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HBO's "Westworld", starring Anthony Hopkins/produced by J.J. Abrams

Finally finished up with the second season. I thought it was great! I'll agree with those who thought the multiple timeframes was unnecessary. It seems like the series thought that it worked so well in season 1 (with the William/Man in Black reveal) that they amped that aspect up to the max in season 2. I could still follow what was going on, but they did make it more complicated for the sake of being complicated rather than serving a better purpose.

However, that all said, I enjoyed the second season very much. I thought built on the first season in a logical but not entirely predictable fashion--which is not easy to do.

Looking for the third season, but I feel very uncertain about where it's heading! I get the sense that the park is done as a setting.
 
I didn't like the Second Season...at all.

It had some great moments but sadly what I want from the show is not what the showrunners want.

What do I want?

Stories about a big MMO and animatronic park that tell human stories about its hosts as well as the weird background written for fictional characters discovering they're real.

What do they want?

IMMORTALITY! BRAIN UPLOADS! Esoteric humans vs. machine shit!
 
I think you went in with the wrong expectations there, I thought it was pretty clear from the very beginning that the show was never going to be that.
The Nth Doctor said:
...unless that is Futureworld we see in the trailer.
Click to expand...
I think the main reason I question if this is Futureworld, is that it just doesn't seem futuristic enough to be a Futureworld in the shows time period. Most of the technology we see seems to be about what I would expect given what saw in the park and the bits and pieces outside of it.
 
JD said:
I think you went in with the wrong expectations there, I thought it was pretty clear from the very beginning that the show was never going to be that.
Click to expand...

Well, for me, Season 1 was at its best following how Westworld functioned and how the Hosts were dealing with their realizations their pasts aren't true.

And, of course, William's story.

The show seems remarkably uninterested in Westworld as a whole which is weird.
 
Westworld was just a way to set up the Hosts to start to become fully conscious, it might be the name of the show, but the park itself was never the focus of the show.
 
JD said:
Westworld was just a way to set up the Hosts to start to become fully conscious, it might be the name of the show, but the park itself was never the focus of the show.
Click to expand...
Exactly so. The park is the setting for a story, not the focus of the story.

The way the park functions is just magic words. Neither the economics nor the technological applications make any sense.
 
The Nth Doctor said:
...unless that is Futureworld we see in the trailer.
Click to expand...
I saw you guys theorizing about that. I'm not sure. It could be. However, one of the things that the second season covered was that the hosts are so much more complex that us mere human with algorithms of only 10,000 lines or so. It could be fascinating seeing them operate in the real world--or just Dolores. How do you even stop something like that? They look like us and imitate us, but they're operating at an entirely different level.

And, the first the season showed us how the park worked (in vague terms). The normal operation of things. And then it started going awry. One aspect of the 2nd season was showing the park getting destroyed and all the hosts either being destroyed or moving out one way or another. So, it feels right that the 3rd season is in the "real world," which should be futuristic compared to us.

But, I'm not wedded to that idea. If it is Future World, I'll go along for the ride!
 
Charles Phipps said:
I didn't like the Second Season...at all.

It had some great moments but sadly what I want from the show is not what the showrunners want.

What do I want?

Stories about a big MMO and animatronic park that tell human stories about its hosts as well as the weird background written for fictional characters discovering they're real.

What do they want?

IMMORTALITY! BRAIN UPLOADS! Esoteric humans vs. machine shit!
Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel. I went into the show knowing nothing of the original work that this was based upon, so my impressions from the very beginning were that Westworld itself was a major part of the story. I didn't mind them going behind the scenes of the park to show the inner workings, but I'm disappointed that it seems like we'll be leaving Westworld entirely. The bright, beautiful vistas, old architecture, and loveliness of the natural setting really attracted me to the show. It was like seeing a living version of Red Dead Redemption. Dimly lit futuristic world does not appeal to me at all.

I feel like this is a show that had tons of potential, but which has taken a wrong turn somewhere, and now I'm seeing an entirely different show.
 
I'm the complete opposite, the Westworld stuff was pretty fun, but I've always been more interested in the more futuristic, high tech elements of the story. I've been curious about the outside world since the show started, so I'm really excited to finally be getting out of the park a lot more now. I'm not 100% positive, but I think they did say that we will revisit the park at least some next season, it'll just be playing a smaller role in the story now.
 
I'm interested in two things: how do things work out for the Hosts, and - oddly - what the fuck is William really all about?

WW is, ultimately, a very interior show and the writers have a thesis that they're trying to elaborate about people. That intrigues me, because who does that on TV, especially these days?
 
Deadline had an interview with HBO president Casey Bloys, and there was a question about Westworld

DEADLINE: Speaking of Westworld, the trailer you just released looks very different. Is the show going for a reboot in Season 3?

BLOYS: Not so much of a reboot. At the end of the season, Dolores was going off. So it was a little bit of a tease to see what the world might look like. All I will say is, it still has robots in it but it’s not so much a reboot as it is following the characters.

https://deadline.com/2019/05/game-o...ion-backlash-spinoff-sequel-plans-1202620302/
 
Serveaux said:
I'm interested in two things: how do things work out for the Hosts, and - oddly - what the fuck is William really all about?

WW is, ultimately, a very interior show and the writers have a thesis that they're trying to elaborate about people. That intrigues me, because who does that on TV, especially these days?
Click to expand...
Agree 100%! I also love the connections with AIs and simulations, both of people and the world/universe. Lots of intriguing possibilities. The fact that the hosts who were based on real people failed because the hosts were too complex really hints at a lot. They're working on an entirely different level than us humans.

William was an awesome character. At the end, his reaction at being trapped in a system that he despised was priceless.
 
I was left disappointed by Season 2's ending (specifically the "post-credits" scene), but this teaser intrigues me and gives me hope that the show is going to course-correct.

Speculating about the teaser itself, I have a feeling that we're possibly looking at a time period between Dolores arriving on the 'mainland' disguised as Charlotte Hale and resurrecting both her original body and Bernard and the future in which we see Host!Man in Black/William go through his 'loop' and encounter a Host version of his daughter, and that the crux of the season will be exploring how we get to that latter end-point.
 
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While the board and the Internet at large is rightfully exploding over the Picard trailer (seriously, if you haven't already watched it, go NOW!), the Westworld season 3 trailer has also dropped:

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Huh. I didn't expect to see Naziworld.

Cool to see Valencia as a set piece (the shots of Tessa Thompson in front of futuristic buildings) even it's obviously not going to be Valencia.
 
Yeah, the Nazi park was a surprise.
I wonder if the fact that Maeve popped up right after Bernard was talking about finding someone strong enough to stop Dolores was a hint that he's looking for her, or just playful editing?
I'm looking forward to finally starting to get to see more of the outside world, after just getting a few little bits here and there before.
So it looks like Aaron Paul's character is going to be a human sympathizer working with Dolores and Co. They've already said that he has a non-human looking robot coworker, so I'm wondering if something happens to him that gets Paul's character to side with the hosts against humanity.
 
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