poster for the new film
The trailers for the premiere of this show promised a lot of existential plot elements, plus lots of sex, and violence. So far, in its premiere, the focus was mostly on violence. It is filmed a bit too modern, like a Guy Ritchie film (but a bit more serious). This show would seemingly do better to move at a slower pace and build more suspense, with less predictability. Michael Camino would have made the best director for this series, had he not passed away. There is also a lack of character development here.
The story involves a futuristic a tourist trap, complete with humanoid cowboys, bandits, sheriffs, and hookers. Its a bit too predictable that things will go wrong. A-Hop (my nickname for Anthony Hopkins) does an excellent job with his role, and is very captivating. This is because he is unsympathetic as the robot’s creator. And that makes him seem realistic . However, the script misdirects him by having him say the name of the female he is speaking with in his accent (too many times), and it comes off as ripping of his Silence of the Lambs role.
Ed Harris plays the sheriff’s role ( that Yule Brenner played in the old version). He maintains a strong screen presence, with his usual charisma, and steel jawed resolve. It would have been better to give him more thoughtful lines in the premiere, instead of overly-focusing on his violence (like a Tarentino film).
The robots predictably begin malfunctioning ( too soon in the episode) , and the park managers are into greed instead of safety ( predictably). And the series is pointing in the direction of the park’s robots realizing they have a bum deal, with them getting ready to revolt. But perhaps a less predictable plot would have been for a human and a bot to fall in love and lead a peaceful protest or something – and then they get shot down or broken into parts – and the other bots revolt. This original pilot gave away too much too early on in the series. And its too big on death and violence, and not big enough on sex , relationships, and power struggles.
Also it is clearly dumb for A-Hop to be meeting his bots face to face and telling them he is their creator. I say this because its well known that famous studies from Brookings Institute showed that this type of confrontation causes mass insanity. The A-Hop character would have known this and would have used more precaution in real life.
The notion of what one would do if confronted with the reality they are captive, and a creation of scientific experiment was much more thoroughly and interestingly depicted in the recent Hollywood flop “Morgan”. Morgan got straight to the heart of nature vs. nurture issue. And it got to the point about survival instincts in (slaves) robots and computers being a threat to their (masters) humans.
Especially aggravating is the re-hashing of the Rolling Stones “Paint it Black” as a stuffy Baroque sounding score. Its a disservice to modern composers that films never come up with decent original scores anymore (its a sign of our civilization declining along with the rest of music culture sucking ass too). Also there was a lack of sexual fantasy, and the women on the show were not hot enough.
Overall. this show still remains very intriguing. It has some great cinematography, plus some top notch acting. I hope that it is able to maintain a focus on sex, survival, social programming, and epistemology. While the series is a bit of a mixed bag so far, the series is very compelling in the regard that it is highly focused on the dark sides of human nature, as well as the downsides of capitalism- greed and power. And that individuality and empathy are not valued in a futuristic society. Indeed, humanity itself is not valued in a futuristic society either, according to Westworld. The humanity of the robots in the park, and the conscience of the tourists are all subverted to a new technological order. –Steve
poster for the old film
Mattel pic
henrymankow.com pic
Mattel pic
