Westworld In The Media

[Meredith Quill]

Your Media Topic!

[Kromm]

Teaser is out:

 

Cree-Pee.

[formerlyfreedom]

Woot! We have a premiere date!
 

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Sci-fi Western Westworld, which had been slated for fall, will premiere on Sunday, October 2, HBO announced today at TCA.

-snip-

Created for television by Jonathan Nolan And Lisa Joy, Westworld, which is getting on the air after a production delay and is stirring a debate about its portrayal of AI and violence, stars Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright, among others, in a one-hour, ten-episode drama series described by HBO as “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, exploring a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged.”

[formerlyfreedom]

HBO has released some photos, and TVLine put them up.

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HBO on Friday released 20 new images from its upcoming J.J. Abrams-Jonathan Nolan sci-fi epic, with almost ever major cast member — including Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris and Jeffrey Wright — represented in the photos.

[maraleia]

I cannot wait for this show and I'm especially excited to see Sidse Babett Knudsen do an entirely English language role. She was wonderful in Borgen, 1864 and The Duke of Burgundy.

[Minneapple]

New trailer, this looks really good. Anthony Hopkins, wow!

[AimingforYoko]

Has Mr. Hopkins found his motivation again? Please let it be so. 

Seriously, this does look really good. Jonathan Nolan and AI, a winning combination!

[Kromm]

This should get people jazzed. This looks better and better each additional bit I see of this show.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Kromm

[Kromm]

Also -- IGN review of Episode 1 (only slightly spoilery--and mostly just on things we could probably guess from the trailers anyway):

Edited September 17, 2016 by Kromm

[Kromm]

Some collected reviews, courtesy of the UK's Independent: Westworld reviews round-up: 'Will hit the spot as hard as Game of Thrones ever did'

They also report that... Westworld already has five seasons mapped out at HBO

[eelpout]

hmm, Maureen Ryan at Variety seems less than impressed.

[blackwing]

I'll reserve judgment until I see it.  Seems to me that a large part of Maureen Ryan's objections to the show was her perception that women are being exploited or used as objects and don't have their own identity.    All of the other reviews seemed to love the show.

[Kromm]

3 hours ago, blackwing said:

I'll reserve judgment until I see it.  Seems to me that a large part of Maureen Ryan's objections to the show was her perception that women are being exploited or used as objects and don't have their own identity.    All of the other reviews seemed to love the show.

And yet she's drawing that context about a show which has dehumanization as one of it's core themes. And which seems perfectly aware that it's setting (well, one of it's settings) is an environment where female exploitation was the norm.  This seems to me to possibly be a case where she's missing the forest for the trees, so to speak, because she's taking the display of these things as a message of approval rather than as the show criticizing them. Not that this show is really ABOUT the Old West, but the subtext seems to be that modern man may be fooling himself if he thinks he's changed since then. If you pussyfoot around things to be super-politically correct in what's shown, then that message (if you believe it) has no teeth at all. 

Of course we haven't seen it yet. I'm just talking about where someone COULD go wrong if they go all "third wave feminism analysis" on the show but remove the context of the story they are (we think--at least based on early reviews) trying to tell (and why). 

[VCRTracking]

'Westworld' Creators Explain Harrowing Violence: "It's Basically a Living Hell"

[fastiller]

Over on the S1E1 thread I was wondering where the park and where corporate lab are in relation to one another.  Apparently I wasn't the only one:

15 Questions We Have After the Westworld Premiere:

Quote

4) Where is the park located? Addendum: Is it tiny?

The area of land dedicated to Westworld seems enormous, and seems to extend at least a day’s ride in all directions from the center of the town. When the camera pans out from the town, we see several strange rock formations indicated that the land has been terra-formed in some way—nor surprising, given how much work has gone into every other aspect of the park.

But the weird part of that shot is that it pans out of the town into the park’s operating center, as if Westworld and all its inhabitants were in fact miniaturized, and the park is in fact under control to the tiniest detail. Now, the Westworld disc could just be a super-advanced surveillance system, and the pan-out shot a conceit of the series to show how the staff loom over the park like gods. Also, the park staff use the disc to zoom in on the planned shootout massacre near the end of the episode, which certainly makes it seem like a screen… although it could also be a close-up overlay. Most likely, the park is life-sized and located somewhere else, but it’s not 100 percent obvious.

 

[VCRTracking]

The Big Difference Between Rape Scenes On Game Of Thrones & Westworld

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/10/125119/westworld-premiere-rape-scene-evan-rachel-wood-violence-against-women

Edited October 3, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Kromm]

3 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

The Big Difference Between Rape Scenes On Game Of Thrones & Westworld

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/10/125119/westworld-premiere-rape-scene-evan-rachel-wood-violence-against-women

Yeah. It's too easy to scream "exploitation", when the whole point of the show is based around how wrong it is for people to use the Park that way.

Is HBO making money because this is a show with rape in it?  Yes. But that doesn't automatically make it fail as art and/or social commentary. It's alarming if that's how some are reacting.  In theory, Game of Thrones could have told much of it's story without many of the rapes on that show. It might have suffered in some ways, but they weren't core to the premise. But with this spin on Westworld? I think it is. It's about human violence and morals. How do you tell that story without showing human violence and moral violations?

[paulvdb]

12 hours ago, fastiller said:

Over on the S1E1 thread I was wondering where the park and where corporate lab are in relation to one another.  Apparently I wasn't the only one:

15 Questions We Have After the Westworld Premiere:

It did not confuse me. To me it looked like a projection of the park, similar to the projection of the arena in the Hunger Games movies but without the advanced ways that the Gamemakers had to control the arena.

[TheOtherOne]

Very happy to see this:

Performer of the Week: Westworld's Louis Herthum

[Kelda Feegle]

Already renewed for a second season yay!!!!

[fastiller]

From LA Magazine: The Most Philosophically Significant Moment of Westworld Is Hidden in the Opening Credits

[Kromm]

57 minutes ago, fastiller said:

From LA Magazine: The Most Philosophically Significant Moment of Westworld Is Hidden in the Opening Credits

I think they miss another deep point in those credits. Sure the piano plays by itself even without the robot's hands, but you've also got the fact that the horse, the woman and the gun shown in the credits are all made of the same stuff (they're all made by the same 3D printing thing from the same white gunk). Think about the purposefulness of showing that. 

[arc]

Is Westworld Just a Fancy Porn Theater? - The ambitious sci-fi-Western apparently takes place in a world without shame, or the internet

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But who would travel to a place to play Fuck, Marry, Kill with androids? From stag films to VHS to the internet, technology has put sex entertainment on an inexorable march away from public spaces — porn theaters, video stores, those weird booth places — toward the privacy of your home. The notion that, in a technologically advanced future, people would go somewhere, in the presence of others, to rape and murder androids seems very antiquated to me. It ignores the internet and it ignores the power of shame.

[…]

We’re only two episodes in. Perhaps Westworld has a drastic zoom-out in store for us, something that grounds the park in a larger societal context, and explains why, in a high-tech world, casual public savagery would be culturally acceptable. If not, it misunderstands our relationships to sex and shame, and the role technology plays in compartmentalizing them.

I'm nearly all-in on the show and there's something to be said for playing a massively multiplayer game rather than a single-player game, but yeah, he's right about how the original movie had a different context and understanding of how private "sex entertainment" could be in real life.

[withanaich]

Except people aren't going to Westworld and having sex out in the middle of Main Street. I think that writer has a point, about famous people not wanting their seamier Westworld exploit feeds hacked and exposed, but he also has a limited understanding of the depravity of human beings. There's no difference between people having an orgy in Westworld and patrons at a strip club: everyone knows that everyone else there is doing something they probably wouldn't tell their Grandma about. And despite the march of sex entertainment away from public spaces, stuff like strip clubs and bachelor parties still exist. The only real difference is that the Westworld guests know (or do they...?) that the other participants aren't real, and therefore they have a built-in way to rationalize what they're doing. "It's not cheating ... I wouldn't have sex with a REAL woman who wasn't my wife!" "I'm not a bad person ... I would never shoot a REAL person in the face!"

The moral issue at the core of Westworld isn't whether people would act out their most depraved fantasies or not (some people most certainly would), it's whether it becomes wrong if the entities they are using to act out those fantasies are real. And then you get into the question of what makes someone real.

[arc]

But a strip club has a no-photos policy. Westworld is a place where the control room can apparently see and record everything and anything.

That said, his piece kind of doesn't mention videogame streaming / cam shows, perhaps because they're evidence of the other side of the argument: people aren't just voyeurs, they're exhibitionists.

[fastiller]

3 hours ago, Kromm said:

I think they miss another deep point in those credits. Sure the piano plays by itself even without the robot's hands, but you've also got the fact that the horse, the woman and the gun shown in the credits are all made of the same stuff (they're all made by the same 3D printing thing from the same white gunk). Think about the purposefulness of showing that. 

I get what you're saying.  That's a little like the concept of "we are stardust" -- we're all made of the same core materials.  Here's that concept encapsulated in these credits.

It's also worth noting that the publication was not a philosophy specific journal and that the author noted: 

Quote

Now, full disclosure, I’m no philosopher

[Kromm]

3 hours ago, fastiller said:

I get what you're saying.  That's a little like the concept of "we are stardust" -- we're all made of the same core materials.  Here's that concept encapsulated in these credits.

Oh sure. But I also meant that the choice of one of the components of that comparison being a GUN means something too. That it's part of a larger statement about violence being inherent in man (because here, we are literally seeing it being made from the same stuff). And maybe that such is in it's own way the natural way of things, because the horse is made of that too.

[amandawoods]

I found this trailer online. I'm not sure if it was posted yet.  Trailer

[arc]

Here's a trailer that's got spoilers - both moments from beyond the first two episodes and the show cast and creators talking about the themes and big ideas of the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atlyEb3GCLM

[arc]

Violence and empathy in “Westworld”: “That’s not the point we want to make, that it’s OK if they’re a robot”

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Regarding Dolores’s assault, that whole idea of it happening over and over again is sickening. But there’s also been a lot of conversation about it in the context of what’s going on with HBO in general. One of the things said in response to that point [by HBO’s programming chief, Casey Bloys,] was “Well, but Dolores is a robot.”

Nolan: That’s not the point we want to make, that it’s OK if they’re a robot.

Yes, but …

Nolan: It’s not OK, but that is one of the questions that the show is asking. In the world of our show, they have created a space in which people can go and behave however they want with no consequences. That, of course, is exactly “Grand Theft Auto.” It’s more sophisticated. The NPC’s AI is more sophisticated. We’re asking this question . . . at what point does this become problematic? At what point does this become abhorrent? You don’t feel any guilt.

It’s really an examination of empathy because there’s a difference between playing those games and simply watching violence onscreen.

Joy: Yeah. There’s a difference between writing it and seeing it on the screen later, too. When it’s in your head, you know it’s fake. Even seeing it in production, you’re there and everybody’s doing it, and it’s different. Then you see it on the screen, and . . . it’s hard.

[arc]

AfterBuzz with Shannon Woodward for ep 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Z0x16GIhc

At 21:07, she says "I think there was actually a line that was cut in a scene from this, where she says something about 'just because they don't understand what suffering is doesn't mean they should suffer.'"

[VCRTracking]

 

[phoenyx]

On 10/28/2016 at 7:00 PM, VCRTracking said:

 

Very interesting interviews with Evan Rachel, thanks for sharing :-)

[phoenyx]

Just found an interesting article on Westworld from Salon, wherein Salon interviews Nolan and Joy:

http://www.salon.com/2016/10/13/violence-and-empathy-in-westworld-thats-not-the-point-we-want-to-make-that-it-is-okay-if-theyre-a-robot/

My favourite part in the article was the following bit:

**

Regarding Dolores’s assault, that whole idea of it happening over and over again is sickening. But there’s also been a lot of conversation about it in the context of what’s going on with HBO in general. One of the things said in response to that point [by HBO’s programming chief, Casey Bloys,] was “Well, but Dolores is a robot.”

Nolan: That’s not the point we want to make, that it’s OK if they’re a robot.

Yes, but …

Nolan: It’s not OK, but that is one of the questions that the show is asking. In the world of our show, they have created a space in which people can go and behave however they want with no consequences. That, of course, is exactly “Grand Theft Auto.” It’s more sophisticated. The NPC’s AI is more sophisticated. We’re asking this question . . . at what point does this become problematic? At what point does this become abhorrent? 

**

 

Joy puts herself down when it comes to gaming, but she just doesn't realize that she's just a white hat gamer- Grand Theft Auto isn't for white hatters.

**

Nolan and Joy play with that aspect of “Westworld” to invite viewers to ponder the emergence of artificial intelligence — how we interact with it, what role it plays in our lives and its impact on our morality. And what better way to do this than in a live-action role playing experience?

For gamers, “Westworld” also inspires a new consideration of their relationship with nonplayer characters. As they researched the script, the couple played a number of video games, including “Grand Theft Auto.”

“She obeyed all of the stoplights!” Nolan said, laughing.

“I’m a terrible gamer,” Joy admitted. “I didn’t want to hit anyone. I [respected] the streets, but I’m terrible. At the same time, I’m writing this show.”

**

Based on the article, I also think that Joy may well be Dolores' guardian angel in terms of storyline:

**

What measures were taken in the writers’ room to ensure the story maintained a human element, both in terms of the actual newcomers coming in and in terms of the personalities given to the robots, the hosts?

Joy:   It’s something that you deal with in fiction and games and also in life, the ability to de-personify and abstractify the other. . . . It’s just the way humans work. We are egocentric by design. Our empathy is not at the same level in everyone. Neither is kindness. That’s something we’re kind of exploring within this series — how human nature works, and where you form that connection.

For instance, with Dolores, [a host played by Evan Rachel Wood,] and her plight, I really empathize with Dolores personally. That doesn’t really matter for the show. It will be received by different people in different ways. They will feel different connections with different characters. For whatever it’s worth, I felt a real connection with her character.

**

Edited October 30, 2016 by phoenyx

[phoenyx]

Another interview of Evan Rachel Wood, it's good stuff. One thing I thought I'd mention, she says she really likes Episode 5, can't wait to see it :-)...

[phoenyx]

A great interview with Jimmi Simpson, the actor who plays William in Westworld.

Edited October 31, 2016 by phoenyx

[VCRTracking]

Westworld producers on that wild orgy scene

[arc]

AV Club: Evan Rachel Wood tells the story behind Westworld’s latest twist

Quote

The A.V. Club: Dolores articulates the fact that she’s no longer a damsel. What was it like for you to say those words?

Evan Rachel Wood: Oh my God. When we shot that, it was so funny. Not funny—I mean, like, funny-strange because I, personally as an actress and as a person, am so used to having to play the damsel, that when we were shooting that scene, and Jimmi looked at me and said, “Dolores, run,” I ran. Then I stopped myself, and I turned around and I went, “Oh my God. I’m so used to running.” We as women never get to stand and fight back like Dolores is about to do. I got teary-eyed because it shouldn’t be a novelty. It shouldn’t be that rare, and I shouldn’t be like, “Oh my God, I actually get to stay and fight.” So it really mirrored my personal experience. I think a lot of women can relate to that. So it was a huge moment.

[VCRTracking]

'Westworld': Evan Rachel Wood Talks Dolores' 'Terminator' Mode and That Orgy Scene

[phoenyx]

This one was published back on October 1st, but I think it raises a lot of good points...

Westworld raises uncomfortable questions about A.I., VR, and video games:

http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/01/westworld-raises-uncomfortable-questions-about-a-i-vr-and-video-games/

[arc]

What People Who Make Video Games Think of Westworld

[phoenyx]

Just found this interview with Evan Rachel Wood that's hot off the press, really liked it :-)...

Evan Rachel Wood: How Wild Past, Personal Demons Prepped Her for 'Westworld'

[phoenyx]

Found another articel from Evan Rachel Wood, also really liked it :-)...

'WESTWORLD' STAR EVAN RACHEL WOOD ON BERNARD AND SEASON 2

[phoenyx]

Just found a video of Westworld used in satire in SNL. Not sure if it qualifies to be here, but figured I'd just post the video and find out...

[ennui]

I don't know if anyone caught it, but the original Westworld film was on SyFy this past weekend. I'm hoping they run it again. 

It's not a deep film, merely fluffy entertainment, but it was interesting to compare John and Peter to Logan and William.

[phoenyx]

7 hours ago, ennui said:

I don't know if anyone caught it, but the original Westworld film was on SyFy this past weekend. I'm hoping they run it again. 

It's not a deep film, merely fluffy entertainment, but it was interesting to compare John and Peter to Logan and William.

It didn't seem so fluffy to me when I saw it, but it was a product of its times (I personally believe that films have been getting better over the years), and it only had a 2-3 hours to tell its story. The producers of Westworld knew they had 10 hours at a minimum, and were hoping for another 40. 

[charmed1]

I caught a few episodes in the Simpsons marathon, and the parallels between Westworld and Itchy & Scratchy Land were hilarious.

[ennui]

On 11/23/2016 at 11:52 PM, phoenyx said:

It didn't seem so fluffy to me when I saw it, but it was a product of its times (I personally believe that films have been getting better over the years), and it only had a 2-3 hours to tell its story. The producers of Westworld knew they had 10 hours at a minimum, and were hoping for another 40. 

The original film had a run time of 88 minutes.  :)  Also, there were extended periods without any dialogue. I think of it as 'fluffy' because it had comic moments; one of those stories that starts light and gets dark. There were some good science fiction films that came out of the 1970s. I'm not sure if stories got better, or just the special effects.

Looks like we get a Westworld marathon running up to the season finale. 

[phoenyx]

50 minutes ago, ennui said:

The original film had a run time of 88 minutes.  :)

Yeah, that -is- pretty short compared to this Westworld, laugh :-)

51 minutes ago, ennui said:

Also, there were extended periods without any dialogue. I think of it as 'fluffy' because it had comic moments; one of those stories that starts light and gets dark. 

Alright. I admit I don't remember it all that well. I may not have even seen the whole thing. I just remembered that it seemed kinda cool :-). I was born 2 years after it was made, so yeah, it was a bit before my time.

53 minutes ago, ennui said:

There were some good science fiction films that came out of the 1970s.

Only one  I know from that decade that I really liked was the original Star Wars. Anyway, I've sent you a PM, maybe you can tell me what sci fi films from the 70s that you liked...

1 hour ago, ennui said:

I'm not sure if stories got better, or just the special effects.

I've never cared all that much about the special effects. 

[Willowy]

Close Encounters was brilliant and beautiful.

John Carpenter's The Thing- classic

Planet of the Apes films. I know they started in 68 but the franchise kept going into the next decade. I was obsessed.

Alien. Alien, Alien, Alien.

Andromeda Strain

Invasion of the Body Snatchers