All right, here we go. Quiet. Hello and welcome to the Big Picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and put them all in this sort of context. See if it crossed the microphone from me as film off online editor-in-chief, rich trees.
And seated across the microphone from me is film off online contributing editor and remarkably mellow, Natasha Vogutsky. I was going for a robotic. Oh boy. Did I succeed for a second?
Just for a moment, yeah. I tried. Did you like the headcock? Yes, that's worked really good on an audio only medium.
I know. Next, we're going to do site gags. Oh, that was worth it. Oh, it's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it?
Weeks! Yeah, I know. It's been almost a month and a half. It's been most of the summer.
Welcome back, guys. We were on sabbatical. We were on summer vacation. Okay, we were off-shooting movie.
Among other things. We had a lot of stuff going on. Yes, we did. And we'll tell you about our trip to Westworld in just a moment.
Well, thanks for giving it away what we were doing early. Well, I mean, if they looked at the title of this episode, it's probably going to be our trip to Westworld, as opposed to what we did on our summer vacation. Okay. Okay.
We're forgetting that people can actually see what they're listening to before they press the link. And they still press the link? I'm an idiot who would probably press the link without fucking walking. Oh, boy.
So, I think we wanted to touch on a couple of things before we dive right into our examination of the fourth season of Westworld. Like what? You seem eager to just pounce on something. I don't know.
I'm curious to see what you're going to pounce on. Okay. For anyone interested in what this sound is, that's me clicking my acrylic nails together in anticipation. Like it's some kind of percussion or rhythmic device.
Like Dolly Parton and Patty LaBellie. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it.
Go ahead. I'm trying to think of some of the films we've seen recently. A bullet train. Was a lot of fun.
A lot of fun. And you and I have had this talk before about David Leitch. His films recently have been top-notch, just action goodness. I really, really loved this film.
I thought it was a lot of fun. Fun. It's pure fun. It's action.
It's comedy. The dialogue has a musicality to it. The story has a lot of twists and turns. I mean, come on.
What is not to love about this? It's a lot of fun. Okay. He's biting Guy Ritchie's style just a little bit, but I could deal with it.
Atomic blonde, when he did that, that was just top-notch for me. Very much so. But like I said, Guy Ritchie's really not using that much of his style right now. The gentleman was, I think, a little bit more sedate visually than some of his other things.
So I'm fine with, you know, I'm still here. Agreed and not agreed. I loved that the gentleman kind of went back to a storytelling type. We haven't really seen in his films since, like, Snatch, Lockstalk and Two Smoking Girls.
It went back to kind of his earlier way of storytelling, but then kind of updated it for the modern era. He doesn't need the visuals in order to convey a story. I think when he gets into a habit of storytelling that's kind of forced on him by studios, that's when he takes those visual flares, like we saw in Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur and all that. But obviously with Man from Uncle and the gentleman, we can see that he's still very much the Guy Ritchie that we know and love from the 90s.
I mean, the amount of times recently where I've said, don't be cunty. I love that phrase. But yes, I mean, David Lee, it's just kind of knocking on the style door, just a little. But he has enough of his own unique flair to it that I'm okay with it because he doesn't overuse it.
Another filmmaker who has shown some flair already and some style is Dan Treckenberg, and he gave us 10 Cloverfield Lane. And just now, the Predator prequel parade, which I don't think you've seen. No, I haven't. I've heard a lot of good things about it.
It is. It is. It is. It is.
It is. It is. It is. It is.
It is. It is. It is. It is.
It is. It is. It is. It is.
It is. I've been elected into the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle. It's a great honor for me. I'm very, very flattered.
Very, you know, hopefully it's going to keep me humble. These guys and gals who are in the critics circle are really fantastic. I've, I know most of them already from going to a lot of screenings. And so I'm excited to hopefully.
Everyone likes you. Come on. You're going to get in sooner or later. They all respect your work.
They all love you. It's. Yeah. It's sometimes though, you know, it's, it's nice to get that recognition, you know, in this kind of form.
Yes. And you've fully deserved it. You've worked very hard over the last two decades. Wow.
Yeah. Put it like that. No, but you have worked incredibly hard and your dedication to this art form of, yes, being a film critic can be an art form, just like being a theater critic. Just ask George Sanders.
Nice. Well, nice. Nice. Oh, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you very much. But no, I, I do kind of see it as an art form. There it takes a lot to kind of sit down and to analyze a film on, to be unbiased when you sit down and do it, to be, to wanting to be willing to be surprised by these movies.
Yeah. In fact, well, what I was starting to say is before we tangented off on this was on the, on the film critic circle podcast called the Film Scribes, which you can find on iTunes. Yes. And there's the plug for this episode.
Ladies and gentlemen, we were, we were talking about Prey and I did the intro for the review and I wound up saying basically that I thought this was probably the best predator movie since the first one. Immediately. You weren't the first person I've heard say that. Well, a lot of people have said it.
Again, and this is what I love about Dan Tabor, who is a member of the film critic circle and also on the podcast frequently kind of jumped at me and he's like, don't you dare denigrate predator, predator to that way predator to is the second best predator movie. This is a really close third or yeah, words to do that effect. And we said we kind of had a little bit of a good natured back and forth about it. But yeah, if you like predator, you're probably going to like prey, if you like predator to, you're still going to like prey and it's interesting to find out where it falls in each person's individual rankings.
I would have to go back and actually watch them all again because I haven't seen predator let alone predators do since that's probably about six or seven somewhere around there. It was somewhere between six and eight years old. I barely fucking remember them. That's okay.
And to be honest, I guess I wasn't a fan anyways at the time. And it's mainly because the 90s from me, the late 80s, early 90s, you were kind of perfumed. Yes, I'm using the word perfumed kind of in like a chloroform way with these over testosterone action movies from stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Bendham and Stephen Seagal. And after a while, I mean as a kid, as a little girl, I'm sorry, the man with the big biceps is not doing it for me.
I don't care how many monsters he battles. Terminator was fantastic. Terminator 2 was even more so. I actually saw a T2 before I saw a Terminator.
Interesting. Which to be honest, T2 is better. Just as a story as a whole, it's a lot better. Yeah, I would go a lot with that.
Yeah. It's kind of the same way that I don't like Top Gun. I didn't fall for that machismo even as a kid. I wanted to see equal sides being able to battle it out and that's why I love Sarah Connor as a kid.
So, representation matters. Yes, it really does. Yes. And the fact here in Prey, we have an American Indian actress being our hero.
Which is why I actually do want to see Prey unlike the others I was, you know, after Predator 2. I think the only time I ever actually saw Predator and I actually remember the scene was shut up. Aliens vs Predator. No, there was a scene where the Predator meets a girl, a human girl from the team and I think they decided to team up together.
I vaguely remember that particular scene and that was it. And I was like, okay, I'm kind of interested to go back and see the originals and I never fucking did because I don't care enough. That's fair. I mean, I think the original two are really good.
Predators, which is the third one where it's like 2010, Adrian Brody. Yes. I think it's getting kidnapped and plunked onto a jungle planet where they have to, you know, defend themselves, you know, defend themselves from a predator. So basically Australia.
Yeah. And just substitute weird, you know, predators for weird scorpions or whatever else they have in Australia. Sorry to our Australia. No.
The sad is that is if you want to think about it, like a twisted version of like the aboriginals of the time. It's like a twisted idea of that. Yeah. I mean, that I think still has some things that movie I think still has some things to offer.
It's that that most recent one, sadly written by and directed by Shane Black, who I thought was going to be able to. I love you, right? Yeah. Called the Predator.
And it's just not good. I almost completely wiped that for my brain. I never even saw it. I think the third act is a hot mess.
And it makes me wonder if the studio was interfering with it and was recutting it behind Shane Black's back. I don't want to be the first time studios of interview. Gee, 20th Century Fox, the home of Josh Trying Fantastic Four going ahead and reciting something after a filmmaker finished. Paris the Thought.
Mm hmm. No, I am. But yeah, there was some other great films that have come out recently that we just haven't had a chance to talk about black phone. Which was amazing.
I put that, I think I put that up there for four and a half. I went and saw it with a friend. The entire theater was completely packed and there was a moment in the third act and ladies and gentlemen, if you've seen it, you probably know exactly what moment I'm talking about where I literally almost jumped out of my chair and my hands pumped up in the air and I went yes. And I'm very, very quiet theater full of like two, three hundred people I yelled yes.
Nice. And I was like, oh, I immediately sunk down into my chair like, I don't exist. I don't exist. That didn't just happen.
But also, nope, which was fantastic. Which I still haven't seen. Nope, I'm good. Okay.
You need to see it. I've actually heard it's really good. Darren went and saw it with a friend and they came out and they were like, I would probably recommend you go on to see this. Yes.
It's interesting. And since you haven't seen it, I don't want to get too much into it. I only want to see it for, you know, Michael Winscott. Yes.
That's all. Who's fantastic. And just opening this past weekend, as we're recording this, the new Aubrey Plaza film, Emily the Criminal, which I really liked. I have not even heard of that one.
Granted, I'm not an Aubrey Plaza fan to begin with. That's true. But I, ladies and gentlemen, before you decide to shut off the podcast, let me just explain. I fully respect her as an actress.
I think she is really great. I just, there are times I don't get her dari style comedy. Oh, no. This is a very serious, straight role.
Which is rare. And I think that's, well, I mean, look at when she did Chucky a couple years ago, that's not exactly her usual wheelhouse either, which I hate that that film kind of skated by and then disappeared. That's fair. No, but this film is very much a class conscious thriller about a woman who is just struggling to make ends meet and she finds an easy way to make an illegal buck or two and it follows her story from there.
Okay. I'm kind of interested. Like I said, it's very socially conscious. It's dealing with people who are struggling today, basically, and the vanishing middle class and the economic hard times in this country.
And the story makes absolute, the film makes absolutely no judgment on her as a character for what she does. You know, how sometimes you're watching a movie and it's like, it's the lead is doing bad guy stuff and just to survive. Yeah. And they get punished for it.
They get punished for it. Or the film seems to let you know the way it's shot, the way it's put together that the film itself, the filmmakers themselves, are disapproving of these actions. Not here. Not here at all.
It's very much like, this is her story. This is her reality. Yeah. You don't even have any police officers enter into it until very close to the end.
It's only for a moment. And honestly, it's more of a bit of a faint than anything else. Okay. Okay.
Okay. I wouldn't say sold me, but I'll definitely go and take a look at the trailer. Okay. Okay.
That's all I can ask. But yeah, it's been a good summer for movies outside of like the big blockbusters because we're kind of heading into a bit of a drought between now and like October, we're not really getting much on. We've got to eat yourself the thing of opening up next week called Beast. Which I will not fucking see because I've watched several trailers from that.
And it's making me have flashbacks back to a movie when I was a kid that I still have nightmares about to this day called the Ghost in the Darkness with- Okay. I've heard of it. You're familiar with it? Yeah.
Okay. Michael Douglas Valkimer. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I saw it once as a kid and it still gives me nightmares to this day. Beast kind of triggered me when I was watching. Okay.
It was like interesting. I saw that trailer for the first time on the black phone. I don't want to go to the screening on Tuesday with me then. Fuck.
Nope. I'm good. Thank you very much. Unless you want to deal with an absolute shaking, blubbering mess two hours down the turnpike on the way back home.
I would probably suggest passing. I was going to say I'll buy Shake Shack afterwards if you want. I wouldn't even be able to eat it. Okay then.
Oh, my hands will be like, and this is what we need to do video because you're missing out on the great hand gesture and reaction they just did a two today. I know we really got to look into doing video at some point, I think. Anyways. So yeah.
It's got to look pretty for it. Now, right now I can get away with that with not see, anyways, let's get to the meat of the episode today. Let's talk about West World season four, West World as a series. We've never talked about it on the show.
I know. I know. Let's start with the series and then go into the season finale because you recently just binged the entire series at your insistence because you wanted to do. I've been insisting on that one for a while.
Okay. Thank you. I've been hesitant about watching the series because in high school, I saw the original Michael Creighton film from, what's it, 74? Yes.
The old runner. Richard Benjamin. And I really liked it. You know, it was a thing between me and a couple of friends.
We had all seen it and it aired on like a local TV station like. Did you want my copy? Because I didn't like it. Really?
We've had that talk too. Yeah, I know. I really liked it. I thought it was a great movie.
The script was published in a paperback form and that's like one of the first, not the first, but one of the first three in place that I had been able to read and it had a nice intro from, uh, from Creighton about how that he came up with the idea of film and how he wrote it and how he directed it and somehow some of the special effects are made and everything. So if you're interested in the original film, try to track down that, uh, that book because it's really worthwhile. And the film was popular enough in 1974 and it did well enough that it spawned a sequel called Future World a couple of years later that Michael Creighton was not involved in and it's obvious because it's terrible. And it's still somehow was good enough that it kind of spun off a TV series called Beyond the Westworld that lasted for about six or seven episodes.
It didn't last very long before getting canceled and that's also not very good. I've only seen like one episode of it somewhere along the way in life, but I will absolutely admit the original Westworld watching it now, you can tell at the time here at the time in which it was created, it's groundbreaking. It's groundbreaking. Oh, yeah.
There's, um, actual footage in there. That's the first footage in film in a move in a feature that that was processed through a computer. Yeah, you can tell. Some of the stuff of the gunslingers vision as he's chasing Richard Benjamin around.
I just, I, I liked it, but again, uh, and I think you and I have talked about this before, where you mentioned it's kind of like also like a buddy road movie. Yeah, it's a road movie with him and I keep, I'm totally blanking all the other actors. And I think it's a big name, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
It's not. No, no, no, no. There's a lot of mustaches in this movie. Yes.
It's also, it's also the 70s too. So like maybe that's why I'm like, it's, it's, um, oh, cheaper skits and cats. I'm totally blanking. Do you mean James Brolin?
Yes. That's it. Thank you. Yes.
It's kind of like a buddy movie at first. It feels, it has that vibe to it at first. And then things go wrong. And I think one of the reasons, another reason why I didn't like it, is it, you were, you wanted it to be the buddy movie?
No, I hate those kinds of movies. Oh, okay. I hate those buddy road movies. And I don't care how many women are in it.
That's one of the reasons I haven't watched that one in Louise. I just don't care enough about buddy road movies. I never have. I have sat through so many of them and I get bored.
There are times with certain types of movies. It's really hard after a while to kind of keep me in the driver's seat, no pun intended. Like, for example, life of pie, the Revenant, 127 hours. I know that we get flashbacks here and there to the past and all that.
But keeping a character stationary for a long period of time is, if it's done correctly, it can be brilliant, but it's hard to keep me as the audience. Engage? Yeah. I saw the Revenant in the theater and I was blown away by it, but I will tell you right now, I have not gone back to it and it's not in my collection because I will never probably ever watch it again.
It's just not. I don't have a driving need to it someday, but I don't have a driving need to right now. It's the same with buddy road movies. Because we're kind of going down this tangential road here really quick.
I want to ask for movies where it's just like a person in one location. Have you seen Phone Booth? With Colin Perle? Yes.
A long time ago, I barely remember it. That's pretty good though. I think that's a fun, well constructed thriller. I'll have to go back and see it because I think I caught bits and pieces of it when it was on the television.
Just kind of going down this road. I'm like, I want to watch Phone Booth now. Can I just go home and go to work like tomorrow? Anyways, but original film version of Westworld, I think we can both agree though that we are definitely, it's just a rough draft of Jurassic Park and then great things look at and goes, you know what?
It's gonna be better. How about dinosaurs? And a masterpiece was created. Yes.
I think Westworld, yeah, it is the blueprint for Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park definitely would never have existed without Westworld. But the original Westworld is very much kind of caught up in this singular idea. And then several years ago HBO decided let's have a series of Westworld and delve into ideas that maybe Criton couldn't see at the time, but we see now. Or at least we're suggested in the original movie.
I mean, the original movie is told by it from the POV of the guests. We very rarely see anything behind the scenes in any kind of detail outside of just like, you know, a montage of people working on stuff. And so it's from that point of view, the movie is a thriller. And it's also very skewed.
Yeah, it's we don't know why it's broken, we're just getting the fuck out of dodge almost literally to, to, you know, stay alive. And I think that's why Jurassic Park works better than Westworld is because with Westworld and the hosts, you are dealing with a type of consciousness that is as intelligent as our own us, maybe even slightly more so with Jurassic Park, you're dealing with animal instincts, you're dealing with predators that don't have that intelligence. And in the film version of Westworld, it's it's not even a revolt of consciousness of slaves revolting against their masters or anything. It's just a computer software glitch that causes them to go out of control.
There's never anything deeper explored in that idea. It's just the thriller escape story. And that's why I think the original film doesn't really hold up, not just as a buddy road movie. It doesn't hold up because that that same premise has done been done a million times where, you know, technology glitches and all of a sudden you have bloodbath.
They never explain why. Yeah. The original is a Frankenstein story. Yeah.
Well, we've seen that too. Even Terminator to a certain extent is the same idea. Yeah. But but also suggested in a Frankenstein story is, you know, the responsibility of the creator towards his creation is the creation life, you know, is the creator a God because he's created life and things like that, which you see, you know, those kind of themes in the show, transplanted into the show, especially in that first or second season.
And that's why I think the show for me is just so much more. Well, that's, that's why I think the first two seasons of show are fantastic. Yeah. Very philosophical.
Yes. I, you know, especially because they're, it's a long form retelling of the first movie, but with a lot of extra layers of theme of characters, symbolism, symbolism. And that's what I like about it. Well, let's get into your, your experiences with the show, like I just recently told the audience you binge the whole damn thing within a matter of, yeah, you had a rough ride.
My brain is about ready to explode. And I'm like the next, next week, just going to watch cartoons. I'm just going to watch Bugs Bunny. Not surprise.
After the first season, I had to take a very long break because, and it was the same with, with West Wing. It was just the case of I need to be in the right mindset to sit down and watch this. It's just so full of themes, so philosophical. So, um, what was the word that we use once to describe the movie, Annihilation?
Um, kind of like an onion. There's a lot of layers of people. No, no, no, it was one word. It was, um, oh, that's going to bug me.
Um, anyway, well, I'll figure it out later. And I'll text you. Okay. So, but anyway, this, this show is just so high intelligence.
Um, what did you get from it? Well, I know everybody says the first season's the best and I disagree. Um, and one of the main reasons is because the dual timeline thing, that's the big twist at the end of the first season that, oh, this whole storyline was actually 30 years in the past or whatever, I thought was kind of bullshit. Mm, mm, I can't say anything yet because we're not there, but keep going.
I thought it was kind of bullshit because they were basically hiding information from you to try to make you think all of this was going on at the same time. And that's not, that's not good narrative storytelling when you're trying to trick your audience and then say, nope, psych, we were just kidding. I, I didn't like that. Now I like how in the second end and the fourth season, they had some parallel storylines, uh, for different timelines and those worked a lot better, I thought, than, um, then in the first season because in the second and the fourth season, I think they kind of resonated between, there was a resonation between the two storylines and the two timelines that were happening.
And, you know, thematically, they've kind of worked together a little bit better than what was going on in that first season. That first season was just about tricking the audience. I didn't like that. I didn't feel like it was tricking the audience.
I felt that in the, each season is about one particular character. It's not so much about like the overall story because we have what 10, six to 10 main characters in this. Um, but some of them die and some of them, uh, yeah, become others, but here it's more case of each season is either about one or two character stories. The first season is all about William, it's all about Ed Harris.
So having those parallel stories, it's not about Dolores, Dolores is just kind of, it's set up. I don't think her story really comes until way later. She's more of a season two. Yeah.
But even so, I wouldn't even call season two, um, her story either. I would call that one mapes season three, I would call Caleb's. This, uh, the season that we are currently in is a mixture between Charlotte and, and Dolores. I think this season that we just got done with, with Charlotte's, I think next season is all Dolores.
I think it's kind of, I think if there is a season five, no, there will be a season five. Come on. This is, this is one of HBO's biggest shows. They're not going to, they're not going to scrap, um, particularly when it's doing so freaking well.
But no, I would say that those parallel storylines that we had in the first season are all to explain why William is the way that he is. And that entire first season is all about him kind of keeping with the original film idea of Westworld. We're seeing it from a guest point of view and he was one of the original two buddies who went to Westworld. It kind of grounds it in the original film and original story before we, we move on into the series story.
Mm hmm. So yeah, I would go season one is all about Ed Harris and William season two is made, season three is Caleb season four is Charlotte and the way I'm seeing it for folks like Dolores is pretty much the only one left at this point. So true. Um, but no, I, I burn our God, that's how I see it.
He's just God through the whole thing. Yes. I see how, um, the parallel storylines, you know, give us both, you know, two different points in William's life. I just think that the way they kind of revealed all of that, Oh, the way the reveal was, was bullshit.
Well, felt, felt was like tricky. And I was like, it's soured me on the whole season. Yeah. And that's just, you know, my reaction.
I'm sorry. But it was kind of like, I basically was sitting on my couch and went fuck you TV show and usually people do that when someone dies. Yeah. So I was a little annoyed when I stuck with it, you know, and honestly, I really like season two, um, you know, because basically it's dealing with the, the rebellion of, of the host.
And there's a reason why they're actually rebelling. And I like that. And characters are discovering that they have abilities they didn't realize they had. Yes.
And I was like, Oh, this is really interesting. And I like how they kind of set it up early in season two, where somebody said something like, I think it was like the second episode about how the hosts have that, um, low level interconnectivity when they're in proximity to each other to pass small packets of information. I was like, and then as soon as Maeve started to, uh, you know, be able to reprogram hosts nearby, I was like, Oh, okay, yeah, they already set this up. I like that.
Because I thought that was a great idea. And then we got to Shogun World, which introduced is here we come full circle. This is what you call a callback, ladies and gentlemen, you know, you know, you, isn't that it? True.
Uh, yeah, I really liked that side trip through Shogun World because I was starting to get irritated that with Westworld, not with the Westworld, the setting, but the idea of Westworld, uh, or Dell, the Dallas part only being Westworld. And they hinted a little bit at some other worlds and we weren't seeing anything, you know, in the movie we have Westworld, Roman world and medieval world. So I was like, did we slightly get medieval? No, we haven't gotten medieval in the series.
We got, I remember medieval from the film. Um, no, with this one so far, we've had Westworld, Shogun World, um, the 40s, World War II world. And now we've had jazz. A prohibition world.
I was probably. Yeah. Um, but prohibition world was like decades later and that was on the mainland. It wasn't in the original Dallas park.
Yeah, which makes sense. Cause I think they, didn't they hit that on that in season four as well that now I do want to ask you to, um, in, I'm going to jump ahead to season four because we're on like the idea of the park and the locations of the settings and stuff within the park. Obviously we learned that they rebuilt, you know, or kind of rebuilt, uh, prohibition world, the 1920s version of Westworld, uh, as a park on the mainland near the Hoover Dam. Yeah.
Okay. Um, seeing as house, uh, William seemed to ride a horse from New York City to the Hoover Dam and the space that it took Maeve to fly Charlotte, excuse me, to fly from New York City. Um, vertical takeoff and landing, uh, machines, uh, you're wondering looking at a, a mockup of New York, a park of New York, because otherwise they never actually explained that. I always had it in my head that he had a head start and truck, like a very long head start.
I guess, but man, it just, it didn't feel right to me, you know, if question is, if I'm asking that question, I'm kind of distracted from the narrative and I wasn't asking that question because in my head, I had already assumed that she had been dead for probably about 24 hours and then how long did it take them to transplant her into the new body? Um, so he had a head start on her even, even if it was only about 10 hours. I mean, how long does it take you to drive from here to Cincinnati? Eight.
So even it's, and it's two to New York. So that's 10 hours. That's, that would be 10. But even if it's him getting right on route 80 and going across country, but that's George Washington Bridge.
The question is how long was she laying in that pool? It could have been a day. I don't think it could have been too long. I think it was long enough that most of the humans would have been down there fairly quickly to unless they were dealing with other issues, like for example, how many humans are freaking killing themselves and how many hosts also died in the process.
But now, now we're just trying to make excuses for it, for the thing, I think, I, well, to be honest, I wasn't, there's no, there's no, there's no evidence one way or another as to what this is. And because there was no evidence, I wasn't asking the question. I was along for the right. Okay.
It wasn't an indication. I wasn't trying to nitpick. I'm like, wait a minute. I wasn't saying that you were.
I was just saying I wasn't. Okay. But, but I will admit, I did notice and really liked any time they would return to the beginning of the storyline in Westworld, of the, the park storyline that visitors play through in the park. Are you going where I'm going with that?
And then when they get to, like, even when they go back and it's like, decimated and stuff like that, you always had certain shots repeating as, you know, people are walking through the town as they arrive and there's that big crane shot going up. I didn't notice. And then when they get to prohibition world earlier in this season, you get some of those exact same shots. I mean, they're talking about how the storyline has been recycled for this new, for this new attraction.
But so are the shots. But all the cinematography is too. You get some of those exact same shots. And I loved that.
I love that little attention to detail. Speaking of attention to detail, one of my favorite parts was the hat, which, you know, in the original film, as well as at the opening of the first season, and then here when we get to prohibition world, we had that host come through and look at Maeve and Caleb and goes, there's only one thing left. And she pushes the doors so you could choose which hat that you wanted. And I thought that was fucking genius because I was like, okay, that was a nice callback, blah, and Caleb and Maeve both went, well, I'm not really much of a hat person.
They just kind of walk past her. They know why. They know why they shouldn't be put on the test. Maeve knows.
Yeah. Caleb did. Maeve definitely did, but didn't give the game away. And I was just like, oh, that's kind of funny because obviously everyone chooses a damn hat and she's just like, nah, I'm good.
It's very quibi. It's very Maeve. Yes. And then a few episodes later, Bernard reveals that that's how they get the NA scans and the data scans and I was like, oh my God, I thought they mentioned some point earlier than that scene with the hats on a train going to prohibition world.
I thought they mentioned at some point earlier that they were using the hats to do the brain scans of the park visitor. If they did, I completely missed it and didn't catch it. It wasn't until Bernard took Frankie into the recycled world there where he was just like, when we started off, we used to use hats and then Charlotte learned from us and then upgraded to the mirrors. And I was like, oh, shit, the fucking hat.
No, I'm reasonably sure that they mentioned that somewhere like in season two, when they started talking about all the park data and all the visitor data and how it was acquired and compiled, I'm pretty sure it happened in there. And that's an interesting thing though. That's one of those great themes I really liked in season two was they were talking about personal data, privacy and corporations, you know, basically surveil us now. And that was actually moved over into season three, big time, when they introduced Vince Cassell as the head of insight, a little small tangent that very much plays into Westworld.
While I was looking for recipes for our Westworld dinner tonight, I came across an article that was written about a couple of people who paid to go to pretty much a Westworld, like experience dinner for the season three premiere. And it started with like, they would go in and people would ask you some questions and ask if it was okay for you, them to do background checks on you and all that. And that was before you went to this party. And then when you got there, it was all about kind of infringement of your personal data, like people were just coming up to you going, oh, how's your cat?
Oh, wow. So that was the whole reason. Yes. And at one point, someone, the bartender made this guy what he called a bloody Manhattan, which is something that the client had posted on Twitter that he had just like accidentally made at home.
And this was like years ago, like he deep-dived back into our social media, personal stuff. And he like, he was like, oh, I just added like Bloody Mary next to like whiskey or something like that. I'm calling it a bloody Manhattan. And so the bartender was just like, I call this a bloody Manhattan and pushed it over to him.
Oh, that's that's creepy. It was so messed up. I was reading this article going, this is either fucking genius or it is so creepy that just our information is out there. I was reading it going, I'll just go ahead and delete everything I have because I was like, it freaked me out, reading it, and it must have freaked out every single person there.
But that was kind of the point of season three was that just our social media presence and where we fall into kind of dictates the life that we are going to leave that has been forced on us. And in season three, it was very much that the humans are no more free than the hosts are in their own world. True. I liked season three's themes.
I thought some of the storytelling was going to be a little sloppy. I was going to say the execution. And I'm not sure if that was COVID related or not. No, it was pre-COVID.
Yeah, because it actually screened while I was in North Carolina during COVID. So it was, yeah, it was a very much shop prior to it. I have to admit, the fight scenes between Dolores and Babe are fucking badass and I sat there every single episode hoping for more of that. Anytime they pulled out her samurai sword, I'm like, let's do this.
I did like how the themes of season three, though, at least examined the ideas of social media and how companies surveil us in terms of how they're going to market to us and not just market, but completely alter our lives, who we marry, what kind of tax bracket we're forever going to have ourselves in because we can't get a better job. But I thought, though, that the idea of Vincent Casao's character is like, aha, I've created this computer that will calculate what everybody's going to be like and who needs to die and I was like, it feels like a James Bond villain plot. I did feel very kind of dance, but to be honest, I love Vincent Casao so much as an actor that I was willing to forgive it just because they got fucking Vincent Casao and that man deserves all the recognition in the world. But the story was a little off, but for this new season, it's very nihilistic.
This new season? Yeah. I mean, given this ending, I'm like, you know, I was kind of depressed earlier today, but yikes. It kind of had me like in fight club mode.
This makes me feel like I'm up with people after this ending, you know, with, yep, everybody's going to die. Maybe in a couple of days, maybe no few weeks, no longer than a couple of years. It was very interesting. The idea of this transcendence that this beauty around us is temporary and therefore is not beautiful because it is.
Okay. I have a couple of questions. Among the hosts, there was the idea that if they do, you know, after a while, they can go through this process called transcendence. Was that basically like Carousel and Logan's run where?
I've never seen Logan's run, you know, where basically it's like, oh, you transcend to a higher state of being in that, which is really bullshit and they just like are dead. I always thought the transcendence was pretty much her moving people into the sublime. We kept the sublime open. Okay.
Okay. Okay. And that gets me to my other other question really about is about the sublime. Okay.
It's basically it's a cyberspace. Pretty much. That's, you know, terraformed, you know, by the various artificial intelligence that enter into it and they create their own reality around them. As we saw, it needs a very large server farm and it needs some attending to what's going to happen to this space because it still has to have these physical things that create it.
So if everybody dies and there's nobody to kind of upkeep the machinery, if something breaks and the cooling system, you know, fails, like we saw William trying to purposely shut down the cooling system to have the whole thing over heat and meltdown and be destroyed. What's going to happen there? They still need people to come in and out of the sublime to fix that. We haven't seen that really.
I mean, we've seen the host robots going back and forth, but go ahead. Go ahead. What's your answer? Charlotte said there's a door on either side.
She said the lore is up there purposely to test the people who are going to come back into this world. You think that's where season five? I think that's where we're going with that. Okay.
I think, you know, at least, yeah, she's going to test who's worthy to create our new reality, our new world. The new outside world. Yes. Okay.
She's going to, she's going to be able to test who is worthy enough to come through and be a part of this world that isn't going to try to destroy it and those who are out for their selfish intentions. That's still setting people up to be gods though. It is only if she stays, if she stays in the sublime, then she is a god of that reality, but it puts her on one side of the door, pretty much saying I am not worthy to come back myself. I mean, it would be interesting to see how that will play out.
But that's my very eight to ten hours, as well as actually putting some trauma and some action. Well, the Teddy's out there somewhere. Yeah. And about 14 gun fights per episode because you need about 14 gun fights per episode because this show has an incredibly high body count.
I think that's fine. I think that's going to be a part of it because she, as we know, William, I think it was William who mentioned that, you know, the hosts are just as flawed as their creators, which means the people, he was trying to kill the sublime as well because he thinks that there is, because we were create, they were created by humans in their own world. What are they going to do? But create a mirror of the one that they knew, which is going to be just as sexual, just as violent because they still have some human emotions there and human needs and desires.
It doesn't matter what plane you're in and what cyberspace it is. You're still going to have that kind of connection. Yeah. Okay.
And so I think she we're still going to get those gun fights and all that because there are going to be hosts who were transcended to this new reality who never kind of left that behind. And that's where she comes in of being able to judge. Yes, it sets her up as a God. But like I said, if she remains in the sublime, she calls herself not being worthy of the new Eden, pretty much herself.
She keeps herself as a God separated from the rest of the new humanity. Okay. And while we are waiting for HBO to announce officially, there's going to be some five. These are wonderful questions and things to ponder about.
So yes. First off, Ariana DuBois, I think a jip this season, this Oscar winner over here got foiled into a subplot that we will never freaking see ever again. Teddy. Very happy to see him back.
Okay. Who else is left? Bernard is dead. Maeve is dead.
Charlotte's dead. Was Bernard's Pearl destroyed though? No, it wasn't. I mean, technically they could pop him into the sublime and maybe even know we even shot him in the head.
That was the third bullet. Okay. Caleb's gone. Yeah.
It's going to be interesting to see how they go forward. I think what was the name of Americans name? Jeepers. I know.
He's definitely going to play a bigger role. I would hope so. Because he's pretty much like a leader of the sublime. Yeah.
We only saw him like a couple of times in season four, but it was made very clear that he was Bernard's main connection, main person to talk to in there. So I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him. I'm really excited. I know that when I first started off with a show, it was just one of those things I had to be in the right mood for.
But once I got into season two, I was in for the long haul and I can't wait to see what they do next. By the way, the flies freaked me out this season. It was very wrath of Connie and I was every time it was something like that happened. I was like, not watching this pill up in front of my face.
Yeah. No, I don't blame you there. That's, you know, stuff crawling under people's eyes and into their ears does tend to invoke a fairly visceral reaction from people. One final question before we sign off tonight.
The outliers. If we have a door opening from the sublime to let, you know, host in, will they be met with a violence from the outliers? What do you think? Do the outliers even know about the sublime?
It doesn't seem like they do. I can't really think of any way that they have found out that we have been shown. True. I don't think they know anything about it, but sooner or later, they're going to catch on to, well, there's a lot more people in this world than they're ought to be because, you know, everyone killed each other.
So will it just restart the cycle or do you think at this point they might be looking for hope? I think that might be one of the narrative engines of a season five if they go with a fifth season. I mean, technically that show could have ended at season two and I would have been fine with it. You know, leave some questions dangling and stuff, which is fine.
And if it wasn't for your insistence that we do season four's finale for one of our episodes, I probably would have just bailed midway through season three because I was not enjoying season three. But yeah, I'm still on board overall with the series that, yep, season five rolls around. I'll be there. We'll order in some pizza that opening night and hang out and watch that.
But I think that pretty much wraps us up for this week. Remember, you can find all four seasons of Westworld available right now on HBO Max. Remember, you can find us online at bigpicturepod.com and we are now available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. So either use the link in the show notes post or hit directly there.
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