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Westworld - Live in Your World, Play in Ours - Sundays on HBO

H

Heckler456

Banned
Jack Scofield said:
My dumb nitpicky complaint for this episode: when the hazmat suits guys took the prostitute, EVERYONE around was a host. You're telling me there wasn't a single guest at the entrance to Westworld?

I'M DONE WITH THIS POS!

Not really. I love this show.
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I know you were half joking, but it's really not that far fetched. We know they have the ability to monitor where their guests are at any time, so all you need to be able to believe is for there to be able to be a point in time where there aren't any guests in the area. At that point, it becomes a self-fulfilling thing.
 
S

Solo

Member
I can't stress enough how rewarding it is to re-watch previous episodes with the knowledge we have now. It's amazing to see all the ways, both subtle and overt, that they've laid the groundwork for everything we've seen so far. Scenes or dialogue that seemed unimportant or innocuous at the time of airing now take on great meaning.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Solo said:
I can't stress enough how rewarding it is to re-watch previous episodes with the knowledge we have now. It's amazing to see all the ways, both subtle and overt, that they've laid the groundwork for everything we've seen so far. Scenes or dialogue that seemed unimportant or innocuous at the time of airing now take on great meaning.
Click to expand...
As noted by Vanity Fair, any scene with characters telling Bernard important information suddenly becomes chilling. Theresa tells Bernard about the board's concerns, and Ford is ready for her in that tense meeting in the restaurant. Elsie tells Bernard that she's alone, and she gets grabbed/killed. That whole scene with Bernard and Ford when he learns about Arnold for the first time is even more interesting; Ford's comments and mannerisms say so much.

People saying two timelines/William=MIB will be cheap and ruin the show, but I think after how expertly they handled this reveal, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt
 
S

Solo

Member
More_Badass said:
That whole scene with Bernard and Ford when he learns about Arnold for the first time is even more interesting; Ford's comments and mannerisms say so much.
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"What's troubling you, Bernard? I know how that mind of yours works".

Yes you do, Ford. Yes you do.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Solo said:
"What's troubling you, Bernard? I know how that mind of yours works".

Yes you do, Ford. Yes you do.
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I always found it weird why he would keep asking "were you with us in those days Bernard?" when it seemed obvious he knew the answer. It's such an awkward question. But it must be another memory check to make sure he's not turning Arnold.
 
P

Pooya

Member
So I take it unlike the hosts in the park that are frequently wiped, Bernard had his memory for all of these years to be able to function next to people. hmm
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
duckroll said:
I always found it weird why he would keep asking "were you with us in those days Bernard?" when it seemed obvious he knew the answer. It's such an awkward question. But it must be another memory check to make sure he's not turning Arnold.
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He seemed very glib, which I think is more about him about to commit a murder than it is testing Bernard. He's getting sweet, calculated revenge, and this displays how comfortable he is with it.

It's like a serial killer asking his tied up victim what they had for breakfast while they're sharpening their knives.
 
D

duckroll

Member
Arkeband said:
He seemed very glib, which I think is more about him about to commit a murder than it is testing Bernard. He's getting sweet, calculated revenge, and this displays how comfortable he is with it.

It's like a serial killer asking his tied up victim what they had for breakfast while they're sharpening their knives.
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No it's a running theme. He's been asking it since the first episode. It's one of the things he keeps saying to Bernard offhand every time they talk about "old" stuff. It really does seem like a diagnostic voice command, like the self-awareness test.
 
C

Chiaroscuro

Member
duckroll said:
I always found it weird why he would keep asking "were you with us in those days Bernard?" when it seemed obvious he knew the answer. It's such an awkward question. But it must be another memory check to make sure he's not turning Arnold.
Click to expand...

What looked like an senile misshapenning from an old guy sudenly becomes a clever check.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- Joe Adalian for NY Mag: Fall TV 2016: ’Tis the Season of Ratings Erosion

On Westworld:
HBO’s big bet on Westworld looks like it has paid off.
After a series of Sunday-night flops (Vinyl) and disappointments (The Leftovers, The Newsroom, True Detective season two), HBO went into the fall praying viewers would embrace its most ambitious series since Game of Thrones. So far, all evidence suggests viewers are doing just that. After launching with HBO’s best same-day tune-in for a new show in nearly three years, viewership has actually ticked up in subsequent weeks. Plus, the show is doing very well on non-linear platforms: HBO says a quarter of Westworld’s overall average audience of 11.7 million weekly viewers is coming from streaming on HBO GO and HBO NOW, while video-on-demand views account for 17 percent of the show’s audience. Just as important, the buzz around Westworld is quite loud, with the show’s intricate plots and mythology provoking heated online debate and inviting comparisons (both good and bad to ABC’s Lost). HBO ordered a second season of Westworld this week, putting aside concerns over its huge price tag (one insider estimates it’ll cost the network around $100 million for another batch of episodes) and worries about whether the series can maintain creative momentum. The decision suggests HBO executives are optimistic about having found a potential new signature drama.
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C

Chiaroscuro

Member
Another thing that hits me. MiB keeps saying that he once "opened" an host to see hoe beautiful they are inside. But wat if he is not speaking about butchering one, but "showing the other face" thing like Ford did with his boy host? Looks like something that woud have broke William...
 
C

Cornballer

Member
- THR: 'Westworld' Director Digs into the Show's Biggest Scene Yet
The sequence begins with Bernard and Theresa coming to the cottage. Even there, there's a slow boil of horror, from the moment Bernard grabs the lantern. There's a foreboding feeling that only builds from there — this increasing sense of dread.

It's very rare that you get the opportunity to develop scenes in that way, where you're allowed the moments to build tension in that way and without explanation, which is the way that it comes. Being able to build that sequence, from the moment that Bernard says at the elevator bank, "Which is why I need to show you something." There should be a trigger point in your mind, subconsciously, in that moment: "Okay, there's something going on." Hopefully you've planted it with the audience that there's something ahead. You're not quite sure where you're going. But once they first step out of the elevator and you realize he's taking her to the cottage, the fact that we don't jump ahead in the story and that we allow that to draw out and play out and we watch Theresa's face as she moves through the field and into the cottage… I was very excited to play that. And the shot where we reveal the doorway that leads down to the field laboratory was something we planned and prepared for quite a bit. There's a visual effect there and a little bit of camera trickery that was helped by the staging of Jeffrey. We collaborated on how to make that staging work. We were out of time and out of light at that location, and we had to rush through it. That was one take, that whole trick shot, at the end of a 15-hour day.

The scene moves downstairs, and this is going to be the final room Theresa ever walks into. In speaking with Sidse about the staging of the scene, she talked about early versions that were a bit more mobile, where Ford would be walking around the space. In the end, you settled on Ford being fairly stationary, with Theresa literally trapped in a corner. Why was this the right choice?

Tony had some ideas he wanted to experiment with. He has a very intricate and precise process for preparing for scenes with a lot of thought. His initial thought involved more movement, a little bit more of a corraling of the players with his movement. We had the opportunity to try it a few times, and we experimented for quite a bit of time with some variations, and Tony just felt — it really was from him — that the stillness, the specificity of his performance, would be diminished with movement. It needed to be very still. Honestly, he was trying to avoid a Hannibal Lecter approach, and he wanted to make sure that it didn't come across that way — that it wasn't a monster type of a presentation. I think what he gave was a very subtle performance, and very still.

It's very interesting that you say that, because it's one of the first things Theresa says in this scene to Ford: "You're a f—ing monster." I certainly feel that in this moment, that there's something very monstrous about Ford, where we're finding out that one of our entry characters in the show is actually a host. It's a horrible moment for Theresa, and I feel like you're on her side. Even if Anthony Hopkins isn't trying to play Ford as a monster, are you leaving room for the audience to be on Theresa's side? From her perspective, of course he's a monster.

You'll notice that in Jeffrey's performance, which I thought was spectacular… once he begins to get worked up, Ford tells him not to get himself so excited. He calms down, and all of the sudden, effectively turns off. It's a trigger line for him. You can feel in the room the temperature drop. The moment in which Bernard turns off, it's almost like you should see their breath in the air. Now it's two humans, face to face, talking about this power play, and she's cornered in the room. Yes, you would completely relate to her in that moment. But Ford… I feel like Tony gives a very powerful but very understated performance in that moment that maintains a character without being too completely far gone. But there is a monstrous and chilling quality to the performance in that scene.

Sidse talked about when Theresa tries to use her phone, and Ford glides up to her and whispers in her ear, that this moment wasn't planned. Is that how you remember it?

Yes, that wasn't planned. It was done on the day and it was fantastic to witness. It took some time to rehearse that. We spent quite a bit of time in advance rehearsing that, and rehearsing it on the set. We all wanted it to play a certain way. As a director, it's my job to have a point of view and a vision. But also to be able to have a certain level of letting whatever happens in the moment come across. It's your job to capture that. It was really important for me to allow all three of the actors in that scene to feel it, and to allow for them to experience that moment, and then just begin to corral it into a much more specific scene. I think the fact that each one of the three of them had the opportunity to play it out and talk through the moment and talk through the feelings they're having, we were able to arrive at something very powerful, with virtually no blocking.
Click to expand...
More via the link.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
The last 10 minutes of this week's episode were all payoff. The callback to the first part of the episode with the mention of a "blood sacrifice", the idea that this exact same thing has happened in the past, Bernard being a Host with the included call out right before to him not seeing the door. Add in the progress in Will's storyline, Maeve's insurrection, Delos' ruse. This show went from great to mind-blowingly awesome.

The odd cyclical nature of the entire show and thought on repetition leading to Host's breaking routines makes me think that most, if not everyone working there are in fact Hosts to give Delos the illusion of some control while Ford controls everything.
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Theresas whimper when Bernard does what does, knowing there's absolutely no way she could sway him. That shit made me wince.
 
K

Kraftwerk

Member
exob53vdxvxx.gif
 
D

duckroll

Member
Wait. In Episode 4, when Ford is talking to Theresa... something doesn't add up. He said that he had a bet with Arnold, and that they made a hundred hopeful storylines which he expected would balance out the negative ones. But almost no one took them up. So he lost the bet. But if Arnold died before the park opened.... how is that... possible. Lol.
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
duckroll said:
Wait. In Episode 4, when Ford is talking to Theresa... something doesn't add up. He said that he had a bet with Arnold, and that they made a hundred hopeful storylines which he expected would balance out the negative ones. But almost no one took them up. So he lost the bet. But if Arnold died before the park opened.... how is that... possible. Lol.
Click to expand...

They used a closed beta test before opening to the public? Possibly
 
K

Kayhan

Member
duckroll said:
Wait. In Episode 4, when Ford is talking to Theresa... something doesn't add up. He said that he had a bet with Arnold, and that they made a hundred hopeful storylines which he expected would balance out the negative ones. But almost no one took them up. So he lost the bet. But if Arnold died before the park opened.... how is that... possible. Lol.
Click to expand...

Well, you can still lose a bet if you are dead. He didn't say Arnold was still alive when the result of the bet was in.

They could have made the storylines before the park opened.
 
S

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Solo said:
I can't stress enough how rewarding it is to re-watch previous episodes with the knowledge we have now. It's amazing to see all the ways, both subtle and overt, that they've laid the groundwork for everything we've seen so far. Scenes or dialogue that seemed unimportant or innocuous at the time of airing now take on great meaning.
Click to expand...

I will be going back through the episodes with my wife, looking forward to it.
 
J

Joni

Member
duckroll said:
Wait. In Episode 4, when Ford is talking to Theresa... something doesn't add up. He said that he had a bet with Arnold, and that they made a hundred hopeful storylines which he expected would balance out the negative ones. But almost no one took them up. So he lost the bet. But if Arnold died before the park opened.... how is that... possible. Lol.
Click to expand...
He never said Arnold was able to gloat about his win. That realization might be driving a desire to destroy the park.
 
B

Burt

Member
duckroll said:
Wait. In Episode 4, when Ford is talking to Theresa... something doesn't add up. He said that he had a bet with Arnold, and that they made a hundred hopeful storylines which he expected would balance out the negative ones. But almost no one took them up. So he lost the bet. But if Arnold died before the park opened.... how is that... possible. Lol.
Click to expand...

Testing in "beta", I suppose. Same time Arnold was using the Remote Diagnostics Stations to talk to Dolores.

Kraftwerk said:
exob53vdxvxx.gif
Click to expand...
ac1c6edd93adfc298aeefe042d3428a2.jpg

How far we've come
 
W

Winterblink

Member
More_Badass said:
What's the tell? It's noticeably CGI?
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It's not noticeable at all as as CGI wall. But the way the camera moves you see it first as a wall with no door (way at the left of the shot), then the camera pans right, and when it pans back is the moment where Bernard responds with "What door?". It's quite clever, but for a brief second on initial viewing my brain went "Hey... that was a wall before right?"

Also in hindsight this explains how Ford suddenly appeared behind Bernard when Bernard discovered the cabin. He came in through the door that he couldn't see (and isn't visible to the audience).
 
B

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Winterblink said:
Also in hindsight this explains how Ford suddenly appeared behind Bernard when Bernard discovered the cabin. He came in through the door that he couldn't see (and isn't visible to the audience).
Click to expand...

Fuck! That scene made me question how Ford appeared out of nowhere
 
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