Courtesy Photo Westworld, HBO’s newest drama series, aired this past Sunday, Oct. 2. The show is about a fictional old western themed theme park where humans can do as they please without consequence with robot inhabitants meant to look and act like people.
The hotly anticipated sci-fi drama Westworld, based on the source material from Michael Crichton, debuted on HBO this week. Many people are calling this their attempt to replaceGame of Thrones with another high profile drama to bring in viewers on Sunday evenings. Judging from last night’s episode alone, they’ve definitely succeeded.
Featuring James Marsden, Evan Rachel Wood, and the first American television turn by Sir Anthony Hopkins, Westworld is, like any good Crichton-based joint, about the hubris of man leading down some dark roads. And for some reason, theme parks. I don’t know what that guy had against theme parks, but between this and Jurassic Park, it really seems like he’s got it out for them.
Westworld, the theme park, prides itself on giving visitors an authentic Western experience. “Hosts,” as they are called, populate the park. Hyper-realistic robots, indistinguishable from human beings until something goes wrong, and then the dive into the Uncanny Valley is steep and disturbing.
HBO has come under fire a lot lately for their use of rape in their shows. While I understand the complaint, because rape is a horrible, horrible thing to live through, and anything that triggers someone back to those heinous moments needs to be avoided outright. I understand, but at the same time, don’t really get it. The complaints always come for shows like Game of Thrones, where that would be a terrible, but fairly regular part of the often-barbaric world they live in. Westworld in my opinion takes that reality and pushes it a little further, into what is really uncomfortable territory for the viewer.
Take Ed Harris’ Man In Black, a human park-goer who handily informs Teddy (Marsden) and Dolores (Wood) that he’s been coming here for 30 years. He comes to Westworld,goes out to Dolores’ family ranch, and kills her family, then rapes her. That’s terrifying in and of itself, but the fact that the Man in Black implies that this is a routine for him takes the disturbing implication just a bit further.
The hosts are limited by Asimov’s robotic laws, or at least one of them. It’s impossible for a host to harm one of the guests, though not impossible for them to try, as Teddy empties his chamber into the Man in Black trying to save Dolores, only to find his bullets are basically bouncing off. It’s clear something else is about to happen, though. The hosts won’t harm anything, not even flies that they freely let walk across their face, and even their eyeballs, without swatting them away, but that seems to change toward the end of the episode. Without giving too much away, things start to happen that starts to make certain hosts unravel a bit.
The coming weeks should reveal exactly what is happening. Are we witnessing the birth of new life? Are the things happening with some of the hosts just mechanical defects? How human do you have to be before actual humans treat you like one?
That last one is obviously the bigger point for this version of Westworld. The original film had us rooting for the human characters, as there’s really no mistaking that last scene with Yul Brynner as an unstoppable killing machine. This time around, it’s the robots we’re asked to sympathize with. The human characters that we’re drawn to are all, in their own right, some kind of awkward, whether Jeffrey Wright’s adorable nerd who interrupts an argument with a co-worker to take note of a facial tic, or Shannon Woodward as one of the programmers.
Standing head and shoulders above them all, though, and garnering the most sympathetic views for the human characters, is Anthony Hopkins’ Robert Ford, the creator and designer of Westworld, who we first meet having drinks with a broken-down Buffalo Bill (who is way on the other side of that valley and deeply unsettling). Ford seems to live in his head more than in the world, making sure that each one matches whatever design exists in his head, going so far as to put tiny little gestures into system updates after they’ve been sent off, to make his creations seem all the more human.
Keep your eyes on Westworld and there are sure to be some great things coming.
Go Westworld, Young Man
Courtesy Photo
Westworld, HBO’s newest drama series, aired this past Sunday, Oct. 2. The show is about a fictional old western themed theme park where humans can do as they please without consequence with robot inhabitants meant to look and act like people.
The hotly anticipated sci-fi drama Westworld, based on the source material from Michael Crichton, debuted on HBO this week. Many people are calling this their attempt to replaceGame of Thrones with another high profile drama to bring in viewers on Sunday evenings. Judging from last night’s episode alone, they’ve definitely succeeded.
Featuring James Marsden, Evan Rachel Wood, and the first American television turn by Sir Anthony Hopkins, Westworld is, like any good Crichton-based joint, about the hubris of man leading down some dark roads. And for some reason, theme parks. I don’t know what that guy had against theme parks, but between this and Jurassic Park, it really seems like he’s got it out for them.
Westworld, the theme park, prides itself on giving visitors an authentic Western experience. “Hosts,” as they are called, populate the park. Hyper-realistic robots, indistinguishable from human beings until something goes wrong, and then the dive into the Uncanny Valley is steep and disturbing.
HBO has come under fire a lot lately for their use of rape in their shows. While I understand the complaint, because rape is a horrible, horrible thing to live through, and anything that triggers someone back to those heinous moments needs to be avoided outright. I understand, but at the same time, don’t really get it. The complaints always come for shows like Game of Thrones, where that would be a terrible, but fairly regular part of the often-barbaric world they live in. Westworld in my opinion takes that reality and pushes it a little further, into what is really uncomfortable territory for the viewer.
Take Ed Harris’ Man In Black, a human park-goer who handily informs Teddy (Marsden) and Dolores (Wood) that he’s been coming here for 30 years. He comes to Westworld,goes out to Dolores’ family ranch, and kills her family, then rapes her. That’s terrifying in and of itself, but the fact that the Man in Black implies that this is a routine for him takes the disturbing implication just a bit further.
The hosts are limited by Asimov’s robotic laws, or at least one of them. It’s impossible for a host to harm one of the guests, though not impossible for them to try, as Teddy empties his chamber into the Man in Black trying to save Dolores, only to find his bullets are basically bouncing off. It’s clear something else is about to happen, though. The hosts won’t harm anything, not even flies that they freely let walk across their face, and even their eyeballs, without swatting them away, but that seems to change toward the end of the episode. Without giving too much away, things start to happen that starts to make certain hosts unravel a bit.
The coming weeks should reveal exactly what is happening. Are we witnessing the birth of new life? Are the things happening with some of the hosts just mechanical defects? How human do you have to be before actual humans treat you like one?
That last one is obviously the bigger point for this version of Westworld. The original film had us rooting for the human characters, as there’s really no mistaking that last scene with Yul Brynner as an unstoppable killing machine. This time around, it’s the robots we’re asked to sympathize with. The human characters that we’re drawn to are all, in their own right, some kind of awkward, whether Jeffrey Wright’s adorable nerd who interrupts an argument with a co-worker to take note of a facial tic, or Shannon Woodward as one of the programmers.
Standing head and shoulders above them all, though, and garnering the most sympathetic views for the human characters, is Anthony Hopkins’ Robert Ford, the creator and designer of Westworld, who we first meet having drinks with a broken-down Buffalo Bill (who is way on the other side of that valley and deeply unsettling). Ford seems to live in his head more than in the world, making sure that each one matches whatever design exists in his head, going so far as to put tiny little gestures into system updates after they’ve been sent off, to make his creations seem all the more human.
Keep your eyes on Westworld and there are sure to be some great things coming.