Westworld

Tools    





The Adventure Starts Here!
yeah i thought about that 30 year thing aswell.
Another things ive noticed,if i remember correctly,is that hes always alone with them/the androids. Theres never any other guests around (like the main town where theres lots of people)
I noticed that too and thought that's the only way he could be a host. He'd be too volatile/dangerous to be left to his own devices around the human guests.

I find the murky line between the scripted hosts' plotlines and their ability to improvise a fascinating one. They've shown us Dolores starting her day virtually the same way each time, but yet there are subtle differences depending on what her father says, etc. That ability and dividing line is interesting... and important.



If I hadnt seen Anthony Hopkins in the tailer I wouldnt have been interested in this at all.



Oh!! This is an HBO tv series?! I thought it was a movie.

Actually Im alot more interested now, in fact ....... hell yeah!



The Adventure Starts Here!
I'm assuming that we needn't use spoiler tags once an episode has aired, but I do have some thoughts below that might feel spoilery if you haven't watched episode 3 yet...

Okay, let's deconstruct the opening credits a little bit ... now that I've paid more attention to them at the beginning of episode three ("The Stray").

Throughout the credits we see the muscle-creating machine that leaves a sort of white "web" when it's creating the hosts. But in the beginning of the credits we see it also "creating" a piano. And it wouldn't have to create the piano. They could simply use, umm, actual pianos.

So I started watching the credits with that curious beginning in mind. And of course in the beginning the piano is being played by a pair of hands. And, it's a pair of not-quite-finished host hands, but it's still a pair of hands. Meaning, it's not functioning on its own. Yet.

By the end of the credits, we see the piano playing itself (as a player piano does -- programmed, sure, but it *looks* like it's playing itself). Then in this episode, we see a host sitting at a piano in Ford's office. I keep coming back to the interesting parallel between the machine (a piano) being played by others (another machine, in this case) and then ultimately playing all by itself.

They keep focusing on the tabbed paper that a player piano uses to play the right notes. It's an early form of programming. It's a beautiful parallel and a lovely image every time they use it.

Also interesting in this episode: The maze obviously *is* a way for the hosts to eventually self-actualize (or whatever you want to call it). We're pretty sure now that Dolores is going to head in that direction, right? And I'm also pretty sure that the Man in Black (that's his IMDb name, BTW) *is* a host. He's obviously trying to find the maze because he wants to self-actualize too. But why would the little girl in episode 2 tell him the maze isn't for him? So I do still have a smidge of a doubt that he's a host. Is he, in fact, Arnold?

Right now, though, I think he is perhaps one of Arnold's creations and Ford is letting him go to see how far it'll progress. For whatever reason... since he doesn't seem to agree with Arnold's theories -- at least in front of Bernard, he doesn't.

Also also: I keep wondering if the name "Ford" was done on purpose, to remind us of Henry Ford, who gave us the assembly line and new ways to automate manufacturing.

ANYWAY... the show continues to live up to my (increasing) expectations. It's a good sign that, as soon as I finish watching an episode, I immediately think, "I'll need to rewatch this."



I like your interpretation of the credits a lot. You bring up a good point about The Man in Black. Makes me wonder if he could in fact be Arnold. Who before his death implanted his consciousness into this particular host and through him is trying to continue his work in bringing consciousness to the other hosts. So many questions.

I agree, I didn't realize how much I missed shows that left you wondering and intrigued well after watching an episode.



The Adventure Starts Here!
I like your interpretation of the credits a lot. You bring up a good point about The Man in Black. Makes me wonder if he could in fact be Arnold. Who before his death implanted his consciousness into this particular host and through him is trying to continue his work in bringing consciousness to the other hosts. So many questions.

I agree, I didn't realize how much I missed shows that left you wondering and intrigued well after watching an episode.
Ooh, I like that addition about the MIB being Arnold/his consciousness. If he's either Arnold or thinks like Arnold, then, is he trying to coax some of the hosts into self-actualization, to try to continue his work?

That fits in SO well with Ford telling us Arnold died. He died, perhaps -- his body, perhaps. But does he in fact still live on precisely because he began to see the hosts as real and therefore saw this as a way to achieve immortality?

That would fit in with Yoda's idea about a religion and the church steeple, etc.

Hmmmm... yeah, gotta rewatch this episode.



Yeah Im way late to the game, I didnt know this was a series or even airing (I dont read every thread) Gonna catch up on the series after finishing The Wire.



wow you guys are picking up on a lot of things!

I loooved this episode,even though i was expecting it to happen.
Turns out you guys were right about the man in black,he was definitely there to help her and trigger her conscious.
i thiiink maybe him being Arnold would be too easy,but him transering his mind or something,maybe.
along with the maze i think the ocean james marsden talked about plays a part of it- he talked about that before we found out about arnold,so i thought maybe MIB had found it and somehow gotten the "human powers" through that.
__________________
Britney is my favorite



Yeah Im way late to the game, I didnt know this was a series or even airing (I dont read every thread) Gonna catch up on the series after finishing The Wire.
we`re only on episode 3 and theres only a new episode once a week so it wont be hard to catch up when you do



The Adventure Starts Here!
Okay, this is an article with a fan theory flying around Reddit, so in some sense it's not spoilery. It's a theory.

But when I watched the video with the theory in it, I half-regretted it because I think it might be true. So, if you like fan theories from outside our group, have a watch. If you want to not have an idea planted in your head that could be true, then skip it.

SO... at any rate, watch at your own risk.

http://www.businessinsider.com/westw...-black-2016-10



The Adventure Starts Here!
Ah, I missed it last week then. And I'd be semi-delighted if something contradicted it. Not because I don't like it as a theory, but because I felt as if I'd just had something important spoiled for me. (As you may remember, I tend to avoid spoiler stuff like the plague -- about games, movies, TV shows, books...)

So, I'll be watching with this fan theory in mind...

But I still like my opening credits interpretation because I so *rarely* actually have insights into stuff like this on my own (which is odd for someone who fancies herself a writer).



I'm a little too distracted to delve into stuff (I just got around to watching the third episode last night), but that this point, I'm just taking everything I thought Ford was doing and transferring it to Arnold. If forced to guess at this point, I think he's really dead, with the caveat that part of his consciousness has been uploaded into select hosts, and lives on as the "voice of God" mentioned in this past episode. Whether or not he's really "in" there or just left remnants of himself, I'm not sure, but one of the two.

We got some pretty clear indicators that Ford isn't the humanitarian/idealist as far as the hosts are concerned, as I'd previously assumed. He's the one who wants to play God in a controlling sense, rather than a creative one. Arnold is the other half, and it would shock me zero if Ford was somehow responsible for his death, too.



The Adventure Starts Here!
If you can find links to places that contradict the Reddit fan theory above, I'd be interested. A few things do still confound me: the different Westworld logos, for one.



In the show itself, we see the people in the control room observing his behavior, which means it's all happening at the same time.

And only because that happened do I feel it's not spoilery (or anti-spoilery, or whatever) to say that a TV critic who's seen ahead confirms it isn't the same guy. I don't have the link, but it's on Alan Sepinwall's Twitter page.



FYI, I'm hearing people offer (convoluted, IMO) theories that say it hasn't been debunked. I haven't sorted through the rationales enough to see if it does, though I will say I think we're at the point where, if it is true, the level of misdirection involved has crossed that important line between Feels Clever and Feels Like a Cheat.

There are certainly nice little personality-based reasons to believe it, though, like the supposedly "younger" version being more interested in games and stories than his friend, who's just there for the revelry.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
this show is so good so far! nothing much to add yet that others haven't already covered, just wanted to chime in with my love of the show so far. i agree that evan rachael wood is a severely underappreciated actress.
__________________
letterboxd



The Adventure Starts Here!
In the show itself, we see the people in the control room observing his behavior, which means it's all happening at the same time.

And only because that happened do I feel it's not spoilery (or anti-spoilery, or whatever) to say that a TV critic who's seen ahead confirms it isn't the same guy. I don't have the link, but it's on Alan Sepinwall's Twitter page.
Ah, see, I hadn't thought of/remembered that. I may likely rewatch the first three episodes soon with this theory in the back of my mind, if only to personally debunk it as I rewatch.



The Adventure Starts Here!
Episode 4 Question (and I'll put it in spoilers, just because I can)...
WARNING: "Episode 4" spoilers below
How does Maeve have an actual bullet inside her? I assumed those guns were some sort of electronic sensors that made the hosts bleed when pointed at them... or something similar.

If they have real bullets, then why can't real people get shot? Makes me wonder about Maeve...


Also, I rewatched Episode 1 yesterday, along with some little 5-minute intro video that's also available with OnDemand. At one point, Jonathan Nolan is discussing various characters, introducing them to us. He comes right out and calls the Man in Black a "human guest."

So, unless he's just flat-out lying, I assume now that the Man in Black is actually human.

Some of the sound in the OnDemand Episode 4 I watched last night (after Talking Dead) was a bit muddy so I have to rewatch to get some of the subtleties in dialogue I probably missed.