![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Josh and I watched the first episode of Westworld last night. Wow. Lots to say about this one.
1. First, the credits are exquisitely done which I have come to expect from HBO and Showtime series.
2a. Not gonna lie, the show is super disturbing. I mean, on the surface of it, the premise is no more disturbing than the concept of the holodeck; after all, when Miles and Julian re-enact the Battle of the Alamo, they are "killing" what look like real people--with the blood and the guts and screaming and everything killing people would entail. When Worf fights a holodeck combatant, he is given the illusion of fighting and hurting and even killing a real opponent. When Quark's customers have sex with holodeck characters (which, let's face it, I suspect accounts for the majority of holodeck activity everywhere), they're having sex with characters who appear real to all the senses.
Westworld is super violent and super rapey, full of gleeful customers who are now in their own real life video game and ready to murder the characters in the game. We're shown sex that is "consensual" (people in the game having sex with characters that isn't demeaning or degrading or violent), but we're also shown one customer who apparently routinely and violently rapes one of the characters and we're also shown one of the lab technicians kissing one of the characters outside of the game in what is perhaps the most disturbing scene of the whole episode.
I think my takeaway, though, is that the holodeck is a lot more fucked up than I had considered. After all, Star Trek doesn't show us people using the holodeck for depraved purposes even though they must be so we don't have to think about that aspect of the holodeck's use. Also, the argument runs that a collection of light waves is no more sentient than the characters in a video game, so who cares? Well, until some of those light waves become sentient (as we see with the Doctor or with Moriarty and etc.), and then the ethical issues surrounding the holodeck become even more disturbing.
I think that's going to be the central premise of Westworld--the characters (hosts as they are called in the show) are gaining sentience. We're shown their creation; their bodies are manufactured and their minds constructed. They would be considered no more alive than fictional characters in a movie or blow-up sex dolls, but that's going to change.
2b. That's the next major shift in our entertainment, right? If we ever develop the holodeck or virtual reality that feels truly real or completely lifelike robots, the next logical step is using them to act out our fantasies, whether those are sexual, violent, or totally innocuous. And wow is that a slippery slope.
3. The hosts begin gaining sentience because of an update to their code. I think it's possible that rather than making a mistake, their creator actually intended the update to fundamentally change them, to start them on the path to sentience.
4. We're told that disease and other problems have been eradicated in society (not really given a time frame for the setting; we're also not shown the world outside of the simulation and the lab) which makes the scene where Theresa smokes a cigarette interesting. Why not smoke if it won't hurt you? I have gotten so used to not seeing characters smoke on television (or even in movies really) that it was kinda jarring, though.
5. Theresa mentions that Westworld operates on multiple levels and that the management of the simulation is trying to get something out of the experience other than entertaining people. Whatever that is has to be what Ed Harris's character is searching for. He says that he has been playing the simulation for years (since Westworld's creation thirty years ago), focusing on Dolores's character, and has been away for some time. He scalps another host and finds a strange symbol on the inside of his skull. He's looking for something, trying to figure something out, but also being extremely cruel and violent while doing so.
I wonder if he can move around undetected in the game somehow. None of the lab techs have commented on his behavior. They're clearly watching the hosts closely enough that they know Dolores's dad whispered something in her ear, so they should be able to see what The Man in Black is doing.
6. I couldn't tell if the picture Dolores's dad found was just of a random woman or if it was of one of the hosts (maybe in another setting or of the original human model for the way the host looks).
On the whole, I liked this even though it made me really uncomfortable in places.
1. First, the credits are exquisitely done which I have come to expect from HBO and Showtime series.
2a. Not gonna lie, the show is super disturbing. I mean, on the surface of it, the premise is no more disturbing than the concept of the holodeck; after all, when Miles and Julian re-enact the Battle of the Alamo, they are "killing" what look like real people--with the blood and the guts and screaming and everything killing people would entail. When Worf fights a holodeck combatant, he is given the illusion of fighting and hurting and even killing a real opponent. When Quark's customers have sex with holodeck characters (which, let's face it, I suspect accounts for the majority of holodeck activity everywhere), they're having sex with characters who appear real to all the senses.
Westworld is super violent and super rapey, full of gleeful customers who are now in their own real life video game and ready to murder the characters in the game. We're shown sex that is "consensual" (people in the game having sex with characters that isn't demeaning or degrading or violent), but we're also shown one customer who apparently routinely and violently rapes one of the characters and we're also shown one of the lab technicians kissing one of the characters outside of the game in what is perhaps the most disturbing scene of the whole episode.
I think my takeaway, though, is that the holodeck is a lot more fucked up than I had considered. After all, Star Trek doesn't show us people using the holodeck for depraved purposes even though they must be so we don't have to think about that aspect of the holodeck's use. Also, the argument runs that a collection of light waves is no more sentient than the characters in a video game, so who cares? Well, until some of those light waves become sentient (as we see with the Doctor or with Moriarty and etc.), and then the ethical issues surrounding the holodeck become even more disturbing.
I think that's going to be the central premise of Westworld--the characters (hosts as they are called in the show) are gaining sentience. We're shown their creation; their bodies are manufactured and their minds constructed. They would be considered no more alive than fictional characters in a movie or blow-up sex dolls, but that's going to change.
2b. That's the next major shift in our entertainment, right? If we ever develop the holodeck or virtual reality that feels truly real or completely lifelike robots, the next logical step is using them to act out our fantasies, whether those are sexual, violent, or totally innocuous. And wow is that a slippery slope.
3. The hosts begin gaining sentience because of an update to their code. I think it's possible that rather than making a mistake, their creator actually intended the update to fundamentally change them, to start them on the path to sentience.
4. We're told that disease and other problems have been eradicated in society (not really given a time frame for the setting; we're also not shown the world outside of the simulation and the lab) which makes the scene where Theresa smokes a cigarette interesting. Why not smoke if it won't hurt you? I have gotten so used to not seeing characters smoke on television (or even in movies really) that it was kinda jarring, though.
5. Theresa mentions that Westworld operates on multiple levels and that the management of the simulation is trying to get something out of the experience other than entertaining people. Whatever that is has to be what Ed Harris's character is searching for. He says that he has been playing the simulation for years (since Westworld's creation thirty years ago), focusing on Dolores's character, and has been away for some time. He scalps another host and finds a strange symbol on the inside of his skull. He's looking for something, trying to figure something out, but also being extremely cruel and violent while doing so.
I wonder if he can move around undetected in the game somehow. None of the lab techs have commented on his behavior. They're clearly watching the hosts closely enough that they know Dolores's dad whispered something in her ear, so they should be able to see what The Man in Black is doing.
6. I couldn't tell if the picture Dolores's dad found was just of a random woman or if it was of one of the hosts (maybe in another setting or of the original human model for the way the host looks).
On the whole, I liked this even though it made me really uncomfortable in places.
