Hosts Dolores and Teddy stand talking together in the premier episode.
By Nathan Simms
In 1973, novelist Michael Crichton made his directorial debut with Westworld, a Science-Fiction thriller which was a box office success. The film depicts a futuristic amusement park that malfunctions and attacks its guests, a theme that was reused later in Crichton’s Jurassic Park (1984). As an ancestor to Jurassic Park, the 1973 film holds all the same narrative beats that structure its more successful offspring, without the same impact of seeing prehistoric creatures on screen. Instead, Westworld depicts an amusement park where visitors are meant to engage in their every whim and fantasy in an environment that looks like the wild west. Populated by androids who are virtually indistinguishable from humans, Westworld begins to malfunction as the film opens, ultimately resulting in the deaths of the likeable human protagonists. The original film was followed by a sequel, Futureworld (Heffron, 1976), and an unsuccessful tv spin-off, Beyond Westworld (Crichton, 1980). The concept is once again in the public eye with the release of an updated Westworld TV show from HBO, directed by Jonathan Nolan.
On October 2nd, 2016, Westworld premiered to an audience of 3.3 million multi-platform viewers, according to deadline.com. The HBO show explores many of the same ethical and philosophical questions that Crichton’s film presents; however, it goes much farther in showing the darkest fantasies of the clientele, depicting gratuitous violence and full frontal nudity, all within the first minutes of the pilot. To accommodate the every whim of the visitors to Westworld, the androids’ memories are wiped every night as they are repaired after the carnage of the day. The deletion of their memories turns out to not be a full-proof strategy and the androids, “hosts”, begin to remember the atrocities that are regularly committed against them. As Charlie Jane Anders of Wired said to summarize the show, “You can only have unlimited freedom if someone else has none at all.”
On October 2nd, 2016, Westworld premiered to an audience of 3.3 million multi-platform viewers, according to deadline.com. The HBO show explores many of the same ethical and philosophical questions that Crichton’s film presents; however, it goes much farther in showing the darkest fantasies of the clientele, depicting gratuitous violence and full frontal nudity, all within the first minutes of the pilot. To accommodate the every whim of the visitors to Westworld, the androids’ memories are wiped every night as they are repaired after the carnage of the day. The deletion of their memories turns out to not be a full-proof strategy and the androids, “hosts”, begin to remember the atrocities that are regularly committed against them. As Charlie Jane Anders of Wired said to summarize the show, “You can only have unlimited freedom if someone else has none at all.”
Actor Ed Harris plays aptly-named "Man in Black" in HBO's Westworld.
Although both works explore a lot of the same themes, the television reboot places a much stronger emphasis on the androids that populate the theme park and has more time to display them. The pilot opens with the daily, cyclical routine of Dolores, the robotic protagonist and oldest android in the park, and a short demonstration of how visitors interact with the androids in the park. The theme park boasts over 100 interconnected scripted storylines with which people can interact. The stories go from assisting the sheriff in catching an outlaw to committing a robbery as a “black hat” bandit. These stories only happen because of the many hosts that parade around the massive and immersive theme park. When the hosts begin to malfunction, this causes the overarching story to deteriorate. In Crichton’s version, a few shots are shown of the control center where the “behind the scenes” workers work fervidly to keep the park running smoothly. However, the television show enables showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy to delve deeply into the corporate players in the Delos Corporation, the massive conglomerate that owns Westworld.
In addition to the corporate figureheads of Delos, the long form nature of television also provides an extended exploration of the philosophical issues that the original movie proposed. In the beginning minutes of the pilot episode, there is a scene that implies sexual violence against a female character. The following day, her memory has been wiped and there is no recollection of the horrors committed the night before. This opens up a number of questions on what it means to be human and the nature of the elites who are paying exorbitant amounts of money to visit. First is the question of what it means to be human. As the oldest host in the park, Dolores still has a metal interior body, but is still able to bleed. All other hosts are made in the glass rooms that are shown in Delos’ headquarters. These hosts are created using artificial muscles in what are basically large 3D printers. When the manufacturing process is done, these hosts are identical to humans. They have their own fingerprints, they eat, bleed, create waste, and attempt to breath. This is what makes the show disturbing, that the visitors to the park would commit atrocities that feel real. Although the visitors understand that the hosts are just glorified computers, in the moment it is virtually impossible to tell that their insides are created by machines. When the elites who visit kill, rape, and plunder, the experience feels very real, which is part of the allure of the theme park itself. The idea is that humans’ actions have no consequence in Westworld, but as the hosts begin to malfunction and think for themselves, the clients of Westworld learn that no crime goes unpunished.
In addition to the corporate figureheads of Delos, the long form nature of television also provides an extended exploration of the philosophical issues that the original movie proposed. In the beginning minutes of the pilot episode, there is a scene that implies sexual violence against a female character. The following day, her memory has been wiped and there is no recollection of the horrors committed the night before. This opens up a number of questions on what it means to be human and the nature of the elites who are paying exorbitant amounts of money to visit. First is the question of what it means to be human. As the oldest host in the park, Dolores still has a metal interior body, but is still able to bleed. All other hosts are made in the glass rooms that are shown in Delos’ headquarters. These hosts are created using artificial muscles in what are basically large 3D printers. When the manufacturing process is done, these hosts are identical to humans. They have their own fingerprints, they eat, bleed, create waste, and attempt to breath. This is what makes the show disturbing, that the visitors to the park would commit atrocities that feel real. Although the visitors understand that the hosts are just glorified computers, in the moment it is virtually impossible to tell that their insides are created by machines. When the elites who visit kill, rape, and plunder, the experience feels very real, which is part of the allure of the theme park itself. The idea is that humans’ actions have no consequence in Westworld, but as the hosts begin to malfunction and think for themselves, the clients of Westworld learn that no crime goes unpunished.
The television reboot of Michael Crichton’s 1973 film Westworld, utilizes the long format of an HBO show to deeply process the ethical problems proposed in the original. The show is a genuinely beautiful mashup of Science-Fiction with a fantastical rendition of the United States’ wild-west. And although the show is very much intended for only a mature audience, the twists and turns in the plot make for genuinely good storytelling that will make one contemplate the nature of their own reality.
Works Cited
Anders, Charlie Jane. "Can Westworld Do for Science Fiction What Game of Thrones Did for Fantasy?" Wired. Conde Nast, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.
Andreeva, Nellie. "‘Westworld’: HBO Drama Off To Strong Start In Multiplatform Premiere Ratings." Deadline. Penske Business Media, LLC, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.
Works Cited
Anders, Charlie Jane. "Can Westworld Do for Science Fiction What Game of Thrones Did for Fantasy?" Wired. Conde Nast, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.
Andreeva, Nellie. "‘Westworld’: HBO Drama Off To Strong Start In Multiplatform Premiere Ratings." Deadline. Penske Business Media, LLC, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.
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