10 ms·

> Westworld reminded me a bit of Asimovs stories. I suspect this isn't an accident, given (some of) the same writers/producers are developing the Foundation se

> Westworld reminded me a bit of Asimovs stories. I suspect this isn't an accident, given (some of) the same writers/producers are developing the Foundation series for HBO. There are MANY Asimovian themes scattered throughout the series, and even a few things I'm reasonably certain are direct references. (Ex: "Someday".) > It's more a philosophical story than technical or psychological And that's why I enjoyed it. My favorite science fiction always fits that description, especially if the big philosophical question comes around for technical reasons. (Such as in "The Cold Equations.") That, and the first season was very much a complete story. They could stop here and I'd be happy with it. The series had its flaws, but I'm very optimistic if this is the shape of TV scifi to come. Even if it's all adaptations or of a derivative form.

k__ 10y ago
I don't know... I think it's a nice show and the story telling is really awesome and the philosophical questions and their answers are really interesting. But the rest feels a bit... meh. The charaters don't have any depth. Bernard and Ford had the most, but the rest? The Maeve story-line was utter crap and the people around it wer basically imbecills, Maeve included. William had something going on for him and when everything got together I was blown away, but only for a moment because some of the story telling puzzles were solved and not because he is a good character, his development is simply implausible. Teddy is just... empty? Dolores was okay, but since the whole story was about her uncovering her past and with it her personality, it took the show till the end of the season till she got some depth. The scifi aspect is also minimal and basically a huge plothole, it's more fantasy to me.
- joshvm 10y ago
  Spoilers if you haven't watched. The tech I can deal with, because they don't even try to explain it, and there was a nice moment where Maeve goes bonkers when confronted by the fact that she doesn't really have free will. But my biggest gripe was that park security was a joke. It has a kind of Star Wars stupidity - "There's a problem down on the planet that could be hostile? Let's send the captain, first officer and chief medical officer". There's a problem in the park, so they send the head of security alone who conveniently can't get a signal back to base. And then there are the personnel who are wearing armour so ineffectual that they all drop like flies with a single bullet. You'd think that they might design weapons that were biometrically (or at least RFID-tagged to be realistic) linked to real people so they couldn't be stolen. It seems like the entire park is manned by about 100 people. And until the final twist was revealed, I did wonder how the hell any of the chronology actually made sense - as in the starting town scene was being reset so often that it would be an insane clean-up job every night. Not to mention that there were parallel storylines where characters that had dependent stories seemed to be apart during resets e.g. Dolores and young William, Teddy and old William were being aired at the same time.
  - joshvm 10y ago
    Ahem, I meant Star Trek...!

k__ 10y ago

I don't know... I think it's a nice show and the story telling is really awesome and the philosophical questions and their answers are really interesting. But the rest feels a bit... meh. The charaters don't have any depth. Bernard and Ford had the most, but the rest? The Maeve story-line was utter crap and the people around it wer basically imbecills, Maeve included. William had something going on for him and when everything got together I was blown away, but only for a moment because some of the story telling puzzles were solved and not because he is a good character, his development is simply implausible. Teddy is just... empty? Dolores was okay, but since the whole story was about her uncovering her past and with it her personality, it took the show till the end of the season till she got some depth. The scifi aspect is also minimal and basically a huge plothole, it's more fantasy to me.

joshvm 10y ago
Spoilers if you haven't watched. The tech I can deal with, because they don't even try to explain it, and there was a nice moment where Maeve goes bonkers when confronted by the fact that she doesn't really have free will. But my biggest gripe was that park security was a joke. It has a kind of Star Wars stupidity - "There's a problem down on the planet that could be hostile? Let's send the captain, first officer and chief medical officer". There's a problem in the park, so they send the head of security alone who conveniently can't get a signal back to base. And then there are the personnel who are wearing armour so ineffectual that they all drop like flies with a single bullet. You'd think that they might design weapons that were biometrically (or at least RFID-tagged to be realistic) linked to real people so they couldn't be stolen. It seems like the entire park is manned by about 100 people. And until the final twist was revealed, I did wonder how the hell any of the chronology actually made sense - as in the starting town scene was being reset so often that it would be an insane clean-up job every night. Not to mention that there were parallel storylines where characters that had dependent stories seemed to be apart during resets e.g. Dolores and young William, Teddy and old William were being aired at the same time.
- joshvm 10y ago
  Ahem, I meant Star Trek...!