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Westworld Season 2


mackavelli

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Caught the most recent episode on Monday. My first thought was “huh, that’s one way to be immortal.”

Then I remembered the line from an earlier episode (Maybe episode 2?) where one of the mercs says “they blew up the cradle.”

So, maybe not the best way to be immortal?

Also - did anyone else notice that the screen was in widescreen/letterbox when Bernard’s control unit was inserted into the Cradle? The best I can recall there were two other scenes this season in widescreen/letterbox - both with Dolores and “Arnold.” The very first scene of the season, and the first scene of this episode. So I think that’s Bernard in the cradle too, not Arnold. And i think it’s likely the part of end game for Ford was to bring Arnold back, not just create Bernard. James Delos took at least 249 (or 149, can’t recall) attempts and it still wasn’t perfect. Maybe with the cradle you can run thousands of simulations to verify whether your human control unit is perfect before putting it in a host body.  

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I'm still of the opinion that the cradle is just a data center to coordinate things in the park. It sends out commands to hosts and the weather control and all that. While it may be capable of simulations, I don't think that is its purpose. It also stores the raw data on everything that happens. When Bernard enters the cradle he is walking through the machines stored memory of a previous episode. But of course Ford has hijacked it and inserted himself to interact with Bernard. So killing the cradle just kills their ability to control everything in the parks.

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Also - did anyone else notice that the screen was in widescreen/letterbox when Bernard’s control unit was inserted into the Cradle? The best I can recall there were two other scenes this season in widescreen/letterbox - both with Dolores and “Arnold.” The very first scene of the season, and the first scene of this episode. So I think that’s Bernard in the cradle too, not Arnold. And i think it’s likely the part of end game for Ford was to bring Arnold back, not just create Bernard. James Delos took at least 249 (or 149, can’t recall) attempts and it still wasn’t perfect. Maybe with the cradle you can run thousands of simulations to verify whether your human control unit is perfect before putting it in a host body.  

 

Good eye. Thought it was just a weird camera angle while watching. Turns out perhaps not.

 

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5b078547e4b0568a8809b87a

 

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35 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Just another thought, if Ford is controlling Dolores, he made her crash a train into the cradle that holds his consciousness? Or what did the train really destroy? It seems plausible based on previous comments that it did destroy the cradle.

Well, considering there was a shot of Elsie in the cradle  saying “what was that” and a distant explosion, I don’t think the train destroyed the cradle. 

 

I assume the explosion simply gets them into the Mesa so they can extract Abernathy. 

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24 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

 


Did it bother you in The Dark Knight?

 

Screen so dark during the movie I rarely noticed. Dunkirk was obvious with the Father/son boat scene during the day. It was flipping back and forth between the two angles during the same scene. Very distracting 

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13 minutes ago, RPM said:

I'm going to have to rewatch this episode. Too much going on and I had a couple interruptions. Not sure WTF just happened.

I'm not sure the show knows, either. It seems be in "let's see how we can keep stretching this out" mode.

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Basically, it was the finale of the first battle of the robot apocalypse. We did get confirmation that the purpose of the park is to help humans transition and become immortal. MiB and Maeve (at least the last time we see them) are both somehow still alive in spite of grievously mortal wounds. I suspect they both survive somehow with the help of the English twat and MiB's daughter.

The Cradle has been destroyed and Sir Anthony lives in Bernardold's head, which should imply that he (Ford) should degrade in a few days and none of the hosts have backups any longer. They're truly untethered now, and the race is on for the Valley Beyond which supposedly represents a way out of West World.

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The Cradle has been destroyed and Sir Anthony lives in Bernardold's head, which should imply that he (Ford) should degrade in a few days and none of the hosts have backups any longer.


Damn I didn’t even think about that.

The system “fixed itself” since Ford was out of it. And we see Bernard trying to “debug” himself and the tablet says he has heavy fragmentation. I’d guess that’s Ford becoming unstable.
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That was the first eye-rolly episode for me. I mean come on, the hard hitting operator gets seduced in the middle of a war by an unarmed robot? And the number of times people have been had dead to rights and then escaped is getting annoying.

I was glad when Maeve got shot (because I didn’t want her to kill MiB) but then disappointed when she lived, yet again.

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2 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

 And the number of times people have been had dead to rights and then escaped is getting annoying.

This. I won't insult Westworld with a Walking Dead comparison (yet), but it's giving me the same vibes much of the time. I think there were at least four scenes where two characters faced off, we KNOW neither of them will actually die, but each showdown ends in a miraculous last-second intervention or distraction.

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That was the first eye-rolly episode for me. I mean come on, the hard hitting operator gets seduced in the middle of a war by an unarmed robot? And the number of times people have been had dead to rights and then escaped is getting annoying.

I was glad when Maeve got shot (because I didn’t want her to kill MiB) but then disappointed when she lived, yet again.

Umm undefeated pussy is...


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Two observations:

First, Bernard’s scar was gone after his head was lasered together by the cradle helmet. So that explains that. 

Second, MiB is definitely going to use that med pack he swiped from the bar in the first or second episode this season to heal himself and survive. I’ve seen a lot of speculation in articles after this episode that because he didn’t immediately die from the gut shot it means he’s a host -  however I doubt that is where they are going with him. 

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On 5/28/2018 at 11:01 PM, wild_turkey said:

Like most of you, I’m fairly confused at this point. It’s hard to understand what each character’s goals are, therefore I have no idea what we are working towards. It would be like watching a sporting event when you don’t know the rules or objectives of the particular sport.

I think the show is starting to suffer from lack of any true protagonist. I guess we are supposed to root for Maeve and Bernard? It would help to have some decent humans.
...

I’m along for the ride, but it seems like the style of storytelling has taken priority over the plot itself, and that’s growing tiresome.

This was me last night (and a bit over the past couple of weeks too). I have no idea who to root for, so I just find myself rooting to see the stupidest ones die first. Like that dude that's part of their elite Seal Team 6 security ops and somehow gets brought down by some slow talking and flirting. Get the entire fuck out of here...

I should've known the battles and action scenes would be stupid after that one scene where the security team walked through a flat plain in a straight line towards the hosts in week 1 or 2. They need some consulting on that. I'll be watching next week, just as confused as ever, and trying hard not to roll my eyes at the lazy writing.

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Basically, it was the finale of the first battle of the robot apocalypse. We did get confirmation that the purpose of the park is to help humans transition and become immortal. MiB and Maeve (at least the last time we see them) are both somehow still alive in spite of grievously mortal wounds. I suspect they both survive somehow with the help of the English twat and MiB's daughter.
The Cradle has been destroyed and Sir Anthony lives in Bernardold's head, which should imply that he (Ford) should degrade in a few days and none of the hosts have backups any longer. They're truly untethered now, and the race is on for the Valley Beyond which supposedly represents a way out of West World.

Would Ford degrade if he's only virtual? I assumed the problem with Delos's instability was in trying to place his consciousness into a host.
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Man, so much stuff happened in this episode.  Most of the monologue/explanations weren't really new information, but I think it's good we're all on the same page now.  Ep was a good mix of explanations and action + moving the story along.  Charlotte is a good "bad guy" and I really can't wait for her to eat it in some fantastic way.  Even last season, I was always rooting for the hosts over the humans.  My only beef is with William getting shot so many times and you know he's going to survive, either by fixing himself or his daughter will swoop in at the last moment and bring him back.  His plot is pretty boring these days, so I hope he actually does die.  Hell, he wanted the stakes to be real.

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@HouTexI'm not entirely sure at this point. Maybe Ford doesn't degrade at all. I was just speculating based on my (poor) understanding of the what "the rules" are AND with the (probably wrong) assumption that they're applied consistently.

At any rate, I'm going to not try to over-analyze the show as it's been a fun ride so far, and I don't want to ruin my pleasure in watching it. Hopefully, the writers won't force me to suspend disbelief too much.

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1 hour ago, Anton Chigurh said:

 

 


Yeah but he’s now in Bernard.

 

Is he?  Seems that Bernard still has his own identity while he somehow is interacting with Ford through some kind of network.  I didn't see it as two identities within Bernard's "brain."  But who knows.  Like Bolverk said, I hope things don't get too unbelievable so I stay interested.

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Is he?  Seems that Bernard still has his own identity while he somehow is interacting with Ford through some kind of network.  I didn't see it as two identities within Bernard's "brain."  But who knows.  Like Bolverk said, I hope things don't get too unbelievable so I stay interested.


Sorry, a bit speculative on my part. But, when the system “fixed itself” I took it as Ford not messing with it anymore like he was out of it. Not sure.
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Guest Lobo

Ford isn't in Bernard's brain.  He's in Arnold's.  

That's the battle to come.  (After the Indian bottle episode next week).  

Edited by Lobo
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My "uh oh" meter went off in episode 1, when half of it was Dobores monologues, genuflecting or philosophizing on the level of a 10th grader's personal diary.  This season supports my opinion that season 1 was a happy accident, and the showrunners/writers have no clear vision of what this show is supposed to be.

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3 hours ago, PilotsError said:

Season one was all Crichton's source material, right?  Season two is basically the writers making their own shit up?

No they've been making their own shit up the whole time. It's based on Crichton's movie but only very loosely... just basically in terms of the concept of having a theme park with human-like robots. The stories in the TV version are completely different. 

 

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I still enjoy the shit out of this show. I just have no idea what's going on. 

MIB dying last night would have been underwhelming for his story but kind of perfect considering who did it. I was kind of hoping he finds out he is a robot, which would kill him mentally. 

Yes, Army man being distracted by hot robot was very stupid. 

Maeve calling Dolores out for what she did to Teddy was good. 

I still have no idea of Ford's end game or Bernard's for that matter. 

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Guest Lobo

Hollywood consistently confuses high-level corporate security contractors to be the guys that couldn't hack it in Spec Ops when really they're the guys that graduated out of it as exceptional and had their choice of jobs.  It'd be okay to have one cliche guy that was a loose cannon on those security teams but the vast majority of them appear to be bumbling idiots; as if Hollywood is thinking, "yeah, these are the gung-ho types that were too incompetent/angry for general infantry."  Uh no, they'd be a bunch of Hale-types, cold and calculating and proficient beyond reproach.  I mean, it's not Band of Brothers---there isn't a military consultant on the HBO crew...but it wouldn't hurt to maybe have these guys be good at their jobs for 5 minutes and have HOSTINT specialists tracking Delores instead of her band of Sediciosos showing up at every fucking critical Delos position every 10 minutes.  

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Yeah the fight scenes/logic between private security and Dolores are idiotic.

 

The raid on the fort in the early episode was just beyond ridiculous. And Delos really doesnt have a single helicopter?

 

I do like the Ford/Arnold/Bernard/Delos stuff

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

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My biggest concern is that it’s starting to feel like Lost. I saw in season 2 that Lost was going nowhere so I bailed, and I admit to feeling smug about it when the ending flopped. I hope that’s not the case, because when WW is good it’s really good (see the MiB episode this season).

And Shogun World was what, just a big pointless sidebar?

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On 6/4/2018 at 11:01 AM, Buzzrock said:

That was the first eye-rolly episode for me. I mean come on, the hard hitting operator gets seduced in the middle of a war by an unarmed robot? And the number of times people have been had dead to rights and then escaped is getting annoying.
 

dont tell me you wouldnt be distracted

 

Scottish-Mussel-1.jpg

 

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I need some help following along.

1) So Ford's consciousness was uploaded to the cradle, and now is residing in some version of Bernard/Arnold?

2) Bernard was trained by Delores and Ford to learn to act just like Arnold? 

3) The "experiment" of the park was to observe humans and learn how to copy their mind?

4) So is Ford's consciousness really his or just a computer imitation?   If it's just an imitation, I don't see how this is living on or why it's important to even imitate the old consciousness.  They could reprogram my fake consciousness and it would never know the difference.  

5) If the answer to 4) is it really is his consciousness, the technology behind that blows away anything in the park that they have shown thus far.  It's one thing to create cognitive robots that can think and (perhaps?) have free will.  It's another to somehow extract human consciousness from a human brain before or after death.  How exactly did Delos pull that off?

 

I am super confused.  

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