Westworld is No Ordinary Walk in the Park
The ’70s movie gets a gripping reboot for TV
(Spoilers!)
Science fiction and westerns are two distinct genres that can be tricky to combine in a film or TV plot. HBO’s new drama Westworld, which debuted last Sunday, manages to achieve just that; even more, the show goes deeper and darker than the 1973 film it is inspired by. The first two episodes touch on a range of ideas such as artificial intelligence and the true nature of humanity, turning a simple story of malfunctioning robots in a wild west-themed amusement park into a spellbinding, beautifully filmed puzzle.
Westworld arrives at a timely period in our culture, one that has seen recent films which explore the possibility of humanlike androids (Ex Machina, Her, the upcoming Blade Runner sequel), and one in which technological advancements appear to outpace one another.
In the opening minutes of the pilot episode, we are introduced to a droid named Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), who is being interrogated in a cold, dark room by an unseen voice. She is asked if she understands what and where she really is — just a robot in a theme park, only “built to gratify the desires of the people who pay to visit” Westworld. She claims she is unaware of this, and says she only understands herself as what she has been programmed to be, a rancher’s daughter who tends to the family homestead.
As Dolores’s story unfolds, the show goes on to establish the inner workings of Westworld. In the park, it isn’t easy to tell just who exactly is a host or a human guest — a nice trick. The only way to tell the difference is, that while hosts are programmed against doing any harm to guests, guests have free reign to do whatever they please to hosts, no matter how depraved or violent guests’ demands are. This can include a range of scenarios, from gunfights with outlaws and carousing at the town brothel to more dangerous exploits on the frontier.
Yet so lifelike are the hosts, in fact, that they exhibit a new range of gestures, a feature added into the park’s latest update by the creator, Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins). Lead programmer Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) remarks on the brilliance of these features, commenting that the hosts’ lifelike attributes are “what make the guests fall in love with them.”
These gestures, called Reveries, allow the hosts to access old memories they previously weren’t conscious of. The hosts’ capacity for long-term memories seems unlikely, given that hosts are permanently embedded with scripted storylines that run on a loop. Anything outside of these storylines is wiped clean by park technicians at the end of each host’s day.
It doesn’t take long for things to go awry as hosts start experiencing technical difficulties. A host sheriff goes haywire, while another goes off-script and threatens guests. Dolores’s father, Peter, discovers a buried photo that was taken in the outside world, and the unfamiliar setting in the photo causes him to short-circuit. In his spasm, he whispers something to Dolores.
Then there is the mysterious Man in Black (Ed Harris), a modern spin on the Yul Brynner antagonist from the film. A wealthy repeat guest to the park, he is on a ruthless mission to uncover “a deeper level to this game,” unknown to us for now. This secret level must be highly coveted, as the Man is willing to eliminate anyone who prevents him from finding it.
Meanwhile, all the malfunctioning hosts are recalled to the control room for evaluation. When Ford tries to question Peter, Peter responds by quoting Shakespeare. He chillingly warns Ford, “By most mechanical and dirty hand. I shall have such revenges on you.” Ford dismisses this as a harmless byproduct of the Reveries; in a previous Westworld storyline, Peter was a teacher that recited lines from The Bard. Ford ultimately decides to have Peter decommissioned, and, along with other malfunctioning hosts, Peter is put into cold storage — an eerie sight of multiple droids standing motionless in rows.
We come back to Dolores, one of the recalled hosts, being questioned as shown in the beginning. Dolores reveals the line Peter whispered to her was, “These violent delights have violent ends,” but the words make no sense to her. When she is asked if she would ever harm a living thing, she replies in the negative without hesitation. This is enough for the technicians to clear her as working just fine, and she is returned to the park. The episode ends with a moment that is subtle yet startling — a moment that discloses Dolores may know more than she appears to.
Westworld is brought to life with dazzling scenery and elaborate set pieces that justify the show’s massive budget. Instead of the sci-fi and western elements clashing with one another, they complement each other. Among the best sequences from the pilot episode is the pull away from the sprawling landscapes of the park to the mechanical control area, where hosts — including horses — are manufactured and programmed into their creepy lifelike beings.
The original film was written and directed by Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park. From those works, it is obvious some sort of uprising will happen in the show where human beings will be forced to confront their creations. But here, we also become invested in the characters and their own personal agendas. Everyone has one, whether it is the technicians, the hosts, the Man in Black, and even the company that operates the park.
The show opens up a bunch of fascinating questions about the world within and outside the park. When androids are made to be as humanlike as possible, will there still be any difference left between droids and humans? When humans are let loose in the wild, do we revert to baser instincts? Are acts of violence upon androids acceptable? Westworld’s intricate storytelling, coupled with a stacked cast, makes for a rich, mutilayered experience that promises one hell of a ride.
