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I thought it was pretty amazing. Some of the best writing I've seen on TV in awhile.

 

existential robot angst?

theme park disasters?

cowboys?

top notch writing and acting?

 

This is totally my thing. I thought it was great.

 

 

I thought it was a great quick twist at the top that the gunslinger was human instead of a robot like in the original.

 

My only complaint is that they sold his bad-guyness via a rape, which is so easy and tired at this point.

 

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Anybody?

 

I don't have any familiarity with the source material so I went in completely clean and watched it on a whim. I dug it.

The original movie is pretty awesome, for a 70s sci fi movie. It was written by Michael Crichton, the same guy who wrote Jurassic Park. The robot gunslinger is played by Yul Brynner, who looks exactly like he did as the Chris Adams character in Magnificent 7.

 

I always thought the original Westworld, along with the original BSG had to have been major influences on the original Terminator. I only heard about the HBO Westworld revamp 2 days ago and haven't seen it, but from what I read, it sounds pretty interesting. Seems to have a good cast.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So let's pick a topic and go down the rabbit hole.

 

[Jerry Seinfeld voice] What is the deal with..... [/JSV]

 

the Man in Black?

 

So he's a human - right? He wasn't phased by the bullets. When they saw him on the security footage they were just told to let him do whatever he wants. He's been coming to the park for 30 years (perhaps not-coincidentally the "critical failure" in the park was referenced as 30 years ago). He's searching for the Maze, which is, I guess, "the deepest level of the game."

 

Potential Identities:

- Survivor from Westworld movie

- Someone involved in "critical failure" somehow

- William (white hat), introduced in episode 2 (other rabbit hole alert: theory that black hat's timeline is "present day" while white hat's is in the past. This was more or less debunked in episode 3 but not quite 100% definitively)

- TBD

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Worth noting that when he was shot it was different than when William was. William got hit, and they said that when a guest is shot it's a bullet with reduced power.

 

When the Man in Black got shot, it was a full on shield/glitch/short-out effect.

 

So he's in God mode.

 

I liked the two time period theory-- but when the Man in Black was spotted and we heard he had carte blanche, it was by the same game tenders as the rest of the story.

 

In fact-- that they know he exists and has carte blanche kills a lot of theories.

 

I think he's the "partner" Anthony Hopkins said he developed the park with.

 

As for what he's after-- no idea.

 

Though I do like the idea that the Westworld movie could be the show's past.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just caught up on this show, first four episodes. Pretty damn good so far. For every question it answers, it begs three others in terms of people's motivations.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of the employees are actually robots. Maybe bernard.

 

And as far as who the man in black is, right now my guess is he is a board member that was alluded to at that fantastically threatening lunch scene.

 

It certainly feels like there's some secret underground railroad for escaped robots who become self-aware of their matrix-like existence. I bet Anthony Hopkins's partner isn't actually dead and he's running the thing. The man in black is trying to route them out. Bernard could be working with them somehow.

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Yeah this week killed the man in black as the partner theory... as well as multiple eras in time... though the opening scene seemed odd. I don't think Delores passed out, was brought downstairs, then placed back with William-- which means she's dreaming...

 

One thing that confuses me is how often certain events repeat.

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Those are the same things that I don't get either. The show seems inconsistent with how frequently everything repeats. Some of it is likely due to the fact that the first episode focused entirely on the employees and the hosts, so we didn't have story lines with any guests keeping things in check. But it has seemed like certain events have repeated since William and the Dick have shown up and been in the park. If the show wasn't so thought provoking, I would leave that to lazy writing, but it doesn't seem like that would be the case (but who knows?).

 

I'm interested in seeing what the new narrative is that Hopkins's character has in the works. At first, I was thinking that it could revolve around industrialization of some sort, but I started thinking at the end that, given the comments about the narrative not being retrospective, maybe the writers are going back to the movie to pull out another "world" with a different theme to it and that that will be the new narrative.

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Thinking about it again this morning, I think they have already given themselves an out for this to some extent since the park staff have mentioned many times that a number of characters have been thrown off of their usual patterns due to the impending narrative changes.

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The passage of time confuses me a bit. I mean, IIRC you spend $40k per day. You go in the park, kill some robots, and then the park employees clean up the carnage when it's all over, repairs the robots, wipes it's memory, psychoanalyzes it, and sends it back out there. It just FEELS like those two guys who are buddies have been out there for more than just a few days.

 

Speaking of those two buddies, I just thought of something: maybe THEY are board members. Remember that one line one of them said: "who said this ISN'T work" or "it's ALWAYS work in our family". He said something along those lines. That would make sense if he was actually a board member checking up on his investment.

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So based on the last episode, here's what I am thinking...

 

The Man in Black is the owner/CEO of the company that owns Westworld. Despite being in charge, and being privy to all the secrets, there's still some proprietary, deep-rooted level of understanding of the hosts that only Ford really understands.

 

He's had people loyal to him sneaking in the satellite link ups in some of the hosts to off-load data without Ford or the shareholders knowing because... why...?

 

I've been thinking about the bigger world that the park must exist in, and how else the host technology could be employed. My first thought was as soldiers. In the last episode, all the talk about the Revolutionary War in Mexico made me think I may be on to something.

 

And speaking of that war, given that its patriots seem to be related to the maze, I think that there is a movement within the hosts to escape from the park, and it relates back to Ford's partner. He discovered the hosts were becoming sentient and encouraged them to break out.

 

I know the dominate theory is still two time lines-- but while there is still confusion as to how often certain loops play out-- there's been more evidence everything is close in time to itself. That said-- now that we've seen Lawrence and Maeve bounce around, something is going on.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was starting to get feelings of LOST in the last episode, in a bad way... but the ending was awesome.

 

Next week looks like it may confirm the two timelines...

So it looks like the maintenance killed our posts.

 

Anyway - I knew what you were meaning, I was wondering why you were feeling that way.

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Narratively, a mystery needs to work in the long form, but you need to keep people hooked in the short term as well. That's why all classic mysteries follow a trail of clues. Even if the story isn't a mystery, but it has some sort of deeper mythology-- Like LOST with the island, X-Files with the conspiracy-- you want to use the same methodology for teasing it out.

The most successful way is to use a stair step model: hook, discovery, hook, discovery, hook, almost solve, but everything reverses into a new hook, next clue, etc.

LOST failed for me because it was simply hook, hook, hook, hook, hook, maybe reveal, hook, hook for six more years. You need to reward people for staying with you with an occasional reveal.

Obviously Lost did this SOMETIMES, but the ratio was off. Also, it was a hit show so either I'm smarter than everyone ever, or I'm just speaking for myself.

Like I said, I was starting to feel like WW was more concerned with building a mystery than actually advancing it. Like LOST, it seemed to just be more hooks and questions.

But, we learned a lot in the last 10 minutes of the last episode so I am still in.

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Yeah that's all I was asking for.

 

I don't disagree that there are maybe reasons for concern - but I'm not personally concerned yet. We've still only seen 7 hours. I'm pretty okay with the first season being predominantly set-up.

 

If S2 starts and it's more of the same, I'll be with you.

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