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On November 29 2016 03:45 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
Dear god someone end the Maeve plot. I cant watch it.
Hated this episode but it might be because of how angry I was after the Maeve part.
Also, comparing this to The Wire which had like 0 bad episodes in 5 seasons seems a bit 1) early and 2) sacrilegious yo.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, but I agree though I think the comparison is apples and oranges.
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On November 29 2016 12:48 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
I assume Bernard's gone though? It seemed like Ford had him put down for good this time with no intention of 'resetting' his memory
I really doubt it. I just think they once again went for style over sense with the dramatic walk-away, gun suicide instead of Ford just wiping Bernard through the backdoor. I'm sure the techs will be down there to fix Bernard up shortly.
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On November 29 2016 11:33 Faun wrote:Haha,  when i do write something in english, I try to maximize my fancy word count, just to extend my vocabulary. Looked the word up again, yep wrongly used! I wholeheartedly agree (was talking about other american shows in the other post). Another (pretty old) take on the mystery genre is "The Kingdom". It's unfished, but easily Lars von Triers most accessible work and a supreme parody of hospital shows... I'm super excited for the 3rd season of Twin Peaks next year, supposedly they gave Mr Lynch free reign this time. Could be glorious (I'm still in love with Cooper) Show nested quote + I am most irritated by Dolores, who seems to have a past trip mixed with a present trip to the same target and, to make it worse, is taking out of the past trip to be examined or whatever only to have then a conversation with someone examining her in the future. That's just intentionally fucking with the audience... Well, it doesn't seem to be all that unclear. First Dolores tries the mave when Arnold is still alive (Arnold is easily identifiable by his clothes). Then Dolores goes on a trip with William (it isn't 100 % clear, that she actually finds the maze in this timeframe as the city is buried). In the present time frame Dolores memory gets triggered (most likely by the MIB, "Let's get ourselves reacquainted") and then she recalls her adventure with William. In this timeframe she gets pulled out in Pariah to be interviewed by Ford. For Dolores it is hardly possible to differentiate between memory and present (what would the difference even be, if memories didn't decay..). So for the audience it was a little confusing for the most part as well. But if you actually payed attention, there were a lot of visual clues that made it pretty easy to identify the different timeframes (and why they were used). This is a puzzle (and if you dont enjoy puzzles, ignore the show, but dont claim it's bad), but a puzzle with a narrative foundation.
Look, i am not saying it's bad, i am just saying it fucks with the audience for the whole purpose of fucking with the audience and i don't believe that to be desirable.
+ Show Spoiler +
Basically, the story is told in a well that it is very easily perceived as one persistent timeline. If you leave out the different clues you have, Dolores storyline would make perfect sense.
The first episodes we are introduced to some standard dolores cycles. Get up, greet your dad, go to town, accompany Ted or a newcomer, come home, get raped, killed, repeat. (Yay!) MiB is there the first day. Then there is a bug, she starts to remember past cycles and configurations. Her dad breaks due to the photo. Rollback, Teddy gets shot, she gets flash backs over flashbacks and her core get damaged. Next rape she kills the host and runs away, finds William, goes with him to Pariah, then visits the old training grounds where she remembers her first configuration. While this happens, she has conversations with present Bernard and Ford. When she kills the guy in the barn, she remembers the MiB from 2 days before. When she has clear memories, the people are younger, like ford in episode 9. It all makes sense.
The only times it does not make sense is when the weird scenes happen where she has a dèja vu and her wound disappears or when other stories contradict it. Now that we know that what is happening to dolores are two different timelines, we know the only way they achieve that is by meshing it all together. The show argues that hosts can not differentiate between memories and present experiences, which is their excuse for not showing us the difference of it as well. But in the end, it's just a ruse to be clever. The only reason to do it is that the average show runner can go "OMG the MiB and William are the same persons?????? That is sooooo sick. I never saw that coming. The show is so great!" But they only achieve that by tricking us. They jump wildly forward and backward, omit the whole part where Dolores excapes the farm in the present and travels in the present to the town. It's not on the bullshit level of tricking, like for example on the dreadful "Now you see me" thing, but still it's tricking us for the sake of tricking us and i don't think that's so great.
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On November 29 2016 23:38 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 12:48 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
I assume Bernard's gone though? It seemed like Ford had him put down for good this time with no intention of 'resetting' his memory I really doubt it. I just think they once again went for style over sense with the dramatic walk-away, gun suicide instead of Ford just wiping Bernard through the backdoor. I'm sure the techs will be down there to fix Bernard up shortly.
Wouldn't Ford have to do it himself though?
I think what was most important from this episode is with the native characters, we see that Ford definitely has other hosts that protect his interests in the park.
If he intends to wipe Bernard and have him reset he would logically have to have other hosts planted who could help him move and repair hosts that deviate from their intended use if only to keep them hidden from others.
I am curious as to the extent that Ford has set up self up to contend with the board of the park. It is all very much like the movie The Thing, to me.
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On November 29 2016 23:38 Scarecrow wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 12:48 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
I assume Bernard's gone though? It seemed like Ford had him put down for good this time with no intention of 'resetting' his memory I really doubt it. I just think they once again went for style over sense with the dramatic walk-away, gun suicide instead of Ford just wiping Bernard through the backdoor. I'm sure the techs will be down there to fix Bernard up shortly.
Well, not necessarily next episode. It's quite possible we're done with his arc for the season and it'll be a cliffhanger whether he will be rebooted for next season or not.
That said, I really dislike the fancy editing. There are good and bad ways of doing flashbacks, and this is the bad way. I'm still not entirely sure in what order to place all the Dolores bits, and frankly I don't care. Just tell the fucking story instead of resorting to shitty editing tricks to keep us "intrigued".
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On November 29 2016 23:59 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 11:33 Faun wrote:Misused it, to be sure, but points for effort. Haha, when i do write something in english, I try to maximize my fancy word count, just to extend my vocabulary. Looked the word up again, yep wrongly used! Amazing doesn't even begin to describe how good this show actually is I wholeheartedly agree (was talking about other american shows in the other post). Another (pretty old) take on the mystery genre is "The Kingdom". It's unfished, but easily Lars von Triers most accessible work and a supreme parody of hospital shows... I'm super excited for the 3rd season of Twin Peaks next year, supposedly they gave Mr Lynch free reign this time. Could be glorious (I'm still in love with Cooper) I am most irritated by Dolores, who seems to have a past trip mixed with a present trip to the same target and, to make it worse, is taking out of the past trip to be examined or whatever only to have then a conversation with someone examining her in the future. That's just intentionally fucking with the audience... Well, it doesn't seem to be all that unclear. First Dolores tries the mave when Arnold is still alive (Arnold is easily identifiable by his clothes). Then Dolores goes on a trip with William (it isn't 100 % clear, that she actually finds the maze in this timeframe as the city is buried). In the present time frame Dolores memory gets triggered (most likely by the MIB, "Let's get ourselves reacquainted") and then she recalls her adventure with William. In this timeframe she gets pulled out in Pariah to be interviewed by Ford. For Dolores it is hardly possible to differentiate between memory and present (what would the difference even be, if memories didn't decay..). So for the audience it was a little confusing for the most part as well. But if you actually payed attention, there were a lot of visual clues that made it pretty easy to identify the different timeframes (and why they were used). This is a puzzle (and if you dont enjoy puzzles, ignore the show, but dont claim it's bad), but a puzzle with a narrative foundation. Look, i am not saying it's bad, i am just saying it fucks with the audience for the whole purpose of fucking with the audience and i don't believe that to be desirable. + Show Spoiler +
Basically, the story is told in a well that it is very easily perceived as one persistent timeline. If you leave out the different clues you have, Dolores storyline would make perfect sense.
The first episodes we are introduced to some standard dolores cycles. Get up, greet your dad, go to town, accompany Ted or a newcomer, come home, get raped, killed, repeat. (Yay!) MiB is there the first day. Then there is a bug, she starts to remember past cycles and configurations. Her dad breaks due to the photo. Rollback, Teddy gets shot, she gets flash backs over flashbacks and her core get damaged. Next rape she kills the host and runs away, finds William, goes with him to Pariah, then visits the old training grounds where she remembers her first configuration. While this happens, she has conversations with present Bernard and Ford. When she kills the guy in the barn, she remembers the MiB from 2 days before. When she has clear memories, the people are younger, like ford in episode 9. It all makes sense.
The only times it does not make sense is when the weird scenes happen where she has a dèja vu and her wound disappears or when other stories contradict it. Now that we know that what is happening to dolores are two different timelines, we know the only way they achieve that is by meshing it all together. The show argues that hosts can not differentiate between memories and present experiences, which is their excuse for not showing us the difference of it as well. But in the end, it's just a ruse to be clever. The only reason to do it is that the average show runner can go "OMG the MiB and William are the same persons?????? That is sooooo sick. I never saw that coming. The show is so great!" But they only achieve that by tricking us. They jump wildly forward and backward, omit the whole part where Dolores excapes the farm in the present and travels in the present to the town. It's not on the bullshit level of tricking, like for example on the dreadful "Now you see me" thing, but still it's tricking us for the sake of tricking us and i don't think that's so great.
Same is true for Fight Club, The Usual Suspects etc. I dont think the clues were obvious at all and if you did read reddit for another hour after each episode its your own fault to miss the big twisting moments in shows like this.
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On November 30 2016 02:43 Kenpark wrote:Show nested quote +On November 29 2016 23:59 Broetchenholer wrote:On November 29 2016 11:33 Faun wrote:Misused it, to be sure, but points for effort. Haha, when i do write something in english, I try to maximize my fancy word count, just to extend my vocabulary. Looked the word up again, yep wrongly used! Amazing doesn't even begin to describe how good this show actually is I wholeheartedly agree (was talking about other american shows in the other post). Another (pretty old) take on the mystery genre is "The Kingdom". It's unfished, but easily Lars von Triers most accessible work and a supreme parody of hospital shows... I'm super excited for the 3rd season of Twin Peaks next year, supposedly they gave Mr Lynch free reign this time. Could be glorious (I'm still in love with Cooper) I am most irritated by Dolores, who seems to have a past trip mixed with a present trip to the same target and, to make it worse, is taking out of the past trip to be examined or whatever only to have then a conversation with someone examining her in the future. That's just intentionally fucking with the audience... Well, it doesn't seem to be all that unclear. First Dolores tries the mave when Arnold is still alive (Arnold is easily identifiable by his clothes). Then Dolores goes on a trip with William (it isn't 100 % clear, that she actually finds the maze in this timeframe as the city is buried). In the present time frame Dolores memory gets triggered (most likely by the MIB, "Let's get ourselves reacquainted") and then she recalls her adventure with William. In this timeframe she gets pulled out in Pariah to be interviewed by Ford. For Dolores it is hardly possible to differentiate between memory and present (what would the difference even be, if memories didn't decay..). So for the audience it was a little confusing for the most part as well. But if you actually payed attention, there were a lot of visual clues that made it pretty easy to identify the different timeframes (and why they were used). This is a puzzle (and if you dont enjoy puzzles, ignore the show, but dont claim it's bad), but a puzzle with a narrative foundation. Look, i am not saying it's bad, i am just saying it fucks with the audience for the whole purpose of fucking with the audience and i don't believe that to be desirable. + Show Spoiler +
Basically, the story is told in a well that it is very easily perceived as one persistent timeline. If you leave out the different clues you have, Dolores storyline would make perfect sense.
The first episodes we are introduced to some standard dolores cycles. Get up, greet your dad, go to town, accompany Ted or a newcomer, come home, get raped, killed, repeat. (Yay!) MiB is there the first day. Then there is a bug, she starts to remember past cycles and configurations. Her dad breaks due to the photo. Rollback, Teddy gets shot, she gets flash backs over flashbacks and her core get damaged. Next rape she kills the host and runs away, finds William, goes with him to Pariah, then visits the old training grounds where she remembers her first configuration. While this happens, she has conversations with present Bernard and Ford. When she kills the guy in the barn, she remembers the MiB from 2 days before. When she has clear memories, the people are younger, like ford in episode 9. It all makes sense.
The only times it does not make sense is when the weird scenes happen where she has a dèja vu and her wound disappears or when other stories contradict it. Now that we know that what is happening to dolores are two different timelines, we know the only way they achieve that is by meshing it all together. The show argues that hosts can not differentiate between memories and present experiences, which is their excuse for not showing us the difference of it as well. But in the end, it's just a ruse to be clever. The only reason to do it is that the average show runner can go "OMG the MiB and William are the same persons?????? That is sooooo sick. I never saw that coming. The show is so great!" But they only achieve that by tricking us. They jump wildly forward and backward, omit the whole part where Dolores excapes the farm in the present and travels in the present to the town. It's not on the bullshit level of tricking, like for example on the dreadful "Now you see me" thing, but still it's tricking us for the sake of tricking us and i don't think that's so great.
Same is true for Fight Club, The Usual Suspects etc. I dont think the clues were obvious at all and if you did read reddit for another hour after each episode its your own fault to miss the big twisting moments in shows like this.
Except that none of Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, the Sixth Sense, etc. relied entirely on their "big plot twist" to tell a compelling story. All of those movies are great regardless of whether you know from the start what the twist is or if you are completely not suspecting it and it blows your mind, because they tell a compelling story.
However, Westworld relies entirely on the plot twist, because otherwise we are following some completely uninteresting character (William) for absolutely no good reason: he is a boring douche of a character who is completely disconnected from the major plot (except as Dolores' completely unnecessary companion) unless he is somehow connected to the MIB.
Characters connected to the main plot questions, which I would classify as "who is Arnold?" and "what is the maze?" are Bernard, Ford, MIB and Dolores. MIB and Dolores mainly with the maze, Bernard and Ford mainly with Arnold, but the two questions are interconnected, as we have been shown a couple of times now, so there is some overlap. Maeve has her own, entirely disconnected plot, which will presumably be woven into the story at some point, but it is not clear how. That leaves William (and Logan) with no raison d'etre.
Compare that to Fight Club. Edward Norton has a real personality and moves the plot forward. Kevin Spacey is the main protagonist of the Usual Suspects even while you are trying to answer who the fuck Tyler Durden is. And Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense, same deal. None of these plot twists feel essential to move the plot along, they just happen and make a good movie amazing. In Westworld, you are *meant* to be puzzling it out, because there is literally no other reason for some of the scenes.
And that is bad storytelling in a nutshell.
Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy Westworld. I like their spin on the philosophy of the mind questions, and the visuals and sound are top notch. Acting is great and some of the dialogues (in particular with Hopkins) are genius. I'm just really irritated by the way they chose to tell the story, which I find is boorish. And moreso in comparison to the high standards they have in the other areas.
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France7248 Posts
On November 30 2016 03:09 Acrofales wrote:
uninteresting character (William) for absolutely no good reason: he is a boring douche of a character who is completely disconnected from the major plot (except as Dolores' completely unnecessary companion) unless he is somehow connected to the MIB.
unless? cmon... you should know by now
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Give me a well thought out puzzle anytime over the most simplistic "psychology" and arc of a "real" character like Edward Norton. Fight Club embodies shallowness like no other movie. There couldn't have been a more clichéd way to portray a split personality with the tools of film (don't understand how Mr Robot could resort to this stupidity again). William not as a character, but as an element - a human lost in its own wonderland - is far more thought-provoking (and less annoying) than this dude, who has problems with masculinity and manhood in modern society and stuff.
Westworld - up until now - hasn't had a true "plot". Think of the show as a speculative mind experiment on the origin, nature, history, consequences etc. of non-human stories. But we dont start with the whole picture, rather with a bunch of different questions/ perspectives that get developed over the course of the first 10 episodes. The show isn't truly focusing on the biography of Ford or Arnold (the "plot" of two men creating the park), the "adventures" of MIB or William, Bernards love story or the fate of Felix. Every protagonist (most likely even Ford) has a distorted, imperfect view on what Westworld is, what it "means" for hosts and humans alike. Dolores in "the present" is actually experiencing "the past" (no flashback). She lives not figuratively, but literally in the past. This is such a cool idea, that it justifies any bit of tricky editing. Ofc they go for twists and wow moments, so do Shakespeare and Kubrick.
But the whole premise of the show is that the showrunners very carefully built an intricate structure, smashed it and then let us put it back together (yes, it runs against common story telling conceptions, but to me a "well-told" linear love/adventure/ w.e. story is not in any way more interesting than a "puzzle"; go read Infinite Jest and rage: the entire "exciting" plot takes place in the unwritten pages of the story, we only get to see barely half of the actual "plot")
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On November 30 2016 04:16 Faun wrote:
Give me a well thought out puzzle anytime over the most simplistic "psychology" and arc of a "real" character like Edward Norton. Fight Club embodies shallowness like no other movie. There couldn't have been a more clichéd way to portray a split personality with the tools of film (don't understand how Mr Robot could resort to this stupidity again). William not as a character, but as an element - a human lost in its own wonderland - is far more thought-provoking (and less annoying) than this dude, who has problems with masculinity and manhood in modern society and stuff.
Westworld - up until now - hasn't had a true "plot". Think of the show as a speculative mind experiment on the origin, nature, history, consequences etc. of non-human stories. But we dont start with the whole picture, rather with a bunch of different questions/ perspectives that get developed over the course of the first 10 episodes. The show isn't truly focusing on the biography of Ford or Arnold (the "plot" of two men creating the park), the "adventures" of MIB or William, Bernards love story or the fate of Felix. Every protagonist (most likely even Ford) has a distorted, imperfect view on what Westworld is, what it "means" for hosts and humans alike. Dolores in "the present" is actually experiencing "the past" (no flashback). She lives not figuratively, but literally in the past. This is such a cool idea, that it justifies any bit of tricky editing. Ofc they go for twists and wow moments, so do Shakespeare and Kubrick.
But the whole premise of the show is that the showrunners very carefully built an intricate structure, smashed it and then let us put it back together (yes, it runs against common story telling conceptions, but to me a "well-told" linear love/adventure/ w.e. story is not in any way more interesting than a "puzzle"; go read Infinite Jest and rage: the entire "exciting" plot takes place in the unwritten pages of the story, we only get to see barely half of the actual "plot")
I think that we all get that you are in love with the show, but saying that Willian character is thought -provoking is just..., it gives not a single vibe (good or bad) to the show, is just a boring character and element.
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He got a point though, that "what is the maze ?" is not the overarching plot in the series at all. It is about the evolution of the hosts in the big picture.
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Again, the show is very entertaining, i binge watched it once and a second time with a friend. I also made a big mistake, came to this thread after ep 7, read the theory of MiB = William and 2 different timelines and so got spoilered. It would have been more entertaining not to do that and i am usually quite good at guessing the story in advance, but here the only thing i assumed before the reveal was that the sessions between Bernard and Dolores were in fact way in the past which led me to believe that he was a host built in the shape of Arnold. And i am proud of guessing that right  However, the second timeline never occured to me, because they are actively trying to show you something misleading.
I would argue that in Fight Club, the usual supects and Sixth Sense, there is one fact blinded out or obscured or even shown wrong and the rest fits more or less. If you know that one detail, everything else is just plain obvious to you. Here however, they blend at least two different timelines, flashbacks to times before that, times between that. They move the character without us seeing it. They use special techniques, like slomo or no sound, to show what is a flashback, and then say the hosts see no flashbacks but live their memories. It's all over the place. And it's done that way so that it looks linear and still tells the story. They are messing with us.
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On November 30 2016 03:09 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2016 02:43 Kenpark wrote:On November 29 2016 23:59 Broetchenholer wrote:On November 29 2016 11:33 Faun wrote:Misused it, to be sure, but points for effort. Haha, when i do write something in english, I try to maximize my fancy word count, just to extend my vocabulary. Looked the word up again, yep wrongly used! Amazing doesn't even begin to describe how good this show actually is I wholeheartedly agree (was talking about other american shows in the other post). Another (pretty old) take on the mystery genre is "The Kingdom". It's unfished, but easily Lars von Triers most accessible work and a supreme parody of hospital shows... I'm super excited for the 3rd season of Twin Peaks next year, supposedly they gave Mr Lynch free reign this time. Could be glorious (I'm still in love with Cooper) I am most irritated by Dolores, who seems to have a past trip mixed with a present trip to the same target and, to make it worse, is taking out of the past trip to be examined or whatever only to have then a conversation with someone examining her in the future. That's just intentionally fucking with the audience... Well, it doesn't seem to be all that unclear. First Dolores tries the mave when Arnold is still alive (Arnold is easily identifiable by his clothes). Then Dolores goes on a trip with William (it isn't 100 % clear, that she actually finds the maze in this timeframe as the city is buried). In the present time frame Dolores memory gets triggered (most likely by the MIB, "Let's get ourselves reacquainted") and then she recalls her adventure with William. In this timeframe she gets pulled out in Pariah to be interviewed by Ford. For Dolores it is hardly possible to differentiate between memory and present (what would the difference even be, if memories didn't decay..). So for the audience it was a little confusing for the most part as well. But if you actually payed attention, there were a lot of visual clues that made it pretty easy to identify the different timeframes (and why they were used). This is a puzzle (and if you dont enjoy puzzles, ignore the show, but dont claim it's bad), but a puzzle with a narrative foundation. Look, i am not saying it's bad, i am just saying it fucks with the audience for the whole purpose of fucking with the audience and i don't believe that to be desirable. + Show Spoiler +
Basically, the story is told in a well that it is very easily perceived as one persistent timeline. If you leave out the different clues you have, Dolores storyline would make perfect sense.
The first episodes we are introduced to some standard dolores cycles. Get up, greet your dad, go to town, accompany Ted or a newcomer, come home, get raped, killed, repeat. (Yay!) MiB is there the first day. Then there is a bug, she starts to remember past cycles and configurations. Her dad breaks due to the photo. Rollback, Teddy gets shot, she gets flash backs over flashbacks and her core get damaged. Next rape she kills the host and runs away, finds William, goes with him to Pariah, then visits the old training grounds where she remembers her first configuration. While this happens, she has conversations with present Bernard and Ford. When she kills the guy in the barn, she remembers the MiB from 2 days before. When she has clear memories, the people are younger, like ford in episode 9. It all makes sense.
The only times it does not make sense is when the weird scenes happen where she has a dèja vu and her wound disappears or when other stories contradict it. Now that we know that what is happening to dolores are two different timelines, we know the only way they achieve that is by meshing it all together. The show argues that hosts can not differentiate between memories and present experiences, which is their excuse for not showing us the difference of it as well. But in the end, it's just a ruse to be clever. The only reason to do it is that the average show runner can go "OMG the MiB and William are the same persons?????? That is sooooo sick. I never saw that coming. The show is so great!" But they only achieve that by tricking us. They jump wildly forward and backward, omit the whole part where Dolores excapes the farm in the present and travels in the present to the town. It's not on the bullshit level of tricking, like for example on the dreadful "Now you see me" thing, but still it's tricking us for the sake of tricking us and i don't think that's so great.
Same is true for Fight Club, The Usual Suspects etc. I dont think the clues were obvious at all and if you did read reddit for another hour after each episode its your own fault to miss the big twisting moments in shows like this. However, Westworld relies entirely on the plot twist, because otherwise we are following some completely uninteresting character (William) for absolutely no good reason: he is a boring douche of a character who is completely disconnected from the major plot (except as Dolores' completely unnecessary companion) unless he is somehow connected to the MIB.
I think you will be surprised next week :D
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On November 30 2016 06:41 JazVM wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2016 03:09 Acrofales wrote:On November 30 2016 02:43 Kenpark wrote:On November 29 2016 23:59 Broetchenholer wrote:On November 29 2016 11:33 Faun wrote:Misused it, to be sure, but points for effort. Haha, when i do write something in english, I try to maximize my fancy word count, just to extend my vocabulary. Looked the word up again, yep wrongly used! Amazing doesn't even begin to describe how good this show actually is I wholeheartedly agree (was talking about other american shows in the other post). Another (pretty old) take on the mystery genre is "The Kingdom". It's unfished, but easily Lars von Triers most accessible work and a supreme parody of hospital shows... I'm super excited for the 3rd season of Twin Peaks next year, supposedly they gave Mr Lynch free reign this time. Could be glorious (I'm still in love with Cooper) I am most irritated by Dolores, who seems to have a past trip mixed with a present trip to the same target and, to make it worse, is taking out of the past trip to be examined or whatever only to have then a conversation with someone examining her in the future. That's just intentionally fucking with the audience... Well, it doesn't seem to be all that unclear. First Dolores tries the mave when Arnold is still alive (Arnold is easily identifiable by his clothes). Then Dolores goes on a trip with William (it isn't 100 % clear, that she actually finds the maze in this timeframe as the city is buried). In the present time frame Dolores memory gets triggered (most likely by the MIB, "Let's get ourselves reacquainted") and then she recalls her adventure with William. In this timeframe she gets pulled out in Pariah to be interviewed by Ford. For Dolores it is hardly possible to differentiate between memory and present (what would the difference even be, if memories didn't decay..). So for the audience it was a little confusing for the most part as well. But if you actually payed attention, there were a lot of visual clues that made it pretty easy to identify the different timeframes (and why they were used). This is a puzzle (and if you dont enjoy puzzles, ignore the show, but dont claim it's bad), but a puzzle with a narrative foundation. Look, i am not saying it's bad, i am just saying it fucks with the audience for the whole purpose of fucking with the audience and i don't believe that to be desirable. + Show Spoiler +
Basically, the story is told in a well that it is very easily perceived as one persistent timeline. If you leave out the different clues you have, Dolores storyline would make perfect sense.
The first episodes we are introduced to some standard dolores cycles. Get up, greet your dad, go to town, accompany Ted or a newcomer, come home, get raped, killed, repeat. (Yay!) MiB is there the first day. Then there is a bug, she starts to remember past cycles and configurations. Her dad breaks due to the photo. Rollback, Teddy gets shot, she gets flash backs over flashbacks and her core get damaged. Next rape she kills the host and runs away, finds William, goes with him to Pariah, then visits the old training grounds where she remembers her first configuration. While this happens, she has conversations with present Bernard and Ford. When she kills the guy in the barn, she remembers the MiB from 2 days before. When she has clear memories, the people are younger, like ford in episode 9. It all makes sense.
The only times it does not make sense is when the weird scenes happen where she has a dèja vu and her wound disappears or when other stories contradict it. Now that we know that what is happening to dolores are two different timelines, we know the only way they achieve that is by meshing it all together. The show argues that hosts can not differentiate between memories and present experiences, which is their excuse for not showing us the difference of it as well. But in the end, it's just a ruse to be clever. The only reason to do it is that the average show runner can go "OMG the MiB and William are the same persons?????? That is sooooo sick. I never saw that coming. The show is so great!" But they only achieve that by tricking us. They jump wildly forward and backward, omit the whole part where Dolores excapes the farm in the present and travels in the present to the town. It's not on the bullshit level of tricking, like for example on the dreadful "Now you see me" thing, but still it's tricking us for the sake of tricking us and i don't think that's so great.
Same is true for Fight Club, The Usual Suspects etc. I dont think the clues were obvious at all and if you did read reddit for another hour after each episode its your own fault to miss the big twisting moments in shows like this. However, Westworld relies entirely on the plot twist, because otherwise we are following some completely uninteresting character (William) for absolutely no good reason: he is a boring douche of a character who is completely disconnected from the major plot (except as Dolores' completely unnecessary companion) unless he is somehow connected to the MIB. I think you will be surprised next week :D
Oh. I know all about William = MIB. It got more likely with board woman needing MIB's vote. That last sentence was written as a hypothetical to make the point, not because I don't know the theory.
One thing speaks against it, though: he should know about the maze before murdering Marvel (unless he doesn't know what Dolores is looking for. The scenes where she sees the maze are shot suggestively to make it seem like visions, or a different timeline being mixed in).
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On November 29 2016 03:36 Yoav wrote:I once had a girlfriend was a pretty awful person. Beautiful and smart, but ultimately just a dick. I was young, and stupid and fell for her. After a good start, the whole thing was disaster, particularly the end. Then I got a new girlfriend. She was superficially like the first one (what can I say, I have a type) but kind inside and always good to me. Unfortunately, her superficial similarities meant that everyone I knew opposed me being with her... it just felt too much like the abusive one. Anyway, the first girl's name was Lost and the second's was Westworld. + Show Spoiler +While I take the metaphor straight, I'm aware you can read it ironically... the guy in denial of the similarity of the two girls by saying the second one's different. Anyway, this is why I think there's a division in the community over this.
hahaha, I feel you man.
I remember another one around the same time. Her name was Hayden. uhh I mean Heroes*.
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On November 30 2016 04:56 Kenpark wrote:
He got a point though, that "what is the maze ?" is not the overarching plot in the series at all. It is about the evolution of the hosts in the big picture.
I think the two are intertwined, the maze isn't for the MiB because it's for the hosts. I think it's their path to true consciousness/freedom from Ford.
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It is for the hosts, but it is not a way into freedom, it is a failsafe for Ford to catch them...
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I gotta say I am severely disappointed by the direction this show took. I absolutely loved the first 2-3 episodes, felt like it got progressively worse after that. Now it feels like "The Island" meets "I robot". The dialogue writing is hit or miss, the storylines all kind of fell apart and I don't care for any of the characters any more. Gonna finish this season obviously, but my hopes for an awesome season 2 are quite slim.
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Again, I don't know what show y'all are watching, I've been loving every minute.
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Mystery only gets you so far, teasing philosophical ideas is great but you have to develop it through the narrative as well.
Westworld doesn't have interesting characters for the most part, that's the biggest problem for me.
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EPT
