Westworld | Season 1 | Review

31/Jan/2021

 Season 1. Watched. My rating:  8.9/10. Every once in a while there comes a show, a movie, a book or an album which has a premise one would describe it as "difficult to describe". An elevator pitch of this show would be Jurassic Park (1993) meets I. Robot (2004). 

 Set in a distant future which is ever so looming, Westworld is an amusement park in the theme of the wild west; like Red Dead Redemtion, only real. The park's residents include a number of androids whose minds work with such baroque intricacies that they are practically indistinguishable from humans. Perhaps 'mind' isn't the best word; CPUs would make for a better fit. But what is a mind after all, if not a central processing unit? That's the central question the show ponders at. 

 The 1973 film that this series is adapted from, is written and directed by none other than Michael Chrichton himself. The author of Jurassic Park, The Terminal Man and other classics of the genre. A huge name in the science fiction community, his work is bound to be adapted for generations to come. And I'm bound to compare Westworld to Jurassic Park for their rather similar premises. In both the stories, the humans are so focused on whether they can do something, they never stop to ask if they should do something. Preoccupied with accomplishments; dinosaurs in JP and robots in Westworld. 

 But, in both cases, the lack of conscience on our part, i.e the humans, bites us back. The dinosaurs break through their cages of steel and wire and the robots break through their cages of codes and scripts. In other words, the androids gain consciousness. 

 But is it consciousness, though? Or just another set of algorithms falling like dominoes one after the other, creating a mosaic of self awareness. An illusion. 

 But aren't we, in a way, are a collection of dominoes as well? Destined to fall, fated to perform like the many others before us? As I try to navigate this maze of a philosophical query of mine, I keep coming back to this question: What is mind, if not a highly complex computer designed to solve problems of mortality?

 Like JP, the story also features a wealthy, old man- a man of science- who created this park. Played by Anthony Hopkins to perfection, the Shakespear qouting Dr. Robert Ford is a morally grey character who keeps you intrigued even when he is not on screen. Anthony Hopkins is the man single handedly responsible for my obsession with serial killers because of his Lecter. And obviously he is among my favorite thespians to ever have walked this Earth of ours.

 When it comes to cast, almost everyone delivered what the script demanded of them. Acting and actors are perhaps the least interesting aspect of filmmaking for me. What can you really say about them? Either they were good or bad. Yes, I could inject infuriatingly poetic lines which account for how their performances moved me. But of what use would that be for anybody, least of all me. My ignorance stems from my lack of knowledge about acting as a skill, and I intend to correct that. Although I'm not sure when.

 I just want to add that Evan Rachel Wood's Dolores Abernathy had my heart from the first frame and it just goes to show how well she was cast as the leading android. She not only lifts the heavy emotional crescendos, but also provides with an unsettling neutrality when her character demands it during the sequences of analysis. 

  I had no idea that Ed Harris from Apollo 13 (1995) and The Truman Show (1998) would show up in this and I'm so grateful for his inclusion. He is among the finest actors and we don't talk about him enough. Each and every line of dialogue from his throat blooms as a gritty melody of it's own.

 The music and sound effects are fantastic in this film. Not a single mechanical whirr or a transitional whoosh feels out of place. Can't believe I wrote the last sentence with a straight face but I did. 

 I binge watched the last four episodes of this season and it just kept getting better. The story unfolds against two seperate back drops: one is the period piece of a park and the other is the futuristic office of the park, where the developers mend and develop robots and internal politics of the company takes place.

 This first season was among the best written science fiction stories that I've seen and I hope it only gets better. Alas, all that I've heard so far is that the following seasons only degrade in quality. I hope at least I like them. Or like them enough to have a satisfying conclusion.