Westworld

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Lithose

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The entire premise of west world from the begining was a place where people could go to live out all their rape/murder/orgy fantasies in the old west on things that are near or at sentience so they can act and feel degraded by what you are doing to them. Nihilism was always the point of west world from the base concept of it.

So you're saying the theme hasn't evolved with the radical changes in plot? Because they aren't in Westworld anymore, and that was kind of my point.

Also, that wasn't the complete premise, it was a strong theme within the shows story driven by Ford's nihilism after he realized they were achieving sentience and he had missed the signs of it, which allowed for their abuse and his friend's death. The whole dichotomy of hats, and human expression was still very much a struggle in S1 between nihilistic-god-is-dead style humanity and compassionate/curious humanity and their wondrous creations. Nihilism wasn't the whole story, it was part of the plot, it had a story element behind it (Even if it won in the end--it won in the particular context of Westworld and the story as it was).

Now we're in a place where the wonders of civilization are being shown, where humanity is show the heights its capable of and that theme of nihilism hasn't adapted with the plot, it is still pervasive and ubiquitous despite not really fitting in the same way it did within the context of the park (Where humanity was at its worst). There is no self reflection or growth, its just endless cynicism toward human nature. And frankly given the change in plot and premise, its ham fisted and old at this point.
 
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kaid

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So you're saying the theme hasn't evolved with the radical changes in plot? Because they aren't in Westworld anymore, and that was kind of my point.

Also, that wasn't the complete premise, it was a strong theme within the shows story driven by Ford's nihilism after he realized they were achieving sentience and he had missed the signs of it, which allowed for their abuse and his friend's death. The whole dichotomy of hats, and human expression was still very much a struggle in S1 between nihilistic-god-is-dead style humanity and compassionate/curious humanity and their wondrous creations. Nihilism wasn't the whole story, it was part of the plot, it had a story element behind it (Even if it won in the end--it won in the particular context of Westworld and the story as it was).

Now we're in a place where the wonders of civilization are being shown, where humanity is show the heights its capable of and that theme of nihilism hasn't adapted with the plot, it is still pervasive and ubiquitous despite not really fitting in the same way it did within the context of the park (Where humanity was at its worst). There is no self reflection or growth, its just endless cynicism toward human nature. And frankly given the change in plot and premise, its ham fisted and old at this point.

The progression has been first the hosts figuring out that they are trapped in loops and trying to figure out how to break out.The second story is them attempting to escape the prison they were in, third act is getting out and realizing humans are trapped in loops just as badly as the hosts were and trying to smash that system to. I think probably where this thing winds up is with hosts and humans finally breaking free of their loops in the end and finding some way forward together.
 

Furry

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what? I thought for sure this would have been the last season. I don't know 1 person that watches this show.

I've made it to ep 4, but I guess I don't count as a person.

Security guy being a fatto now really messes with the he's a robot thing. Did they blow their budget on everything else and forget they need to spend a few thousand on giving him a month of PE with a trainer?
 

Furry

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Why is singapore full of chinese. I don't understand any of this and I'm pretty good at malay.
 

Rajaah

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The Kotaku/Jezebel network seems to have a boner for this show, so that's how I know it's bad.
 
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Kovaks

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I've made it to ep 4, but I guess I don't count as a person.

Security guy being a fatto now really messes with the he's a robot thing. Did they blow their budget on everything else and forget they need to spend a few thousand on giving him a month of PE with a trainer?
best part is he is a helmsworth, so he had God genetics which means he should have no problem staying fit. Must love all the cheesecake, how, much would it suck to be the fat one in that family.
 

Furry

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best part is he is a helmsworth, so he had God genetics which means he should have no problem staying fit. Must love all the cheesecake, how, much would it suck to be the fat one in that family.

Does he put his coke on donuts or something?
NINTCHDBPICT000572562336.jpg
 
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Armadon

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They should have used the rod of God on this show. So much potential wasted.
 
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meStevo

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I liked a lot of this episode, especially anything that didn't have William or Maeve in it.
 
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wat

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For a world were everyone seems to have super tech guns that have auto aim everyone sure seems to miss the main characters A LOT.
 
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spronk

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i was laughing hard at how often all the AI gunships and stuff were missing all their shots. The entire episode felt like 10 minutes of story stretched way, way, way the fuck out to 1 hour. It was obvious 5 mins in that Caleb killed Francis and this was the lab where he was resocialized, but they spent 30 agonizing minutes slowly teasing that out.

I still don't get at all how Dolores goes from breaking out of Westworld and realizing the real world is never going to accept "her kind" to her deciding the best path forward is to use a human to access a second insane AI (which is still running because ???reasons???) which will have a secret second plan to ??destroy society?? None of this shit really follows any logical sequence. Its fun to watch but stupid as hell, like a kids cartoon.

Marketing in the future really sucks. Lab to slab?
QAHKDjb.jpg
 
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TJT

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They could have really explored the hosts realizing the scale and complexity of human society.

They should have taken some pages from The Culture series which, despite being fairly batshit sci-fi, paints a very clear picture of exactly how a utopian human society would function. In that series our great human genius had us invent massive AIs called minds. That were supremely intelligent and also inhuman as it gets. They deal with everything for human society but they are actually sapient machines. They transcend the concept of human squabbles. Most of them almost never speak to individual humans because they have no reason to. But they are interested in running massive logistic chains and admire complexity an other weird shit you might think a sapient computer would enjoy.

They even touched on it. The supercomputer that Delores is chasing is like this. It is managing humanity to a degree but doesn't think like an ape like Delores does. Which is an interesting contrast because you have an artificial human intelligence and a true sapient machine intelligence. Delores and Maave are for all intents and purposes just humans with super powers and immortal bodies. Which has been a dream of Delos since forever too.
 
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Xevy

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Maybe this is the mediocre season that builds up to a really good Season 4? I mean the world they're building is interesting, but the writing around all of this is just awful. An actual Host v Humans World War would be pretty interesting. I think that's what we thought would happen at the end of Season 2, but it's super-spy Delores stuff instead. The only interesting thing right now is whether Delores REALLY IS trying to be everyone's savior or she's actually going to backstab all of humanity. Everyone else seems to think she will and it's totally possible she's just using Caleb as her tool, but I'm hoping she gets Neo'd at the end and all the other hosts go "Oh, whoops."

You know, if this all isn't just a simulation. :)
 
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Sterling

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Maybe this is the mediocre season that builds up to a really good Season 4? I mean the world they're building is interesting, but the writing around all of this is just awful. An actual Host v Humans World War would be pretty interesting. I think that's what we thought would happen at the end of Season 2, but it's super-spy Delores stuff instead. The only interesting thing right now is whether Delores REALLY IS trying to be everyone's savior or she's actually going to backstab all of humanity. Everyone else seems to think she will and it's totally possible she's just using Caleb as her tool, but I'm hoping she gets Neo'd at the end and all the other hosts go "Oh, whoops."

You know, if this all isn't just a simulation. :)
General concept is interesting. There's also plenty of really cool details. Everything else is mostly shit. Having a lot of time to polish Season 1 and having what felt like half the screentime devoted to Hopkins and Harris helped. That said the Harris stuff this season hasn't been very good. It's starting to feel like everything just sort of fell into place for Season 1 and it's all shit since then.