Westworld

Yeah, that's a good theory, too. I'm not sure which I find more likely (this or the thing I put in spoiler tags). Both are very intriguing. The other thing is way more ambitious, but kind of out there, too.

Yeah, forgot about the snake. I think that settles it.

There was a line earlier about someone asking him why he wasn't getting approval (when he was yelling at the girl for the design of the Native American chief), and him saying he (Hopkins) didn't really care or pay attention any more.

Yeah, the girl thing was genuinely surprising. I was pretty sure he was fooling himself with this "deeper mystery" stuff, but maybe not. Part of me's intrigued, for obvious reasons. Another part is disappointed, because when there really is something like that going on, the odds that it won't be disappointing when it's finally revealed are pretty low.

I liked the bit at the end, with the possible introduction of a church/religion. It kind of correlates to what Ford said to Sizemore, about his creations showing who he is. I think this steeple shows the viewers who Ford is and how he views himself. As a God-like figure. That's my take on it for now. I also really liked that they gave a glimpse into another host's previous life and hope they do this with others. I have a feeling we'll see Teddy's story in the coming episode. As for the kid, not sure if he's supposed to represent Ford as a child but if so I doubt he represents a bad time in his life. Ford is all about the wonders of life and I think if the kid represents him, it represents his innocence. The first discussion he has with a colleague is about humanity's accomplishments and how he feels that it's all done for, there's no more to do, in other words no more sense of wonder and awe. A child is the example of innocence and a time when everything is awe-inspiring and I think he misses that about life in general.

So, are we sure that the hooker's "memories" are actually previous builds she's remembering? Meaning she was not even a hooker in a previous build, but was instead a settler/prairie woman with a family and had that ripped away from her during that narrative (or, by at least one newcomer/guest)?

I guess I half-wondered if these "memories" coming back are, in fact, being done on purpose by Ford (or someone else), in order to make them more human in that way. (More than one character has already said something like, "In our suffering is when we are most human.") I'm still trying to figure out which of the many glitches we're starting to see are intentional on someone's part (including the hooker not being properly in sleep mode when they were operating on her).

As for the narrative-writer saying that Ford no longer cared... well, obviously he was wrong about that.

I'm also trying to figure out why Ford (or whoever else knows about the Man in Black and allows him free rein) lets the Man in Black do so much damage that they have to take care of. Or any guests, for that matter. Sure, we see them asking Christian Slater a few questions about his psychological past as he's just about to enter the park, but wouldn't they have done all that before taking his money? Seriously, bad timing on the screening process, folks (except that the viewers needed to see it).

And based on some of what we've seen some of the guests do already, I wonder if their screening process isn't a bit off. The previous guest who is accompanying Slater seems like a terrible person. And I realize they pad their fees to account for the carnage clean-up they have to do every day, but I'd think they'd try to screen out some of the more violent people.

Yoda: You have a noble track record of coming up with better endings and solutions to TV shows and movies than the TV shows and movies themselves. I might want to start avoiding your theories now so I won't be disappointed.

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Watched the second episode earlier and it was great. Don't really have any theories yet so i'll stay out of your discussions right now. I can tell already this is going to be a seriously emotional and disturbing show. It's crazy how they place you inside Westworld by showing you these traumatic events yet give you the full knowledge that they aren't real people and they aren't going to really die to make it easier to watch. Both the scene with The Man in Black terrorizing that family to find out about the maze, and practically everything that happened to the black host (forgot her name) were really messed up. Really good show so far.

In regards to the little girl changing modes and dumping info:

Very much like a video game reacts when a puzzle is solved or a set of requirements is met. Consider the conversation between Bernard and Dolores when he mentions heuristics. He is clearly showing us that the hosts themselves have heuristic programming, but I think we can also consider a set of global heuristics for the players (customers, whatever term you want to use here), as well. When a player completes a certain set of events a certain way, the hosts will change modes and do an info dump to push the player along to the next level/event set. I need to watch Chestnut again, but I think those two scenes were right in sequence, or close to it. I would take that as a clue to as to what is going on as far as the stuff under the hood of the world/game. This may also be what the secret conversations between Bernard and Dolores deal with. There may be more heuristic tampering with other hosts in play, by both Bernard and Ford.

Only weak link in the show so far is the writer character, IMO.

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I definitely agree on the writer character being the weak show link at this point. Completely caricature to me when I watch a scene with him in it. So, everybody just lets him completely abuse everyone else in the company at will? He doesn't seem all that important (to Ford, at least) to get that sort of leeway.

As for the little girl/info dump: I hadn't thought of a connection like that. Almost as if the Man in Black asked the right question to then unlock the girl's info dump. But did it have to be the girl to have heard it? Because it seems unlikely that he hasn't asked other hosts the same question or phrased it the same way before to other hosts. Did he just finally luck out? I guess I'm still curious about why he seems to focus on just certain hosts to ask about the maze... as if he already knows which of them would know and which would not, and why.

I'm also curious about the maze embedded in their scalps, which he uncovered by scalping the host in the pilot episode. It's probably not just a map of the Westworld area... so what is it? And has he been looking for it for 30 years, or did he come back specifically because something changed (for him? for others?) that makes him now set out on this quest to get to the bottom of things?

So many questions. So many *good* questions... Yeah, I'm hooked.

Sorry, no. I was referring to the woman who was setting up the William character before he entered. Giving him the choice of clothes and the option to take advantage of her. This was outside of Westworld.

Which to me, shows that some people in the control room are hosts too. Bernard or Theresa are my picks.

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I considered that area to be the sort of character creation area of Westworld, so I would say it is not outside Westworld.

I would though. I'm thinking Westworld is literally the WEST. The area they were in is more so in connection with the technicians area. These people that are helping them get dressed, they know what Westworld is. The hosts in the actual area do not.

Even if you do consider it part of Westworld, it more than opens up the possibility of hosts being outside of the "game" area.

You know, you're assuming she's a host because she avoided answering his direct question, "Are you real?" She never said either way. She simply answered, "If you can't tell, does it matter?"

And although I agree she probably is, and she certainly looks like a host in many ways (and she made herself available to him as a host would), I wouldn't rule out our assumptions being wrong. Just a thought. I'm in high-suspicion mode of just about every character right now, except Slater and his friend who just arrived.

Oh, I had a weird thought. I know the guests can't accidentally kill real people (other guests) because their guns don't work that way. BUT, Slater's friend jabbed one of the host's HANDS right into the table with a fork, I believe.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if that had been another guest (and it could have been), that fork would have done the same type of damage. So, how do they prevent that sort of thing? They guarantee guests that they won't get hurt, but everyone's intermingling in the park so much that it's not outside the realm of possibility for a guest to injure/beat up/poke with a fork another guest.

Again, just a weird thought I had.

My take on Westworld has been a little bit less sophisticated -- I was wondering if the women taste like rubber

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I thought she said "us hosts" later on...I'll have to rematch.

Right after he chose his hat, he opened the door of the room and stepped onto the train. It was a weird transition where the room didn't seem like a train at first, but then sort of became the train all of a sudden. They didn't show that area being directly connected to the tech area, while they did show it being directly part of and connected to the game world. Good point on the host (if she was a host that is) knowing about the game/meta portion of the world, though. We shall have to watch and see how it unfolds.

The main tech observation area seems to be right inside the park, anyway, as it sits right up in the side of a cliff in the landscape... so I think it is all directly connected and very close set together. Yea?

If they have omnipresent surveillance (as evidenced by the scene where they catch the Man in Black on camera after one of his killing sprees) then it stands to reason that they have rules or security measures in place to prevent such eventualities. Undercover security guards, threat of actual punishment for harming other guests - for all we know, they have smart items that are designed like the guns to not damage guests while damaging hosts.

Also, why do you keep calling that guy Christian Slater?

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I have only watched the first ep and quit reading in the thread where you guys posted on #2.

Really came here to post for Blackhole Sun. Great little egg there. Then I thought there has to be some connection, because they used Paint it Black. I have no clue what it means tho.

My thoughts and how I now see a long arc being possible for the series.

View Spoilers

WARNING: spoilers below

Short of the hedonistic aspects for guests and immediate profit for the corporation, I see the shadow conspirators forming a plan. Something along the lines of trying to create a perfect human replicant and the ability to assassinate leaders, insert repliee and control the world. This is a testing ground that is being funded by those it will be used against.

The bigger thought is the MIB. Are Rose Dolores(?) and he the proprietary versions (good/evil) that were discontinued for some reason. How is he manipulating the system. The fact that he couldn't be killed (at first blush made me think he was human, but you know better) means he has figured something out or is inherently different from the rest. Why aren't ones running the show addressing him, or even noticing him in the system?

Short of the hedonistic aspects for guests and immediate profit for the corporation, I see the shadow conspirators forming a plan. Something along the lines of trying to create a perfect human replicant and the ability to assassinate leaders, insert repliee and control the world. This is a testing ground that is being funded by those it will be used against.

The bigger thought is the MIB. Are Rose Dolores(?) and he the proprietary versions (good/evil) that were discontinued for some reason. How is he manipulating the system. The fact that he couldn't be killed (at first blush made me think he was human, but you know better) means he has figured something out or is inherently different from the rest. Why aren't ones running the show addressing him, or even noticing him in the system?

Production values are out of sight. This is why they don't show good movies on HBO anymore.

Oh my gosh! This is not even the first time I've confused Jimmi Simpson with Christian Slater! Geez. Ha! I'm an idiot.

I found the original 1973 Yul Brynner WESTWORLD movie on OnDemand last night and watched it. (Not a long movie, so it wasn't a big time commitment.) Crichton had a great concept that, I think, was poorly fleshed out in spots. Richard Benjamin is a terrible actor in this thing, and James Brolin was decent but neither one of them had any sort of real backstory to make me even care what happened to them. (I cared a lot more what happened to Dick Van Patten, and I'm not sure they ever actually told us.)

Anyway, I found the behind-the-scenes bits about the robots and the park a lot more interesting, except I kept laughing at the shots of various computer consoles in the control room. Half of them were solid computer DOS-type text, which was fine, but the other half were just geometric swirls of 3-D triangles or squares floating around the monitor. I couldn't tell if they were screensavers or just filler that the production staff thought would look high-tech and futuristic.

Brynner gave the only worthwhile performance in the movie, and I think the entire concept gets wasted because it just heads directly where you think it's going to head in the beginning, then trickles its way there at the tail end by slowing the action down to many, many minutes of an odd "chase scene" between Brynner and one of the main characters.

The good news is that I didn't learn a darn thing that would help me decipher where they might be headed in the new series. Ha!

So, smart forks in all the eateries then?

just watched the two episodes,it was pretty much what i was expecting-exept them starting over every day. I thought they lived as "normal" people inside the bubble,so the repetitiveness caught me off guard a bit.
i am loving the cast! i dont personally like A.H because he looks so much like someone i know irl whose a major scumbag.

i havent read through all the posts but i also think its down to a happening in his life,i also think they were regular humans prior to becomming a "machine!

i really loved the scene with the female cowboy/girl (?)-nice change up from all the other females who were either hookers or there to be taken.I also just loved in general how that scene was done.im excited for the next episodes..what day are they added? is it once a week?

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