Westworld

I was on board with the "William is the Man in Black" theory until I saw a candid interview that Jimmi Simpson (William) did before the premiere. He described his role and talked about how the park changes people and allows them to discover who they truly are. He said there was nothing ominous about his character. Sure, he could have pulled a Kit Harrington, but I don't think he's that good a liar. Also, the Dolores that interacts with him seems much too sophisticated for these scenes be taking place 30 years prior.

sneakyflute said:

. He described his role and talked about how the park changes people and allows them to discover who they truly are.

Click to expand...

This would be evidence in favor of him being the Man in Black. Doe-eyed innocent 'white hat' William turning into the 'black hatted' villain would certainly qualify as the park changing someone.

He said there was nothing ominous about his character. Sure, he could have pulled a Kit Harrington, but I don't think he's that good a liar. Also, the Dolores that interacts with him seems much too sophisticated for these scenes be taking place 30 years prior.

Click to expand...

His character is technically William. There's nothing ominous about William. He's not playing the 30 year older version of William. That role is left to this man:



And why the fuck do people believe anything actors say in regards to plot twists or their characters future? Did Hugh Jackman come out ten months before the Prestige was theatrically released and fill everyone in on the details about the lengths his character would eventually succumb to for vengeance?

Jesus Christ. An actor actually spoiling a series would be the equivalent of fucking career suicide. Actors have either always either lied or remained silent. What an actor says is basically ir-fucking-relevant. You think he's actually going to give you a clue about how this series progresses.

I don't think he's that good a liar.

Click to expand...

What in the mother of Jesus! You think someone who's profession is to convince an audience he's another person, someone who acts for a living, is not good at deception or lying? That's what acting is numbnuts.

Sorry, the stupidity...it's overwhelming.

Is it worth watching?

Definitely.

If I'm wrong I'll come admit it. I don't think I am though.

Wooly prediction pretty good and bold, I must declare, but I don't buy the campfire scene as a flashback and that kind of breaks it.

The prior flashbacks were more....flashy, quick snippets. They were moments that reflected the loop in the past. The campfire was full out of loop decision tree due to not getting sodomized in the shed for once.

This is just a way to launch the good guys team vs bad guys team. who knows doe

I love that Williams sidekick always has to check, if his dick is hanging out when he is coming on screen. Guy knows how to party.

Part of the reason that I like this show so much, and that I think it's going to get better as opposed to be empty like Lost, (besides Abrams not writing it) is that the writers are talented and finished the script before filming. The dialogue so far has been fucking fantastic. The references, the atmosphere, everything about this show has been impeccable. The script is on par with something that'd be produced by GRRM.

And Anthony Hopkins. If anyone else were in the role (of Ford), we'd immediately recognize them as an antoganist, and start to dislike. Yet he displays a level of callousness that approaches even hatred of his creations, yet we don't really care. What has the Man in Black done that Ford hasn't done or condoned? He's even more antagonistic than the character we think is the villain.

Ford is a very, very dark character. We've only scratched the surface. But considering Anthony Hopkins made a generation fall in love with a character that was a serial killer (SOTL/Hannibal), I'm not surprised.
Guy could kill babies and we'd still love him.

Woolygimp said:

Yet he displays a level of callousness that approaches even hatred of his creations, yet we don't really care. What has the Man in Black done that Ford hasn't done or condoned? He's even more antagonistic than the character we think is the villain.

Click to expand...

Well, I mean, your very post shows that you care. I certainly dislike his character (not his portrayal).

The one scene that I thought was bad so far, was the scene where he cuts up the Host's face in front of the worker that had covered him up. That scene felt too obvious. A scene put in to shout "see, Ford is a bad guy!".

Woolygimp said:

h

Click to expand...

khalid said:

Well, I mean, your very post shows that you care. I certainly dislike his character (not his portrayal).

The one scene that I thought was bad so far, was the scene where he cuts up the Host's face in front of the worker that had covered him up. That scene felt too obvious. A scene put in to shout "see, Ford is a bad guy!".

Click to expand...

Let's speculate a little. Let's speculate that he and Arnold had a conflict. Or that Westworld really did exist. There would undoubtedly be people who would object to its existence. Ford has probably had conflict with more than a few people about the nature of his creations, wouldn't you think? Even his second in command shows empathy towards them as Bernard remarks, "You taught me how easy it was to create, but never how difficult it is to shut them down."

This is a battle he's been fighting for however many years the park has been opened. I do not think it would be out of character for him at all to get a little upset at one of his employees, plus the nature of his job has undoubtedly put the man under a lot of stress. He really didn't even show that much emotion, but was making an example of that employee in front of the rest.

We also learn that he knows pretty much everything about both guests and employees. I mean if people are going to get up in arms about 'Blackfish' and us keeping Orcas in captivity, then there are probably a whole lot of people who would want to sabotage the park. Even if you could objectively show that they're machines, with nothing else 'there', I think society would still have a problem with the wanton cruelty paired with the realism.

Just like it's not acceptable to televise murders/death/bodies. If we had footage of gladiators gutting one another 2,000 years ago in the Flavian Amphitheatre (it's already history, so there's no moral objection on the grounds of someone getting hurt), I don't think our society would accept that level of violence. At least not yet.

Deep down, I think we all want to see a real gladatorial match. We've drawn an arbitrary line as a society. It's alright for professional football players to basically become Alzheimer's patients in their 50's but not for someone to die. UFC fighting is as violent as we can be, and there's certainly a chance of someone dying doing it. The amount of violence we accept as a society is constantly changing...

People really don't know that gladiators were expensive to train, and often free Romans who signed up willingly for the money or fame, and really didn't fight to the death often. They'd grow fat to protect them from wounds. We have evidence of gladiators losing dozens of fights, and I mean it was certainly dangerous but it was usually just a fight to submission. UFC with someone dying in perhaps 10% of fights instead of 0.1%.

Point is that we think that ancient people were bloodthirsty. But are we any different, or any more civilized? No, but we like to think we are.

What's so evil about treating a machine like a machine? They aren't supposed to be sentient. I mean, yeah, with the way AI is portrayed in fiction it's easy to believe that they have human emotions, but they really don't. It's why I have a love/hate with this kind of sci-fi.

You wouldn't have any problem with your neighbor routinely killing something that looks, talks, and behaves identical to a human being?

There's no telling if there are any ramifications psychologically. For one, it's probably de-sensitizing people to killing. I certainly wouldn't trust someone who was a frequent visitor to this type of park.

Society, as of now, wouldn't permit a park like Westworld to be open. Whether or not the androids are sentient is irrelevant. There are other considerations.

To me, no different than killing an npc in Dark Souls. It's not alive, it's just a simulation of a human.

Seriously? Pushing a key on a keyboard to kill a digital representation consisting of pixels is far different from physically shooting a target that is indistinguishable to a person, a target that has a personality, a target that reacts exactly as a person would, a target innoculates you to the smell of death, and so forth.

That's why you shoot at human shaped silhouettes in boot camp, not bulls eyes. The military would love what you're talking about as it'd be far more effective at de-sensitizing soldiers, which is something that the military actively tries to do. I'd definitely have a problem with civilians doing it though.

That being said, I would not condone torture or rape of the same. Not out of any empathy for the machine, but because any human that takes enjoyment from doing that is sick. Just playing a RL game is not the same to me, as long as it's just simulated killing. But, we are gamers, we are used to doing that.

You shouldn't derive pleasure from Doom because you love seeing people torn apart, but because it's a game (i.e. a simulated obstacle for you to "overcome").

There are millions of games that are incredibly fun that have nothing to do with shooting, or even people. Games are games. Paintball is fun not because you're hurting someone, but because of the competition, strategy, and skill. It's no different than basketball.

Tying someone up and shooting them with a paintball gun on the other hand would give me no pleasure. Psychologically, I think that's why we're drawn to war. To teenagers and young adults, war is the ultimate competition. They compete personally, with others, but also societies. It's not until they experience the actual suffering and what it entails do people really wake up to reality.

Obviously there's a "cool" factor of being on a futuristic Mars base ripping demon's apart, just like being in a park set in the 1870's. That's tied to our drive to explore and experience new things. Fuck, I'd like to go to the Middle East once in my life even though it's an absolute shithole.

the real question is what kind of asshole builds a toaster that feels pain when it cooks bread? "the screaming lets you know when the bread is just right."
THATS essentially what they are doing.

Machines taking the brunt and wear and tear is pretty much every sport/entertainment. I beat the shit out of my mountain bike. Race cars, etc. The thrill of a roller coaster is the same a live mmo, like presented here. Tower of terror freefall feels the same as a skydive/freefall. (more or less. same idea where trying to push the boundaries of "real" and "authentic" while still being safe.

Shooting galleries often dress targets up in fancy ways, to make the targets more real, or silly.
lifelike is still not human. Also, where the Old West dressup comes into play. Further pushes it back into fantasy.