitch scenes were fantastic, especially the guy who made creative usage of milk. the implication is once they realize they're unstoppable killer robots, they won't shut down.

I'm wondering if this isn't technically a reboot but a sequel because they mention the original park / malfunction, and the logos from the original company were in the cold storage sub-level.

 

Yes, he did. One of the more memorable ones IMO came during the final season with Nine Inch Nails "The Day the World Went Away".

That would be a pretty interesting twist.

 

It was good for a pilot. I just hope there's more than humans being sadistic and/or sociopathic pieces of ****.

(I know almost nothing about Westworld.)

 

Good article on the origins of the series, in 2002 was slated to be a Schwartzenegger as the Gunslinger movie (but then he wanted to play a guest) and roundabout came to a TV series from the robots POV. (Rachel Wood in her final scene where her robot wakes up but they simply tell her to stop acting freaked out and deliver her stuff in a cold, precise manner - even though she's still terrified - was fantastic)

http://deadline.com/2016/09/westworld-jonathan-nolan-lisa-joy-jj-abrams-hbo-1201828505/

Interesting quote as to how the human developers are reacting to the robots growing emotional life:

Ultimately in Westworld, as Nolan hints, the animals will turn on their masters, and the robots will somehow lash back at their creators: “Are these robots alive? Are the programmers justified in their growing sympathy and alarm over the robots’ plight, or are they fooling themselves becoming entranced by their own handiwork?”

 

So is Delores modeled after Anthony Hopkins' long dead wife or long dead daughter? I'm going with wife. And they're all androids, except Hopkins.

 

it was pretty good .

I liked the idea of memories being revived by these little 'reveries' they've added , and the whole general theme of exploring what is sentient , or what is the difference between humans and robots is always fun .

what's Ed Harris looking for ? I thought at first he was just a sadist but he seems to be looking for something .

they've set their stall out with nudity so I guess they'll get into the moral issues of using robots for sex etc.

.

 

From what I've read of reviews that area will be explored. I taped the premiere last night and watched it this afternoon. I'm not normally a fan of Westerns but this was pretty good.

 

Loved it. It's surprising that such a good pilot could come out of a show that was development hell.

I'm a huge fan of Crichton, and you could absolutely see the spirit of his sci-fi storytelling alive here (i.e. it's Jurassic Park with android instead of dinosaurs). It's real sci-fi stuff, dealing with the ethical and moral implications of scientific advancement. Which is very different of course from sci-fi like the new Trek films, which isn't really sci-fi so much as it is space-based adventure. I love both, they're just different.

And Jonah Nolan is a fantastic writer. I think he's a great person to take Crichton's vision and delve into it in a more gritty, Nolan-esque way. I think there are a lot of good story threads and questions laid into this pilot. I hope people don't approach viewing this, though, as simply a question of whether the twists and mysteries are surprising, though (that's almost impossible to sustain as the spine of a show). Instead, I hope the character storylines themselves are interesting.

Unlike many of my wet blanket friends (aka bitter Star Trek fans), I love JJ. But the way Bad Robot's TV division works is that he's just involved in picking scripts to produce and in an advisory capacity. And with someone of Jonah Nolan's pedigree at the helm, I'm sure JJ didn't interfere much. So hopefully people can refrain from blaming everything they don't like about the show on JJ. Hopefully we can all enjoy the show regardless.

I think one of the best things about the pilot so far is that looking at it, it was super easy for me to think, "I mean, it *would* be awesome to ride around on a horse and save the day against outlaws." Anyone who's played Red Dead Redemption should get why Westworld would be appealing. But of course, then there are the sociopathic rapists ruining it, and reminding us of all the garbage people out there.


Finally, a PSA: everyone should watch the show Humans. It's only had one short season so far, so you're not far behind. And it's amazing.

 

I foudn Humans to be a bit dull. This is much more promising.

 

So what's up with Delores' Ma? We see her corpse, but no face, and one of the Milk Bottle Bandits intends to make love to it. Then Delores calls Ma when Pa is having his fit, but she doesn't appear. This has to be a thing.

 

They may not have cast the part for the pilot.

 

bull****. It's a thing. They have a more than handy cast, a budget that would make Michael Bay weep, a crystal clear direction, but obscuring Ma is because they couldn't cast the right actress? No. Put your reality hat on.

It's as likely to be a nothing as Delores killing a fly.

 

I think Ed Harris' character is supposed to be the Gunslinger except he's a human. Unless he's not (he probably is though working for higher-ups to solve some sort of Westworld-mystery). But his getup is about the same as Brenner's in the original.





Brenner is so awesome in the original, even if one just watched the last 30 minutes they get the best stuff in it anyway (and it's totally like the end of Terminator too)

 

No, because the character didn't have anything to do but be a corpse. Why bother? Hell, the mother may be a different "host" like the father is now.

EDIT: The person who's playing Mary Abernathy.

 

Be a corpse so far. Please don't selectively quote posts. It's beneath you.

 

oh yeah - the milk thing , made me think of Ash in Aliens .

.

 

I never watched the original Westworld, but I thought this premier was outstanding. Really brought to mind the Battlestar Galactica reboot. I'm not usually a fan of westerns, but I'm apparently very engrossed in Battlestar Galactica meets the wild west.

 

If this ends up even half as good as BSG reimagined I will love it. It's looking promising so far.

 

I'm going to recommend a podcast, Watching Westworld. They essentially go over it scene by scene and speculate. There are two hosts, one I like, one I'm a bit iffy on. From what they said, they host another podcast, Brave New Podcast, so some may be familiar with them.

 

I like that this thread was started three years ago.

 

We may be ********s, we may be grumpy, we may be hostile. But we do see it through. Essentially we are Delores.

 

Thought this was really good. Nothing really anything to make you go WOW, but definitely kept me asking questions and invested in what was going on.

Can it sustain a multi season show though?

 

I think making this play across seasons would be something like "S1 - sort of a long adaptation of the Westworld movie with a lot of different highways and byways" "S2 - Robots running house, what society develops, humans strike back, etc."

It seems to have to lead to an endpoint somehow. Person of Interest did eventually add on mythology to give it a logical endpoint but the core Person of Interest premise could have gone on forever (and, in a way, it is because one of the last few eps of POI established there was another team out there, fighting the fight for the Machine)

 

But... but Abram$ and Nolan are hacks! How could this be?