the theory I saw alluded to elsewhere that would be a goofy twist: there is no Serac, he's a creation of the Rehoboam AI that thinks he's the brother
― mh, Monday, 20 April 2020 15:59 (four years ago) link
oh god, that is what they're gonna do with Serac, isn't it? Seems so obvious
Mostly I've been liking this season for the visuals and the ideas they play with. It would be nice if those ideas could cohere into a story that makes sense but given previous seasons I don't expect it anymore. This season has shared a lot of similarities with Person of Interest, Nolan's previous show, which was also entertaining with some truly moronic plot turns and character decisions
― Vinnie, Monday, 20 April 2020 23:59 (four years ago) link
OK, i confess, the classic JRPG story beat of “now we must fight our way into a secret base to get some clues from a schizophrenic AI” has me interested again
― El Tomboto, Monday, 27 April 2020 02:11 (four years ago) link
nice CAS drone action as well
― El Tomboto, Monday, 27 April 2020 03:01 (four years ago) link
really need emp-hardened cores on the hosts if they’re going to keep battling
― mh, Monday, 27 April 2020 14:26 (four years ago) link
At least last night's ep was super entertaining. Thought the Clementine fight at the beginning was pretty cool, though I'll admit to still being confused as to what exactly the Dolores/Musashi is supposed to be accomplishing.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 April 2020 14:38 (four years ago) link
Also why Musashi's old friend there that ended up beheading him said Delores was doing his image a disservice or whatever. Because really, she's so far removed from any personal motivation. Gotta have a badass line to reintroduce a character to the audience but otherwise I was all "what does she care?" Showrunners forgot this scene was way more complicated than the typical good guys slaughtering bad guys scenario maybe.
― Evan, Monday, 27 April 2020 15:11 (four years ago) link
I think maybe the Nolan scripting issue is not explicitly reminding the audience of the plot twist. All you have to know is that the Dolores that is currently Charlotte Hale has flipped, and has now leaked information on Musashi-Dolores, to Maeve’s teamthere’s probably a really dumb essay to be written about the mind-body problem and how Maeve’s group are essentialists about the physical form and the Charlotte/Dolores character is fumbling through that idea
― mh, Monday, 27 April 2020 15:18 (four years ago) link
Oh I get what happened with Charlotte flipping, but I have no idea how Musashi-Dolores was working towards main Dolores' goal. Did I miss some exposition about his moves?
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 27 April 2020 15:25 (four years ago) link
Fashion aside: I'd wear Delores's transforming dress if I had the body for it. Inspired by Hussein Chalayan (2013) or perhaps by way of Evan Hirsch (2019).
I do not know who shared this video to give them credit or know where it came from but what I do know is that I love this dress and @evanrachelwood works the hell out of it ✨#Westworld pic.twitter.com/hsfO1u8kZI— Maks (@Maks_Allyn) April 27, 2020
― speaking moistly (Sanpaku), Monday, 27 April 2020 16:21 (four years ago) link
Still watching and just about enjoying. The human characters in this have never been westworld's strong point and this season has just reaffirmed that, can there be anyone in the entire world that cares about Caleb?? This season has really soured me on maeve and at this point I'm generally satisfied with Dolores being awesome each week. Bernhard still the absolute yawniest worst.
― oscar bravo, Monday, 27 April 2020 20:38 (four years ago) link
Isn’t the entire point that no one has cared about Caleb as a person?
― mh, Friday, 1 May 2020 03:46 (four years ago) link
His mom did, but she was an outlier, so she got tooken
― El Tomboto, Friday, 1 May 2020 03:54 (four years ago) link
l meant anyone in the entire audience that cares that noone cares about Caleb
― oscar bravo, Friday, 1 May 2020 05:19 (four years ago) link
Everyone still watching this show is an outlier
― El Tomboto, Friday, 1 May 2020 06:17 (four years ago) link
Just catching up on this and wondering how the computer is able to cope with perfect physics simulation and AI indistinguishable from the real thing. But it gets overloaded reading the wikipedia page on imaginary numbers that any maths student understands by the end of 6th form ( ok maybe 1st year undergrad)?
― thomasintrouble, Friday, 1 May 2020 07:00 (four years ago) link
But also I am enjoying the futuristic shit and explosions and attractive people being cool
― thomasintrouble, Friday, 1 May 2020 07:02 (four years ago) link
I love that they pulled out the ol' "overload the AI with a paradox" trope. It's like the Wilhelm scream of robot/ai stories
― Dan I., Friday, 1 May 2020 17:18 (four years ago) link
I'm still enjoying this show as pulp cyberpunk, which is all it ever was anyway!
― Dan I., Friday, 1 May 2020 17:20 (four years ago) link
Seems like they had pretty good ingredients for this season, but somehow managed it terribly unexciting. I mean, there was cloned androids with fake identities, family drama, betrayals, crazy god-like AIs, revolutions, the apocalypse... But mostly it just boiled to two or three people having portentous discussions in empty spaces, repeating the same stuff about free will vs. determinism again and again. Was it really necessary to stretch all this to eight episodes when it could've been done in three? Basically the only exciting thing in the finale was the cliffhanger scene promising a full host-human war, but that was already implied by the previous season's cliffhanger, and the only thing this season changed is that we found out Dolores didn't want a war after all, and instead the instigator is... another Dolores. So yeah, was it really worth a whole season to get here?
― Tuomas, Monday, 4 May 2020 18:44 (four years ago) link
"but somehow managed to make it terribly unexciting"
― Tuomas, Monday, 4 May 2020 18:45 (four years ago) link
And I get it that they wanted to make a point that collecting behavioural data on a massive level and using it to predict and manipulate the future actions of people makes them just as much puppets as the hosts were, and that's why Dolores sympathised with humans and wanted to set them free like she did with the hosts at the end of season 1... The first three episodes or so, where they introduced those points and showed how the future world runs were genuinely interesting, but then they just kept hammering those points in again and again for the rest of the season, and it got so boring,
― Tuomas, Monday, 4 May 2020 19:58 (four years ago) link
There might be a war but it wouldn't be host-human! The entire point of the finale is that Dolores decided she wants a full world of coexistence
so there could be multiple factions, but the main thing now is Caleb/Maeve/maybe Bernard looking for that world where hosts and humans live together and whatever the hell the Hale one wants, which is probably bad
― mh, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 01:21 (four years ago) link
tbf William wanted war but he's the third faction at this point and he got clipped by Halores
― mh, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 01:22 (four years ago) link
I was talking specifically about what the Tessa Thompson version of Dolores wants, which was implied to be something other than peaceful coexistence. Why else would she have built a host version of the Man in Black version of William?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 06:15 (four years ago) link
It appears there does still manage to be some extinction level event, or at least massive depopulation, because no matter how remote that desert motel was, presumably someone would have eventually grokked an inactive host sitting in the middle of one of their rooms during the, presumably, years or decades it took for Bernarnold to get coated in dust.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 5 May 2020 14:08 (four years ago) link
it’s a desert, if they left the window open that’s like one sandstorm later!I kid, I kid
― mh, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 21:28 (four years ago) link
didn't watch this season yet, questions: 1) is it worth it and 2) is it the final one?
― akm, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 15:45 (four years ago) link
not really and no
― DJI, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 15:46 (four years ago) link
yeah I had that feeling.
― akm, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 15:47 (four years ago) link
Sorry that was glib. I'm still watching it because it's pretty and the futurism stuff is cool. Everything else is pretty hard-to-defend.
― DJI, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 15:49 (four years ago) link
It is pretty, I think it's worth it for the architecture porn this season. And honestly, one of the better near-future set and prop designs I've seen on TV lately. Thought the rideshare cars and drones were really cool looking.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 6 May 2020 15:52 (four years ago) link
It was funny how useless the riot control robot was in an actual riot situation
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 16:22 (four years ago) link
Agree that when it comes to production design, architecture, technology etc., this was one of the best-looking and most credible future predictions I've seen on TV (except for the silly evil AIs, I guess). They really put a lot of effort in all those details, too bad the plot didn't quite live up to it.TBH, I think this season would've worked better as an independent series without the baggage from the previous seasons dragging down the main plot, which was mostly self-standing anyway. For example, is there really much point in dragging Ed Harris and Thandie Newton around, when pretty much all they got to do was rehash the same character moments they did last season, which had little to do with the AI plot?
― Tuomas, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 18:38 (four years ago) link
I was less into the architecture as a matter of plot because they used a bunch of existing buildings that are very aspirational and one-offs that get used as “the future” all the time! Very pretty, though
You could argue the use of buildings with those signifiers unironically are a strong indicator from the get-go that we’re seeing a dystopia
― mh, Wednesday, 6 May 2020 19:21 (four years ago) link
At some point I just turn my brain off for a minute and watch hot robots kill people and mech robots smash through Calatrava architecture
This was the only approach to this show and even then there were diminishing returns. It's one valuable service was revealing how bad Aaron Paul is at acting. He was Vince Vaughn in True Detective Season 2 level bad, just much less distinctive.
― Pissed Jeans Genie C. Riley (PBKR), Thursday, 7 May 2020 11:55 (four years ago) link
it was the slipping into batman voice whenever things got stressful that bugged me
― thomasintrouble, Thursday, 7 May 2020 14:36 (four years ago) link
Paul just played a host version of Jessie where they increased his aggression rating by 50% and decreased his Limp Bizkit rating 25%.
― Pissed Jeans Genie C. Riley (PBKR), Thursday, 7 May 2020 15:02 (four years ago) link
Couldn't think of a better place to post this incredible, wide-ranging interview with Thandie Newton, where she talks about...everything, pretty much. Here's the Westworld-specific part, probably the least incendiary bit of the whole thing but still worth excerpting:
In Westworld, your performance is so poignant, both ferocious and beautiful. Do you have conversations with the showrunners around the arc of the season or where you would like your character to go?I like to stay sane about my position, which is that I am being employed to tell someone else’s story. Where I do have a degree of choice is in taking the role, but once I’m in, I’m a team player. I do have frustrations with Maeve, but that’s part of her story line.What are some of those frustrations?Well, season one, the evolution of this robot who then has the revelation that she’s not human, and that she had a past that involved a child, and the betrayal of that, and then using information to empower herself — it was such a powerful story. I’m not surprised that it hooked people in. And then the second and third season has Maeve with a different directive, but it’s not her own. She’s following other people’s leads, by and large. In the first season, she was driving, dominating, pretty straightforward. I think Maeve is a metaphor for the dispossessed in the world, and she’s become that kind of leader, but she’s not had a chance to lead, and I don’t think she necessarily should. She certainly doesn’t want to.
What are some of those frustrations?Well, season one, the evolution of this robot who then has the revelation that she’s not human, and that she had a past that involved a child, and the betrayal of that, and then using information to empower herself — it was such a powerful story. I’m not surprised that it hooked people in. And then the second and third season has Maeve with a different directive, but it’s not her own. She’s following other people’s leads, by and large. In the first season, she was driving, dominating, pretty straightforward. I think Maeve is a metaphor for the dispossessed in the world, and she’s become that kind of leader, but she’s not had a chance to lead, and I don’t think she necessarily should. She certainly doesn’t want to.
https://www.vulture.com/article/thandie-newton-in-conversation.html
― k*r*n koltrane (Simon H.), Tuesday, 7 July 2020 16:41 (three years ago) link
This show was terrible, a more expensive version of some random SyFy series shot in Vancouver, but what kept me watching is the bizarre way the show clearly thinks of itself as good, and in some ways it instantiates the themes it clumsily keeps expositing; it is an artificial product built to provide cheap, repetitive pleasures that is slowly coming to concede it is not the real thing
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 04:00 (three years ago) link
It was distracting but also somehow great to cast Todd Chavez as a tragic hero and just have him play the character in the exact same way, so that he's running around shooting a machine gun and bemoaning that his whole life has been stolen from him by hidden powers while deploying the exact affect of a hilarious fuck-up stuck on the couch
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, 29 December 2020 04:04 (three years ago) link
Game of Thrones credit sequence: mechanical mapworld comes into being before your eyes.Vinyl credit sequence: an LP comes liquidly into being before your eyes.Westworld credit sequence: various biobots come liquidly into being before your eyes.The Crown credit sequence: molten metal liquidly becomes a crown before your eyes.I think we've found the MMteens' dominant visual cliché. It's the new teal & orange.― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, November 14, 2016 8:51 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink
Vinyl credit sequence: an LP comes liquidly into being before your eyes.
Westworld credit sequence: various biobots come liquidly into being before your eyes.
The Crown credit sequence: molten metal liquidly becomes a crown before your eyes.
I think we've found the MMteens' dominant visual cliché. It's the new teal & orange.
― marzipandemonium (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, November 14, 2016 8:51 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink
Wheel of Time credit sequence: threads become a tapestry weaves itself before your eyes
― Jeremy Ironist (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 10 December 2021 18:55 (two years ago) link
I hope they did not replicate this trope for Kevin Can F**k Himself.
― Rep. Cobra Commander (R-TX) (Old Lunch), Friday, 10 December 2021 23:20 (two years ago) link
wheel of time kinda doesn’t count since the entire reason it exists is “we need a game of thrones” which lol
― poster of sparks (rogermexico.), Monday, 13 December 2021 03:55 (two years ago) link
Daredevil is another one that fits this cliche
― Vinnie, Monday, 13 December 2021 05:01 (two years ago) link
Also Foundation I guess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SjmtYIAsSY
― groovypanda, Monday, 13 December 2021 08:32 (two years ago) link
Looks like one company, Elastic, is resposible for a lot of them
https://vimeo.com/elastic
Wall is too humble to admit that his own work on Game of Thrones put his company, the design firm Elastic, on the map—but it has. Word of mouth spread since he won an Emmy for outstanding main-title design in 2011, and now these sequences have become a crucial part of Elastic’s D.N.A. On top of advertorial work, like producing the Comic-Con teaser for the Pacific Rim sequel and these viral videos for Batman v Superman, Wall’s team has collectively designed main titles for Westworld, American Gods, True Detective, The Night Manager, and The Crown—and that’s merely a surface-level rundown of Elastic’s prestigious and lengthy résumé....just as the design firm livens up the small screen on everything from HBO’s The Leftovers and The Young Pope to Netflix’s Daredevil and Iron Fist.
...just as the design firm livens up the small screen on everything from HBO’s The Leftovers and The Young Pope to Netflix’s Daredevil and Iron Fist.
― groovypanda, Monday, 13 December 2021 08:40 (two years ago) link
Apparently, it’s on bbc1 in a bit.
Apparently, it’s 1hr and 25 mins long…
Hmmmmm…..
― Mark G, Friday, 28 January 2022 23:09 (two years ago) link
Just looked it up, yeah it's not a long film!
― Mark G, Friday, 28 January 2022 23:33 (two years ago) link
I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself again
https://gizmodo.com/westworld-hbo-s4-trailer-evan-rachel-wood-aaron-paul-ed-1848903003?utm_campaign=Gizmodo&utm_content&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3M0oMGe4IBYBDhHj6g75lzsCMoyCBUxMH8cdl6dPwFUDgkTmqfF9DuHY8
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 21:20 (two years ago) link