The Characters
Since the dropoff on these posts is greater than a bar of soap in the Parkinson's ward, I'll get the big point out of the way first.
The characters in Westworld aren't bad, but only because they aren't even quantifiable.
With an ensemble cast of world-class actors (and Thandie Newton's boobs), you'd be mistaken for thinking that the characterization in Westworld is comparable to other great shows right now like Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul. Silicon Valley and The Walking Dead (Just kidding). There is no doubt that none of these actors are phoning it in, and they're a big part of why this show is revered, but they're not playing characters as much as they're just really good as reading lines off a script. A few weeks ago I proved this point to someone by playing what I like to call "The Star Wars Prequel Test". The game is simple. Without describing what they look like, or what they do in the story, describe a character. Are they brave? Are they funny? etc. Besides for Lee (the British writer), who is a satire piece given life and a pants-tightening accent, my friends were stumped. Try it now. Describe Bernard for me. I'll wait.
Thought so.
I'm going to focus on a single character to illustrate this point. Robert Ford, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins. Anthony Hopkins has always been the king of idealistic, convoluted monologues. In his most famous role he pretty much did this exclusively, but the reason it works as Hannibal Lecter and not as Robert Ford is that the nonsense he was spouting was not only intrinsic to the character, but it at least served as an allegory to the events happening in the film. You could argue that Ford's speeches are tied to the goings on of the show, but you'd have to have an asterisks at the send so big that Ray Charles would spot it if he was playing a show on the moon. The other big reason that this doesn't work is that nearly every character spouts off pretentious nonsense that would give any hipster stoner an erection. The only characters who don't fall into this category are Elsie, Ashley (the security guy), Theresa and Charlotte. To make matters worse, it's almost as if the show punishes the ones who can actually say a sentence with less than five words in it. Three of the four I just named are either dead or presumed dead, and the fourth is considered a villain.
To summarize: Anthony Hopkins, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins
I know I've talked about characters a lot already but there's one thing I need to add.
The hosts, like everyone else on this show, have no personality. From a narrative standpoint, they're not supposed to. We see this firsthand when we are shown the personality matrix (or whatever dumb sci-fi name they gave it). We literally watched Maive fuck with her character bio on screen. I understand that it's not a flaw in the narrative as much as it's a choice, but it's hard to relate to a character when their traits can fluctuate on a whim.
Moving on...
The Story
Westworld juggles two main story-lines with sub-stories happening in both. There's also a bit about corporate espionage. If that sentence felt tact on, well you just figured out my point. First things first though:
Maeve's Story:
Whenever I watch a Film or TV Show, I know that I'm making a conscious decision to devote my time to it. If it's bad or disappointing, I only have myself to blame. Maeve's story-line marks the first time I've ever felt my time has been truly wasted. Her story starts strong. A robot gains self-awareness and confronts her makers. Sure, not the most original of plots but I'll bite. The pacing was good, watching Maeve have a reality-shattering moment every episode until she became the Fucking Terminator, but more on that in a bit. The problems with this story come in at two key points. The two scientists (medics?) Felix and Sylvestre are quite possibly the dumbest characters on the show, nay, on TV, NAY in fiction. While it's pretty clear that Felix probably spent one too many days locked in the girls bathroom in high-school, it doesn't let us, the audience grant him the benefit of the doubt for the amount of shit he gets away with. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS. Come to think of it, I'm done with this tool. Instead of listing all the shit he's done with that doe-eyed look on his face, I'm just gonna copy and paste. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS.
Fuck that guy.
Sylvestre at least is a shorter discussion. Maeve threatens to shut down his entire corpse-brothel operation he has going on. "How?" You might ask, well so would I, because I have no idea. It really doesn't matter though. Sylvestre could've solved this entire situation by walking into his boss' office, saying " That chick woke up, tried to stab me and is a danger." Maeve gets put in cold storage and end of discussion. Sylvestre obviously doesn't do that, and thus we have Whorenocio.
The second element where this story stumbles is that Maeve turns into a fucking God. She maximizes all her traits so that she's basically a perfect human being, and from there on she turns into another nonsense-spouter. It's hard to relate to a character when they have a perfect plan in place and know how to perfectly deal with everything perfectly so that the perfect plan goes perfectly. See my point?
Oh, and the piece of shit resolution to this whole ordeal. Maeve turns into Robot-Jesus, escapes using manipulation, coercion and pure smarts, only for the whole thing to be undone by her "loving her daughter". Her daughter that, by dying, caused Maeve to develop awareness in the first place. It's as if the writers wanted this story to come full circle, but personally, it feels like having your car break down just before the finishing line, and having it towed all the way back to the beginning.
I know there's more to this, like Arnold allowing Maeve to wake up in the first place, but to be honest I'm sure you're as tired of reading about this as I am of typing it. Fuck Maeve. Fuck Felix. Fuck Sylvestre and Fuck The Walking Dead (That last one may be unrelated)
Delores' Story:
Delores is the protagonist of this show. We open on her story in the pilot, and we finish on her story in the finale. As a whole, it's not bad. It's the one with the twists, the least plot-holes, and it has Ed Harris' Man In Black, who, for the first few episodes, was the only character who actually did anything.
That's not to say it's perfect though, even though the twists were predicted weeks before they were revealed, it was still hard to follow along with what was happening. This made the finale feel less like a finale and more like a Cliffnotes for what came before. The William-Man In Black Theory has been talked about to death on other websites so all I'll say is that it qualifies as a perfect example of why all TV shows should release Netflix style.
Westworld promised a story about artificial intelligence, and while Maeve's story had its own spin on the tail, Delores' tail was the one that felt original. The reveal that Arnold's voice in her head was actually her thoughts was a great reveal, and going back, it felt like a genuine take on what it must be like to suddenly have an inner monologue for the first time.
Thought so.
I'm going to focus on a single character to illustrate this point. Robert Ford, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins. Anthony Hopkins has always been the king of idealistic, convoluted monologues. In his most famous role he pretty much did this exclusively, but the reason it works as Hannibal Lecter and not as Robert Ford is that the nonsense he was spouting was not only intrinsic to the character, but it at least served as an allegory to the events happening in the film. You could argue that Ford's speeches are tied to the goings on of the show, but you'd have to have an asterisks at the send so big that Ray Charles would spot it if he was playing a show on the moon. The other big reason that this doesn't work is that nearly every character spouts off pretentious nonsense that would give any hipster stoner an erection. The only characters who don't fall into this category are Elsie, Ashley (the security guy), Theresa and Charlotte. To make matters worse, it's almost as if the show punishes the ones who can actually say a sentence with less than five words in it. Three of the four I just named are either dead or presumed dead, and the fourth is considered a villain.
To summarize: Anthony Hopkins, played by the spectacular Anthony Hopkins
I know I've talked about characters a lot already but there's one thing I need to add.
The hosts, like everyone else on this show, have no personality. From a narrative standpoint, they're not supposed to. We see this firsthand when we are shown the personality matrix (or whatever dumb sci-fi name they gave it). We literally watched Maive fuck with her character bio on screen. I understand that it's not a flaw in the narrative as much as it's a choice, but it's hard to relate to a character when their traits can fluctuate on a whim.
Moving on...
The Story
Westworld juggles two main story-lines with sub-stories happening in both. There's also a bit about corporate espionage. If that sentence felt tact on, well you just figured out my point. First things first though:
Maeve's Story:
Whenever I watch a Film or TV Show, I know that I'm making a conscious decision to devote my time to it. If it's bad or disappointing, I only have myself to blame. Maeve's story-line marks the first time I've ever felt my time has been truly wasted. Her story starts strong. A robot gains self-awareness and confronts her makers. Sure, not the most original of plots but I'll bite. The pacing was good, watching Maeve have a reality-shattering moment every episode until she became the Fucking Terminator, but more on that in a bit. The problems with this story come in at two key points. The two scientists (medics?) Felix and Sylvestre are quite possibly the dumbest characters on the show, nay, on TV, NAY in fiction. While it's pretty clear that Felix probably spent one too many days locked in the girls bathroom in high-school, it doesn't let us, the audience grant him the benefit of the doubt for the amount of shit he gets away with. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS. Come to think of it, I'm done with this tool. Instead of listing all the shit he's done with that doe-eyed look on his face, I'm just gonna copy and paste. He allows Maeve access to the ENTIRE HOST SYSTEM, GRANTING HER THE ABILITY TO DISOBEY AND HARM HUMANS.
Fuck that guy.
Sylvestre at least is a shorter discussion. Maeve threatens to shut down his entire corpse-brothel operation he has going on. "How?" You might ask, well so would I, because I have no idea. It really doesn't matter though. Sylvestre could've solved this entire situation by walking into his boss' office, saying " That chick woke up, tried to stab me and is a danger." Maeve gets put in cold storage and end of discussion. Sylvestre obviously doesn't do that, and thus we have Whorenocio.
The second element where this story stumbles is that Maeve turns into a fucking God. She maximizes all her traits so that she's basically a perfect human being, and from there on she turns into another nonsense-spouter. It's hard to relate to a character when they have a perfect plan in place and know how to perfectly deal with everything perfectly so that the perfect plan goes perfectly. See my point?
Oh, and the piece of shit resolution to this whole ordeal. Maeve turns into Robot-Jesus, escapes using manipulation, coercion and pure smarts, only for the whole thing to be undone by her "loving her daughter". Her daughter that, by dying, caused Maeve to develop awareness in the first place. It's as if the writers wanted this story to come full circle, but personally, it feels like having your car break down just before the finishing line, and having it towed all the way back to the beginning.
I know there's more to this, like Arnold allowing Maeve to wake up in the first place, but to be honest I'm sure you're as tired of reading about this as I am of typing it. Fuck Maeve. Fuck Felix. Fuck Sylvestre and Fuck The Walking Dead (That last one may be unrelated)
Delores' Story:
Delores is the protagonist of this show. We open on her story in the pilot, and we finish on her story in the finale. As a whole, it's not bad. It's the one with the twists, the least plot-holes, and it has Ed Harris' Man In Black, who, for the first few episodes, was the only character who actually did anything.
That's not to say it's perfect though, even though the twists were predicted weeks before they were revealed, it was still hard to follow along with what was happening. This made the finale feel less like a finale and more like a Cliffnotes for what came before. The William-Man In Black Theory has been talked about to death on other websites so all I'll say is that it qualifies as a perfect example of why all TV shows should release Netflix style.
Westworld promised a story about artificial intelligence, and while Maeve's story had its own spin on the tail, Delores' tail was the one that felt original. The reveal that Arnold's voice in her head was actually her thoughts was a great reveal, and going back, it felt like a genuine take on what it must be like to suddenly have an inner monologue for the first time.
Overall, Delores' story was well told, and offered something new, even enough to justify the story it was being told alongside.
The tacked in corporate espionage side story thing
At best this story can be summarized as world-building for season 2. At worst, it can be seen as something to fill out the runtime. Between Bernard and Theresa's "thing" and Ford's New Narrative, nothing here affected other stories substantially nor did it offer anything unique. To carry in talking about it would be a waste of my time as well as yours. Let's just hope that it all pays off in season 2.
Everything else:
This is where Westworld shines. The cinematography is gorgeous, the production design will have you fully invested in the Wild West as much as the cold, sterile future that Westworld calls present day, and hearing a Cowboy version of Paint It Black gave my brain an orgasm. If Westworld can be considered to be pushing the medium, this is how.
Lastly, it would be remiss to neglect talking about the sheer amount of nudity that Westworld boasts (and "boasts" is the correct word here). Some have called it atmospheric and brilliant, while others have criticized it for being gratuitous. Personally, I think that every scene that has it could've achieved the same thing had the characters been fully clothed, but I'm never going to say no to some boobs.
P.S. I do at least appreciate the fact that the boob to dick ratio is more reasonable than most shows, cough Game Of Thrones.
If you've made it this far, you probably don't need a summary of everything I've just said, but I have to adhere to some sense of structure here so...
Westworld is a show I would recommend to everybody. Even though I've spent the last nearly 2000 words shitting on this show, I've only highlited it's problems. It's a good show that is at least trying something new, and the acting alone should be enough to sell it. I hope the characterization gets better in future seasons, with greater payoff, but for now, only time will tell.
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