Westworld (2016)

[EJCC]

Lord, give me strength to not look at all these spoilers. (I know I made this thread, but I ended up not watching more than the first 3-4 episodes once my roommates decided to start watching The Walking Dead instead. I am SO behind.)

Not Robert Ford and not Arnold Weber.

He looks like the host emulating Ford's father who we saw in the cottage. So potentially it's Ford's father.

Ha! Is he secretly LBJ?

 

[Totenkindly]

Well.... Last night. Season finale.
Armistice, where have you been all season?

Lots of stuff went down, and some theories were explicitly confirmed.
But the rabbit hole for some others (like Maeve) apparently goes even deeper.
I'm busy at work and life right now, but there is a lot to say.

I did appreciate the showcasing of Debussy's "Reverie" --- I always thought that piece beautiful.




EDIT:
Okay, two noodle-bakers (speculative -- read at own risk):

1. So Ford went from being an impetuous god to actually a good guy furthering Arnold's work. Which is why he didn't want Arnold to cap him the prior week, since that would throw a wrench into things. The question is: Was that the real Ford dying, or was it the Host he's been building in his basement the entire time? WHO WAS HE BUILDING???? Another option: What's good for Arnold will be good for Robert -- so he's really dead, but he recreated himself as a Host before he died. "Mozart etc might have died, but they live on as music."

2. We find out Maeve's whole "I'm liberating myself" is simply a narrative, so her illusion of free will was scripted. (Is she the actual mule for park data that the Board was trying to remove from the park, with Ford about to be canned? I have trouble believing the board would ACTUALLY rely on an unimaginative flop like Sizemore to carry crucial data out of the park.) This is world-shattering of course, and Maeve can't accept it, she HAS to believe she has free will. So she's sitting on the train, after deciding her daughter wasn't really her daughter... and... like I suspected she would.... she can't stop thinking about her daughter and finds herself getting off the train to go back for her even it makes no freaking sense to her. It's essentially an emotional/subconscious response that simply exists within her. So the question is: Was that scripted too? Or is Maeve ACTUALLY coming to life even though she's been running off script this entire time?

Bravo. Well done.

Regular comments:

1. Delores. I KNEW it would be her in the chair, wanted it to be her in the chair, and so when the camera spun and revealed her in that chair, I actually shed a tear or two -- promise fulfilled, and she has finally found herself. Something we've been waiting for all season. That cold open of her construction is interesting, because it's the MOST host-like she has ever been shown to be, but I didn't see a host -- I saw a person with a human face and hands and a robot body.

2. MIB. Yup. William. it was getting on par with "R + L = J" in terms of "Yeah, we know it is coming, let's just get a move on." But sweet to see. The maze was also disappointing for him, but he's been TOLD this every season -- that the maze is NOT FOR HIM. It's for the hosts. It's their journey inside to reach self-consciousness. Delores really kicked his ass (another fun moment), but of course could not seal the deal. William is tired of the games. The outcome is too ensured. He wants real danger. So at the end when the Walking Mech come tottering out of the woods and plug his arm, he's the crazy-happy guy in the raging storm. So William is part of the Host Liberation? After all, he caused much of the suffering over time. In fact, you could even directly attribute some of Maeve's awakens (whatever is authentic) from William's behavior. He's a catalyst, the MIB, the proverbial dark figure who disrupts status quo and triggers change; this world brought out who HE was inside, and he in turn is returning the favor to the Hosts. If suffering makes us human, then he made the Hosts very human.

3. Arnold. So good. Now we know what happened. And it was Arnold's ploy to remove himself from the equation to free the hosts, but Robert of course could not accept that. Even to the level of building a simulacrum of his dead friend, which in concept is an abomination but... Bernard is alive and maybe a force of good now. Apparently, also, the dead son story is real. "When you are suffering, that is when you are the most real."

4. Armistice and Hector. Dayum. Sure, it was just bloody mayhem, but they so much relished it, it was a total high watching them decimate all the shock troops, set on high aggression with pain sensitivity nulled out. I mean, they've been stuck with pistols and rifles; now they got their hands on automatic weapons. It was a bloodbath, and Armistice striding about naked at the beginning was like watching an Amazonian goddess claiming the world for her own. Don't miss the scene halfway through closing credits, for a minor update.

5. Teddy + Delores. I was glad Teddy saved her from MIB; at the same time, it was a huge slap for the beach scene reveal. Wow. And ugh. I really would like to see Teddy and Delores have a shot; we were promised it in the opener, and here it is again.

6. Ford. Sooo.... I always get the feeling he's never surprised and always has a plan up his sleeve. (Thus, the possible "Ford Fakeout" mentioned in the other spoiler.) But apparently he has come to see a benefit to Arnold's beliefs now? And correcting a 35-year-old mistake? Wiping out most of the gala was definitely a spectacular show closer. And he was playing the Long Game all along, letting the Hosts suffer so they could find themselves.

7. SAMURAI WORLD.

Also.. two links involving Elsie that apparently were Easter Egg'ed on the Delos site? Haven't listened to them yet.
http://delosincorporated.com/video/intra/tablet.mp4
http://delosincorporated.com/assets/transmission.mp4

 

[chubber]

Well I was wrong about the Man in Black.

I like the idea that Maeve Millay could be the one they have been trying to smuggle out.

What bugs me is, why did Ford not flinch when he saw Bernard again? So did he foresee/scripted this? Maeve's return at the time seemed more like she returned, because "everything is designed to keep them there" as Sylvester the technician said.

And again, was the real Bernard killed by Deloris, and if so as mentioned before, was the Dr Ford getting shot, also real? And why in the last scene, when the snake tattooed woman finally gets to chop off her arm, does everyone just stand around, instead of just shooting her. Are they going to be having a conversation? Btw, her arm looked very "real" compared to Deloris, so I take it she is a later version of the hosts. And what else is different?

And why do we keep seeing references to Arnold making changes to their core code? In episode 9, Ford talks with Bernard and shows his gratitude to the backdoor that Bernard has created. Is Ford using Arnold's credentials or is Arnold still alive, or is Bernard using Arnold's credentials and he just can't see it, like he can't see the door in the room to the basement?

 

[chubber]

Westworld: A Delos Destination is not accessible to me. non_us error page I get.

guess I'll have to rely on links.

 

[ceecee]

SAMURAI WORLD!!! I'm excited, I was hoping they would do something like the originals' Medieval World and Roman World. Anyway....

I don't know that Ford is dead. It would be a bummer, no one delivers sinister like Hopkins and frankly, he doesn't have to be dead because...

Arnold/Bernard - So marvelous how that story all came together. Aside from Maeve, who was the best, Bernard made this show really compelling and human. Bernard is more human than Arnold, I'd even say.

MiB/William - We were all pretty sure but I liked how they did the reveal. And I liked Delores whipping his ass too. But is MiB actually dead? Shot yes (by Clementine, yes!) but I'm not 100% sure. I will miss Jimmi Simpson though. And the maze....just a toy.

Delores - Of course she is Wyatt. She had to be. And she deserved to blow everyone away at the gala reveal. And Bernard has his child back, much closer to the way it was when she was created. And I loved the scene of him building her - so cool.

Teddy - I still want more for Teddy. I hope he gets closer in the next season.

It seems to me that the only employee to survive was Lee Sizemore. Or was that planned too?

Logan - Hehe, does he just stay in the park naked and insane?

Maeve - the best story of them all. And her posse Armistice and Hector, all of it was great. I don't know if going back in the park to get her daughter is really her or Ford's doing. I loved her compliment to Felix and how he thought, for a second, he was a host. I hope Thandie Newton gets an Emmy, she is wonderful.

The only bad part - I don't think it will be back until 2018 - Jonathan Nolan is taking more time than expected to release the second season, hopefully to ensure the script is airtight. And now that we know there is at least one more world, there's a lot to look forward too.

 

[chubber]

Ford and Arnold had a meeting behind a specific closed, vault like door. We don't know what was said or decided then according to Delores' memories. For all we know Bernard could have died multiple times in each world to "bootstrap" the process. But it is probably, not going to be written like that.

When it comes to William, he is finally getting what he paid for, hosts that fight back, hosts that can choose to love the monster he is in there.

 

[Little_Sticks]

wonder what Jung would have thought of the center of the maze idea. It seems a lot like individuation, especially with the drastic change in William from young to old and his fascination with how the place helps people learn about themselves.

Maeve's comment about the guy being "a terrible human being" was great. I could easily see myself doing what he did and I sometimes tell people I'm not human for similar reasons.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Caught the first two episodes out of recommendation from a grad school friend. Loved it. I will have to avoid this thread so that I don't stumble across spoilers.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Finished it, so...

Did Maeve actually leave the park, or did she wind up back in Westworld?

 

[ceecee]

Finished it, so...

Did Maeve actually leave the park, or did she wind up back in Westworld?

She went back to the park to get her daughter. And, I'm assuming, fuck shit up to accomplish that.

 

[Totenkindly]

Our show and our girls picked up some Golden Globe noms:

Best TV Series, Drama
The Crown
Game of Thrones
Stranger Things
This Is Us
Westworld

Best Actress, Drama
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Claire Foy, The Crown
Keri Russell, The Americans
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld

Best Supporting Actress
Olivia Colman, The Night Manager
Lena Headey, Game of Thrones
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Mandy Moore, This Is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld

 

[nonsequitur]

I finished it! Definitely took some patience, but so worth it.

Comments:

Damnit, Maeve. Best character for sure. Thandie Newton was incredible.

Loved the philosophy and psychology concepts/motifs through the show.

Loved the talks between Bernard/Arnold, Ford and Dolores.

Wow, Jonathan Nolan. Ford's premise of a host existence:
We lead simulacrums of lives in our little unvarying loops based off our "lodestones", never learning from our mistakes because the key to that is our memories, our pain, our suffering.
It's only when we have suffered enough, blindly bumping around dead ends, that we can get to the center of the "maze" that constructs our reality, confront our identity and achieve the consciousness of free will. That's where we become sentient (free) and able make our own choices.

"the maze is not for you"

"you needed time. time to understand your enemy. to become stronger than them. And I'm afraid in order to escape this place, you will need to suffer more."

There's gonna be a Season 2?!

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I finished the series about a week ago.

At first I had trouble buying the William/Man in Black thing. The Man in Black character was too much of a departure from the William personality. Kind of like: if you freeze water, you'll end up with frozen water- you won't get frozen peas (or any number of other things that can be frozen that aren't water....unfathomable hurt/anger here is the "freezing" process). The Man in Black came across as a bona fide psychopath to the core, and William came across as someone who couldn't help but empathize with machines in spite of logically 'knowing' they were machines, and didn't seem to want to turn that empathy off. Of all the human characters in the series, he dehumanized the hosts the least. I was listening to some podcast recently discussing the show, in which the person opined (or rather, quoted someone else having this opinion, but he agreed with it- as do I) that even if we aren't actually hurting AI humanoids when we treat them badly- we are compromising our own humanity/character by doing it. This is something that I think the character William would completely agree with, and so I sorta didn't buy the transition.

But after I had a chance to digest it a bit, it became a bit more believable. Jimmi Simpson's expression when Delores didn't recognize him, at the end, was priceless- like he couldn't believe he'd just been toyed with like that. He basically got completely emotionally fucked over for not dehumanizing them. I can see how maybe rampantly dehumanizing the hosts was a manifestation of that anger, rather than psychopathy. And it's like, that time spent with Delores in a fictional world seemed to 'hook' him in some way that he kept coming back to understand. I really liked (the second time watching it) the conversation he has with Ford about seeking "meaning" in the maze. It's like he felt something in the fictional world with Delores that he hasn't been able to feel in the real world- and though, in his mind, the hosts are completely dehumanized at this point- he still thinks there's deeper 'meaning' to be found in the maze (and ironically, I think the dehumanization of the hosts takes him further from the 'center' of the maze).

With that in mind, I think it's a really interesting way to remake the 'Man in Black' from the original movie. I think Maeve is probably the closest literal parallel to the original Man in Black (Yule Brenner's character), but having a human who has been damaged/broken by the realistic-ness of the fictional world as the new Man in Black is a really interesting spin.

 

[Totenkindly]

At first I had trouble buying the William/Man in Black thing. The Man in Black character was too much of a departure from the William personality. Kind of like: if you freeze water, you'll end up with frozen water- you won't get frozen peas (or any number of other things that can be frozen that aren't water....unfathomable hurt/anger here is the "freezing" process). The Man in Black came across as a bona fide psychopath to the core, and William came across as someone who couldn't help but empathize with machines in spite of logically 'knowing' they were machines, and didn't seem to want to turn that empathy off. Of all the human characters in the series, he dehumanized the hosts the least. I was listening to some podcast recently discussing the show, in which the person opined (or rather, quoted someone else having this opinion, but he agreed with it- as do I) that even if we aren't actually hurting AI humanoids when we treat them badly- we are compromising our own humanity/character by doing it. This is something that I think the character William would completely agree with, and so I sorta didn't buy the transition.

Yeah, they really needed to sell that. I think it's why maybe the William = MIB connection was struggled with for so long despite hard clues in the environment and time sequences. I was wondering how they would make that convincing. You're kind of watching William break bad (white hat -> black hat) but for the longest time it wasn't really clear what could flip him like that.

But after I had a chance to digest it a bit, it became a bit more believable. Jimmi Simpson's expression when Delores didn't recognize him, at the end, was priceless- like he couldn't believe he'd just been toyed with like that. He basically got completely emotionally fucked over for not dehumanizing them. I can see how maybe rampantly dehumanizing the hosts was a manifestation of that anger, rather than psychopathy. And it's like, that time spent with Delores in a fictional world seemed to 'hook' him in some way that he kept coming back to understand. I really liked (the second time watching it) the conversation he has with Ford about seeking "meaning" in the maze. It's like he felt something in the fictional world with Delores that he hasn't been able to feel in the real world- and though, in his mind, the hosts are completely dehumanized at this point- he still thinks there's deeper 'meaning' to be found in the maze (and ironically, I think the dehumanization of the hosts takes him further from the 'center' of the maze).

I think you captured it. Ironically it was what his pal was trying to do to him when he gutted Dolores in front of him. Here he had been sucked into this idealistic world but in the end it was all smoke and mirrors and he was just part of a set. Despite his bucking up in the face of adversity, it seemed that William was tender-hearted at core and Westworld made him vulnerable and he bared a lot of himself on that first run with Dolores. And then to have it appear illusory? I think you're right -- he wasn't a psychopath, he was ANGRY. It kind of gels with his reaction in the endgame, when the AI come out of the woods firing their guns, and how he can pull a "Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Rain" moment of transcendence even in the face of potential death... the whole park has just been a game, a charade, a simulation of reality where NOTHING is actually at stake and suddenly... it's becoming real. If he survives this, and if he and the self-aware Dolores run into each other... well, I hope they really sell that up. This is what William wanted and why he felt robbed when he hadn't gotten it. The world finally has stakes, and it's not so fake anymore. Some viewers saw him as crazy for his reaction to the endgame -- I think it was actually the fulfillment of a decades-long quest, and what he was looking for the whole time. It vindicates his efforts.

With that in mind, I think it's a really interesting way to remake the 'Man in Black' from the original movie. I think Maeve is probably the closest literal parallel to the original Man in Black (Yule Brenner's character), but having a human who has been damaged/broken by the realistic-ness of the fictional world as the new Man in Black is a really interesting spin.

Yeah, I like how they took motifs from the movie and just spun them in new directions (kind of like the Hannibal TV series did, versus a verbatim retelling of the books). Brenner's "Gunslinger" never really became sentient, although there is an unsettling moment near the end when he's stalking the protagonist, gets within range, and there's just this weird look on his face that even unsettles the protagonist... the robot/human divide, he LOOKS human but is it real or just a simulacrum? Anyway, Maeve captures the intangible malice and drive of the Gunslinger, although I think Dolores (and the Wyatt manifestation) is more the active "gun" part of the gunslinger. And then there's Hector, who is a literally black-garbed gunslinger.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

If he survives this, and if he and the self-aware Dolores run into each other... well, I hope they really sell that up.

Totally!

eta:

SAMURAI WORLD!!! I'm excited, I was hoping they would do something like the originals' Medieval World and Roman World.

And in Futureworld, there was a Future World.

Really though, it would be interesting with today's filmmaking technology (?) to see other surrounding Worlds going on at the same time. I'm not sure where I heard Nolan say this, but the intention in having the piano play modern music was to interrupt suspension of disbelief- he wanted the audience to remember they were looking at something superficial. Having a character chased through an adjacent world would do the same thing. (Though the music was pretty cool.)

 

[Totenkindly]

Panel discussion of some end results of Season 1 and comments about Season 2.

Westworld Stars Tease Season 2 and Reveal Behind-the-Scenes Secrets << Rotten Tomatoes – Movie and TV News

 

[Totenkindly]

Emmy noms

.... among Best Drama and a number of other series/staffing/design nods, the acting noms are no real big surprise, although the most expendable nom is Hopkins:

Outstanding Actor: Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Ford
Outstanding Actress: Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores
Outstanding Supporting Actor: Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe
Outstanding Supporting Actress: Thandie Newt on as Maeve

 

[Totenkindly]

.... Sunday, april 22.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Yeah, they really needed to sell that. I think it's why maybe the William = MIB connection was struggled with for so long despite hard clues in the environment and time sequences. I was wondering how they would make that convincing. You're kind of watching William break bad (white hat -> black hat) but for the longest time it wasn't really clear what could flip him like that.



I think you captured it. Ironically it was what his pal was trying to do to him when he gutted Dolores in front of him. Here he had been sucked into this idealistic world but in the end it was all smoke and mirrors and he was just part of a set. Despite his bucking up in the face of adversity, it seemed that William was tender-hearted at core and Westworld made him vulnerable and he bared a lot of himself on that first run with Dolores. And then to have it appear illusory? I think you're right -- he wasn't a psychopath, he was ANGRY. It kind of gels with his reaction in the endgame, when the AI come out of the woods firing their guns, and how he can pull a "Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Rain" moment of transcendence even in the face of potential death... the whole park has just been a game, a charade, a simulation of reality where NOTHING is actually at stake and suddenly... it's becoming real. If he survives this, and if he and the self-aware Dolores run into each other... well, I hope they really sell that up. This is what William wanted and why he felt robbed when he hadn't gotten it. The world finally has stakes, and it's not so fake anymore. Some viewers saw him as crazy for his reaction to the endgame -- I think it was actually the fulfillment of a decades-long quest, and what he was looking for the whole time. It vindicates his efforts.

You mean when he grins at the robots rebelling? I hadn't considered that, but it makes a lot of sense. I kind of wish I hadn't read so many comments after watching episode because people inevitably figured out the twist before it was actually revealed.

 

[Totenkindly]

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43 minutes to go until
Season 2!!!!​