Im not specifically speaking about the endings to episodes I'm talking about the individual events that were meant to shock throughout the show.So far the only two that actually succeeded in eliciting the desired emotional response from me was when the man in black forced himself on Delores and when that dark haired douche stabbed the beggar through the hand with his knife. All the other shock and awe events have fallen completely flat.
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Westworld - Live in Your World, Play in Ours - Sundays on HBO
- Thread starter RatskyWatsky
- Start date
Im not specifically speaking about the endings to episodes I'm talking about the individual events that were meant to shock throughout the show.So far the only two that actually succeeded in eliciting the desired emotional response from me was when the man in black forced himself on Delores and when that dark haired douche stabbed the beggar through the hand with his knife. All the other shock and awe events have fallen completely flat.
More_Badass
Member
I really don't feel like the show has been trying to shock at all. What other moments would those be?
Doublesith
Member
Hmm...
How about the guy getting shot through the face on the piano
Just finished both episodes, second time watching the premier. Chestnut is a lot more straightforward which is a good change of pace, but hopefully won't be the norm from here to the end of the season. I found Westworld, the park, a lot more intriguing this time around. The multilayered stuff(narrative, content?) woven in, we had an inkling of that with Teddy the "tour guide" last week, but now they've expanded on it in a really convincing way. Fun stuff, I didn't want the episode to end really.
One thing that didn't work was Mae's(is that her name?) story. A cliche reveal of the "real world". Flashbacks that felt bizarrely like they were out of 300; no sound except for modern music, slow motion everything, shots as moments. I felt bad they made that lady, who's been in a lot of good stuff, run around naked for that.
More Mcpoyle next week, right? We can't let him go so soon.
One thing that didn't work was Mae's(is that her name?) story. A cliche reveal of the "real world". Flashbacks that felt bizarrely like they were out of 300; no sound except for modern music, slow motion everything, shots as moments. I felt bad they made that lady, who's been in a lot of good stuff, run around naked for that.
More Mcpoyle next week, right? We can't let him go so soon.
More_Badass
Member
Well this disproves the whole underwater theory
True, but I assumed we were speaking about story moments. That was just a random death, not really meant to a shocking character moment/major plot point
Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
Space station
MrCunningham
Member
The majority of western sets were apparently created for Deadwood originally. No surprise that they got re-used in other shows as well.
Well off the top of my head
The scalping of that one outlaw.
The affair between the programmer and the HR Lady. Clearly that was intended to be a surprise but since we didnt really know either character well at all it fell flat.
The shootout and murder of the other outlaws wife in the small mexican style town for the secret entrance to the maze.
The madame's nightmares in which she is scalped in front of her daughter.
The affair between the programmer and the HR Lady. Clearly that was intended to be a surprise but since we didnt really know either character well at all it fell flat.
The shootout and murder of the other outlaws wife in the small mexican style town for the secret entrance to the maze.
The madame's nightmares in which she is scalped in front of her daughter.
These are just the ones I can recall right away but there seemed to be a lot of them in these first two episodes. Just frequent moments, some big others smaller, where the expected reaction seemed to be shock but due to the poorly developed characters at this stage of the show they failed to elicit the expected response from me.
As it is the only semi developed characters in the show so far are Anthony Hopkins' character and the Man in Black. The madame is just now starting to become a developed character with the insight into her "dreams." They've made some attempts to develop the programmers character but it never really clicked for me.
Basically the vast majority of the cast seems incredibly underdeveloped and many of the things that have been happening in the show appear to be trying to cash in on stakes that they haven't established for those characters yet.
Contrast this show with Game of Thrones where each and every character is delved into or established prior to the "pull the rug out from under you" moments. This development ensured a level of empathy and/or understanding from the viewer. Without that these moments would have largely fallen flat without the intended impact.
Granted this could be a result of many of the actors playing artificial beings and that is making it much harder t connect with or understand these characters. But thats one of the major challenges of this sort of subject matter and I feel like they aren't doing enough to address that and establish these characters early on.
Instead it feels a lot like LOST to me where the characters were just thrown together and a myriad of crazy shit happened. At first everything for that show was about all the crazy stuff and about the island and its weird bizarre events. As the show went on the characters themselves became more defined and the show started slowly revolve more and more around the characters, their motivations, their intentions and their actions instead of the craziness of the island itself. Westworld's world hasn't succeeded in drumming up that level of intrigue and interest from me so the fact that it also doesn't have much in the way of developed characters means I find myself disconnected and uninterested despite what seem like consistent points that are designed to elicit a reaction and capture my attention.
That's an old reference, I'm sorry. Sometimes the violence in itself is meant to be shocking. Spielberg didn't spend an hour sketching out who everyone on the boat was before he rolled the beach landing scene. That being said, I didn't find many occasions where the intent was to shock.
Eh perhaps you're right but if thats the case I don't feel like they've done a particularly good job of that either so far. For whatever reason these moments feel less like a build up and more like a cash out to me and thus far I dont feel like the show has banked enough emotional resonance to make those kinds of withdrawals.
"The affair between the programmer and the HR Lady. Clearly that was intended to be a surprise but since we didnt really know either character well at all it fell flat."
I can't imagine that was supposed to shock... who would that shock? We're two episodes in and have probably seen less than 10 minutes of each of those characters total. This is just teaching us about them. There isn't even any room for surprise. If the reveal happened at episode 8-9 and we saw repercussions or issues with them being in relations, then I can see it fitting your description. but yeah it doesn't feel that way to me
I can't imagine that was supposed to shock... who would that shock? We're two episodes in and have probably seen less than 10 minutes of each of those characters total. This is just teaching us about them. There isn't even any room for surprise. If the reveal happened at episode 8-9 and we saw repercussions or issues with them being in relations, then I can see it fitting your description. but yeah it doesn't feel that way to me
ClosingADoor
Member
Mr. Pointy
Member
Just thinking, if we had the technology to make a Westworld-style FFA theme park with androids indistinguishable from real people in present day, it wouldn't be set in the Wild West. It'd be a Star Wars theme park.
Yes, you could argue that its the same thing.
Yes, you could argue that its the same thing.
Can Crusher
Banned
Are we really supposed to feel danger for him though? I feel danger for the hosts when he comes around. I believe that to be the point.
They focused on the gun quite a bit so I'm thinking it can hurt guest, which is pretty cool. Some of the stuff the guests do to the host is disgusting, like stabbing that guy in the hand and him screaming out in pain. Having the hosts fight back should be good. Plus, it's good to see McPoyle as a non-psycho who we can relate to.
Part of me wonders what he gets out of the shootouts - he doesn't get hurt and doesn't make any attempt to dodge bullets, and the hosts are programmed so that they can never get the upper hand on him in any way, so I'm wondering what immersion he can have in the world when he doesn't feel in any danger and has spent so much time in shootouts where the outcome is inevitable. I'm not sure how I feel about it. If I was him, after spending decades(?) in the park knowing everything resets and there's only one way a shootout can go, I'd feel the experience is pretty empty. I suppose that's why he's looking for a deeper level, but I can't see what he gets out of the journey to that goal.
ClosingADoor
Member
The shootouts are just because he needs to get people out of the way. To get that prisoner, he needed the shoot the others. That group attacked him, so he shot him. He doesn't seek out the shootings, they just get on his path. Same as when you are under way somewhere in a videogame and someone starts shooting at you. You clean them up and move on.
There would probably be multiple areas set in different time periods.
Mr. Pointy
Member
Prequel movies, original movies, sequel movies and that Old Republic nonsense where everyone is a Jedi or Sith?
Norwegian Rudo
Member
Deadwood (and Westworld) shot at Melody Ranch which has been a set for westerns since 1915. It has been stated repeatedly that one of the reasons for no Deadwood movies is that the sets were torn down,
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
Why are you overanalyzing this so much? You mean Game of Thrones that starts off with deaths right off the bat or by the end of the episode you see
brother and sister fucking before brother throws little kid that does't listen to mommy out a window?
Westworld has a lot more to talk about in its first two episodes than Game of Thrones did. I don't know where this revisionist history is coming from. Also, I feel plenty of empathy for some characters, as do plenty of other viewers in the show. Just because you're not there yet, doesn't mean they haven't done a good job. That's why there's a difference between two friends in episode 2 in how much each give a shit about hosts similar to people on gaf who range all over the place on how they feel about them.
Good. Thanks.
shira
Member
In the Westworld movie the guns had temperature sensors so guests and hosts couldn't fire at a warm blooded guest. I'm not sure what kind of "science" is behind these HBO guns.
I'm thinking it's a non-Westworld gun maybe smuggled in somehow and it has no park safeguards.
Looking at the map of the facility posted above, the "Arrivals Monorail Terminal" is directly above the "Old Disused Facilities". It could simply be that the bottom levels have the old logo, and the newer top levels (everything above the arrivals terminal) have the newer one.
More_Badass
Member
A state-of-the-art facility for the super wealthy would keep its old logo in the place your arrival would see first? What kind of first impression is that?
Perhaps there's a front-facing logo and a separate logo for their R&D division.
Then why does the customer-facing viral site use the "new" logo? It's stuff like that which makes people wonder. If it's nothing and not intended to be anything, I don't think a show like this would design two very different logos and use them in a confusing way without explaining it immediately. It's meant to feed speculation and there's probably something up with it.
True, just trying to eliminate the simplest explanations!
BattleMonkey
Member
Set was used for an ep of Terminator TV show too from what I recall
No we aren't, they are making it clear that he's not afraid and how the bullets bounce off of him. Like the nightmare sequence, the robots are the ones who are being terrorized by this man. We are not supposed to feel danger for him, the show is trying to humanize the robots and how they are treated, the gunslinger is being a villain. They are flipping the movie, instead of a robot terminator gunslingers going after guests, you have a human guest terrorizing the robots.
He's a villain.
These Westworld figures are accumulated numbers (two showings plus streaming), the GoT number is of its first airing. This seems to be a sharp decline, as the first ep got almost 2 million viewers in its first airing, but the decline is probably mostly due to the debate and the fact that the episode was up several days earlier. We'll see how it fairs this weekend...
Strangely for HBO they have yet to renew the show.
The Illiterati
Member
The second episode featured No Surprises by Radiohead being played on the piano. It's only immersion breaking if you recognize it, I guess?
The player piano tunes are pretty neat, but I also found the more overt use of modern covers distracting, like Paint it Black (yeah I know I'm in the vast minority).
How does it disprove the underwater theory? That still sort of matches what I figured, if it was all under a giant dome somehow.
Though the shape of the upper part of the facility looks like a space probe. It also seems distinct from the lower sections, as if they were built at a different time.
It's definitely
him. Been coming to the park for 30 years - catastrophic failure 30 years ago. Not a coincidence, they could have said 25 years or whatever if they didn't intend for those things to match up. My money is on the "friend dies" theory. His buddy is an asshole and we're going to watch him get what's coming to him.
Norwegian Rudo
Member
One of the documents on the customer site talks about satellites. There are no satellites underwater.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
No, this was true for me in the pilot as well, where I was trying to remember more what the song was than actually watching it.
Had no issue with the second episode though.
I'm also not sure whether I love or hate the simple theme for this show. I love that it's there, but 'get out of my heeeeeaad' also applies.
More_Badass
Member
If it is some underwater dome, then the Mesa Gold being a decompression chamber doesn't make sense given its position on the map
tiredheadcrab
Member
No chance it was referring to satellite facilities? As in remote branches of the company, but not specifically in space.
Also, people keep mentioning the buried gun being dangerous. Theoretically, any of the guns in the park can harm guests, right? They just have to be loaded with real bullets, instead of the simunitions.
Did the gun seem relatively recently buried, or could it be something that was discarded/lost 30 years ago, and she's now remembering it?
pedrothelion
Member
There's no time travel. They young MIB storyline is set 30 years ago, the show just hasn't overtly told us this yet.
Come to think of it, Jonathan Nolan wrote the original short story that Memento was based on, which uses a similar narrative device (cutting between two time periods whose relation to each other is unclear).
tiredheadcrab
Member
I'm confused.
More_Badass
Member
Flashbacks
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
No, just people thinking they've seen something that isn't there. Hopefully ep 3 shoots this down.
The theory is that the show is cutting between current events and flashbacks, but not being explicit about which is which. This is made possible since the hosts don't "age" ... but I'm not sure that I buy it yet. How does this square with the noticeably more rudimentary Old Bill? What I mean is, why would the park of 30 years ago be so exactly similar?
Wow I didn't even think of that and there have been inconsistencies in scenes that could explain why