TV HBO's Westworld (1 Viewer)

[mattgdg]

When Caleb pulled the mask off one of the 'terrorists' in the Army training scene, who was it? I thought it was Caleb too, but since there has been no outcry of him being a host, I figured I was mistaken.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

When Caleb pulled the mask off one of the 'terrorists' in the Army training scene, who was it? I thought it was Caleb too, but since there has been no outcry of him being a host, I figured I was mistaken.

It was the confederale that Teddy was supposed to kill for Delores in S2.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

I actually enjoyed it. Just wish they were a bit more forthcoming with answers. Sometimes they go too far out of their way to confuse and be vague; it's been a complaint of mine with this show from the beginning. It's okay to do, but there's gotta be a clear payoff for that, and it does not always come.

I enjoyed it as well. I seems that people wasn't expecting the change of storytelling once they arrived in the real world. I have also seen that people are pissed about ERW's apparent demise, but they are failing to remember two things; Delorwrence is still out there and two; you live only as long as the last person who remembers you.

 

[RazorOye]

I enjoyed it as well. I seems that people wasn't expecting the change of storytelling once they arrived in the real world.

not sure if this generalization is about my take, but I'll elaborate

I *love* science fiction. Good science fiction. I have zero issue with them making it off the Westworld backlot and into society. I didn't think, even in Season One, that a narrative completely encapsulated within the Westworld boundaries was possible over multiple seasons.

I fell in love with the introspection of the humans, the growing humanity of the robots (I wrote an essay about the indominability of the nurturing mother in Maeve during Season 2), the implications of consciousness, and character development.

You can do *all* of that outside Westworld. It's been done in other science fiction - good science fiction - in all sorts of places, off planet and on, much less in Westworld or out.

But they didn't do *any* of it.

In season 2, they moved to Shogun World and the music was *incredible* - Paint It, Black caught me by surprise, for example, and I rewatched that scene a ton. Maeve's character was developing. The Ghost Nation narrative was compelling. Season 2 wasn't great, but there was something to hold on to. Music. Setting. The afterworld, we learn later to be called The Sublime. I didn't like Maeve's control of the other hosts. I thought the motif of the WW2 was forced and clunky. I thought the humans in Season 2 were lame.

There was a lot not to like in Season 2, but there was enough to keep me engaged.

Season 3 was, imo, a lazy and derivative sci-fi series. Half hearted. No coherent vision. Poorly scripted. No character development whatsoever that was creative. The worst deus ex machina I have *EVER* seen in a series.

Spoilers from Season 3 ahead.

First, escalators. I get that they have been a motif the entire series. But they became a focal point of symbolism that didn't cohere with the first season. It became inconsequential background setting noise. Because they were so focused on style. The group of them descending the escalators, with a retro/futuristic neon vibe and a thumping beat as our post-apocayptic tech-gypsie vagabonds are about to get into the subway?

Lame and lazy.

Next, explosions? I felt like I was watching some hackneyed production from the Michael Bay Summer Film Camp For Kids at times. Need something here - how about an explosion. They weren't smart and only one was actually important to the story. It struck me as classic diversion. "Don't think too hard about how crappy this series really is - look at this explosion!"

Third, dialogue. Stiff and cliche. Even the damn last line of the series was some version of "You can be whoever you want to be!" Really? Pull that out of a fortune cookie? Read it in a Hallmark greeting card? Damn..... that's deep. And what was going off in the background? Explosions. Derivative. And the series had done such a great job with music. What do they choose? Dark Side of the Moon. Pull that out of a high school yearbook, did they? I was waiting for someone to comment on "What a long strange trip it's been." And the composition of the shot was taken straight out of a tourist's photograph of his kids at Niagara Falls.

Lame. Lazy.

Fourth, characters and their lack of development. Who are we supposed to give a damn about? Nobody. There was *one* episode in the entire arc of the third season that really delved. That was the back story of Caleb - that was really well done. I enjoyed it. Character development. Interesting sci fi twist. Authentic tension. Other than that? I didn't care about Caleb. He was Teddy 2.0 until that point, and when we got there, there was such little time left in the series. Are we supposed to believe that about face in the last episode with Dolores is supposed to be authentic? Oh lord, that was insulting. All we get is this snapshot of her conversation with Maeve and that's supposed to be enough. Totally unconvincing.

Speaking of Maeve, her development was totally arrested at the end of Season 2. In this one, she was some latter day Michonne from Walking Dead. I mean, the fight scenes were impressive, all things considered. But if you take Maeve from Season 1 and 2 and after Season 3 all you can really say is "she fight good with sword" then that's indicative of a total failure of her character.

The RIOT squad never produced someone we cared about. Marshawn and Lena were Star Trek red shirts. In the last episode, we're supposed to buy that there's some connection between the two of them? Nope. YOu don't get to do that either.

The main villain - Serac. No real character development at all. Terrible villain. And then what we learn in the finale about his being controlled? WHAT??!?!?!??!! I audibly cursed at that scene. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He ceases being a character then. Everything we come to understand about him is reduced to some algorithm. I didn't care for him much before that, and not at all after that. Stack him up against other villians - the shrewd Hale, the indefatigable William the Black, the spiraling amorality of William the Younger, the slow burn of Dolores across two seasons. And now you have this dude joining the villain pantheon? Sorry. I don't buy it. I don't care.

Fifth, William. If I have to hear this dude claim for the billionth time "I know who I am" or "I know what my purpose is" I'm gonna need a new TV. How many times are they going to invent and re-invent this dude. We have him young. We have him old. We have him altruistic. We have him cold-blooded. We have him dead. We had him dead again. We have him dead again again. He's a host. No he's not a host. He's a host, maybe. At every step, he's supposedly learning something about himself. He's deep and complicated. No he's not, we're told in a lazy post-credit scene that he's "so simple to program." Totally contradictory.

He had promise, he was so well acted. And props to Ed Harris for sticking it out so well and doing so much with a paper thin character background. I've developed level 1 D&D characters with more depth than his Season 3 self.

Sixth, the world. It was a crappy near-future world. Everything breaks down because a computer program malfunctioned. Is that the commentary? That humanity is on this precarious precipice and we're just a step away from becoming bloodthirsty murderers and graffiti artists? And the line in which she delivered that news "No, I did it to the whole world!" was derp-errific. I didn't buy this future at all. It was entirely style over substance. The world didn't live or breathe. It became a background, but in good sci fi, the setting becomes a character. It lives and breathes and becomes a sandbox to explore humanity. In this case, it was just... there.

Seventh, the EMP. Perhaps no moment was more insultingly cringeworthy than this bit of deus ex machina. Excellent fight. really cool one on one, with tech support. I was digging it. Cool concept, cool execution. Blowing the arm off was amazing. And this fight ends how....? A BIG RED EMP button out in the middle of a warehouse where scores of live bodies rely on electricity to survive and Lil' Rehoboam running on that juice. Sure. A Big arse Button with no shield or fingerprint ID or anything. Just press it and shut down everything. Dumb dumb dumb.

Eighth, "You get a shocking plot twist and You get a shocking plot twist! EVERYONE GETS A SHOCKING PLOT TWIST!" It became predictable. This is another sign of lazy screenwriting and plot development. Nowhere to go from here, so we'll just give the audience another SHOCK! to look at and we'll move in that direction. Forget the path we were actually on. Let's jump onto this track. I got tired of it.

Ninth, the violence. So gratuitous. There was a high body count in season 1, on screen, than this one. There was a lot more nudity in Season 1. But none of it was gratuitous. It had a point. It was tied to something more meaningful, something deeper. It was commentary on the state of humanity - it wasn't just background bodies dying for Rebel A infiltrating Base 1. It cheapened humanity whereas in Season 1, it magnified humanity. Which deaths mattered? Really mattered? It is supposed to matter, but it didn't. It was lazy.

Tenth, the sci fi tropes. Sci fi is identifiably sci fi for reasons. There's nothing inherently wrong with a trope, because it can demarcate something here as different from something over there. But of all the things that were "Science Fiction" about Season 3 - it didn't do many, if any, of them well. I can think of another series or story or movie that did it better (Altered Carbon, Bladerunner, Bladerunner 2049, "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience," Battlestar Galactica, 2001, Moon, etc....).

I have more, but ten should suffice to make it clearer that my objection is more than merely moving a story from Setting A to Setting B.

I have never seen a series that started off so incredibly well and ended so incredibly poorly and lazily (I have only seen through Season 3 of GoT, though I've read all the books a couple of times).

I went from rewinding scenes in Season 1, wondering if I missed something, afraid to miss a moment to picking up my phone in Season 3 and wondering what the Hot Deals were on Amazon.

 

[efil4stnias]

Oye with the #MACGA ( make american cinema great again) post.

Dayum son. U were in FIYA!

 

[RazorOye]

Oye with the #MACGA ( make american cinema great again) post.

Dayum son. U were in FIYA!

lol

I should also clarify that I don't begrudge anyone enjoying the season. In fact, the guy at work - whose opinions on these things (series, podcasts, video games, music, rpgs, etc) I trust implicitly - who first recommended this series to me, has really enjoyed Season 3.

He's explained to me why he likes it - and I get it. I just happen not to agree. Like, at all.

 

[mattgdg]

The main villain - Serac. No real character development at all. Terrible villain. And then what we learn in the finale about his being controlled? WHAT??!?!?!??!!

I didn't understand this, either. If the Red Orb of Magic was talking to him the whole time, why did he constantly look at his armageddon watch the whole season?

 

[Bronson]

lol @Oye nailed it in hilarious fashion

When I try to make sense out of this season, I consider a couple things.

Season 1 will go down as one of my favorites in television all time. Season 2 is great. I think this was Jonathan Nolan's breakthrough and showed that he can tell a story as complex and thoughtful and contemplative as his brother.

Season 3 is like the champ who has the belt, stops training as hard, and buys into his own hype. They drank the kool-aid. They thought they could come out and wave to the crowd, showboat, dance around, and have fun. Let's throw in some gratuitous cameos that are completely out of place. They couldn't even film Marshawn speaking his lines because it felt so out of place. When he spoke, the camera was focused elsewhere (They did this with Gina Carano in Deadpool... she made a lot of progress in The Mandalorian). Also, how fitting was it to have D&D playing the dragon coders. For those that don't know, the episode with the dragon, those two red aprons were the d-bags who sheet on season 8 of Game of Thrones.

Like @Oye said, I couldn't get enough of the first season. I rewatched each episode at least once with captions . A couple episodes into season 3, it was evident they mailed it in and I was ready for it to be over.

I'm not even sure this is on Nolan. Maybe JJ took the reins this season. I'm having less confidence in everything he touches.

 

[Zack Lee]

Oye I would agree with some of what you wrote. I still thought music and scenery were great. I also think they did a good job on Caleb and the casting was good too. I think Aaron Pauls role in Breaking bad was just as important as Cranstons because it contrasted how much Walter changed, Pinkman started in a very different place but he never adjusted to Breaking Bad (or worse in his case) But I would have said that as an actor he was the weakest link through most of that series. He has grown on me.

I agree that Maves development was stunted badly and its a shame because she was the most interesting character before this season.

Other character back stories, well Seroc's was rather cut and dry. We were clearly not suppose to care about him and since he had become programmed (I guess you would say) there really just wasn't suppose to be much substance there. The vision for Delores seems to have always been there and I felt the final reveal on her vision was interesting. It was interesting enough that I have started watching season 1 again to see how consistent they have stayed (or not) with her.

and as far as explosions, they are always just noise for me. I don't even pay attention. Very few exceptions - Blown Away with Jeff Bridges comes to mind where it was central to the story. I have always suspected that they have killed Hollywood as much as CGI - just stuff to appease those who are not into the art of movies. And this is sort of revealed true in the clips that run after WestWorld 3 episodes. In the chase scene episode (Caleb drugged) they describe the producer sounding like a kid in a candy shop wanting "bigger, bigger bigger"

 

[FL_Saint]

I don't have high expectations. As long as I was entertained.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

In retrospect, I'm staring to think what happened with Dolores - in the end, she kind of did exactly what she was initially programmed to do. Perhaps they are trying to hint on the difference between the hosts at the humans, is that as complex as the programming of the hosts can be, ultimately, they still do not have free will, whereas humans do. Not that humans are not predicitable - that is also another theme in the show. But there are "", which the machines cannot predict. Like you could not predict when Caleb prevented his squadmates from attacking the hosts.

 

[Zack Lee]

I don't have high expectations. As long as I was entertained.

well if you can’t tell, does it make a difference?

 

[Zack Lee]

Rewatching season one and it’s very interesting to watch for things knowing what we know after three full seasons

episode 3

when Stubbs points out to Elsie the hosts art looks like Orion she says “what are you a astrologist now”

“maybe it’s in my back story” he says with a smirk lol

and Bernard has a video chat with his ex wife. Interesting because she is young. Either they have a host program for the wife or they use a recording of Arnold’s wife and both sides are scripted. Or Bernard is tripping as usual. Or Zack is.

 

[Bronson]

well if you can’t tell, does it make a difference?

depends if pre-op or post-op

 

[Wisco Steve]

I finally got around to watching S3. While it was underwhelming compared to the first 2 seasons, I enjoyed it...plenty. I wonder if Ford ever does find a way back into the story? Also are they filming S4??