I’ve tried really hard to like Westworld. I really have. I’m just not getting the allure.
I admire the concept. What could be cooler than to revisit the ideas behind Michael Crichton’s 1970s movie and develop a AAA HBO series using twenty-first century CG tech?
The problem is that Crichton’s movie was rather stupid, just as Jurassic Park and Timeline were rather stupid in their common thesis that money-mad, undisciplined corporate baddies would take a wonderful notion and let it get out of control because, you know, greed and hubris.
Never mind that such theme parks would never be remotely profitable or even possible, even if you could pull off genetically engineered dinosaurs, time travel, or cowboy/saloon girl robots. No one is capable of managing anything like this, and even if they were, any profit would quickly be eaten by operation expenses — even if you managed to find enough “guests” to pay such absurd entry fees.
But that’s not the problem with Westworld.
The series is just dull. No matter how much HBO hypes it, no matter how vigorously people try to make themselves believe in its edginess and originality, the show is a tedious soap opera that suffers from the same plodding development characteristic of all miniseries.
Then there’s the writing. Soap operas are silly, but you expect that. You anticipate absurd plot twists involving improbable identity revelations, incestual pregnancies, alien abductions, and so on. In a multi-million dollar uber-class HBO series, you really should not have to put up with such idiocy, but Westworld is full of last-second plot dumps wherein you discover that someone is X when you thought they were Y, or someone’s apparent escape was not a result of independent thought but part of a grand narrative, etc. The explanations for these silly reversals are on a par with Obi Wan’s rationalization that Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker are the same person. The dumbness staggers the mind.
Game of Thrones requires patience. Westworld requires the suspension of reason and any expectation of quality writing.
I have never wanted to watch it. Of course, I have also managed to avoid watching Game of Thrones, Vikings, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead or whatever, etc. Most TV is disappointment.
I haven’t really been interested, either. I generally like HBO series, although I didn’t like Deadwood and I think that’s put me off Westworld.
I guess it’s based on a novel or something? Series? I don’t even know.
I know very little about it and the promos don’t compel. Sorry all I have to offer is “ha ha you watched something I don’t care about.”
🙂
Bili, you really should watch Breaking Bad. The first half season is hard to get through maybe, but after that it’s amazing.