# Westworld - S1E1 - "The Original" - 10/2/2016



## hairyblue (Feb 25, 2002)

I just noticed this show had episode 1 up on HBOGO.

I loved the movie. I haven't seen this episode yet. I'l be back when I've watched it.


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## johnh123 (Dec 7, 2000)

Loved it. Can't wait for more.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

Rather enjoyed that.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

Wow. So many possibilities. 

I kinda want to let them all build up and binge it.

Very high expectations after that opener.


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## nataylor (Apr 26, 2000)

Very good.

Loved the music!


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

nataylor said:


> Loved the music!


The intro credits were very Downton Abbey.


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## Jolt (Jan 9, 2006)

One of the songs was Sound Garden Blackhole Sun. I need to go back and try to figure out some of the others.


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## Jolt (Jan 9, 2006)

Rolling Stones Paint it black also.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

Pretty slow feeling. It went a pretty long way to kill a fly. I'll stick with it though.


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

The theme park seems to be missing a sure way to spot a robot, like an 'R' on the cheek or something. Or at least a device to point at someone to check if they are a robot. Otherwise, you could have guests hurting other guests, thinking they were robots.


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

john4200 said:


> The theme park seems to be missing a sure way to spot a robot, like an 'R' on the cheek or something. Or at least a device to point at someone to check if they are a robot. Otherwise, you could have guests hurting other guests, thinking they were robots.


In the original movie,


Spoiler



there were sensors embedded that prevented the weapons from being used against a human. That wouldn't work with say, a spear or stick, but at least guests wouldn't be able to shoot each other. Of course the robots were programmed to not harm humans.

And in the original the robots' palms were "blank" so that was the way to spot a robot. There doesn't seem any way to tell in this version.


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## hairyblue (Feb 25, 2002)

Jolt said:


> Rolling Stones Paint it black also.


I noticed this one. Done very well.


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## hairyblue (Feb 25, 2002)

I played the game Skyrim. They'd have a character offer you a quest, BUT if for some reason that character is killed or goes off on another quest, then they had another character take up interacting with you for the quest. 

I noticed that west world is like that too. Very interesting.

And I was surprised to find out that the rancher girl was the oldest robot there.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

I rather liked the first segment where they had me thinking Teddy was actually one of the newcomers, and showing that while they basically play the same loop, they do improvise a fair bit.

Took me a bit to realize where I had seen a few of the actors before. Sidse Babett Knudsen I finally recognized as the lead in _Borgen_ (Danish TV show). And I got a mild delight out of Steven Ogg's character being called "Rebus".


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

Peter000 said:


> In the original movie,
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...





Spoiler



I think if such a theme park really existed, every guest would be required to wear a camera, microphone, and speaker (no doubt miniaturized so it could be nearly invisible in a necklace or something), and the cam feed would be monitored 24/7, probably by AIs with a human supervisor for every N number of guests. Maybe computerized contact lenses with graphics overlay provided to guests. And obviously all the robots would have cameras and mics and remote override controls that supervisors could tap into on demand. Some guests would certainly not like the monitoring, but I do not see any way around it, unless the legal system changes drastically in the future.

All we saw was that viewing room with the map and virtual reality, so it seems they can monitor situations when they bother to look, but there did not seem to be any systematic surveillance. For example, no one seemed to be aware of what black hat guy was doing.

So far, this does not seem very well written, so that could be one reason that such a systematic surveillance system was not seen. Possibly combined with some story element the showrunners wanted to have that would be incompatible with such surveillance. Regardless, not a very well written sci-fi story.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I'm interested to find out what the Ed Harris character thinks the deeper game is. He said he's been coming there for 30 years and he thinks there's more to the experience than meets the eye.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the conversation between the executive and the writer where he said the corporation's interests in the park are on a much deeper level than the interests of the guests or shareholders, and she basically admitted as much.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> I wonder if it has anything to do with the conversation between the executive and the writer where he said the corporation's interests in the park are on a much deeper level than the interests of the guests or shareholders, and she basically admitted as much.


I'm wondering if it's going to be the plot of _Futureworld_...

I enjoyed last night's episode, though I felt it was a little slow. It took a long time to swat a fly. I also wonder how confusing it will be for someone who hadn't watched the original movie. I wish it was more obvious who was an android and who was a guest. I also think there should have been more guests; it seemed to me that almost everyone there was an android.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

smbaker said:


> I also wonder how confusing it will be for someone who hadn't watched the original movie.


I haven't seen the movie and don't feel confused at all. I have tons of questions, but I think that is a very good thing.


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

smbaker said:


> I also think there should have been more guests; it seemed to me that almost everyone there was an android.


They said they had 1400 guests in the park. But I agree that it did not seem like there were anywhere near that many from the various scenes that we were shown.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

john4200 said:


> They said they had 1400 guests in the park. But I agree that it did not seem like there were anywhere near that many from the various scenes that we were shown.


In the movie, there were multiple parks. There was an ancient Rome world and like a knights of the round table world. So, maybe there are other theme parks in this as well. I will say I didn't get the impression there were many humans in west world.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Overall, the guests aren't interesting. They just go there to fulfill violent or sexual fantasies, and then go home after a few days of fun. They're just background for the real stories, which are (1) what is happening with the glitching "hosts," (2) is Dr. Ford really starting to lose it or is he allowing the hosts to access previous "memories" on purpose, and (3) what is the corporation's real goal?

So far there is one guest that is interesting - Ed Harris. I suspect there will be others. But overall, this show is about the hosts and the masters.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

smbaker said:


> I'm wondering if it's going to be the plot of _Futureworld_...


I was kind of wondering the same thing.



Spoiler



Three interesting details from FutureWorld that may show up in Westworld:

- Most of the controller staff was actually robots as well
- They were experimenting on the guests.
- They'd clone guests and send the clones home in their place


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

DevdogAZ said:


> So far there is one guest that is interesting - Ed Harris. I suspect there will be others. But overall, this show is about the hosts and the masters.


So far. I suspect that some of the other episodes will show things from a guest perspective (a la the original movie).


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## AlphaDelta (Jan 9, 2007)

I got a strong Dollhouse-vibe from it. I half expected Dolores to say "Did I fall asleep" after she was rebooted.

Ed Harris: human or robot? Clearly he's the Yul Brynner character from the original movie, but here he's immune to gunfire, implying human. But I think he's a robot, evolved or broken free from his programming, and so he appears human to the other robots. Same dynamic as Deckard in Blade Runner: more interesting if he's a robot.

Did any of the staff or customers ever utter the name "Westworld"? Seems like bad marketing to me


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

AlphaDelta said:


> I got a strong Dollhouse-vibe from it. I half expected Dolores to say "Did I fall asleep" after she was rebooted.


That was Carol's comment. Having never seen the original movie, she asked "is this kinda like a Dollhouse reboot?"


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

I want to watch the first episode again. I liked it enough to want to watch it again tonight, but will probably wait and watch it right before episode two.

I couldn't quite place Old Bill last night. Caught in the credits that it was Michael Wincott! I really hope he comes back into play. While not a household name, I've always thought he was great. Made my night to see that was him.

I've never seen the actress playing Cullen before. I am enthralled. Awesome blend of power, confidence, and beauty.

And Jeffrey Wright? Well, you just can't go wrong casting Jeffrey Wright.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

ClutchBrake said:


> I've never seen the actress playing Cullen before. I am enthralled. Awesome blend of power, confidence, and beauty.


Agreed, except that I found her English to be a little muddled and hard to understand. Hopefully that will improve significantly, since much of the pilot was shot in 2014, so hopefully she had time between the pilot and the filming of the rest of the episodes in 2015-2016 to improve her English.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

DevdogAZ said:


> Agreed, except that I found her English to be a little muddled and hard to understand. Hopefully that will improve significantly, since much of the pilot was shot quite a long time ago.


I heard that her shots were done as pickup shots, since they originally filmed Miranda Otto in that role.

As it is, I'm used to her as an actress, but almost everything I've seen with her previously had her speaking Danish.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

kaszeta said:


> I heard that her shots were done as pickup shots, since they originally filmed Miranda Otto in that role.


I had no idea. I like Miranda Otto too.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

kaszeta said:


> I heard that her shots were done as pickup shots, since they originally filmed Miranda Otto in that role.
> 
> As it is, I'm used to her as an actress, but almost everything I've seen with her previously had her speaking Danish.


Ah. I knew the pilot was filmed in 2014, but didn't realize that she wasn't part of it and that her scenes were "new."


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Agreed, except that I found her English to be a little muddled and hard to understand.


One thing I had planned to do until this thread was look her up and see where's she's from, because it was obvious to me that she isn't a native speaker of English...

Not that there's anything wrong with that! She is very good in the role.


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## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

AlphaDelta said:


> Ed Harris: human or robot? Clearly he's the Yul Brynner character from the original movie, but here he's immune to gunfire, implying human. But I think he's a robot, evolved or broken free from his programming, and so he appears human to the other robots. Same dynamic as Deckard in Blade Runner: more interesting if he's a robot.


YES!

At first I was under the mistaken impression (which I am sure the showrunners intended) that James Marsden was the human visitor. Then when Ed shows up and kills everyone and rapes Doloris I was like, of course, this is like someone playing Grand Theft Auto and indulging their darker side. By the end though you had to wonder what the hell the scalping and deeper game was about, and you had to know there was going to be some sort of plot throw where what you are led to believe (like Marsden being the human) was a feint.

My wife and I both said the cowboy in black must be a robot also who broke 'free'. It seems the sort of thing that would be done.

Maybe the showrunners will look to Game of Thrones and kill off Ed Harris tough, and we go in a completely different direction.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

I enjoyed the small nod to Delos in the elevator as they were going to sublevel 83.


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## rahnbo (Sep 12, 2010)

Shaunnick said:


> YES!
> 
> Maybe the showrunners will look to Game of Thrones and kill off Ed Harris tough, and we go in a completely different direction.


One scene almost looked like the GOT intro. Unrelated, it was weird seeing Shannon Woodward in anything except Raising Hope.


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## Saturn_V (Jun 2, 2007)

DevdogAZ said:


> I'm interested to find out what the Ed Harris character thinks the deeper game is. He said he's been coming there for 30 years and he thinks there's more to the experience than meets the eye..


30 years role-playing cowboy- I think he would've mastered whatever story threads the gamemasters have thrown at him. I think he simply wants to break or hack the game; at least see the inner workings.

I confess that I was a little underwhelmed. I'd expected the first ep to set a deeper hook with me. Going to rent the original WW tonight.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

AlphaDelta said:


> Ed Harris: human or robot? Clearly he's the Yul Brynner character from the original movie, but here he's immune to gunfire, implying human. But I think he's a robot, evolved or broken free from his programming, and so he appears human to the other robots. Same dynamic as Deckard in Blade Runner: more interesting if he's a robot.


I had seen Ed Harris in black in previews and figured he was playing the Yul Brynner role. Then when he couldn't get shot, I was a little surprised. I figured James Marsden was human, but that got flipped. I still wonder if Ed Harris is a robot. He's really obsessed with something.



ClutchBrake said:


> I couldn't quite place Old Bill last night. Caught in the credits that it was Michael Wincott! I really hope he comes back into play. While not a household name, I've always thought he was great. Made my night to see that was him.


I recognized his voice right away. I always think of him as the bad guy from The Crow movie. Very recognizable voice.

Also, what is it with the robots having to be naked for them to interview them? I'm no prude, but it just seems weird. I know they are just robots, but it is funny seeing these guys sitting on stools buck naked.


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## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

Granted it's only one episode, but I'm not exactly sold. Of course I have a lot of faith in HBO, and it's a good cast, so I'm willing to hang with it a bit. But for now I'm not really feeling like any of the characters are especially compelling. We'll see where it goes.


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## Hoffer (Jun 1, 2001)

Dawghows said:


> Granted it's only one episode, but I'm not exactly sold. Of course I have a lot of faith in HBO, and it's a good cast, so I'm willing to hang with it a bit. But for now I'm not really feeling like any of the characters are especially compelling. We'll see where it goes.


I wasn't super excited with the first episode. They did a little preview of what's to come the rest of the season and it looked interesting.

Which reminds me, before the episode started, a little Emmy award pat on the back thing played. Showed a bunch of different scenes from Game of Thrones. I'm 2 seasons behind on that, and it showed some stuff that looked really cool. I need to catch up on that show.


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## hairyblue (Feb 25, 2002)

I was thinking the Ed Harris character was human, but with a deep love of killing people. Like a serial killer or something. But now, I don't know what to make of him.


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## SNJpage1 (May 25, 2006)

I was interested enough to give it a season pass. I'll see how it goes. Even my wife liked the show and she isnt really into futureistic shows


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

So how do the bullets work? When shooting at the robots they cause damage, but at Ed Harris's character no damage.


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## gossamer88 (Jul 27, 2005)

I had to rewatch this evening as I was in and out of it. Kept falling asleep. Not because I was bored. Just tired from events earlier in the day.

I thought it was terrific! I coulda sworn the Cullen character was Debra Winger. I liked her a lot. Ed Harris has to be the Yul Brynner part. Or at the very least a hybrid. 

As far as fantasies goes, I get a 'Hostel' vibe.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

This appears to take place in the same universe as the original Westworld movie as they mentioned the troubles 30 years ago and the sub basements area seemed similar to the original guest reception area of the original Delos resort.

I've seen the movie and quite liked it but passed on the sequel and the short lived Beyond Westworld TV series. So I wasn't enthusiastic about this version until I read who the showrunner was and who was in the cast.


The showrunner here is Jonathan Nolan (brother to that Nolan) and previously was the showrunner of Person of Interest (another show dealing with Artificial Intelligence).

I'm a fan of POI so I'm willing to see where Nolan goes with this.
And a stellar cast (Anthony Hopkins!) and I'm willing to give this a fair amount of slack.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

It was a little slow and I was underwhelmed, but I liked it enough to keep watching. The Ed Harris part, I read in a NYT article that he's supposed to be the Yul Brenner character but human, but maybe they just assumed it from the 3-4 episodes they views. I wonder how those bullets work if they cannot kills humans? That's interesting to me. I also liked the music, and I especially recognized Paint it Black. To me the show reminds me of a cross between Dollhouse and Jurassic Park (considering it's Crichton, that doesn't surprise me). 

I will have to see if the movie is streaming somewhere as I haven't seen it in 40 years so don't remember much about it. I'm surprised HBO didn't secure the rights to it and use it as a lead in to the show.


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

I can't imagine they would actually want that. Brenners performance is so powerful that you lose everything else in the movie. You forget that there's any other threads set up, and this show wants to focus on those other threads.

Much like Camerons Aliens doesn't attempt to be the same thing as Scotts Alien, this show doesn't tread the same path as the movie, and using the movie as a lead in would undoubtedly confuse viewers.


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## Saturn_V (Jun 2, 2007)

Steveknj said:


> I will have to see if the movie is streaming somewhere as I haven't seen it in 40 years so don't remember much about it. I'm surprised HBO didn't secure the rights to it and use it as a lead in to the show.


The sequel, Futureworld, is currently on Amazon Prime.

I rented the original last night. Typical pre-SW 70's sci-fi. (big on ideas, but short on execution) And there's really not much there- almost no dialog for the last 1/2 hour. Yul Brenner's "prototype Terminator" is the most fun thing about it. It's difficult for me to buy that both Westworlds are in the same universe/continuity.


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## Carlucci (Jan 10, 2001)

john4200 said:


> The theme park seems to be missing a sure way to spot a robot, like an 'R' on the cheek or something. Or at least a device to point at someone to check if they are a robot. Otherwise, you could have guests hurting other guests, thinking they were robots.


Check out the ToS when signing up for Delos Destinations at the Official Westworld Site. Spoiler since it's not part of the aired episodes, but may be canon?



Spoiler



Gun ammunition contains proprietary safeguards related to bullet velocity, and tampering with gun safety features or ammunition automatically transfers liability to you and absolves Delos, Inc. of any injury or death that may occur as a result.
...
(a) You dissolve Delos, Inc. of any responsibility financial or criminal that would result from dismemberment, broken bones, heart failure, loss or loss of use of hand and foot digits, shock, marital and relational strife, child endangerment, psychological trauma, delusions or hallucinations resulting from the realistic nature of the park experience, and/or any other physical, emotional, and psychological effects resulting from strenuous park activities.
(b) Statistically speaking, you are more likely to die from lightning strike than to die while in a Delos park. However, the following causes of accidental death have occurred within the Delos Destinations compound: buffalo stampede, self- cannibalism, accidental hanging, drowning, 3rd-degree burns, autoerotic asphyxiation, blunt force trauma, allergic reaction to non-native plant life, falling from great heights, common manslaughter, tumbleweeds. You absolve Delos, Inc. of any wrongdoing if you or anyone in your party suffers bodily harm while using The Service, and you agree to not sue or prosecute Delos, Inc. or any of the smaller entities falling under the Delos Corporation.



Interestingly, says all livestock are "hosts"


Spoiler



, with the exception of flies. I'm thinking the flies are drones and may be inserting/activating new programming/instructions, ahem, "on the fly".


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

Carlucci said:


> Check out the ToS when signing up for Delos Destinations at the Official Westworld Site. Spoiler since it's not part of the aired episodes, but may be canon?


Irrelevant. I was talking about guests harming guests, not about shooting them.


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## Carlucci (Jan 10, 2001)

john4200 said:


> Irrelevant. I was talking about harm, not about shooting.


Read more, it's more specific than a standard waiver. It looks like they make you sign a waiver for everything i.e, you assume the risk of accidentally harming another human, or being harmed by one, at least according to the ToS.
Some of the examples of bodily harm are oddly specific for a ToS waiver. Self-cannablism?

I think they are saying that


Spoiler



bullets lose velocity if fired at a human


, but if you hurt or are hurt by other humans in other ways, you can't hold us liable.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Want a twist? How about Anthony Hopkins being an android?


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

The fly has to be real. It goes back to Delores being asked if she'd ever harmed a living being. She says "No" but then SWAT!


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

Carlucci said:


> Read more, it's more specific than a standard waiver.


Still irrelevant to the fact that there is no apparent way to distinguish guests from robots.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

James Marsden was on TDC. When Trevor asked him how to tell the robots apart from humans, Marsden tells him to watch the show. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Carlucci (Jan 10, 2001)

john4200 said:


> Still irrelevant to the fact that there is no apparent way to distinguish guests from robots.


It's relevant if that's the point -- that you aren't meant to be able to distinguish, and you accept the risks therein.

I asked the AI on the website about hosts, and he says:


Spoiler



Many guests ask who is a host and who is a human. But if you cant tell, does it matter?


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Almost done with the first episode. Had to leave the TV.

My first impression is that the show is a mess. There are so many stories going on and without any clue as to who is real and who is a robot, it makes it distant rather than engaging.

There are robot only stories going on in a park supposedly meant for human consumption and that makes little sense and who wants to hang around to find out if there is a reason.

So far, it plays like a big trick. We will have something outrageous happen and then reveal that the person isn't real. Ha ha. Fooled you, audience.

It had better get better because I have plenty to watch otherwise but it does not engage from the start. And it will probably lose a lot of its audience up front.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

There have to be "stories" going on between only hosts since there's no legitimate way for a human to enter or come across such interaction if it isn't happening until they get there, plus it could perhaps be seen at a distance by other humans or even hosts who are interacting with other humans. It's similar to saying all the stuff in the background of a scene of a movie should just be removed.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

dswallow said:


> There have to be "stories" going on between only hosts since there's no legitimate way for a human to enter or come across such interaction if it isn't happening until they get there, plus it could perhaps be seen at a distance by other humans or even hosts who are interacting with other humans. It's similar to saying all the stuff in the background of a scene of a movie should just be removed.


Completely disagree. We have two humans in an entire town and things are going on two blocks away in a building.

It is just to keep you from knowing what is going on so we can suddenly have a guys face blown off who up until then you can think he was a guest.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

dswallow said:


> There have to be "stories" going on between only hosts since there's no legitimate way for a human to enter or come across such interaction if it isn't happening until they get there, plus it could perhaps be seen at a distance by other humans or even hosts who are interacting with other humans.


This. It's very much like (and indeed was inspired by) the immersive open-ended RPGs these days. The idea is that they rather want to give the guests a chance to explore in detail and find things they think nobody has found, and the way to do that is to have a world where the basic world is mostly-preprogrammed with some degree of autonomy and random variation.

(Although the idea of every day being nominally the same doesn't ring quite right: people come for more than a day. I'd more realistically expect the loop to be something like a week)


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

kaszeta said:


> (Although the idea of every day being nominally the same doesn't ring quite right: people come for more than a day. I'd more realistically expect the loop to be something like a week)


More realistically, there would not be any loop. With the size of this operation, it would add little to their costs to keep enough staff on to stay a few days or weeks ahead of things, creating new scenarios.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

I remember the movie well, so when I saw Marsden riding into town on a train, (instead of a futuristic shuttle), I assumed he was playing the Richard Benjamin role, (human), and Ed Harris as the Yul Brynner gunfighter, (robot).

But, they flipped the script and reversed the roles, so I spent a lot of time trying to fight that memory and adjust to the new reality. Also, that pull back from the train made it look as if everything was happening in miniature scale. Did they explain that and I missed it?

I'll stick with it for a while to see where they're going. After all, what could go wrong?


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

RGM1138 said:


> Also, that pull back from the train made it look as if everything was happening in miniature scale. Did they explain that and I missed it?


The shot moved from the interior of the train itself to the exterior shots of the train from the control room, so it really was a miniature at that point (albeit presumably a fancy display not a true miniature physical model).


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> I wonder how those bullets work if they cannot kills humans? That's interesting to me.


Yeah, that bugs me. I know it's just SF and could be far future. But a system that stops a bullet when the gun is pressed against a human's head and when the human is down the street. And it covers ricochets, deflections and humans behind robots and walls??

And if it's imperfect (or if you might get knifed because a human can't tell you're human) and the TOS is supposed to cover the company, who's going to pay a big money to visit a place where such violence is encouraged?

It must cost _a lot_. How many robots went down in the bank robbery? How many people were watching? Would it have happened if the people were occupied elsewhere? I'm not sure there were any people in the room when the hooker blew the guy's face all over the player piano. That's a lot of repair costs just in case someone walks in later.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

tlc said:


> That's a lot of repair costs just in case someone walks in later.


Or just in case somebody's already there. Remember, the robots don't know they're robots. As far as they're concerned, they're just living their lives, regardless of who is around. That's why the father and daughter on the farm go through their little routine every day, even though they're the only ones there.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> Completely disagree. We have two humans in an entire town and things are going on two blocks away in a building.
> 
> It is just to keep you from knowing what is going on so we can suddenly have a guys face blown off who up until then you can think he was a guest.


Did you miss the part where they said there were 1400 guests in the park? Just because you only saw two does not mean there were only two.

The whole point of this park is for the guests to feel immersed in the artificial world. If the hosts only started acting when a guest started to approach, that would make the world seem less realistic.

You're thinking of this like a movie set, where there's no point in building the full building if all you'll see is the front and a facade will do. But that doesn't apply in this scenario, where guests can wander around behind the buildings or be anywhere in the park at any given time.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

tlc said:


> Yeah, that bugs me. I know it's just SF and could be far future. But a system that stops a bullet when the gun is pressed against a human's head and when the human is down the street. And it covers ricochets, deflections and humans behind robots and walls??
> 
> And if it's imperfect (or if you might get knifed because a human can't tell you're human) and the TOS is supposed to cover the company, who's going to pay a big money to visit a place where such violence is encouraged?
> 
> It must cost _a lot_. How many robots went down in the bank robbery? How many people were watching? Would it have happened if the people were occupied elsewhere? I'm not sure there were any people in the room when the hooker blew the guy's face all over the player piano. That's a lot of repair costs just in case someone walks in later.


In the original movie, guests paid $1000 a day to stay at Delos.

Let's say that was 1972 dollars (as the movie was released in 1973), using the handy dandy inflation calculator, that would be $5712.49 per day per guest.

Multiply that by 1400 and that's $7,997,486 a day in gross profit if they maintain the 1400 guest figure consistently.


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## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

JYoung said:


> In the original movie, guests paid $1000 a day to stay at Delos.
> 
> Let's say that was 1972 dollars (as the movie was released in 1973), using the handy dandy inflation calculator, that would be $5712.49 per day per guest.
> 
> Multiply that by 1400 and that's $7,997,486 a day in gross profit if they maintain the 1400 guest figure consistently.


This touches on something else I have a bit of a problem with. There's a relatively small number of people who can pay $5k+ per day of vacation. Of those people, there must be smaller number of people who are _willing_ to pay it. And out of those, and even smaller number who'd be interested in the Old West. And a smaller number yet who'd go more than once. It doesn't seem like a very sustainable business endeavor.


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

Dawghows said:


> This touches on something else I have a bit of a problem with. There's a relatively small number of people who can pay $5k+ per day of vacation. Of those people, there must be smaller number of people who are _willing_ to pay it. And out of those, and even smaller number who'd be interested in the Old West. And a smaller number yet who'd go more than once. It doesn't seem like a very sustainable business endeavor.


Maybe in today's world. But we don't know when this show is occurring or what the outside world is like.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

Guys, don't crunch the numbers, just pretend it makes sense and go from there.

As for the guns, what if all the guns simply go "bang" and the androids have built-in squibs that react when a gun is shot at them?


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

tlc said:


> Yeah, that bugs me. I know it's just SF and could be far future. But a system that stops a bullet when the gun is pressed against a human's head and when the human is down the street. And it covers ricochets, deflections and humans behind robots and walls??
> 
> And if it's imperfect (or if you might get knifed because a human can't tell you're human) and the TOS is supposed to cover the company, who's going to pay a big money to visit a place where such violence is encouraged?
> 
> It must cost _a lot_. How many robots went down in the bank robbery? How many people were watching? Would it have happened if the people were occupied elsewhere? I'm not sure there were any people in the room when the hooker blew the guy's face all over the player piano. That's a lot of repair costs just in case someone walks in later.


The man in black was still getting hit by something from teddys gun. Maybe all the guns there have fake bullets that have an impact and make it look a like a real hit (more advanced paintball) and when a robot is hit they just "act" hit?

I thought the bank robbery was moved up from the scheduled time in the script and more robots got hit than normal on purpose. This was so they could do the recall and repair the 200 that got the buggy update without messing up the scripted sequences. At least I thought someone behind the scenes alluded to that...


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## Shaunnick (Jul 2, 2005)

Test said:


> The man in black was still getting hit by something from teddys gun. Maybe all the guns there have fake bullets that have an impact and make it look a like a real hit (more advanced paintball) and when a robot is hit they just "act" hit?
> 
> I thought the bank robbery was moved up from the scheduled time in the script and more robots got hit than normal on purpose. This was so they could do the recall and repair the 200 that got the buggy update without messing up the scripted sequences. At least I thought someone behind the scenes alluded to that...


They did. He even programmed in a special speech for Escaton, who got shot by dork human. I thought it was pretty funny. THe dude got the experience he paid for though.


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## Dawghows (May 17, 2001)

wprager said:


> Guys, don't crunch the numbers, just pretend it makes sense and go from there.


I'm totally willing and able to suspend my disbelief, and if the episode had been interesting enough my mind wouldn't have wandered there. I'm hoping/expecting it will change as things move forward, but there doesn't seem to be anything really at stake so far. The humans can't be harmed (yet), and when something happens to the robots they can be fixed, reprogrammed, or decommissioned. At this point I'm just not captivated enough to ignore all the implausibilities.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

I watched the pilot and still don't understand why this series is necessary. There's nothing new here that wasn't covered more clearly and concisely in the movie.


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## heySkippy (Jul 2, 2001)

Shaunnick said:


> They did. He even programmed in a special speech for Escaton, who got shot by dork human. I thought it was pretty funny. THe dude got the experience he paid for though.


I figure he'll be the first Guest victim of the series.


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## Unbeliever (Feb 3, 2001)

Test said:


> The man in black was still getting hit by something from teddys gun. Maybe all the guns there have fake bullets that have an impact and make it look a like a real hit (more advanced paintball) and when a robot is hit they just "act" hit?


They're called "simunition" (a.k.a "wax rounds" or "marker rounds"). You still have to wear face protection (and a cup), and it sucks a bit more than paintballs getting hit on bare skin, but it's non-lethal.

They're shot out of special guns that can handle the lower chamber pressures and still cycle as they're essentially just primer and wax bullet cartridges, with no propellant.

But considering this is "old West", 6-shooters wouldn't have cycling issues.

--Carlos V.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

I enjoyed the show. I like the premise and there's a lot of possibilities/layers to the narrative. 

I did find some of it confusing. I had a little trouble keeping the characters in the Wild West part straight. It also definitely was a disorienting not knowing who was a host and who was real. (I've never seen the movie.) 

I certainly hope there is some sort of satisfactory answer for how guests can identify other guests. Even if the mechanics of not being able to shoot/harm humans proves solid, there's still a huge safety issue for women guests specifically, given that it's apparently perfectly fine for guests to rape the hosts. 

I understand that it was a plot device to get Rachel Evan Wood contemplating the nature of reality, but I was still shocked at the idea that anyone would bring a child as a guest to this place, given how violent it is.

Honestly, I found the music pretty distracting. I immediately recognized the songs, and found the late 20th century music jarring and out of place for the Wild West setting. I thought they should have used music appropriate for the Wild West theme and timeline.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Ruth said:


> there's still a huge safety issue for women guests specifically, given that it's apparently perfectly fine for guests to rape the hosts.


There's a huge safety issue for everyone given it's perfectly fine for guests to shoot at and murder the hosts.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

series5orpremier said:


> There's a huge safety issue for everyone given it's perfectly fine for guests to shoot at and murder the hosts.


Of course. But people are positing that guests can't get shot due to technological safeguards, and we saw evidence of that when the Man in Black was immune to gunfire even at point blank range.

I was just pointing out that even if there's a safety feature preventing gun violence against guests, it wouldn't protect against sexual violence. You'd really want there to be an easy way to identify the hosts.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Then I'll point out that while anything is possible it appears rape would be the exception since they've set up a consensual exchange of money for sex to be the rule, just like they have a rule that guests can't be harmed by bullets. Of course they wouldn't have a dramatic series if they didn't intend to break the rules.


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## BRiT wtfdotcom (Dec 17, 2015)

I guess the easy way to identify the hosts is to shoot them in the foot. If they're injured they're a host.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

series5orpremier said:


> Then I'll point out that while anything is possible it appears rape would be the exception since they've set up a consensual exchange of money for sex to be the rule.


Well, in the first 15 minutes of the first episode, we saw a man drag a screaming woman off screen in what was clearly supposed to be a prelude to rape, so obviously it's more than a theoretical possibility.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

series5orpremier said:


> I watched the pilot and still don't understand why this series is necessary. There's nothing new here that wasn't covered more clearly and concisely in the movie.


The show has only aired one episode so far that basically was just setting the table for what's to come. So of course they haven't strayed too far from the movie plot yet. But given that the movie was only 88 minutes long, the show is quickly going to run out of material to cover and it will soon be heading off in its own direction. I'm intrigued enough by the world they've established that I want to see where it goes.

Plus, how many of HBO's target market do you think have seen a 43 year-old movie?


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

DevdogAZ said:


> Plus, how many of HBO's target market do you think have seen a 43 year-old movie?


Maybe they should and it might save a lot of people a lot of time. It's not like the movie wasn't meaningful and entertaining and they need to remake it to make it work this time. The movie was excellent as is. I don't like the idea of messing with a successful piece of art. It takes more skill to come up with an original idea.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

series5orpremier said:


> I watched the pilot and still don't understand why this series is necessary.


Money.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> Did you miss the part where they said there were 1400 guests in the park? Just because you only saw two does not mean there were only two.
> 
> The whole point of this park is for the guests to feel immersed in the artificial world. If the hosts only started acting when a guest started to approach, that would make the world seem less realistic.
> 
> You're thinking of this like a movie set, where there's no point in building the full building if all you'll see is the front and a facade will do. But that doesn't apply in this scenario, where guests can wander around behind the buildings or be anywhere in the park at any given time.


I'm saying it is lazy story telling. Tell us there are 1400 and show two? More manipulation so you are surprised when someone's face gets blown off.

And if people wander off, the tech could have the set come to life. Great park where the stuff happens and you walk into it after it is over.

Sorry. Not falling for the excuses. It is just a trick so you go "damn! I thought he was human."

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

On a second viewing, the show is starting to have an I, Robot feel to it. "When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote of a soul?" When does man's creation become sentient?

They never explored that theme in the original movie.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

series5orpremier said:


> Maybe they should and it might save a lot of people a lot of time. It's not like the movie wasn't meaningful and entertaining and they need to remake it to make it work this time. The movie was excellent as is. I don't like the idea of messing with a successful piece of art. It takes more skill to come up with an original idea.


If your understanding is that they're just going to take the plot of the movie and stretch it out over multiple episodes, then you have no idea about this project. This isn't like Ghostbusters where they're just remaking essentially the same movie as a cash grab. This is taking Crichton's original concept of a theme park populated entirely by robots and creating an entirely new plot, new characters, new complexities, etc. The original film was 90 minutes long and was not based on a novel, so there really isn't any original source material other than the movie.

If things go as planned for HBO, this will be a series that runs for 5+ seasons and has 50+ hours of material. So obviously they're going to have to come up with lots of original ideas and original stories in order to make the series last that long and be successful. You may have heard that the production of the series was shut down for several months during filming of the first season. According to the producers, they used that time to not only finish writing the last few scripts for S1, but also flesh out the direction of the series for several seasons. See the following:

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/09/08/westworld-plan



> It wasnt about getting the first 10 [episodes] done, it was about mapping out what the next 5 or 6 years are going to be, Westworld actor James Marsden says. We wanted everything in line so that when the very last episode airs and we have our show finale, five or seven years down the line, we knew how it was going to end the first season  thats the way Jonah and [executive producer J.J. Abrams] operate. Theyre making sure all the ducks are in the row. And its a testament to Jonah and Lisa and HBO that we got them right, especially the last three scripts. They could have rushed them and get spread too thin. They got them right, and when they were right, we went and shot them.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

TonyD79 said:


> Sorry. Not falling for the excuses. It is just a trick so you go "damn! I thought he was human."


Was that really supposed to happen? For the big shootout, I figured everyone shooting or getting shot at was a robot. Isn't that exactly what they planned to clear out the upgraded models?

The one unexpected thing was an unscripted guest shooting the lead bank robber, ruining his final speech. They made it obvious that a guest had done that. I see no trickery.

While I do agree about the complaint about the 1398 missing guests (I made the same complaint upthread a bit), I don't think it was a matter of trying to trick us into thinking guests were being shot. I think it's just bad production. If they'd have even included just a few shots of humans running for cover or humans hiding behind store windows, or humans clapping and cheering in the middle of the gunfight like idiot tourists, it would have appeared that guests were present.


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## Test (Dec 8, 2004)

I think Tony is talking about a scene like the one with Ed Harris and Teddy, where Harris was giving Teddy the first shot. That was definitely set up to make Teddy seem like the human hero that went on vacation (saw him arrive on the train, turn down the mission from the sheriff, have a conversation with the hooker robot, then spot the damsel in distress, go back to her farmhouse and save the day) and they twisted it to make Harris the "human". Definitely written for people to go "damn! I thought he was human." I bet that won't be the last time its used either...Hopkins? Harris? EVERYONE but the guests? Who's a cylon?

I liked it this time, not sure how many times they can get away with it.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

series5orpremier said:


> Maybe they should and it might save a lot of people a lot of time. It's not like the movie wasn't meaningful and entertaining and they need to remake it to make it work this time. The movie was excellent as is. I don't like the idea of messing with a successful piece of art. It takes more skill to come up with an original idea.


The didn't mess with anything at all, since you can still watch the original movie and ignore this TV series altogether.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

smbaker said:


> While I do agree about the complaint about the 1398 missing guests (I made the same complaint upthread a bit), I don't think it was a matter of trying to trick us into thinking guests were being shot. I think it's just bad production. If they'd have even included just a few shots of humans running for cover or humans hiding behind store windows, or humans clapping and cheering in the middle of the gunfight like idiot tourists, it would have appeared that guests were present.


I thought that I saw two women that were guests kind of giggling while watching the shootout from a window.


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## RGM1138 (Oct 6, 1999)

JYoung said:


> I thought that I saw two women that were guests kind of giggling while watching the shootout from a window.


That's what I thought it was meant to suggest. Why would two hosts behave that way?


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## Peter000 (Apr 15, 2002)

JYoung said:


> I thought that I saw two women that were guests kind of giggling while watching the shootout from a window.


Also there was that group of boozing/whoring guys earlier in the show. So guests were represented during the show. Maybe a little underrepresented, but there.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

There was also the family that stumbled on Dolores while she was painting. And there were different people on the train each time


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

Ruth said:


> I understand that it was a plot device to get Rachel Evan Wood contemplating the nature of reality, but I was still shocked at the idea that anyone would bring a child as a guest to this place, given how violent it is.


There was a comment made by one of the parents about not crossing the river, because it was too adult-oriented on that side. So it seems the park has a family-friendly area.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

kaszeta said:


> (Although the idea of every day being nominally the same doesn't ring quite right: people come for more than a day. I'd more realistically expect the loop to be something like a week)


One of the guests on the train at the beginning was talking about a previous visit being the best two weeks of his life. So I'm thinking it repeats every two weeks, and they just haven't shown us the rest of the loop.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

markb said:


> One of the guests on the train at the beginning was talking about a previous visit being the best two weeks of his life. So I'm thinking it repeats every two weeks, and they just haven't shown us the rest of the loop.


Except we've seen the woman and her father playing out the exact same wake-up scene three consecutive days...


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Test said:


> I think Tony is talking about a scene like the one with Ed Harris and Teddy, where Harris was giving Teddy the first shot. That was definitely set up to make Teddy seem like the human hero that went on vacation (saw him arrive on the train, turn down the mission from the sheriff, have a conversation with the hooker robot, then spot the damsel in distress, go back to her farmhouse and save the day) and they twisted it to make Harris the "human". Definitely written for people to go "damn! I thought he was human."


I agree.

But I think they decided to throw in this one trick because of the fact that the story involves androids acting human as opposed to deliberately making the androids act human simply for this trick. In order words, the shock of finding out that Teddy was an android helped to convey how realistic they had become.

Having the androids interact with each other makes sense for multiple reasons.

First of all, as has already been mentioned, it makes the world more immersive. Having them only start up when people were near while maintaining the same level of realism would actually be quite technically challenging. You would not only need to track people's locations, but also where they were looking, and account for how far they could see. In addition, you would need to anticipate where people were going so that the androids could move to the right location. Then, as people got near, you would have to predict when they would see the androids, and then determine what position they would need to be in to match with the place in their stories when people actually saw them. It's much easier to just have the androids always be in motion so that no matter when people saw them, they would already be doing something.

On top of that, it doesn't appear that the androids have any kind of direct connection with each other. So even though each have their own programmed behaviors, they still need to react to the actions of other androids just as much as humans. In other words, they have no way to "fast forward" through any storyline. Their stories require interacting with other androids in order to play out. The benefit of this design is that you don't need a lot of special case logic when humans interfere.

If the androids were simply following predetermined scripts, humans interfering would screw up those scripts, and throw them off track. Instead, being programmed to react to whatever is happening in their immediate environment allows them to be much more flexible, adding more to the world's immersion.

Immersiveness, however, is only a secondary reason for the androids acting human. In fact, the world itself is merely a means to raise money. Building the androids is the primary goal of the company. Making them act human is for a purpose we do not yet know. But it is a purpose that goes beyond them simply being used as characters in an artificial world. The world is as much a test lab as it is an amusement park.

Finally, it appears that Dr. Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is trying to find a way to make the androids sentient. Whether that follows with the goals of the company or he's doing his own thing is unclear. But my guess is that is what motivated him to get involved with this work in the first place. He would have wanted his androids to interact with the world as realistically as possible, and not simply fake it when humans were around.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

markb said:


> One of the guests on the train at the beginning was talking about a previous visit being the best two weeks of his life. So I'm thinking it repeats every two weeks, and they just haven't shown us the rest of the loop.


Given all the raping and murdering that happens, I would think they'd have to reset more often than that. It's possible there are multiple loops rather than one big reset.

Even if the entire thing reset each day, guests wouldn't have time to do everything in one day. So they could spend two weeks taking part in different storylines or even doing different things within the same storyline.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

BitbyBlit said:


> Even if the entire thing reset each day, guests wouldn't have time to do everything in one day. So they could spend two weeks taking part in different storylines or even doing different things within the same storyline.


Groundhog Day-ing it until they get it "right"...


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Except we've seen the woman and her father playing out the exact same wake-up scene three consecutive days...


There was obviously a reset between the first and second wake-up sequence, since the father was alive again on the second one. And there was no reset between the second and third wake-up, because the father was still looking at the photo he found the previous day.

So my theory is that two weeks or more passed between the first and second wake-up, and they didn't show the other days. Was there any evidence to rule this out?


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

markb said:


> There was obviously a reset between the first and second wake-up sequence, since the father was alive again on the second one. And there was no reset between the second and third wake-up, because the father was still looking at the photo he found the previous day.
> 
> So my theory is that two weeks or more passed between the first and second wake-up, and they didn't show the other days. Was there any evidence to rule this out?


Teddy "came back to town" all three days. It could be that the hosts automatically reset themselves, so they are left alone except for cases when they are damaged.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Groundhog Day-ing it until they get it "right"...


It will be interesting to see if any of the hosts end up doing something like that. They would have to be subtle about it, or the company would find out. But perhaps they might not realize what was actually going on, and think that their days were resetting. Although at some point they would probably realize that the "newcomers" were different each day.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

RGM1138 said:


> That's what I thought it was meant to suggest. Why would two hosts behave that way?


Except one of the core premises of the series is that they have made the hosts so well that you can't tell who is human and who is a host, and that means that hosts have the same reactions to situations as humans would.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

dianebrat said:


> Except one of the core premises of the series is that they have made the hosts so well that you can't tell who is human and who is a host, and that means that hosts have the same reactions to situations as humans would.


But they weren't acting like people who live in the town...they were acting like tourists. I strongly suspect the robots will not act "out of character"...they honestly believe they are people living in the Old West.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Dawghows said:


> This touches on something else I have a bit of a problem with. There's a relatively small number of people who can pay $5k+ per day of vacation. Of those people, there must be smaller number of people who are _willing_ to pay it. And out of those, and even smaller number who'd be interested in the Old West. And a smaller number yet who'd go more than once. It doesn't seem like a very sustainable business endeavor.


This doesn't bug me. Luxury resorts seem to do alright. I'm not sure what their per day costs but there are a lot of luxury resorts out there, and probably enough people in the world to fill them all. Heck, I'm not sure, but what does a baseball fantasy camp cost? This is similar, when you think about it, to one of those. I looked it up, and I guess Fantasy baseball camp is about $1,000 a day give or take, so yeah, it's not quite in this league.


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## jilter (Oct 4, 2002)

Finally! A show I am in on from the Get-Go, about which I have no clue and I can rely on the brilliance of TCF to guide me.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I wonder how the reset logistics work. Like when Teddy gets shot in that first sequence, yet ends up on the train riding into town on the next sequence. Are the hosts programmed to repair themselves and move themselves into place with no memory of the previous "day?" So once the coast is clear, does Teddy just get up and walk away until he gets to the train station where the morning train departs from? What about repairing clothes that are torn? How is that done? 

How does Dolores end up back in her bed each morning? Presumably on a "normal" day, she just goes home and goes to "sleep" like any normal person. But after a day where she's killed or kidnapped or something, what is the physical mechanism to get her back into the house and into her bed?

Do employees of the park come and recover any android that needs to be repaired or moved? Is that visible to guests, or do they have a way to do it discretely? I'm assuming there's an elaborate network of underground tunnels and levels that allow the park employees and androids to appear and disappear with very little disturbance to the realism of the park experience.

And what about "memories?" At the beginning of the episode, we were made to think the hosts (Dolores) could remember the guests (Teddy). But then we found out Teddy was also a host and that was a programmed response. I can't remember if Dolores "remembered" the Man in Black. He said he'd been coming there for thirty years, but I don't think Dolores knew who he was.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

They showed the town being cleared after the big gunfight...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> They showed the town being cleared after the big gunfight...


I had forgotten about the scene where the lady spoke the code word to Dolores and she went to "sleep." But is that the kind of thing they have to do every night, or were these somewhat unusual tactics because of the need to retrieve 200 hosts that had received the faulty upgrade?


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## ClutchBrake (Sep 5, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I had forgotten about the scene where the lady spoke the code word to Dolores and she went to "sleep." But is that the kind of thing they have to do every night, or were these somewhat unusual tactics because of the need to retrieve 200 hosts that had received the faulty upgrade?


Unusual tactics would be my guess.

We first saw the code word/phrase used by Ford on Old Bill.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

I have questions about the resets, too. Suppose a host has a traumatic experience and/or sees or hears something she shouldn't. Do they swoop in right away to reset? Or are they programmed somehow to immediately forget? Because otherwise, how do they prevent the hosts from talking to other hosts and/or causing a panic? 

For example, we see Dolores witness a guest's immunity to gunshots, then she is dragged off and raped. What happens then? She is abused and traumatized, and she saw something very noteworthy that shouldn't be possible. But obviously they don't want her to go to the sheriff and report a rape, nor do they want her to start telling all the other hosts that some people are apparently impervious to gunshots and start a panic or an investigation. I assume the "narrative" also would be negatively impacted if she went home, locked herself in her bedroom, and cried because she is traumatized by the rape. 

But she thinks she is real, and she seems to display real emotions when deployed -- so how do they stop her from doing any of the things that a real person would in response to those events? Do they swoop in and reset her as soon as the MiB leaves? Is she somehow programmed to immediately forget? 

I assume whatever is supposed to happen is about to stop happening properly -- I'm just curious about how it's supposed to work.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> I can't remember if Dolores "remembered" the Man in Black. He said he'd been coming there for thirty years, but I don't think Dolores knew who he was.


She didn't recognize him when she dropped her can of food, and he picked it up instead of Teddy, who had gotten pulled aside by guests to be used as a tour guide. She also didn't react to him knowing who she was, but I think that's just them being programmed to ignore inconsistencies in their world, like her thinking the photo her father found looked like nothing.



ClutchBrake said:


> Unusual tactics would be my guess.


As markb pointed out, Peter (Dolores' father) was still looking at the photo he found the night before when Dolores woke up. If any workers had come in to reset him, they would have discovered that, and pulled him out.

So we've seen examples of when they come in to clean up and other times when the hosts automatically reset. (Or are supposed to automatically reset.)


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## Ereth (Jun 16, 2000)

I don't think the hosts are actually programmed with scripts, not as we typically think of them (in spite of several instances of identical dialogue). 

I think they are programmed more like "The Sims", in that they have motivations (remember them asking "What are your motivations?") and these needs and motivations drive them. This is far more flexible and allows them to adapt more readily to changes in the world than an incredibly complex script with "if/then" loops forever.

They clearly have "speeches", because the programmer mentioned one, so maybe the repeatable dialog is there, but they also have enough autonomy that they have to react to their motivations. The dad had to deal with the picture and there was no script for him to follow, but his motivations still drove him to try to protect his daughter. 

They clearly have enough simulated AI to respond to dialog and situations they've never seen. Eliza would be proud.


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## BitbyBlit (Aug 25, 2001)

DevdogAZ said:


> There was also the family that stumbled on Dolores while she was painting. And there were different people on the train each time


And also the two guests that were scared when one of the hosts went on a shooting rampage, and couldn't be killed.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

series5orpremier said:


> I watched the pilot and still don't understand why this series is necessary. There's nothing new here that wasn't covered more clearly and concisely in the movie.


You make this observation after watching *one* episode? 

I fully expected the pilot episode to be slow and, in that way, it did not disappoint. I also did not expect a reboot of a 40 year old film to skip the reintroduction of the story. Most people I've talked to (including my wife, who is a Brynner fan) did not know about the movie.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

DevdogAZ said:


> I had forgotten about the scene where the lady spoke the code word to Dolores and she went to "sleep." But is that the kind of thing they have to do every night, or were these somewhat unusual tactics because of the need to retrieve 200 hosts that had received the faulty upgrade?





ClutchBrake said:


> Unusual tactics would be my guess.
> 
> We first saw the code word/phrase used by Ford on Old Bill.


I'm not so sure it was unusual tactics.
(I don't believe the following is a spoiler as it's really background material that doesn't give away plot points but if you worried about it, skip the rest of this post)

In the 1973 movie, they made a point showing that late at night, park employees would came out and pick up all of the robots that had been damaged (by shootings, swords, or whatever) or otherwise required maintenance, and haul them away to the underground lab, where a team of technicians would work through the night to repair them by sunrise.

If they've actually switched away from "real" bullets in the firearms, there's probably less work to do but probably enough physical damaged caused that there's the still the nightly repair procedure going on.


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## john4200 (Nov 1, 2009)

JYoung said:


> If they've actually switched away from "real" bullets in the firearms, there's probably less work to do but probably enough physical damaged caused that there's the still the nightly repair procedure going on.


Or they could just have multiple copies of robots (maybe with a few basic types but with modular faces and other attachments), and then take their time repairing the damaged ones.

Also, I would expect robots to be doing most of the manual work around the park, with humans only doing the management or engineering work.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

Watched this two more times since my hotel room's HDMI port was locked out, so I just left it on HBO.

Two little plot questions: 1. when they bring back the sheriff after he malfunctioned going after Escaton... he was scalped. Was that the Man in Black's work? (I had previously thought the scalp was from the dealer he tortured)

2. And why do they store all the old livestock (aside from the potential to have it brought back as part of an uprising  )


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## Jeeters (Feb 25, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> I will have to see if the movie is streaming somewhere as I haven't seen it in 40 years so don't remember much about it. I'm surprised HBO didn't secure the rights to it and use it as a lead in to the show.


My TiVo is showing that SyFy is airing the original this Saturday (10/8) at 11pm.

I just set up a recording for it. I was just a kid when I first saw it, and I can only say I "sorta" remember it.


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## wprager (Feb 19, 2006)

kaszeta said:


> Watched this two more times since my hotel room's HDMI port was locked out, so I just left it on HBO.
> 
> Two little plot questions: 1. when they bring back the sheriff after he malfunctioned going after Escaton... he was scalped. Was that the Man in Black's work? (I had previously thought the scalp was from the dealer he tortured)
> 
> 2. And why do they store all the old livestock (aside from the potential to have it brought back as part of an uprising  )


For #1, I assumed that they had the "hood up" while they were repairing him. For #2, I think you answered it yourself.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

dianebrat said:


> Except one of the core premises of the series is that they have made the hosts so well that you can't tell who is human and who is a host, and that means that hosts have the same reactions to situations as humans would.


Well, only the latest update (which malfunctioned, or so it seems) with its reverie (I'm not sure that's the word they used) function got them close to human. The head of research even talked about how you could always tell but that the new update made it harder.

I'm not sure why people thought the bank robber who got his face blown off was real. I thought they made it clear that they brought the bad guy and his gang early to kill all the hosts so they could do the recall in a believable way. That, to me, meant the bad guy and his gang were all hosts.


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

I've never seen the movie or read the book and knew nothing about it going in.

I was surprised it was as easy to follow it was. They did a good job of seeing up the premise (Jurassic park meets the old West) without just spelling it out.

I'm definitely in.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

If there's only one hooker per 1400 tourists, she must get a lot of maintenance done...

Rape risks for visitors? Perhaps the robots are programmed not to do that, or to be not attracted to humans.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

DUDE_NJX said:


> Rape risks for visitors? Perhaps the robots are programmed not to do that, or to be not attracted to humans.


I'm sure they are. I was talking about the risks from other guests, not from hosts.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Ruth said:


> I'm sure they are. I was talking about the risks from other guests, not from hosts.


So, like in real life?...


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

DUDE_NJX said:


> So, like in real life?...


I can't tell if you are meaning this as a joke?

If men choose this vacation to live out their power/sex/violence fantasies--and that appears to be a big part of what is happening--then the risk of sexual violence is going to be a lot higher here than in normal life. Rape appears to be explicitly condoned in this world; they're told they can abuse the hosts any way they want, since after all they are not real. Plus, with it being a fantasy environment, there probably aren't criminal or other real-world consequences to the perpetrators.


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## DUDE_NJX (Feb 12, 2003)

Ruth said:


> I can't tell if you are meaning this as a joke?
> 
> If men choose this vacation to live out their power/sex/violence fantasies--and that appears to be a big part of what is happening--then the risk of sexual violence is going to be a lot higher here than in normal life. Rape appears to be explicitly condoned in this world; they're told they can abuse the hosts any way they want, since after all they are not real. Plus, with it being a fantasy environment, there probably aren't criminal or other real-world consequences to the perpetrators.


I'd imagine if one guest runs into a rape hungry guest, just say "I'm not a host, f off". If that doesn't work, the person is just a rapist, like they would be in real life.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

DUDE_NJX said:


> I'd imagine if one guest runs into a rape hungry guest, just say "I'm not a host, f off". If that doesn't work, the person is just a rapist, like they would be in real life.


Sure, maybe. But women aren't always able to deter men from raping them using logic and words.

In any case, spending a week fighting off rapists doesn't sound like much of a vacation to me.

I'm just saying, you'd really want there to be an easy way for guests to ID other guests.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

One has to assume they have VERY strict protections of some kind to prevent guests from harming other guests. And one has to assume they will be addressing this on the show sooner than later!


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

I saw the movie when I was a kid, but I forget much of it. So this is an innocent question, but I suppose I'll spoiler it just in case


Spoiler



What are the chances that Ed Harris' character is a robot? I know he didn't get killed by the bullets, but maybe he has some advanced override capabilities. I know he said he's been coming for 30 years, but what if that just means he's one of the originals? I'm thinking maybe he is semi self-aware and is on a religious quest to figure out the meaning of his existence. Or I could be completely wrong and he is looking for that deeper meaning the smoking lady alluded to.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> One has to assume they have VERY strict protections of some kind to prevent guests from harming other guests. And one has to assume they will be addressing this on the show sooner than later!


The park also does seem to be very carefully monitored. Perhaps that's enough of a deterrent. That assumes the guests have a good way to tell apart guest from hosts, of course.


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## Donbadabon (Mar 5, 2002)

Jeeters said:


> My TiVo is showing that SyFy is airing the original this Saturday (10/8) at 11pm.


Thanks for the heads up!

Stupid DirecTv DVR couldn't find it in a search, but scrolling through the guide it was there.

I've never seen the flick so am excited to get an insight on the show.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

I would assume most tourists go there for "normal" wild west stuff. I don't know why you would need a wild west setting to play out a rape fantasy. 

I suspect it's more posse stuff, gun fights, cattle rustling, that sort of stuff. So I figure the rape thing is rare; it just so happens the big bad guy is the one doing it and is happening to the central figure in the story so far.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Anubys said:


> I would assume most tourists go there for "normal" wild west stuff. I don't know why you would need a wild west setting to play out a rape fantasy.


Not to mention it's incredibly bigoted to presume that's a common thing that most men would want. The fantasy you'd get from 99%+ of the male population is to be with someone who wants to be there.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

mooseAndSquirrel said:


> I saw the movie when I was a kid, but I forget much of it. So this is an innocent question, but I suppose I'll spoiler it just in case
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> ...





Spoiler



I'd like to believe he's a robot but there are so many indications he's a human like when he said he paid good money for this. The main hope of him being a robot is if he's a pet project of the head creator guy who doesn't care about the amusement park business as much as he cares about the science of making robots as indistinguishable from humans as possible.


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## markb (Jul 24, 2002)

Something I noticed is that in the opening scene, the "have you ever questioned the nature of your reality" interviewer sounds like Bernard. But when we see the interview towards the end, it's Stubbs asking the questions. And the wording is slightly different.

Are these just standard questions they always ask her? Or did they reshoot this scene with a different character, and then screw up in editing?


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

Anubys said:


> I don't know why you would need a wild west setting to play out a rape fantasy.


You wouldn't need a wild west setting, of course, but if coercion/violence turned someone on, and they wanted a realistic experience with that but didn't want to really assault anyone, I'd think that beautiful, extremely lifelike cyborgs could be an attractive option.

And that's not even bad, necessarily. They _aren't_ real.



Anubys said:


> I would assume most tourists go there for "normal" wild west stuff. . . .
> 
> I suspect it's more posse stuff, gun fights, cattle rustling, that sort of stuff. So I figure the rape thing is rare; it just so happens the big bad guy is the one doing it and is happening to the central figure in the story so far.





series5orpremier said:


> Not to mention it's incredibly bigoted to presume that's a common thing that most men would want. The fantasy you'd get from 99%+ of the male population is to be with someone who wants to be there.


I agree. Where did I say it was common or that most men would want to sexually assault anyone? I didn't, because I certainly don't believe that. I assume it is rare. But we know from the first 15 minutes of the show that there is at least one man who does want that, and uses the Westworld environment to make it happen.

I'm not making some bigoted, man-hating point here! I'm just saying that the possibility of sexual violence against hosts exists, it's foreseeable, and even if rare, it has happened before in the environment -- and that is a compelling reason I'm hoping it turns out guests have a easy way to tell hosts from guests, to prevent the female guests from feeling unsafe about the possibility that they'll accidentally be targeted.


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

markb said:


> Something I noticed is that in the opening scene, the "have you ever questioned the nature of your reality" interviewer sounds like Bernard. But when we see the interview towards the end, it's Stubbs asking the questions. And the wording is slightly different.
> 
> Are these just standard questions they always ask her? Or did they reshoot this scene with a different character, and then screw up in editing?


I think that's their way of showing that they actually have occasional problems and have a way of screening for it.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Jeeters said:


> My TiVo is showing that SyFy is airing the original this Saturday (10/8) at 11pm.
> 
> I just set up a recording for it. I was just a kid when I first saw it, and I can only say I "sorta" remember it.





Donbadabon said:


> Thanks for the heads up!


Yeah, thanks!

Apparently it's already available on Xfinity On Demand (came up in a TiVo search but I didn't follow the link).


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

Ruth said:


> You wouldn't need a wild west setting, of course, but if coercion/violence turned someone on, and they wanted a realistic experience with that but didn't want to really assault anyone, I'd think that beautiful, extremely lifelike cyborgs could be an attractive option.
> 
> And that's not even bad, necessarily. They _aren't_ real.


I'm not sure about that. I totally agree with the poster that most men fantasize about a woman who wants them. I, for one, would never have sex with a hooker; I'd sooner have sex with a chair.

Taking this to a logical conclusion, I suspect that someone who wants to rape someone would get no satisfaction from raping a cyborg; however lifelike it is. I suspect that the entire pleasure is in the control, abuse, pain...etc. you are giving a living person who feels it.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

series5orpremier said:


> Not to mention it's incredibly bigoted to presume that's a common thing that most men would want. The fantasy you'd get from 99%+ of the male population is to be with someone who wants to be there.





Ruth said:


> I agree. Where did I say it was common or that most men would want to sexually assault anyone?


OK, sorry. I might be a little over-sensitive when it comes to possible blanket generalizations. You've been reasonable from the start and my defensiveness was due to other past experiences.


Spoiler



Any story about Westworld is destined to turn tragic for an innocent human bystander sooner or later and I wouldn't want to be the one caught in the middle of any type of assault.


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## mooseAndSquirrel (Aug 31, 2001)

Heck, the threat of physical violence of the non-gun and non-rape variety between guests could be problematic. A bare knuckle fist fight, getting tossed off a cliff, a hanging, a throaty slashing.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

series5orpremier said:


> OK, sorry. I might be a little over-sensitive when it comes to possible blanket generalizations. You've been reasonable from the start and my defensiveness was due to other past experiences.


Thanks, and no worries. We're all good here. 

And agree with all counts on your spoiler (although I didn't think it needed to be spoilered, as it was speculation). I don't know if it will be a sexual assault situation, but I suspect it's going to get pretty unpleasant for some of the guests as the show progresses and the hosts become more self-aware.


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## Ruth (Jul 31, 2001)

Anubys said:


> I'm not sure about that. I totally agree with the poster that most men fantasize about a woman who wants them. I, for one, would never have sex with a hooker; I'd sooner have sex with a chair.
> 
> Taking this to a logical conclusion, I suspect that someone who wants to rape someone would get no satisfaction from raping a cyborg; however lifelike it is. I suspect that the entire pleasure is in the control, abuse, pain...etc. you are giving a living person who feels it.


This is a really interesting point. I can't get into the headspace of a would-be rapist (and I'm certainly not suggesting that any of us here can!) but that has a logic to it. Although my understanding is that there are people who enjoy acting out rape fantasy type stuff (with willing partners, safe words, etc.) in a BDSM type setting, so maybe a cyborg host would be a satisfying twist for people who might be into that? But that's not my scene so I can't really speak to the emotions there either.

Like others have posted, the rape issue really is just a subset of all the gruesome possible ways guests might harm each other without meaning to hurt a real person if they aren't able to tell who's a guest and who isn't. I think it's just on my mind since that rape scene was so early on in the show and I thought it was well done; it made an emotional impression on me.


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

Episode 2 is available early on HBO Now.


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

And HBO Go.

Good news. I was grumpy to see it up against the next debate.


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## Saturn_V (Jun 2, 2007)

Smart time shifting. But I'm kinda stuck with baseball for the next 10 hours.

Episode 2 "Chestnut" thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=544127


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Robin said:


> And HBO Go.
> 
> Good news. I was grumpy to see it up against the next debate.


As well as regular HBO On Demand.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> This doesn't bug me. Luxury resorts seem to do alright. I'm not sure what their per day costs but there are a lot of luxury resorts out there, and probably enough people in the world to fill them all. Heck, I'm not sure, but what does a baseball fantasy camp cost? This is similar, when you think about it, to one of those. I looked it up, and I guess Fantasy baseball camp is about $1,000 a day give or take, so yeah, it's not quite in this league.


I was at a picnic and a friend was telling me what a great time he had at Porsche camp. Several days for $5-10K.


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## ct1 (Jun 27, 2003)

ct1 said:


> I was at a picnic and a friend was telling me what a great time he had at Porsche camp. Several days for $5-10K.


Another point for comparison for luxury experiences: Virgin Galactic $250K ticket to space.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

gossamer88 said:


> I thought it was terrific! I coulda sworn the Cullen character was Debra Winger.


I had to look up which character was Cullen on IMDB because I couldn't imagine who you thought was Debra Winger. After doing that, I'm still perplexed.

Not for the first time though. More than a few times when people have said " I thought character X was played by actor Y because they looked just like them", I couldn't fathom what they were talking about as I saw no resemblance at all.

I find it fascinating when others see resemblances that I cannot.


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## tlc (May 30, 2002)

Anubys said:


> I'm not sure about that. I totally agree with the poster that most men fantasize about a woman who wants them. *I, for one, would never have sex with a hooker*; I'd sooner have sex with a chair.


What about a robot hooker (who's indistinguishable from a human)?
What about a robot?
What about someone who, statistically, is _probably_ a robot?



Anubys said:


> Taking this to a logical conclusion, I suspect that someone who wants to rape someone would get no satisfaction from raping a cyborg; however lifelike it is. I suspect that the entire pleasure is in the control, abuse, pain...etc. you are giving a living person who feels it.


But if the victim is indistinguishable from a living person and gives all the same feedback, would it be different? I'm guessing that a rapist wouldn't spend a lot of time on the philosophy of being human. They'd suspend disbelief and go with what their senses are telling them. In the non rapey or violent sense, that's what this park is supposed to be about, yes? Immersion.


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## Anubys (Jul 16, 2004)

tlc said:


> What about a robot hooker (who's indistinguishable from a human)?
> What about a robot?
> What about someone who, statistically, is _probably_ a robot?
> 
> But if the victim is indistinguishable from a living person and gives all the same feedback, would it be different? I'm guessing that a rapist wouldn't spend a lot of time on the philosophy of being human. They'd suspend disbelief and go with what their senses are telling them. In the non rapey or violent sense, that's what this park is supposed to be about, yes? Immersion.


Well, there are people right now who buy those life-like dolls and have sex with them. And, as Ruth rightfully pointed out, fantasy and role play is a big thing for many people.

My point is that you "know" you're role playing and you "know" you're banging an inanimate object. I'm sure that there are people who are satisfied raping a robot, I just don't think that would be enough for the "real" rapists out there.

I would very much like to stop trying to describe what rapists think about and like, though   

Finally, since you quoted my post, I was speaking for myself. I can locker-room talk with the best of them but I cannot understand having sex with someone who doesn't love you and want you. I don't even understand strip clubs, let alone doing it with a prostitute. So I may be completely out of touch here.


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## Robin (Dec 6, 2001)

Plenty of people, men and women, have rape fantasies.

I can see how a woman could fulfill it through roll playing with a human partner but it seems like for a man there would be a huge difference in how realistic the scenario could be if the partner were an Android rather than a human.


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

I just finished watching this first episode, and I must say this show is kind of creepy. Good, but creepy.

I really enjoyed the Person of Interest TV series, but the AI in that show, while central to the show storylines, was mainly in the background with few exceptions.

In Westworld, however, I believe the AI storylines of emerging sentience, ethics (both human and AI), compassion (both human and AI), conflict between human and AI, and even the nature of love will be front and center in most (all) episodes. I see this show as traveling into dark places.

Episode 1 captured my interest. Now to see if 2 and 3 maintain it.

Oh, I suspect the Ed Harris character is looking for the central control facility. But why would a map/diagram be put in such an unlikely place? Maybe there's an inside mole/traitor/spy...


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## Thom (Jun 5, 2000)

I'm thinking the phrase These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends is a trigger phrase to cause aberrant robot behavior, just like the trigger phrase Rest In A Deep And Dreamless Slumber causes an immediate shutdown.

I suspect Anthony Hopkins character embedded the aberrant trigger phrase into their software to encourage the evolution of AI sentience.


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## dswallow (Dec 3, 2000)

These violent delights have violent ends 
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, 
Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey 
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness 
And in the taste confounds the appetite: 
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; 
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

--FRIAR LAURENCE


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

Even though I've been dying to watch this show, I purposely held off so I could binge watch it. I finally got around to watching the pilot last night, and I absolutely loved it! It feels like a combination of Coma, Jurassic Park, and Dollhouse.

One negative about not watching the show with everyone else is that I am coming into the conversation so much after the fact. The problem with this is that any question I might ask at this point may have already been answered in future episodes, so I'm not sure it's even worth asking. That being said, I have one observation about the pilot episode ....

We have seen that they have an extremely sophisticated holographic type of surveillance system in the control room that can monitor every area of the park. With this being the case, how could Ed Harris do all of these things without being seen? Whether he is a human or a host, it seems like his actions are probably not something that would be condoned by the people in charge, and yet they have made no mention of it. This struck me as odd.


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## BrettStah (Nov 12, 2000)

gweempose said:


> We have seen that they have an extremely sophisticated holographic type of surveillance system in the control room that can monitor every area of the park. With this being the case, how could Ed Harris do all of these things without being seen? Whether he is a human or a host, it seems like his actions are probably not something that would be condoned by the people in charge, and yet they have made no mention of it. This struck me as odd.


I'm not recalling that we have seen that EVERY area of the park has such extensive coverage, so the premise you are starting with could be incorrect. I won't speculate on anything else here.

I just convinced my wife to watch this, and we just finished episode 1 about an hour ago, so it's fresh in my mind. This is my second time through them, and it's cool to rewatch them.


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## danielhart (Apr 27, 2004)

I got stuck around episode 3. I keep wanting to go back and start watching again but I don't. I feel like if I don't soon I'll quit it for good.


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## vertigo235 (Oct 27, 2000)

gweempose said:


> Even though I've been dying to watch this show, I purposely held off so I could binge watch it. I finally got around to watching the pilot last night, and I absolutely loved it! It feels like a combination of Coma, Jurassic Park, and Dollhouse.
> 
> One negative about not watching the show with everyone else is that I am coming into the conversation so much after the fact. The problem with this is that any question I might ask at this point may have already been answered in future episodes, so I'm not sure it's even worth asking. That being said, I have one observation about the pilot episode ....
> 
> We have seen that they have an extremely sophisticated holographic type of surveillance system in the control room that can monitor every area of the park. With this being the case, how could Ed Harris do all of these things without being seen? Whether he is a human or a host, it seems like his actions are probably not something that would be condoned by the people in charge, and yet they have made no mention of it. This struck me as odd.


Stay with it, this will be addressed...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

gweempose said:


> Even though I've been dying to watch this show, I purposely held off so I could binge watch it. I finally got around to watching the pilot last night, and I absolutely loved it! It feels like a combination of Coma, Jurassic Park, and Dollhouse.
> 
> One negative about not watching the show with everyone else is that I am coming into the conversation so much after the fact. The problem with this is that any question I might ask at this point may have already been answered in future episodes, so I'm not sure it's even worth asking. That being said, I have one observation about the pilot episode ....
> 
> We have seen that they have an extremely sophisticated holographic type of surveillance system in the control room that can monitor every area of the park. With this being the case, how could Ed Harris do all of these things without being seen? Whether he is a human or a host, it seems like his actions are probably not something that would be condoned by the people in charge, and yet they have made no mention of it. This struck me as odd.


What did you see in Episode 1 that made you think anything Ed Harris' character was doing was off limits? From the beginning, I thought that was the main purpose of Westworld. Pay money to go into the park so you can do virtually anything (kill, rape, maim, etc.) without consequences.


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## gweempose (Mar 23, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> What did you see in Episode 1 that made you think anything Ed Harris' character was doing was off limits? From the beginning, I thought that was the main purpose of Westworld. Pay money to go into the park so you can do virtually anything (kill, rape, maim, etc.) without consequences.


They made it seem like his character was sticking his nose where it didn't belong; that he had gone beyond the "game" and was looking for something that he wasn't supposed to know about or have access to. Of course, it's very possible that this was purposely done to manipulate the audience into thinking one thing, when something entirely different was actually going on. The fact that his actions were ignored by the people in charge would lend some weight to this theory.


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