Nowadays everything in Hollywood is a remake. TV shows, movies, video games… When HBO announced a remake of Westworld with J.J. Abrams exec producing and Jonathan Nolan doing all the handy work… people were pretty stoked. The original movie itself was good and who knows what the duo and others (despite J.J.’s less than stellar record on TV shows.) was going to bring. Now that Sunday has arrived and passed and the first episode aired, we got a pretty good taste of what Westworld as a show is going to be; it’s not for everyone.
Science fiction shows often tread on philosophical topics and conceptual technologies, sci-fi shows are often the most cerebral shows out there today… This is pretty cerebral, as in you need a comprehensive mind to understand and appreciate this. Lots of topics exist in Westworld; the concept of free will, man vs. the creator, the palates of sin, evolution and lust and of course, making sure remains in complete check. This was based on a Michael Critton movie, the guy who brought us Jurassic Park (another novel/movie about things going wrong) so you would at least expect that…
The amount of intelligence this show has is great; lots of quotable lines, lots of arguments and lots of thought… the Nolan family are one of the smartest to do this with high concepts and high thoughts so to see this kind of care in Westworld is impressive. It’s as if they knew intellectuals would be watching this; this episode lays down the seeds well showing us what drama, what high concept and what intelligence the show will bring. It might even replace “Lost” as the show which is fun to theorize about and fun to write complex essays about regarding it’s thematics.
Here’s the problem though… This show looks like it’s going to be slow; remember when I said this wasn’t going to be for everyone?
HBO has no commercial breaks therefore the show’s creators can make the episode as long or as short as they want it to make but Westworld could use a little trimming and compacting. Jurassic Park (and to an extent, Jurassic World) were good movies not because they’re filled with exposition but because they get to the point, they make us think and they give us a peak into the world of what can be possible into the future; they’re also fun and they get to the point almost instantly. Westworld is like… you already know the premise but you want to see what the lack of limits of premium television can bring but instead they’re emphasizing complex conversations about cerebral stuff.
Imagine if everything was cerebral; not everybody can tolerate cerebral all the time and people just want something to blow some steam off. While there are some good moments in this episode, it suffers from the whole “this show is mainly for smart people” stigma that it seems to have labeled itself… I just wanted to see some Wild West action or something that felt like a guilty pleasure but this to me felt like I was watching a movie in a theater and I don’t mean praising it’s cinematic qualities. 65% of the scenes take place in the environment of the sterile lab which we’ve seen before which only serve to provide novel length exposition that nobody likes watching; in a world where movies are 3 hours long, this is something I have to live with but I wonder if people can tolerate it week by week.
The cinematography is good and shows us what television can bring if people pushed the boundaries and treated everything like a movie rather than TV. Pushing the angles and lighting to levels unseen can make for a good masterpiece and serves as something that can influence future directors and cinematographers of television. You got good shots of sunsets, you’ve got disorienting angles which serve to creep and freak you out, you even got majestic shots that show the scale of Westworld. If there’s anything that this show will be remembered for, it’s the cinematography and if the subsequent episodes can keep up this level of cinematography then at least it’ll have people talking about something.
Westworld is a masterpiece in the way it’s filmed and presented but it’s a failure in it’s content, expectations and delivery… It has potential if they focused on the characters and drama more than the exposition and this is only one piece but to me, this feels like I’m watching part 1 of a 10 hour movie… It can be best described as an indie movie where they have the money, they have the skill and the content is unusual but it’s unable to leave a lasting imprint in your daily life. If you’re a fan of the cerebral stuff and if you’re a college professor then this is for you, for those of you who are impatient, want to cut to the chase and love explosions more than anything else; look elsewhere. If you’re in between, give it a chance.
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