HBO's "Westworld", starring Anthony Hopkins/produced by J.J. Abrams
- Thread starter Ensign_Redshirt
- Start date
Looks like it was just speculation.
https://www.inverse.com/article/22190-futureworld-westworld-hbo-delos-management
Yeah, the idea of human beings becoming robots could loosely be argued to have come from the second film, as the existence of other parks than Westworld could be derived from the original.
Bernard as a Host had a tremendous dramatic and thematic weight, placing him uniquely between two worlds - he has identified for decades with and worked with human beings, seeing the Hosts as "others." And the writers earned that marvelous reveal by constructing his story as plausibly as possible - this is a guy, remember, who's never been outside the park. The leap from "we reset these robots every night and pull them in whenever they need repair" to "Ford went to his basement and built a perfect replica human being who's lived a life in the real world without detection" is a gulf they never tried to cross.
It's discouraging to imagine that they'd think it was a good idea to reduce that to a repeated "get a load of that" stunt as if this were latter day Invasion of The Body Snatchers.
Having said all that, I find myself wondering if Charlotte Hale in "present time" is really Charlotte Hale. Not sure why.
Bernard as a Host had a tremendous dramatic and thematic weight, placing him uniquely between two worlds - he has identified for decades with and worked with human beings, seeing the Hosts as "others." And the writers earned that marvelous reveal by constructing his story as plausibly as possible - this is a guy, remember, who's never been outside the park. The leap from "we reset these robots every night and pull them in whenever they need repair" to "Ford went to his basement and built a perfect replica human being who's lived a life in the real world without detection" is a gulf they never tried to cross.
It's discouraging to imagine that they'd think it was a good idea to reduce that to a repeated "get a load of that" stunt as if this were latter day Invasion of The Body Snatchers.
Having said all that, I find myself wondering if Charlotte Hale in "present time" is really Charlotte Hale. Not sure why.
Last edited:
That's true. He certainly has the advantage of seeing it from both sides, being a host who's also a staff member. Come to think of it, I think this season has seen him struggle with that, on doing what's he feels is right. He's one of the more sympathetic characters.
The thing about Charlotte Hale is...scenes from next week along with the sequence of events make it seem right now that she may have been a witness/participant in the events at the Valley Beyond which result in the drowning (and escape from the park?) of some Hosts. Yet in "present time," days later, she's given Strand and the other Delos people no real indication of that. Plus, for some reason we didn't get to hear Bernard tell her whatever it is she claims he said - we only get to hear him repeat it a few minutes at her command. Something doesn't add up.
Something is off kilter about those flashbacks. They could be flashbacks to a reconstruction of real events, rather than the events themselves-- testing fidelity, perhaps; or totally fabricated events, like Maeve and her daughter; or William misremembering, inserting "now" elements into "then" events. But something definitely was going on with his arm where the robot access point would be, and that was long before he killed his kid and started doubting his own humanity.
I think there's definitely going to be the continued theme of robots based on humans, and robots posing as humans.
Just if William turns out to be one of them, I think it'd be poor storytelling. Like if Baltar turned out to be a cylon.
William clearly thinks he might be a Host. But one thing we haven't seen from him is instantly drifting between time periods. His flashbacks are shot more like normal flashbacks in television, Bernard's are instant slipping without noticing. Not to mention William does not show any symptoms of leaking cortical fluid. I think what's really going on is William is experiencing delusions that confirm his suspicion he's a host.
Just if William turns out to be one of them, I think it'd be poor storytelling. Like if Baltar turned out to be a cylon.
William clearly thinks he might be a Host. But one thing we haven't seen from him is instantly drifting between time periods. His flashbacks are shot more like normal flashbacks in television, Bernard's are instant slipping without noticing. Not to mention William does not show any symptoms of leaking cortical fluid. I think what's really going on is William is experiencing delusions that confirm his suspicion he's a host.
In fact we haven't been given a single clue to suggest that he's not a human being. Some folks just want to win a guessing game.
One other thing that indicates he might not be a robot is that Ford speaks to him through surrogates rather than as a Pokemon-Go, like he does with Bernard and Maeve.
Evan Rachel Wood traveled down to Texas yesterday to try and help the immigrant families separated from their children by the Trump administration, including information gathering, donating supplies (apparently "certain organizations have not been given permission"), and raising awareness with local media and participating in a hunger strike.
Last edited:
To the viewer, due to everything being out of alignment due to the many timelines, everything's going to appear off-kilter. I think we're just missing a key piece of information that will make itself shown during the finale.
That's a great point. Not something one immediately notices but seems obvious in retrospect. I guess one could say he's the only one who doesn't really realize it due to his sanity unravelling. My mind keeps turning to his wife though. What would have driven her insane? I mean, other than his constant pursuit in the park.
Juliet Delos' mental instability was caused by alcohol, not anything inherently wrong with her brain.
As far as William goes, he's 100% human, but he's become paranoid and so lost in what he thinks is Ford's game that he doesn't know what's real any longer, and probably hasn't, honestly, since the night Juliet committed suicide. He came back to the park thinking that 'finding the Maze' would reconnect him with reality, and yet the only thing he's found is more disconnect.
As far as William goes, he's 100% human, but he's become paranoid and so lost in what he thinks is Ford's game that he doesn't know what's real any longer, and probably hasn't, honestly, since the night Juliet committed suicide. He came back to the park thinking that 'finding the Maze' would reconnect him with reality, and yet the only thing he's found is more disconnect.
So, who are the versions of Emily and William we see at the end?
The producer of the show explains it:
EW: Your Marvel-like post credits sequence with William and his daughter that brought us back to the horrifying James Delos fidelity apartment. My read was that Dolores printed out a version of the Man in Black and his daughter using the park’s secret guest data to leave them entombed in The Forge to do the fidelity test for all eternity and that scene takes place many years later. But that it doesn’t mean the Man in Black was a host previously or that he’s not still alive in the real world like we saw with him in the tent. Is that more or less how we should be interpreting this?
Nolan: I’d agree with a lot of that. They do explicitly say they’re not in the system. And we do see the ruins of it. So that does suggest in that scene we are further in the future. We’d always said with this story we wanted to consider the beginning, middle and the end the of the emergence of a new form of life on Earth and we managed to cover a lot of those bases in this season...
...There is a subtle shift in this season, when you started seeing more and more backstory of the Man in Black, it should raise suspicions, and it has for a lot of people but, um … returning to the last question, your take it on it, which, as usual, is astute, is we’re watching a series of events play out: We see Emily’s dead body, we see the Man in Black in extremis — but not quite dead yet — but we also understand we’ve explored Delos’ greatest mistake, the one unalterable moment, the cornerstone decision he makes in his life, and we’re seeing that play out with the Man in Black. We’ve seen how it is that, using The Forge, that you’d be drawn back to these key moments and you’d run them again and again…
The producer of the show explains it:
EW: Your Marvel-like post credits sequence with William and his daughter that brought us back to the horrifying James Delos fidelity apartment. My read was that Dolores printed out a version of the Man in Black and his daughter using the park’s secret guest data to leave them entombed in The Forge to do the fidelity test for all eternity and that scene takes place many years later. But that it doesn’t mean the Man in Black was a host previously or that he’s not still alive in the real world like we saw with him in the tent. Is that more or less how we should be interpreting this?
Nolan: I’d agree with a lot of that. They do explicitly say they’re not in the system. And we do see the ruins of it. So that does suggest in that scene we are further in the future. We’d always said with this story we wanted to consider the beginning, middle and the end the of the emergence of a new form of life on Earth and we managed to cover a lot of those bases in this season...
...There is a subtle shift in this season, when you started seeing more and more backstory of the Man in Black, it should raise suspicions, and it has for a lot of people but, um … returning to the last question, your take it on it, which, as usual, is astute, is we’re watching a series of events play out: We see Emily’s dead body, we see the Man in Black in extremis — but not quite dead yet — but we also understand we’ve explored Delos’ greatest mistake, the one unalterable moment, the cornerstone decision he makes in his life, and we’re seeing that play out with the Man in Black. We’ve seen how it is that, using The Forge, that you’d be drawn back to these key moments and you’d run them again and again…
Last edited:
Yeah....
So, Sizemore is dead for real.
Maeve is just waiting to be revived by Felix and Sylvester. She'll be back.
Delores lives. Bernard lives. And Delores has a valise full of other brainballs.
Last edited:
That was one of the most satisfying season finales I've ever seen. They know how to write a great one!
A couple of thoughts:
1: If Dolores created Bernard, and in Arnold's image, like she says she did, then that means she had insider information all along. This is pretty much confirmed by Elsie when she confronts Bernard and tells him they're going to have to figure out what to do with him. Although not sure where they're going with the Charlotte/Dolores thing, which was an interesting twist in itself.
2: The door was interesting. Seemed to be treated as a sort of afterlife for Hosts. Anyone not a host seemed to not see it. In fact, when that first GN goes through it, we see him take a plunge. Which leads me to wonder, what happens to the host body? It seems that technically they become a memory that lives on, on the server.
3: Loved seeing the reveal that what we were seeing in the premiere was the flooded valley. Certainly, we know that via the salvage teams, most if not all of them will survive.
On the whole, quite an interesting episode with a lot of interesting directions to look forward to for next season.
A couple of thoughts:
1: If Dolores created Bernard, and in Arnold's image, like she says she did, then that means she had insider information all along. This is pretty much confirmed by Elsie when she confronts Bernard and tells him they're going to have to figure out what to do with him. Although not sure where they're going with the Charlotte/Dolores thing, which was an interesting twist in itself.
2: The door was interesting. Seemed to be treated as a sort of afterlife for Hosts. Anyone not a host seemed to not see it. In fact, when that first GN goes through it, we see him take a plunge. Which leads me to wonder, what happens to the host body? It seems that technically they become a memory that lives on, on the server.
3: Loved seeing the reveal that what we were seeing in the premiere was the flooded valley. Certainly, we know that via the salvage teams, most if not all of them will survive.
On the whole, quite an interesting episode with a lot of interesting directions to look forward to for next season.
