Westworld TV Series

I've seen the 70s movie many times and am a huge Crichton fan.

Anybody else watched the first episode? I thought it was awesome. Actually watched it twice - made more sense and had some nice moments I didn't appreciate on first viewing.

Love the original film.

Will be checking this new series out as soon as I am able - certainly has the budget and casting to be awesome.

Yeah it's visually stunning. Solid cast. I can't see how it can fail.

Production budget is $1,000,000 an episode apparently. That's Game Of Thrones territory.

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yea like it so far...

the robot-FX are pretty cool, like when the boss guy speaks to the really old crappy bum robot? Looks like it's just normal acting, but then they warped around the actor's motion to make it all steppy and robotic..

i enjoyed it. watched it last night. pretty interesting stuff. nice take on the ideas. great cast etc. hopefully it stays that way :)

Never seen the movie, but the first episode was really promising. First exciting new sf show in ages.

Crichton definitely seeded some proto-Jurassic Park stuff in there, which is a lol.

^ omfg yes. lol

Westworld is very interesting because the original movie features a lot of ideas and concepts that would find their way into Jurassic Park when Crichton wrote it some eighteen years later. I think he is was pretty obsessed with technology being essentially uncontrollable and totally unpredictable even though we claim to have a hold of things.

 The Crichton book, State of Fear might be of interest to some watmmrs. As for this program, i will check out the first ep, hopefully it doesn't lead to skimming, be nice to have some serious, hard adventure sci-fi, one can hope.

I didn't enjoy State Of Fear back in the day. It seemed like soapbox antics with the author pushing his own views on climate change a bit too transparently within the confines of the story. I thought it was one of his laziest novels - a series of set pieces that served only as vehicle for Crichton's own agenda.

 Good.

His earlier work (even the novels written under another name) have that technology gone wrong vibe. Even his first book 'Odds On' (1966) has a group of criminals use a computer with Critical Path Analyis to plan a robbery but it all goes wrong.

 Well if it ain't broke.

  On 10/4/2016 at 10:35 PM, fumi said:

Yeah it's visually stunning. Solid cast. I can't see how it can fail.

Production budget is $1,000,000 an episode apparently. That's Game Of Thrones territory.

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The budget per episode is more like $8-10 million.

I liked the first episode. Looks stunning and the production values are top notch with good acting. Liked the re-workings of known rock songs that featured in the episode (noticed Black Hole Sun and Paint it Black). I hope they have time to explore interesting themes such as what makes something human, sentience and the nature of reality with the background of the advanced theme park going to hell. Nice little touches overall in the scenes. Looks very promising.

  On 10/4/2016 at 11:20 PM, doublename said:

Never seen the movie, but the first episode was really promising. First exciting new sf show in ages.

 

Crichton definitely seeded some proto-Jurassic Park stuff in there, which is a lol.

I hadn't seen Westworld but I am familiar with the plot as I've seen Futureworld before...and it's basically Jurassic World's plot: "we've rebuilt the park with updates and it's bigger and better with samurai, knights, roman legionaires, blackjack and super robot hookers!" It's also a lot goofier and has the same aesthetics as Logan's World...i.e. filmed in then new conference centers and plazas in urban Texas.

  On 10/5/2016 at 4:05 PM, azatoth said:

Liked the re-workings of known rock songs that featured in the episode (noticed Black Hole Sun and Paint it Black).

 

That was a nice touch, like easter eggs for the guests I suppose. 

are we the guests or are we the bots?

inb4 complicated love story between a guest & the Dolores lady

Only thing I'm unsure of is the role of Ed Harris' Anton Chigurh meets Zorro Yul Brynner 2.0 gunslinger. It has potential but it's the only thing that felt off plot wise.

Also curious about the park itself - it's boundaries/borders and the underground facilities.

You can watch Westworld for FREE (the pilot at least) on HBO's website: http://www.hbo.com/watch-free-episodes

Ed Harris was a very odd choice to play the Gunslinger...

 Well i watched it, didn't cause any skimming, so there's not complaints for me so far, just curious to see what happens. That rolling stones reworking was terriblol though, whomever composed that little thing really doesn't get it. And the intro music is a musical play on the game of thrones intro. They should have had western music or spagetti western music, would have been epically cool, really transition your mind into the world. But instead they went with some safe, sounds like option. that frankly put me in a bad mood going in. Anyway, the acting was good, the plot moved along, the script wasn't clunky, the CG was seamless and it was shot nicely, so yeah, i didn't have to skim, which is a blessing these days.

I liked the first episode a lot. Critchton's novel is certainly set up for the long game with all the coding glitches on Android at the moment, Wild West vs the modern world is as apt as a bulls bollocks. Love the acting more than anything, nuances and subtlety with a top notch cast. Little glimpse of Hopkins as the egotist perfectionist. The best is Sidse Knudsen as one of the ''android developers''.

Knudsens so good. She has that chameleon quality.

  On 10/5/2016 at 9:49 PM, Schlitze said:

Knudsens so good. She has that chameleon quality.

I'm actually interested in hearing what people who don't know her from previous movies think about her.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. The music made me a tiny bit sad because it was super epic right from the beginning and I was left thinking, "what exactly is supposed to be super epic right now?".

But I was surprised to hear what a great western tune "Paint It Black" can be.

The main score is composed by the same guy responsible for Game Of Thrones. That's either a good thing or bad thing depending on whether or not you like his work.

  On 10/5/2016 at 5:01 PM, Joyrex said:

Ed Harris was a very odd choice to play the Gunslinger...

Ed Harris is playing Ed Harris.

The opening theme was awful, I thought the rest of the music was good, loved Black Hole Sun on the player piano.