101 - "The Original"

A_Ron_Hubbard

Director: Jonathan Nolan
Writer: Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy

ghm3

I was hoping to see written and directed by Sam Esmail.

303PamG

"The park hasn't had a critical failure in over 30 years." So, this is a resounding success for three decades; way too long of a wait for morality issues to come up.

ghm3

@303PamG I haven't seen the episode yet absent specific other info in it, not necessarily? It could very well take decades before the androids evolve to a point of becoming sentient. Maybe for 30 or whatever years they really weren't any different than machinery that looked human, but will eventually become self aware?

303PamG

@ghm3: excellent point. I was thinking of it as a giant IT shop with an incredible uptime rate.

JN101

DUDE!!!! Love it

DrKen

Eehhhhhh.

Not sure.

I'll give it some more time. GoT took me a few episodes.

zack

I'm in for the season at least. Real creepy so far but interesting.

Lannitik

well, I'm here. 
Interesting first episode. Somethings I really liked, the foreshadowing of the fly was a bit to heavy handed for me. They reminded us 5 times before the kill that at some point - she was going to kill a fly. 

darwinfeeshy

Love this show, I'm in.

I feel like Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is up to something with the "reveries" he's placing in the hosts. Maybe it has something to do with the "evolution via a series of mistakes" speech he gave. Seeing as how Ford is somewhat close to the hosts (like his chat with that decommissioned host), maybe he feels that they deserve the same opportunity that we humans had. 

Maybe there is some sort of emergent consciousness within all the hosts as a result of these reveries. I think that this is what Cullen was talking about as the "management's true goal", studying/creating AI.

As for the Man in Black, I have no idea what he's up to. Maybe his tampering is what is causing, or exacerbating, the situation.

A_Ron_Hubbard

That was awesome. As far as the thirty years uptime, I'm not troubled they're just running into moral problems now because they also mentioned Ford keeps making them ever more realistic. It could be this self awareness is an emergent property of their evolving programming.

I'm really intrigued by Ed Harris's character. I thought he was a host until they established he's not. I wonder if he's from a rival company out to steal trade secrets? He's clearly a part of the larger picture that the Head Writer was talking about, but is that some kind of military project? An experiment in population control?

Also, I'm really loving the meta commentary on the writing and production of Hollywood projects they're injecting with the creative tension in the writing room.

An incredible feat of world building in this first episode, I though. And wait for more!

Lannitik

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

I'm really intrigued by Ed Harris's character. I thought he was a host until they established he's not. I wonder if he's from a rival company out to steal trade secrets? He's clearly a part of the larger picture that the Head Writer was talking about, but is that some kind of military project? An experiment in population control?  

I think Harris's character is just someone who's done the scenarios one to many times and he wants something more out of it. 

darwinfeeshy

@A_Ron_Hubbard  

When can we expect the Westworld podcast?

A_Ron_Hubbard

Tuesdays.

HoldenGambles

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

That was awesome. As far as the thirty years uptime, I'm not troubled they're just running into moral problems now because they also mentioned Ford keeps making them ever more realistic. It could be this self awareness is an emergent property of their evolving programming.

I'm really intrigued by Ed Harris's character. I thought he was a host until they established he's not. I wonder if he's from a rival company out to steal trade secrets? He's clearly a part of the larger picture that the Head Writer was talking about, but is that some kind of military project? An experiment in population control?

Also, I'm really loving the meta commentary on the writing and production of Hollywood projects they're injecting with the creative tension in the writing room.

An incredible feat of world building in this first episode, I though. And wait for more!

Loved it. The turn that James Marsden was a host and not a guest really caught me off guard. And the acting in that episode was beyond good. Deloros' dad had to walk a fine line to make it seem believable and not hackneyed robot going crazy and he fucking nailed it. 

As for Ed Harris, I thought the implication was that he had been coming there for 30 years and the idea that he can rape and kill anything he wants is just boring now. Violent delights have violent ends. He's run out of the 'mundane' and needs to find that next level thing where I assume, he can create something of his own. I'd guess the next step is to destroy the world they live in. Maybe by leading a revolt or becoming a warlord or something. But I'm assuming they're setting up Ford to be a fallen God and Harris to be a fallen prophet. Just a guess from the themes they were setting up. 

CarnivalArts

I loved it. It's right up my alley. My least favorite plot is Ed Harris. Really hope he's more than just a psycho. Predictions: it's all taking place on another planet, and Bernard is an android.

TheEconomist

I think the Man in Black wants to push the limits of this world and see if he can 'break' it. I'm guessing he may take that circuit board scalp and show the other hosts to see if they'll wig out. He's clearly no longer interested in role playing. But I guess my only concern is you would think the creators would be aware of a 'super user' engaging in such divergent behavior. Perhaps he's just such a mega wealthy patron they let him run roughshod in the world.

I'm also super curious about what the guests code of conduct is and about the physicality of this world. The arena seems like a real enough place and isn't VR so if you go on a destructive rampage and burn the town down do you get booted and do they have to rebuild and repair everything per cycle? patching bullet holes alone seems daunting. Also if they let murder and rape fly what happens if a guest assaults (including sexually) another guest on accident or on purpose? Really fascinated to see how things get revealed and explored.

darwinfeeshy

Reminds me of that South Park episode where they go to that "Living History" town that's getting robbed.

voodoorat

Not sure yet but man it sure was pretty.

CretanBull

A_Ron_Hubbard said:

That was awesome. As far as the thirty years uptime, I'm not troubled they're just running into moral problems now because they also mentioned Ford keeps making them ever more realistic. It could be this self awareness is an emergent property of their evolving programming.

I'm really intrigued by Ed Harris's character. I thought he was a host until they established he's not. I wonder if he's from a rival company out to steal trade secrets? He's clearly a part of the larger picture that the Head Writer was talking about, but is that some kind of military project? An experiment in population control?

Re: Morality, I think the implication is that along with the evolving programming, some of them have gained access to their prior selves (and accumulative knowledge) and that's triggered some form of independent thinking or self awareness.

Re: Ed Harris...I don't know what to think of him yet either, but I don't think he's conventional guest (why would they continuously let him back in if he's causing problems, why wouldn't they pull him out if he's doing this for the first time?).  Is it possible that he's an evolved host who became self aware long ago and stayed hidden, perhaps by breaking free of the simulators control and 'losing' himself in the matrix?  He's clearly an independent thinker who's looking for answers (that I assume a guest would know and/or find out in the real world if they were curious).  Given the tech/VR nature of the simulation, my hunch is that he's meant to represent some form of virus.

Freddy

Ummm yeah. What everyone else said. Fucking great start to a series.

Elisa

As a sci fi fanatic, this is my thing.  Love the theories so far on the board.  Love that the show is very cerebral.  Looking foward to the podcast.

Degausser24

Just finished the first episode. I enjoyed it a lot I'm definitely intrigued.

Few thoughts:

I love the old timey rendition of black hole sun playing in the saloon. nice touch. Also the orchestral paint it black. If this show is going to take modern music and do it in old west style for the entire series, I'm all in. love that choice.

I like the fact that the show played with our expectations, having the character we assumed to be the Yule Brenner character actually be a human guest instead of a replicant/robot/whatever they are.

I'm getting a lot of strong thematic jurassic park vibes in the best way. I hope they slow burn that element of it. I am curious what the human stakes will be, because as of yet the only human character we spend a lot of time with is Ed Harris's character who can definitely get murdered by a cyborg for all I care.

It'll be very interesting to see if Dolores becomes a Yule Brenner type character.

ghm3

It seems like the character Ed Harris is playing has been there so much that he's disaffected and wants to see how the sausage is made. What's puzzling to me is why the Westworld company or whatever would permit this; is he really an employee? Some sort of stress tester or something? 

He said he's been going there for 30 years and the lead programmer said that there hasn't been a critical failure in 'over' 30 years, makes you wonder if we're meant to see the correlation as a hint or if it's just a red herring.

Hatorian

HBO shows always have some great instrumental tracks.

Leftovers had an awesome version of Nothing Else Matters and now Westworld had Paint it Black

matts

Degausser24 said:

I love the old timey rendition of black hole sun playing in the saloon. nice touch. Also the orchestral paint it black. If this show is going to take modern music and do it in old west style for the entire series, I'm all in. love that choice.

I completely agree! It took me a minute to catch it with Black Hole Sun, but I loved it. I'm hoping they keep it up, I'm all in on it as well.

Degausser24 said:

It'll be very interesting to see if Dolores becomes a Yule Brenner type character.

Yeah, I thought it was definitely an interesting inversion of my expectations. Going into this show, I would have guessed that Ed Harris would be playing the Yul Brynner character. I hope they take that route with Dolores, especially given her history of being the oldest host in the park. She's seen some stuff, man!

alexander.klassen

That was fantastic and engrossing, but I do wonder if they're going to be able to keep the quality up high enough to distract from nitpicking the details. The practical operation of the park - how they keep people from hurting each other, how Ed Harris is able to perform an autopsy seemingly off-radar, etc. still seems a bit murky to me. And I agree that the fly swatting was a bit too much. But I will gladly watch Wright and Hopkins philosophize about A.I. for as long as I am able.

Luke

@A_Ron_Hubbard I think the purpose of the scene where they found Anthony Hopkins and the old cowboy robot drinking in cold storage was the establish that the newer models that looked and acted "realer" were a fairly new thing.  There was a throw away line in there about how the old models "could be found out with a handshake" or something like that.  The old man did move a lot more jerky.  I think this is supposed to be the hint of why now after 30 years this is all of a sudden a problem of the robots just getting a bit too real.  

The only difference between the old man robot and the female lead is that the female lead has been killed/rebuilt so many times she has all new parts.  They are in actuality some of the oldest hosts in the park.  I think you are right about the emergent intelligence thing.  The entire theme of the "reveries" plot is that by allowing the AI to access previous lives it is breaking the part of what seems to be the main shackle on the AI.  The fact that anything that alludes to the simulation being fake is a dream.  It seems to me once the robots realize it isn't a dream, the humans will lose a good amount of control they have over them.  

KingKobra

Really enjoyed this episode, looking forward to the rest of the season. I thought they set up things well enough and the hook at the end sealed it.

Dummy

Hatorian said:

HBO shows always have some great instrumental tracks.

Leftovers had an awesome version of Nothing Else Matters and now Westworld had Paint it Black

I also loved the piano version Black Hole Sun

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.