Arch-MaesterPhilip Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 When the legend becomes fact you print the legend! Nice usage of a quote from The Man who Shot Liberty Valance. Could Arnold have died in the same way Anakin Skywalker died and become the Man in Black? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slurktan Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 On 10/10/2016 at 8:20 PM, Jaxom 1974 said: " 54 minutes ago, Arch-MaesterPhilip said: When the legend becomes fact you print the legend! Could Arnold have died in the same way Anakin Skywalker died and become the Man in Black? I'm of the opinion "Arnold" is Ford. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baitac Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I was just told by someone who knows, that the MiB's gun is one that was used by Confederate (and only Confederate) soldiers. Some thoughts: Who was in the group of masked men who attacked Teddy? Was that a dinosaur we heard? Why was Ford so cranky today? Delores broke her loop. She overcame her programming and was able to pull the trigger (get ready MiB!) The pain attached to remembering is what makes you human? Remembering sets you free. Killing yourself (host) sets you free. You can find close to true North with the Big Dipper. Teddy mentioned that there is a land to the South beyond the water where they could go (and be free.) Here's a game! It's a maze. This show is driving me crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briantw Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Well, we now know how knives and other objects are contained within the park. Only certain hosts are authorized to handle them, as demonstrated by the group of bandits (or whatever) stuck in a loop because the guy who normally handled the ax went AWOL. Not a perfect system, to be sure, but I'd imagine that most (or all) of the hosts can't even pick up a knife due to their programming, which makes sense. Sad there was no MiB tonight, though. His story is by far the most interesting. We did get a hint about "Arnold," a co-founder of the park, who definitely could be the MiB. Seems a bit too obvious, but you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nictarion Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 1 hour ago, briantw said: Well, we now know how knives and other objects are contained within the park. Only certain hosts are authorized to handle them, as demonstrated by the group of bandits (or whatever) stuck in a loop because the guy who normally handled the ax went AWOL. Not a perfect system, to be sure, but I'd imagine that most (or all) of the hosts can't even pick up a knife due to their programming, which makes sense. How would that stop one guest from stabbing another though? I only remember guns being a choice when William was entering the park, but seems risky to chance a guest getting a hold of a blade, axe, etc once they're there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight of Ashes Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 6 hours ago, Baitac said: Ahh. Charles Debussy's Reverie on the piano. Thanks, I was wondering. That aside, I have a bit of a hard time accepting that the MiB would be named "Arnold" . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Young CGI Hopkins was pulled off pretty well. Shit has come a long way since CGI Livia Soprano. Good ep. Missed The Man In Black though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 ah, well I can finally concede the MiB = William is not a thing as that was almost certainly present day Delores with William in that final scene. We did at least get confirmation that the hosts were passing the Turing Test way back at the start so the jerky decomissioned host was jerky due to being decomissioned rather than that's how all the old models were. Good episode - I felt some of the scenes were a bit clunky with the info-dumping though eg Ford's convenient "hey, Arnold" and "pyramid scheme" chat. If they had been hosts I'd write it off as intentional but Ford seems the most liley to be definite human. Teddy was excellent in the scene where Delores was breaking protocol. The actor did a great job of conveying the confusion of some-one who'd suddenly lost their script. I also liked how the milkman had been killing people who killed him in past storylines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 14 hours ago, RumHam said: What gets me is the stabbing occurred in the town. The family friendly place where the kids are. As did that huge shooting that was advanced up a week. So I'm not really getting how the town is safe and kid friendly. This is the most incongrous thing for me regarding the world - the presence of other human players in the game. I can see a group booking it out but it would be far too easy for players to ruin other players games. If kids are around you probably don't want another player raping/killing someone in front of them. If you were enjoying a mission you don't want another player swooping in and derailing it. It's why I prefer non MMO games as the most likely thing to ruin a game is another players involvement. Group bookings are fine and I'm sure they could also run tournament games but it's impossible to think multiple people can go in with their own agendas and expect no interference from others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Antony Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I thought for sure the host who was stuck down in those rocks was gonna kill one of the employees. When he started bashing his own head in I was like Anyone else think Bernard could be a host with the dead kid being his backstory implanted by Ford. The scene where he was chatting with his wife might disprove it but she was only on a screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HokieStone Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I just found out that JJ Abrams is one of the creative minds behind the show...time to readjust expectations that there will by any satisfactory answers to the various mysteries of the show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I spent the episode trying to pay attention to the idea of the William is the MiB flashback story...it was bearing some weight, it terms of whom they interacted with, and then that ending blew the theory up... There was a lot to unpack that episode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 3 hours ago, Mark Antony said: I thought for sure the host who was stuck down in those rocks was gonna kill one of the employees. When he started bashing his own head in I was like Anyone else think Bernard could be a host with the dead kid being his backstory implanted by Ford. The scene where he was chatting with his wife might disprove it but she was only on a screen. The host who bashed his head in was taking the "kill your old self to set yourself free" a bit too literally. Bernard is definitely a curiousity. They even had a scene where he appeared frozen (although they've done that with a few of the management crew now) 56 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said: I spent the episode trying to pay attention to the idea of the William is the MiB flashback story...it was bearing some weight, it terms of whom they interacted with, and then that ending blew the theory up... There was a lot to unpack that episode. Yeah - it was looking neater but it's virtually impossible with that final scene as I'm sure that had to be Delores coming back from killing the gangster. There was that interesting bit about some of the hosts having human memories/backstories added to it (or did imagine that?) when Ford and Bernard were talking? 1 hour ago, HokieStone said: I just found out that JJ Abrams is one of the creative minds behind the show...time to readjust expectations that there will by any satisfactory answers to the various mysteries of the show. It's a worry but he was also high up in "person of interest" and it tied most of its mysteries up quite nicely. This is Nolan's baby but I guess based on his screenplays he tends to play fair (he didn't work on Inception) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 1 hour ago, HokieStone said: I just found out that JJ Abrams is one of the creative minds behind the show...time to readjust expectations that there will by any satisfactory answers to the various mysteries of the show. To be fair, the issue usually is that JJ abandons his shows very early on and leaves it up to the showrunners left behind to sort it out. Its kind of on them that they aren't able to do so. And in this case, production was halted for a while last year while they figured out what the story arcs would actually be; and it was halted for so long that there started to be talk that this would be a legendary debacle for HBO. They really took their time to sort it out, enough that I imagine HBO checked in with them several times to make sure it was worth it, so I expect them to resolve the show's big questions. 'What does it mean to be human? Are robots human?' aren't my favorite speculative fiction questions, so I don't know if I'll love the answers, but I am enjoying the journey here. And I think for people who do like those questions more, the answers will be pretty good. As for this episode, I liked it; though not as much as the first two episodes. Not enough time for several of the hosts and no MiB outside of flashbacks was disappointing. It feels like the show is starting out with a bit too many story threads and doesn't know how to balance them properly. This is regularly an issue with Game of Thrones as well; but at least GoT started with just a few storylines, and introduced additional ones gradually, so that people got invested in each one before they became just another part of the rotation. Westworld seems to be starting out with all of them at once. Also, I did not like young CGI Anthony Hopkins; it was creepy and was extremely uncanny valley to actual young Anthony Hopkins. Question I couldn't resolve, was that female gunslinger with Teddy a guest or a host? She sometimes used language that seemed like a guest but she took everything so in stride that I kinda think she had to be a host. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 40 minutes ago, Fez said: To be fair, the issue usually is that JJ abandons his shows very early on and leaves it up to the showrunners left behind to sort it out. Its kind of on them that they aren't able to do so. And in this case, production was halted for a while last year while they figured out what the story arcs would actually be; and it was halted for so long that there started to be talk that this would be a legendary debacle for HBO. They really took their time to sort it out, enough that I imagine HBO checked in with them several times to make sure it was worth it, so I expect them to resolve the show's big questions. 'What does it mean to be human? Are robots human?' aren't my favorite speculative fiction questions, so I don't know if I'll love the answers, but I am enjoying the journey here. And I think for people who do like those questions more, the answers will be pretty good. As for this episode, I liked it; though not as much as the first two episodes. Not enough time for several of the hosts and no MiB outside of flashbacks was disappointing. It feels like the show is starting out with a bit too many story threads and doesn't know how to balance them properly. This is regularly an issue with Game of Thrones as well; but at least GoT started with just a few storylines, and introduced additional ones gradually, so that people got invested in each one before they became just another part of the rotation. Westworld seems to be starting out with all of them at once. Also, I did not like young CGI Anthony Hopkins; it was creepy and was extremely uncanny valley to actual young Anthony Hopkins. Question I couldn't resolve, was that female gunslinger with Teddy a guest or a host? She sometimes used language that seemed like a guest but she took everything so in stride that I kinda think she had to be a host. pretty sure she was a guest with the brothel scene and the fact Teddy's autopilot is to be with Delores unless a human interacts with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 The second half of the episode was really good, the first one threatened to make this episode one of the slow ones. And yes, too bad MiB wasn't in this one. I think Ford's story about Arnold + actual defined flashbacks makes it clear that William and Logan are not Ford and MiB in the past. There may be an argument about MiB still in that theory, but clues point to Arnold being MiB. However, now I'm willing to buy into MiB is a host theory, though "host" would be the wrong word for him. It may be that MiB is Arnold's creation, made with the safety protocols that would make the system identify him as a guest, and programmed to seek out the consciousness, the top of the pyramid or whatever Arnold was going for. The part with the stray that bashes his head in was interesting. I didn't see that as his way to set himself free, I saw it as someone's way of making sure the data in his head was not getting into the hands of the techs. The techs were interested in retrieving just his head to analyze what went wrong with his programming. Turning his head into mush was a pretty good way of keeping them from retrieving the data. Learning about Bernard's past in an episode where we also get the importance of a host's backstory definitely merits a lot of thought about the "everyone but Ford is a robot" theory. So Ford decided to give Teddy a backstory which led to Teddy being killed by a gang of psychos that he apparently could not kill. And Ford did mention that giving Teddy a backstory would give him a small role in the new grand narrative he is writing. So I wonder what is Ford planning with Wyatt and his gang of psychos. My only thought is that Wyatt is another host that is programmed to gather the truly crazy guests who come to the park to only wreak chaos. Ford may be planning a blood bath among the guests. Also, I too kept wondering about the young woman that was with Teddy. I think she is a guest, because Teddy is typically a loner in his default narrative. This is one of the main great aspects of the show - to make us wonder who is robot and who is human. Dolores's part was really good in the episode. Now because of this, I'm not sure that Bernard is a robot. It kinda seems that he is following in Arnold's footsteps due to his kid, and he didn't realize that until Ford told him about Arnold. It would be mind blowing if Bernard is a robot, to you have robots creating robots. Dolores was able to access past memories and thus anticipate the guy coming around the house and shooting her, and then of course the MiB flash. Interesting that Maeve in her memory also saw an Indian turn into MiB. It made me think that MiB could just be the bogey man of the park; that at one point or another he had a hand in every host's death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cas Stark Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I really really liked this episode. Im surprised so many people bought into the weird idea of William being the man in black,but whatever, that's put to bed now. I was wondering if the man in black could be Arnold as a robot, since I'm not sure he's not a robot, and I'm now wondering just a bit about Bernard. I was a little surprised Ford went semi ballistic on the idea of treating the hosts as humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt b Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Sort of thinking out loud here, but do we know the MiB physically exists? Have we seen him interact with a guest? The brief scene we saw this week with the guy talking to "Arnold" who wasn't there has me wondering. Perhaps when Arnold "died," his consciousness was somehow into the Central Westworld computer, or whatever. Maybe he can sort of virtually "haunt" the hosts. So when he shoots one, for example, he's not actually physically shooting anyone/anything, but manipulating the programming of the host so that it reacts as if it had been shot, if that makes sense. Anyway, just throwing some ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cas Stark Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 I think that two of the techies discussed him and said something along the lines of 'he gets whatever he wants'.....after he scalped the guy? So I don't think he's a figment of hosts imagination/programming. However, that line he gets whatever he wants is ambiguous in that he could be a robot or he could be someone that everyone but Hopkins thinks is human. No scratch that if he were a robot then he would presumably be @ Westworld all the time so the techs would know he's not really a guest. But him being a guest who has gone sociopathic over the hidden maze is weird and feels wrong, so something else has to be going w/him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsay B. Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 ^^^ The tech said, "That gentleman gets whatever he wants" about the MiB in an episode. He seems to be a known dude. ninja'd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.