WestWorld: ...Where nothing can possibly go worng!

this wasn't terrible or anything but if there are any riffs left to be had on "ai-becomes-sentient" i don't think they're coming here.

they kept pushing back the release, maybe they have been editing the hell out of it

IIRC HBO wanted a more expansive/solid game plan than had been prepared re: the overall plot and future seasons, which set them back 6-9 months or so. Not at all unreasonable considering the investment.

so was ed harris's scalp map a way to the computer room

or maybe a path to where the rogue bots hide

I assume the map is like the secret of the lost woods in Zelda; the Delos game worlds can't be exited by just riding off into one direction or another (they mentioned nobody's found the edge, right?) but you can hit the boundaries by following a specific pattern, whether you intend to find game HQ + host storage or any other "off map" location.

good theory!

You'd have to be some pathological rich fucker to play this enough times that trying to ride off until you hit the edge would be a goal during a trip. Maybe that is what Harris's character has become.

Oh I thought that was clear that that was exactly what he was

Didn't people escape from one World set up into at least one other in one of the 70s films?
Technology and expectations of technology have probably changed massively in the interim though.

2nd EP is up on HBO's streaming platforms

You know, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, the is the theme park where the Pirates of the Caribbean try to eat you. Which was probably a Westworld reference to begin with.

i thought this was pretty good. kept me going at least. great cast!

the physical character work for the malfunctioning hosts was great and really pretty unnerving, esp louis herthum (the dad) and michael wincott (the old bartender in the basement). i'm kinda hoping the show lets wincott stick around, i've always liked that guy.

funny tho in a world of 'big data' the menacing conversation between the manager and the young writer seemed pretty obvious. what does management get out of this? idk endless data on what people like to eat, watch, kill, fuck etc

You'd have to be some pathological rich fucker to play this enough times that trying to ride off until you hit the edge would be a goal during a trip. Maybe that is what Harris's character has become.

― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Thursday, October 6, 2016 11:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I thought that was clear that that was exactly what he was

― Anacostia Aerodrome (El Tomboto),

i thought they were setting ed harris up to be the detective trying to uncover the mystery (AKA the avatar of the viewer) and/or save the robots from their plight?

industrial espionage maybe

yeah I dunno I think he's more of a seeker, having decided that there's something deeper than acting out hero/villain fantasies
whether that's using the simulacrum of the world that's in robot form to find human truth, or finding the meaning of artificial life is yet to be seen

that's the ~deep thought~ stuff that I'm assuming with be telegraphed very obviously -- the androids approaching human, humans returning to the well of simulation in the hopes of finding what being human even means

took a sick day from work, sorry for any incoming trite thoughts coming from cold medication and Westworld rewatching

if i didn't know better i'd say the character could be a commentary on the psychosis of trying to find the outer limits or glitches in any game; he's the "x0.5 A presses" guy

yeah, possibly unfortunately crossed with the people on LOST who kept turning over rocks looking for secret maps

If you'd given me five minutes to come up with my most withering parody of a johnny nolan jarjar abrams joint there's a good chance it would open with a v.o. saying "have you ever questioned your reality"

yeah it needed some better dialogue for that stuff. playing shrink to 19th century people as a framing method for getting diagnostics on a robot is a fun li'l writing challenge.

i miss milch :(

had my issues with the pilot but crazy old dad robot quoting shakespeare and freaking out was genuinely unsettling/good though

whoever that guy was he's a pretty good actor.

When they said he was quoting from his old modules I started hoping that at some point a cowboy will glitch and start screaming about an incoming asteroid field/orc horde, loads of AI prostitutes freaking out wondering what orcs are

Nice to know I'm finally getting to see a big-budget show with a soundtrack inspired by Richard Cheese & the Moog Cookbook

LOL at the old-timey Radiohead. Second episode better.

Is there a background database around that says when this is set and how many Worlds there are or anything.
Currently having to skip back to see how the Roman Polanski guy apparently steps through a door from the resort (presumably real) world onto a moving train.

Interesting move to introduce the (human) point of entry / audience surrogate, if that's what he is, in ep 2. Also unexpected that he's a McPoyle

I'm really enjoying this so far. Most of the puzzle-box shows since Lost have too sloppy or self-conscious about their mysteries, but this was fun. The Ed Harris sequences in the 2nd episode were all really gripping. And it's glossy and distracting enough to ignore how boring the dialogue has been so far.

i need to try this more seriously but even a glancing attempt suggested this is another sexploitation heavy series and i am fucking tired of this shit.

leigh alexander had some good tweets about his as a pretty brilliant critique of gamers and video games

for once I want to skip all the analysis and I'm just curious about this new story that Hopkins's character has created

w/r/t sexploitation: i read an article with the writers/producers where they made it pretty clear that an interrogation of exploitative violence (sexual and otherwise) is very much the whole point. might end up being a case of having their cake and eating it too, but i'm hoping that they take it seriously

Currently having to skip back to see how the Roman Polanski guy apparently steps through a door from the resort (presumably real) world onto a moving train.

i'm not entirely sure about it yet, but i'm thinking that westworld is VR and by the time he was in the wardrobe he was already in the virtual world

ed harris's character's quest is apparently not to break the fourth wall of westworld but some sort of deeply-hidden storyline that was scripted but nearly impossible to do?

Interesting move to introduce the (human) point of entry / audience surrogate, if that's what he is, in ep 2. Also unexpected that he's a McPoyle

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, 10 October 2016 14:12 Bookmark

v disappointed he didnt meet the android pouring milk everywhere

[SPOILERS] episode 3 trailer looks fire though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKGXgS3Fl8

regardless that they making truman show guy who also looks like robocop do it, i literally cannot deal with the dharma initiative scalp map horseshit every synapse in my brain is having nam flashbacks

jeffrey wright bedroom twist was bad

argh harris is the man in black too i forgot

I'm glad someone else thinks Ed Harris is partially channeling Peter Weller

So, since the hosts can apparently get infections, I guess that answers another question I had - can you eat the synthetic animals? I'd assume so. And: do they charge you an extra fee for that?

can you eat the people, and are they any good with bbq sauce

they can eat each other, that dude who has GREAT STORY IDEAS included auto-cannibalism in his pitch, which lol

I was wondering about VR but they do keep spending time fixing what seem to be physical androids.

hopkins and the boy in the desert: i should watch it again; i couldn't tell if the boy was a host or not

but hopkins said he had a vision (?) of a town with a white church. i wonder if his next great storyline is to let the guests build a town, settle permanently (open world expansion pack is always building your own place right) (hbo to david milch: drop dead)

he tells the boy not to come there again and he like blankly accedes so yeah. it's unclear to begin with cos he says he's "on holiday" which doesnt scan as a period detail, but i guess it is

they are def hinting at guest/host stuff tho

didnt mib say something like "i've been coming here 30 years i was born here"?

i couldn't tell if the boy was a host or not

the way he dismissed him and told him not to go near that spot again seemed like a command to me, so i figured he was a host
xpost

i ~think~ MIB snuck in a qualifier, like "it's like i was born here"

cuz like the dude is clearly waaaaay older than 30yo

i was a little confused about the interaction with the boy, too -- thought the commands at the end made it clear that he was a host, tho

also: the gun that dolores digs up at the end --- might this be a "real" gun that can harm guests (ie MIB)?

OH MY GOD THE DOUCHEBAG MCPOYLE BUDDY ACTOR IS PAOLO FROM NIKKI & PAOLO OH CHRIST IN HEAVEN NOOOO

at the end of the maze is damon lindelof who turns direct to camera and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯s as mib tearfully deletes his thirty year event log and starts all over again from the beginning