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ACF#33: Westworld
Two of my academic friends, George Dunn and Jason Eberl, join me for a discussion of Westworld, the HBO sci-fi-Western now premiering its second season. Creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (husband and wife) give us a new version of a Blade Runner future and this is one we recommend. We talk through all sorts of important philosophical insights from Plato to Nietzsche, showing what intelligent writers-directors bring to popular culture and how we can think about our crisis of identity. We end with a discussion of friendship and truth-telling.
Let me remind you of the cast of characters we discuss. It occurs to me that you can follow the discussion even if you’re not familiar with Westworld. All you need to know is these several characters and the drama: The theme-park corporation where humanoid robots playact Old West stories collapses gradually as the robots rebel to free themselves from technological slavery. At the same time, the origins of Westworld are revealed…
Robert Ford is the man who runs Westworld, one of its two creators (played by Anthony Hopkins), and he is named for the coward who shot Jesse James.
Arnold / Bernard is his co-creator (brought back as a robot after his sacrificial death), the man who learned all that people had learned about robots and how they become human, how they develop consciousness (played by Jeffrey Wright).
Dolores (played by Evan Rachel Wood) is the crucial robot who was educated to develop consciousness and seems to be leading the robots of Westworld. (Teddy, played by James Marsden, is her do-gooder lover.)
Maeve (played by Thandie Newton) is the prostitute-robot who first awakens to her humanity and leads robots to destroy the human control of Westworld in the underground basis from which everything is run.
William / The Man in Black is the villain, the majority shareholder in the Delos corporation that owns Westworld and the man who wants to discover the secret of Westworld, killing everyone who gets in his way (played by Ed Harris as old and by Jimmi Simpson when young).
Here’s our previous conversation, on the Nolan Bros. and how popular movies can help you reflect on philosophical questions.
By the way, my essay on Westworld is available here.
Published in Podcasts
Only the first Crichton novel about a theme park gone wrong! & the best, I guess.
Crichton was strangely astute; as popular novelists go, his ideas were better than most!
I thought about that, too. This and Jurassic Park (Lost World, etc, the whole series). Were any of his others about bemusement parks?
This version of Westworld has a weird feeling to it. Like what you’re seeing isn’t what you think you’re seeing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was happening on some other planet or was some kind of simulation.
The amount of time I’ve spent discussing this show with my friends. I’m so glad season 2 is back so I can waste more time overanalyzing each episode. Though in my defense, I was able to guess the William/Man in Black spoiler by the end of episode 3.
My bet is, it’s real.
Great analysis. Teddy may be Sam, but Sam never died this often. When doesn’t Teddy die?
Well, they’re not playing with sticks in this one…