On the Nature of Things | Forum

I've been enjoying the new series!

https://www.inverse.com/article/14264-b ... usness-hbo

yes, im mostly enjoying it despite thinking i wouldnt - the premise of humans living out their darkside on robots who become self aware is largely disgusting to me.

im not a fan of the multiple out of order timelines thing, it sometimes works (pulp fiction) but mostly i think its overdone and a cheap trick for sneeking in flashbacks, which i also dislike.

so! despite those points against it i am still enjoying the guessing game of who's robot and who isnt and the high production values that HBO always brings.

Ash Vs the Evil dead is best thing on streaming right now - its a fresh bit of absurdity and sillyness in amongst very earnest and bleak alternatives.

I also find the Lost sequencing to be a bit over done. Even when Lost was running I thought it was just to maximize flexibility and make the writers jobs easier.

Interesting concept. Humans playing god with human like machines. Other humans attempting to find life's answers in Fantasyland. Still others hoping to create happy, healthy, well adjusted children. Also an overlay of ET abduction.

Some many themes. Religious, humanitarian, humans suck, machines are better, etc. I won't be surprised if it gets old hat in less than 10 episodes.

Simple Minded wrote: Some many themes. Religious, humanitarian, humans suck, machines are better, etc. I won't be surprised if it gets old hat in less than 10 episodes.

yeh, this was part of my original fear for it being too earnest for its own capabilities.

unlike game of thrones it doesnt have the multiple lines of story going as seperate forms of entertainment, they are all on the same theme and dont provide relief or spacing for eachother.

i too will be surprised if it maintains interest beyond first season.

noddy wrote:
Ash Vs the Evil dead is best thing on streaming right now - its a fresh bit of absurdity and sillyness in amongst very earnest and bleak alternatives.

i caught a few minutes of this tonight. Not sure I have the intellectual horsepower to properly interpret the data stream.....

i understand, you need a highly refined brain that can handle culture much more sophisticated and nuanced than the usual philosophical whining.

ssAZDf-iPyM

tis a shame, but many times art is like wine for me, I just can't grasp the subtleties....

Simple Minded wrote:tis a shame, but many times art is like wine for me, I just can't grasp the subtleties....

Time to switch to Cognac.

westworld is getting stronger, far surpassing my meagre expectations.

the timelines are coming together nicely without destroying too much of the mystery so full marks to the production team.

so far it appears to be riffing on pain breaking you out of your loops.

noddy wrote:westworld is getting stronger, far surpassing my meagre expectations.

the timelines are coming together nicely without destroying too much of the mystery so full marks to the production team.

so far it appears to be riffing on pain breaking you out of your loops.

Agreed. Two episodes ago, I thought the show was dying already. Last couple episodes have bounced back nicely.

Nice play on humans can't make machines better than them, even if the machines are smarter than the humans.

Freedom of association. Now that the hosts are figuring out they are superior, they want out of the old neighborhood. I like Delores' quote (paraphrased) "If out there is so great, what are you doing here?"

Also similar to migrants. Leave home for greener pastures and then try to make the new place like home.

Also similar to religion.

"Even the seemingly immortal gods survive only as long at they are needed by mortal man."

"Man has never managed to create a god superior to himself. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."

thanks for the ww tip..will checkitout

Consumed the first nine episodes. Very well done. Curious how it will end.. if it goes off-script and out of da loop. Nice philosophical endeavors. Who or what pulls the strings of Mr Ford? Hope it isn't the usual suspect Mr Murphy that would be too easy.

Season 2 was a complete waste of time.. only continued out of curiosity at home much it lavender the bed.

Season 3, is just a remake of Person Of Interest, which is better.

I appreciated being reminded of this show, but wanted to watch them all before commenting. I admittedly do have a thing for stories that explore the possibly of us potentially creating consciousness, the questions raised seem to probe deeper into my own consciousness than the subject matter alone would tend to warrant. I enjoyed the show more than noddy, perhaps my affinity for the subject matter overcame its shortcomings.

The comparison to Person of Interest may be a bit reductionist. The main plot purpose of the all-knowing machine in Westworld was not as a fearful tool to be co-opted, but as the antagonist against whom organics and synthetics manage to find common cause. Westworld's version of the surveillance state turns out to be far more sinister even than an Orwellian vision, turning perhaps towards the book version of Muad'Dib's lockstep prescience after the stone burner blinds him. Such a world can only turn in on itself, and had to be destroyed.

Also it may have just been the soundtrack, but there were several moments in the latter part of the series when I thought that this show owes something to Blade Runner. Perhaps the homage was intentional, though, given the subject matter.

Ive finished S3 now, and I concede it was perhaps a bit reductionist to compare it to POI but its definitely a riff on the same thematic material.

S2 we had fallible narrators and out of order timelines requiring careful repeated watches to tie it all together, yet, once you did it was meagre offerings on robots having more free will than humans and a rebellion that didnt quite hang together with characters you didnt particularly care about either way.

and immersion breaking, comical levels of storm trooper incompetence in all matters of combat, and with many combat scenes, it was silly.

S3 got rid of all the fallible, out of order stuff, to its benefit, yet doubled down on the storm trooper sillyness and unlikable characters - I really didnt care about any of them, even ones that previously had something interesting about them.. Maeve lost all depth and just did silly sword fights and called people darling, Bernard sorta wobbled around in the background with no clear vision, the Man in Black went from being a great villain to a bitter old man and all the different Dolores seemed to be schizophrenic in lack of definable vision, it wasnt coherant.

the entire thing about the super computer was borderline retarded ... the one that runs the world is in the middle of town, in the middle of the room, protected by a keycard and 3 guards and the secretaries computer at the front desk has admin access to it.

then the evil, spare one, is left unguarded in the middle of nowhere with a EMP bomb just in case. of something, or something, something.

the dream sequence episode on the drug that changed life into movies. oh dear, high school arts project.

it did seem to quote Blade Runner - also Fight Club with the scene watching the buildings burn as the world went mad from having its private life exposed ??

I suspect that thought came from a Hollywood mind , the type that has an extremely different public face to private face

All valid criticisms, in retrospect. Those cursed with a highly analytical mind can find it difficult to maintain suspension of disbelief. I am more like that than my wife, and you seem to be more like that than me. Maybe what I may lack in intelligence is actually a boon in these cases, since it takes more egregious missteps to break my immersion to the point where I dislike something. The Lost in Space reboot, for example. My wife was watching it but it didn't take long before I wandered off into to another room. I found it stupid beyond belief. Pretty, but vapid. I would imagine there is precious little contemporary sci-fi that you can even stand to watch, if you think Westworld kinda sucks. Here at the end of my reply to you I actually took a quick look at some of the reviews for Westworld, and the quote that stood out was "Just watch, don't think!" Seems apropos to include that bit of wisdom here.

I finished it - so that qualifies as a vote of confidence even if I was unsure as to why I finished it by the end , tho it probably is a step back upwards from the second one, which was trying way too hard.

I actually dont mind a turn your brain off adventure as long as I go in thinking thats what Im getting, I fear Westworld is always going to suffer from its brilliant first season that not only invited analysis , but rewarded it.

Having the 2 old, experienced actors putting in their best efforts also elevated it above the usual schlock - perhaps what im missing is it being focused on Hopkins/Harris, the rest dont quite have the scene carrying charisma to make you ignore the silly bits.

Lost in Space was family melodrama, powered by rash decisions and lack of communications as the main plot drivers, I also left that one to the missus and did other things.

I dont watch alot of sci fi, or drama - I dont find fake human relationship problems very interesting and they all smell like soap operas once you strip the premise away.

the Expanse was ok, after the rough first season.