Westworld TV Series

  On 11/1/2016 at 2:37 AM, dr lopez said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 12:48 AM, panz0r said:

to all the people, who don't like (and obviously don't get) westworld, don't try to take this personally, but: lol pleb.

 

I'm joking. calm down. but seriously: the whole thing is a take on the gnostic worldview mixed with a bit of buddhism (Dolores represents a human who wants to escape the samsara/ the material and "false" world/ "the droid loop", Robert is the Demiurge, Arnold is the "true god", the man in black is the "adversary" (hint, hint), the park represents the material world etc.). good stuff. pretty well made. brainy. love it. 

this is a joke right

 

umm...no?! it's totally obvious. not really my problem, if you people never heard of this. "lol" as hard as you can. where i come from being clueless is not that cool. just wait until the series is over and the producers talk about their inspirations for westworld. dimwits. 

god i wish i was smart enough to like this shitty show

Gnostic themes wouldn't be a first for a SF thing, Philip K Dick was all about Gnosticism in his later works, quite explicitly in many cases (VALIS, the Divine Invasion).

  On 11/1/2016 at 12:48 AM, panz0r said:

to all the people, who don't like (and obviously don't get) westworld, don't try to take this personally, but: lol pleb.

 

I'm joking. calm down. but seriously: the whole thing is a take on the gnostic worldview mixed with a bit of buddhism (Dolores represents a human who wants to escape the samsara/ the material and "false" world/ "the droid loop", Robert is the Demiurge, Arnold is the "true god", the man in black is the "adversary" (hint, hint), the park represents the material world etc.). good stuff. pretty well made. brainy. love it.

 

The show isn't deep enough to warrant any serious analogies, it's just a hodge-podge of various ideas that serve as the backdrop for the dumb TV drama of the day. The consciousness problem seems to be played the most straight, but it's boiled down to "is he or isn't he a host" instead of offering any meaningful takes on the problem itself.

What fascinates me the most is that the producers expect us to have sympathy for anyone in this sadistic virtual hellhole run by maniacs. The robot plight can't be taken seriously, nor can the "exciting" action scenes when nothing has any consequences, and the believable human characters can be counted on one hand. I'm sure there are Wall Street pricks who would behave ruthlessly in that environment but why the fuck should I want to watch that? The logistics seem more and more impossible and illogical with each episode. How the hell can you guarantee that a human can't die in that environment?

It's literally the cheesiest attempt at a grand mystery setup and I can't for the life of me understand why I watch it. I'm too much of a fan of by Harris and Hopkins and I'm reeled in by the promise of the plot actually going somewhere. But if I have to be subjected to more dumb robot sex scenes, slow shots of Dolores staring blankly and meaningless sidetracking I don't know if I can take it any more.

  On 11/1/2016 at 11:16 AM, panz0r said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 2:37 AM, dr lopez said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 12:48 AM, panz0r said:

to all the people, who don't like (and obviously don't get) westworld, don't try to take this personally, but: lol pleb.

 

I'm joking. calm down. but seriously: the whole thing is a take on the gnostic worldview mixed with a bit of buddhism (Dolores represents a human who wants to escape the samsara/ the material and "false" world/ "the droid loop", Robert is the Demiurge, Arnold is the "true god", the man in black is the "adversary" (hint, hint), the park represents the material world etc.). good stuff. pretty well made. brainy. love it. 

this is a joke right

 

umm...no?! it's totally obvious. not really my problem, if you people never heard of this. "lol" as hard as you can. where i come from being clueless is not that cool. just wait until the series is over and the producers talk about their inspirations for westworld. dimwits. 

 

Those themes you mention are so broad as to encompass many many stories, that's not particularly exciting.

  On 11/1/2016 at 3:21 PM, caze said:

Gnostic themes wouldn't be a first for a SF thing, Philip K Dick was all about Gnosticism in his later works, quite explicitly in many cases (VALIS, the Divine Invasion).

Yes, he was drawn to a Christian interpretation of gnosticism after some delivery girl had the jesus fish as a pin or something along those lines. I was a little bit disappointed in The Divine Invasion, but VALIS is a great read.

He was suffering from extreme toothache, the delivery girl was bringing pain meds. The toothache led to him hallucinating that a vast active living intelligence system was beaming the true revelation of the way the world worked directly into his brain (a brain which had taken a lot of drugs in it's time), he went a bit nuts and all his books from that point on were basically about the same thing.

Yeah, but it was specifically Christian - he was convinced that he was living a double life as a persecuted Christian in early Christian days as well as his modern life - woah double timeline, hello Westworld! lol

Anyways back on point - I think the transmitters are an incredibly important part of the plot. Smashed-in-Head and Dolores both have that going on. At some point this will tie in with the revolutionaries that Lawrence is leading - maybe they are receiving or transmitting data about the revolution to some off world entity (Arnold in a satellite?).

Also cool, genetic engineering is obviously very active in this world - note the butcher discussion about being personality screened in the embryo.

  On 11/1/2016 at 7:02 PM, chenGOD said:

Also cool, genetic engineering is obviously very active in this world - note the butcher discussion about being personality screened in the embryo.

oh, missed that. thought he was talking about a normal interview screening or something.

  On 11/1/2016 at 7:12 PM, caze said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 7:02 PM, chenGOD said:

Also cool, genetic engineering is obviously very active in this world - note the butcher discussion about being personality screened in the embryo.

 

oh, missed that. thought he was talking about a normal interview screening or something.

 

Yeah it was just a one-off line, so who knows if it will have any real importance, but you never know in a show like this (I doubt it though).

  On 11/1/2016 at 5:30 PM, chim said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 12:48 AM, panz0r said:

to all the people, who don't like (and obviously don't get) westworld, don't try to take this personally, but: lol pleb.

 

I'm joking. calm down. but seriously: the whole thing is a take on the gnostic worldview mixed with a bit of buddhism (Dolores represents a human who wants to escape the samsara/ the material and "false" world/ "the droid loop", Robert is the Demiurge, Arnold is the "true god", the man in black is the "adversary" (hint, hint), the park represents the material world etc.). good stuff. pretty well made. brainy. love it.

The show isn't deep enough to warrant any serious analogies, it's just a hodge-podge of various ideas that serve as the backdrop for the dumb TV drama of the day. The consciousness problem seems to be played the most straight, but it's boiled down to "is he or isn't he a host" instead of offering any meaningful takes on the problem itself.

 

What fascinates me the most is that the producers expect us to have sympathy for anyone in this sadistic virtual hellhole run by maniacs. The robot plight can't be taken seriously, nor can the "exciting" action scenes when nothing has any consequences, and the believable human characters can be counted on one hand. I'm sure there are Wall Street pricks who would behave ruthlessly in that environment but why the fuck should I want to watch that? The logistics seem more and more impossible and illogical with each episode. How the hell can you guarantee that a human can't die in that environment?

 

It's literally the cheesiest attempt at a grand mystery setup and I can't for the life of me understand why I watch it. I'm too much of a fan of by Harris and Hopkins and I'm reeled in by the promise of the plot actually going somewhere. But if I have to be subjected to more dumb robot sex scenes, slow shots of Dolores staring blankly and meaningless sidetracking I don't know if I can take it any more.

basically with two caveats. i don't like ed harris and i think erwood's performance is actually quite good. the on/off emotive stuff is pretty impressive i think and her general conflicted performance is the park is decent enough. probably the single best actor in the show.

will probably ride out the rest of the season. it's probably only 3 more episodes or something, yeah?

Notice how not a single person is discussing the show's visual aesthetic, direction. Reading these posts is like reading a book report. I'm baffled that tv is so highly regarded.

and yet we keep reading.

visually it's okay. most of it is pretty poorly directed. the action scenes are fucking hilarious especially since, as stated, they are of absolutely no consequence. 

happy now?

visually it's very good actually, though it was fairly limited in the first bunch of episodes, it was basically three different looks: dusty scrub, clichéd western town, sombre clinical modern shit. they've introduced a lot more variety in the last couple of episodes though, especially the last one. I'm guessing it'll continue to develop more in the last few episodes. but even given the limited palette they're working with, the sets are are well designed and it all looks great, and is all shot nicely, the effects are subtle and very high quality (compare them to the CG in Game of Thrones for example, infinitely better). the action sequences haven't been particularly exciting, but I don't think that's a big problem as it's not really the point, is it? they didn't even bother to show Dolores shooting the guys in the last episode, it was enough that she did it, which perfectly got the point across.

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:34 PM, juiceciuj said:

...as stated, they are of absolutely no consequence.

they constantly draw attention to this as well, with guests getting shot and it not doing anything to them, that's the point.

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:46 PM, caze said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:34 PM, juiceciuj said:

...as stated, they are of absolutely no consequence.

 

they constantly draw attention to this as well, with guests getting shot and it not doing anything to them, that's the point.

oh wow somehow i totally missed that ;p

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:46 PM, caze said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:34 PM, juiceciuj said:

...as stated, they are of absolutely no consequence.

 

 

they constantly draw attention to this as well, with guests getting shot and it not doing anything to them, that's the point.

The point is that they're pointless, boring and only serve as indulgent displays.

its actually horribly directed

Yep

Apparently they use as little CG as possible for this show. That big ass map is not a CG render, the robot arms in the opening sequence and in the "construction" room are actual factory robots etc etc.

  On 11/1/2016 at 9:28 PM, chim said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:46 PM, caze said:

 

  On 11/1/2016 at 8:34 PM, juiceciuj said:

...as stated, they are of absolutely no consequence.

 

they constantly draw attention to this as well, with guests getting shot and it not doing anything to them, that's the point.

The point is that they're pointless, boring and only serve as indulgent displays.

 

no, they're just setting things up for what's going to happen later.

well i'd certainly hope so.

  On 11/1/2016 at 9:49 PM, chenGOD said:

Apparently they use as little CG as possible for this show. That big ass map is not a CG render, the robot arms in the opening sequence and in the "construction" room are actual factory robots etc etc.

The flies are mostly real, they keep them frozen, then unthaw in a dazed state to walk on the actors' faces but won't fly away immediately.

great episode this week. finally a plot emerges.

  On 11/7/2016 at 3:04 PM, messiaen said:

great episode this week. finally a plot emerges.

yea fucking finally indeed.