J. J. Abrams HBO Westworld series

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by soundboy, Aug 30, 2013.

  1. Leviethan

    Leviethan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    This show suffers from the same ailment that so many shows do. Really inventive, promising first season but subsequent seasons really fizzle and die. I think HBO puts a lot of money into people with great ideas who just cannot follow up or sustain these ideas for the medium or long term. True Detective was the same. The Outsider managed to cram this dynamic into one incredibly disappointing season! Started off brilliant, ended with a boring drawn out whimper. Game of Thrones was brilliant for four straight seasons, but went downhill from there. The last couple seasons were embarrassing. I get that the source material/outlines were already written, but those guys just blew the landing.

    I agree that Vince Gillian has avoided this with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. The former was perfect, and the latter keeps getting exponentially better with each season. I hope they can shoot six before everybody in the prequel is geriatric compared to their first appearances in BB!
     
  2. GentleSenator

    GentleSenator what if

    Location:
    Aloha, OR
    agree with you on all points save for your sentiments on the outsider. i realize it was maybe 1-2 episodes too long, but it really felt like a king book come to life. it was pretty rich, in my opinion.

    hbo definitely needs to learn when to let go. dragging something out isn't going to give them another sopranos or the wire. if it's broken early on, it might not be fixable. westworld is just too big a concept (or lack of one) to continue. it took game of thrones multiple seasons to become a mess like this show already is.

    but hey, at least most hbo shows don't get insanely stupid like showtime's.
     
    Leviethan likes this.
  3. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I'm just catching up on this show, having watched Seasons 1 and 2 over the last week. I thought Season 1 was pretty strong overall but Season 2 was confusing and didn't deliver on the promise of the ideas the first season set up. The writing really faltered -- so...many...monologues -- leaving it to the actors to invest it with any depth it might have. Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton are strong, but Charlotte was such a one dimensional villain that I'm not sure a better actor could have saved that role. I'm approaching Season 3 with caution.
     
    jamesc and chacha like this.
  4. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    Was the S3 blu-ray only and DVD only Nov 17th release date cancelled? Right now the BDs are force bundled with the 4k physical release of S3 on Nov. 17th.
     
  5. SteveRes

    SteveRes Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    In season 1 Hopkins took the show to heights it's never been able to capture again. I thought season 2 had some strong moments but 3 was really underwhelming. What was the point of Bernard's storyline?
     
  6. Playloud

    Playloud Nobody’s Hero

    Location:
    PNW
    I thought Season 1 was amazing and had a great sound track, which was an automatic buy. Season 2 was not at that level, but still a great ride and again a interesting soundtrack. Season 3 was such a let down. I wanted to like it, but it just didn’t hold water in the storyline for me. Interesting idea with Delores, but ultimately doesn’t play out as well as it could of. The finale didn’t even really point a way forward. It bummed me out enough to cancel my subscription. Hate to admit that. I had high hopes.
     
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  7. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Picked up S3 DVD today. Loving it.
     
  8. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    may i ask what about it you are loving?

    i ask because i gave up on it about half way through, just too convoluted and messy all at the same time.
     
    GentleSenator likes this.
  9. I bought season 1 & 2 on UHD BD, but I'm not spending more money on a series that doesn't make sense to me anymore, I'll get Chernobyl on UHD BD instead.
     
    ted321 likes this.
  10. jojopuppyfish

    jojopuppyfish Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I don't even think there is a really great episode in Season 3. There were several in Season 2 even though that season had a bad finale.
    Truth is, Westwood had a great first season and then nosedived.
     
    jamesc, ted321, razerx and 1 other person like this.
  11. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    I am excited about picking up S3 on blu today for CDN$20 - which was a national pricing error for Best Buy Canada on all 3 formats and is about USD$15.

    I will binge watch the whole thing on the weekend with a friend. I've only watched the seasons in one swoop which may make me forgive short comings that are far more obvious when it's 1-2 weeks between episodes and you discuss it on message boards.
     
  12. formbypc

    formbypc Forum Resident

    I thought Season 1 had a couple of superb plot twists, around two or three episodes from the conclusion. Anyone who has watched it will know what I mean.
     
  13. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    i see, i thought you meant you were loving season 3........let us know what you think.
     
  14. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Westworld has been renewed for another season I read.
     
  15. SoundAdvice

    SoundAdvice Senior Member

    Location:
    Vancouver
    ‘Westworld’ Creators Already Have Deals With HBO for ‘Potential’ Season 4 and 5
    This 2019 story implies HBO is onboard for Season 4 AND 5.

    Loved it and binged it all in 2 days. For my 2nd viewing I'll probably fast forward skim the transformer/nazi/maeve scenes though.
     
    alexpop likes this.
  16. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    A chance for redemption after Season 3... (is there even a reason to keep calling it Westworld?)
     
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  17. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Good shows with longer runs do it with characters. "Puzzle" narratives are really hard to do well, and don't depend on characters as much. I think Season 1 of Westworld excelled and Season 2 was at least pretty good, but eventually the whole thing dies because it's too hard to keep going at that level without (without some outlier genius doing the writing). The characters of Westworld were written for their Season 1 purposes, so the farther they get from Season 1, the less distinctive and interesting they are. Cramming those characters into new scenarios was part of the problem, IMO
     
  18. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Because changing the name to "Battlestar Galactica" would cause a knee-jerk assumption that it would be cheesy before they even saw it?
     
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  19. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    S3: I was disappointed after viewing it the first time, but second viewing has its rewards. I read it’s not just a final season ( S4) .. but continuity for more seasons.
     
  20. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    It's probably too late to change the name now. Regardless of what is going on now, if they change the name it might cause people to lose track of the series. I had the problem with my DVR where a program changed its title and my DVR lost track of it so I missed a couple of episodes.

    Sometimes a series can change its name to reduce confusion. An example of this is Enterprise which, because it didn't have "Star Trek" in the name it caused people to overlook the series at first. Later, they changed the name of the series to Star Trek - Enterprise, and in reruns they changed the name of the early episodes.

    I had the same experience with Smallville. Although I'm a comic book reader I didn't pick up that the series involved Superman, and by the time I found out it was too late for me to get into the series.
     
    Dillydipper likes this.
  21. NettleBed

    NettleBed Forum Transient

    Location:
    new york city
    Well, I'm not saying that they should be changing it; just that 'Westworld' no longer describes the show. Kind of like if the Cheers bar closed but they kept the show going anyway.
     
  22. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    It's just that "Futureworld" isn't really that much of a general-audience draw for a title. "Westworld" was always more about broken cowboy-machines than it implied, but that's a culturally-recognizable theme for a low-awareness audience they could attract with it.
     
  23. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    IMHO they had no reason not to be using the "Star Trek" brand in the first place. Marketing flaw.

    I'm surprised our DVR didn't stop recording Comedy Central at 11pm, when The Daily Show became "The Daily Social Distancing Show".

    By the way, just an aside, I saw a clever post today, saying "I can't read the words 'Bad Robot' anymore, without seeing, 'Bad Reboot'.." :D
     
    zephyr25 likes this.
  24. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

  25. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Regarding series title I’m fine with Westworld.
     

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