Westworld

Caliane said:

Fords heelturn is not very satisfying.

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That wasn't a heel turn! It was a face turn!

Security was definitely all chumps out of some Schwarzenegger flick from the 80's. Mooks every one of them. We never see what happens to the Chief Mook. There's lots of shooting and no reloading. It's not great.

Rather than have those action scenes at all they should have spent some more time on making the murdering at the end longer and more visceral.

I feel a little let down by this finale. I don't think it's nearly as bad as some people make it out to be, but I do feel it fell short of what could have potentially been an amazing show. Production value, talented acting, and an interesting setting/topic is all right there ready to be knocked out of the park. Instead there's up and down writing and some pretty muddled stuff that definitely detracts.

mkopec said:

It could of been a sort of diversion so he could sneak all those hosts in cold storage out, and therefore unknowingly (or knowingly) taking away that download the corp wanted to sneak out of the park since most security teams were tied up with her escape.

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But he could have, at any time, just ordered a robot to ignore commands and do the same.

The only argument I can see is that it was apart of pushing her to self-discovery...but still. His entire plan for her required so much incompetency and failures by the staff to be successful.

mkopec said:

Well just before she sets her friends free on the humans, she makes a few adjustments to them as well. Is it really that hard to believe that a mind quicker, better, more intelligent, have more reflex, awareness, agility than a humans, cannot take out dumb guards or learn how to fire auto weapons, aka squeeze the fucking trigger??

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But the guards literally did not fire a single shot (IIRC), and for the most part just ran at them without cover. I don't think anyone cares that the guards were beat, but their tactics for supposed trained security is indefensible.

Caliane said:

Fords heelturn is not very satisfying. I don't feel they argued or explained his machivellian maneuvering, after 35 years of playing god and slaves, to decide, no I want you to have free will now, despite many of my very actions in the last 3 weeks directly countering that. like wiping Bernards memory, and making Bernard shoot himself in the head. Was that all part of his plan? make bernard to get Clementine involved. have bernard shoot himself, then send Maeve down after Clementine, to find Bernard and repair him? really?
Ford burning everything to the ground, does make some sense at least.

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I'd guess that Bernard's suicide is to hopefully get him towards conciseness. Similar to how Teddy needed to hear whatever the Greeter chick told him, to die and get reset to be closer to the path. Teddy's still not there, but he's obviously getting closer. Bernard needed more time, and Ford even tells him he needs to suffer more for his awakening (likely the massacre is what will push him over).

Season 1 was ultimately a show that was fun to watch week to week but breaks down hard if you start analyzing it. A fairly simple story, maybe too simple, that is heavily obfuscated by time skips, flashbacks, character acts that don't really make any sense, intentional mystery, cuts in vital information presented to viewers, etc. It would have easily been a two hour movie if rewritten to be simpler.

interview with Anthony Hopkins
'Westworld' Finale: Anthony Hopkins on Dr. Ford's Fate

I would have preferred a more classic Asimovian buildup, with hosts being completely unable to harm humans via deep embedded core coding, and the breaking of this core restriction being the "whoah!" moment of consciousness. Literally consciousness being the ability for the AIs to rewrite their own code. As it stands the show instead basically says robots run their loops and either go insane or shutdown, and breaking those two conditions are the jump to consciousness but its not really clear if Maeve or Dolores really achieved that or not. Not harming humans is just an app that can be turned off and uninstalled whenver anyone wants.

I still look forward to season 2 but I see it as a 50/50 shot that it'll be good or just a big pile of drek.

Its definitely a show HBO needed, ratings wise
‘Westworld’ Finale Hits Season High, Caps Most Watched First Season Of HBO Series

mkopec said:

Even that one chick questioned the security leader all the time, why do you carry a gun? why do you need a whole team with you armed? Quite simply put, the security was shit there because they never had to do anything.

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Except they also made a big point about how the security team doesn't trust the robots and expects them to rebel eventually.

How many people have to get killed before they realize the robot has gone rogue? The Hosts killed atleast a dozen people before that final team shows up. Why the hell would they care about voice commands at all at that point.

Teekey said:

Except they also made a big point about how the security team doesn't trust the robots and expects them to rebel eventually.

How many people have to get killed before they realize the robot has gone rogue? The Hosts killed atleast a dozen people before that final team shows up. Why the hell would they care about voice commands at all at that point.

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Yeah, but you can't really bust into a room and start shooting. There might be actual people there.

Asmadai said:

Wulliam is the Man in Black. Fard is gonna kill the board.

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HAHA

Upon further reflection I was taken aback by the similarities of tone and structure that exist between Maeve's escape and the Sweetwater safe heist. They both open up with a poorly concealed attempt to hide in plain sight followed by the swift death of the person who investigates, from there over the top violence ensues as the villains cartoonishly gun down everyone who confronts them while standing around in the open. For awhile they are seemingly untouchable until the floor show ends and the villains are dealt with, smiling all the way, as the whorehouse madam looks on wistfully.

It makes me wonder if Lee (the writer for the heist, the pisser) is more than he appeared to be or if Ford deliberately mimicked his style for some purpose. It was fun to think about anyway.