Westworld

[Tommy]

8 hours ago, nudge said:

Yes, I think his character is piss poor. The "big reveal" from his past in the last episode was a joke; it was more than obvious for quite a while now and it doesn't really give his character any more depth anyway. Boring af.

It seems that they sacrificed more time on action scenes and pointless cool gimmicks like Caleb's trip on Genre instead of focusing on the main story. Hope Season 4 is better.

Well, let's wait what the finale might be able to salvage. 

[6666]

I thought it was a good episode...

[Tommy]

52 minutes ago, 6666 said:

I thought it was a good episode...

God, I miss Anthony Hopkins on this show. 

[Mel81x+]

49 minutes ago, Tommy said:

God, I miss Anthony Hopkins on this show. 

Think they'd have ruined his character by keeping him around for too long as well. 

[Tommy]

3 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

Think they'd have ruined his character by keeping him around for too long as well. 

True. He had a pretty poetic good bye with Bernard, and it's for the best that they left it at it. Still miss him though. 

[Tommy]

[RandoEFC+]

I thought it was okay. I'm hoping for a big finale.

I agree that with Maeve and Bernard's storylines this season they've just tagged them on to the characters that are actually relevant this season (Serac and William) because they don't have anything else to do with them. Stubbs has also blatantly only been involved to give Bernard someone to talk to.

I've enjoyed the Caleb stuff this season and all the Rehoboam stuff. William's arc has been good to even if it's a bit shortlived. The other highlight has been the Haleores arc. Episode 7 suffered from a lack of Tessa Thompson.

But yeah, some of the writing has been a bit meh this season, and the action sequences have been disappointing for the budget of the show.

If they go the way the end of the last episode suggested I think I'll enjoy the overriding thread of the final two seasons though.

[Tommy]

Maeve in Season 3 summed up.

[RandoEFC+]

Well, I liked the last episode. The scene with Dolores explaining to Maeve why she did what she did was even nearly a tear jerker. Finally Maeve and Bernard returned in some way to actually being relevant. I'm guessing the hosts' sublime is going to act as some sort of simulation for how to create a nirvana that Bernard will have to try to come back and replicate in the real world.

I really hope that's properly the end of Dolores now, even if she became a bit more of a sympathetic character at the end. I can't be arsed with another "hey gotcha, there was another pearl and now she's back no questions asked" at the start of Season Four otherwise what's even the point anymore? What are the stakes?

There is one Dolores left in the shape of Charlotte Hale (and the Lawrence one? Was that even a Dolores copy? Whatever.) Obviously Charlores and Host William will lead the antagonistic army of hosts in the remaining two seasons. I suppose Bernard, Maeve and Caleb will form a strange team of protagonists aiming to build a shared world for hosts and humans or one for each species.

I enjoyed the season overall. The concept of Rehoboam and the system running the human world, Caleb's back story being revealed slowly as his life so far was unfolded. I remain disappointed in how little Maeve and Bernard were given to do but they did get their pay-off in the final episode and finally seem to have prominent roles in what's left to come in the series. I really enjoyed Aaron Paul as Caleb and look forward to him as a part of the core set of characters in the endgame. I really enjoyed the William stuff in this season and wish we could have had more of Ed Harris earlier on. Tessa Thompson was excellent in portraying the conflict between originally being Dolores and then becoming something quite different.

There were many downsides to this season, not enough to spoil it or make it bad but I'm still going to point them out because it's the internet and everyone's an armchair production expert so let's get on with it. I would have been happier to see less of Maeve and Bernard if this season was basically all about Dolores and Caleb which it was, or they could have had something more interesting to do back in the park or something, I don't know, but you couldn't shake the feeling that Maeve in particular was shoe-horned into her role this season just because they had to get her on screen. The action sequences were used too often and were consistently either stupid in the case of hundreds of presumably trained guards having storm trooper aim, blatant fan service in the case of the Clementine vs Musashi scene and Dolores vs Maeve sword fights, or just completely lacked any real tension - it's hard to get nervous or invested in the fight scenes between hosts because you're so aware that if any of them 'die' it won't really count. I really hope they steer back from characters fighting towards characters using their intelligence and intrigue and the philosophical questions that made this show great in the first place. These factors weren't totally absent from this season but were muscled out at times by the aforementioned fan servicey action sequences.

Would still give this a solid 7.5/10 as a season of television.

[nudge]

Watched the finale earlier today.

Quite enjoyed the episode, but for me it basically highlighted the main problem with Season 3 - most of the episodes were mostly filler material and barely contributed anything, both in terms of the story and character growth. Could pretty much watch the finale as a standalone episode after the end of Season 2 and you wouldn't be missing much. Overall, I'd rate Season 3 as 6/10 - and that's me being generous because I did like a few things. Serac and the idea of a super AI running the world, humans running on loops similarly to the hosts, the hosts mingling with the humans in the real world.

Dolores' final speech was great and Evan Rachel Wood did a fantastic job there. The problem is, I didn't buy her transformation at all. It makes absolute sense on paper, but it wasn't executed well at all. She went from a cold murderous terminator with a clear disdain to humanity at the end of Season 2 to a selfless liberator and saviour of the mankind in pretty much one final scene of Season 3. There was absolutely no character development in Season 3 that would have made such a transformation believable; we were not shown any of her alleged internal journey that ended with her going full circle and "choosing to see the beauty in this world". None. Her big moment of realisation apparently happened off-screen unknown to us and instead, we were shown her repeatedly killing people and going into car chases in pointless lame action scenes while spouting vague platitudes about the world being broken that added absolutely nothing to the plot because they wanted to mislead the audience in order to give us a big twist for the finale. Felt really lazy and poorly set up.

Maeve destroying that remote control in Serac's hand was cringy af. For real? She destroyed it with her sheer will power?... Amazing. Makes you wonder why she didn't do it earlier. We already talked a lot about Maeve & Bernard being poorly written so I won't repeat myself, but I'll also add William to the list. Such a waste of character, the only good bits were his therapy session with his different selves and the post-credit scene in the finale. In all honesty, the motivations of most key characters are murky af. Anyway, I am just glad that it's Maeve who survives in the end and will likely have a central role in Season 4, hopefully her character writing will be much better though. That said, I don't think Dolores is gone forever either, haha. 

Also, Bernard somehow being telepathically linked with Dolores and suddenly knowing that she's ceased to exist. I thought for a moment there that I was watching a Star Wars movie and they were connected through the Force  

Lack of depth in further exploring the show's philosophical ideas is particularly disappointing. That was always the strongest point of Westworld and it feels like the show creators decided to dumb it down after the confusion caused by Season 2, make the story more linear and add more generic action instead in order to appeal to a wider audience. I think the show has lost its complexity completely. All the flashy stuff and little substance.

[RandoEFC+]

On 01/05/2020 at 19:54, Tommy said:

So we got flashbacks, the entire second row, the entire third row apart from maybe the last one, Bernard reveal, futuristic military tech, William swears and explosives go boom! So not a bad haul.

[Tommy]

I don't want to discuss specifics, or logic, or any kind of bad writing. I just want you to know, as I have told you many times before. 

 

Dolores > *

[Mel81x+]

Thought it was good and I'll leave it at that. Unbelievable from a plot perspective but good. 

[6666]

I didn't mind most of the season but thought the finale was bad. The gear change from the rest of the season was too distracting. It was as if they tried to fit in a season's worth of material in one episode with one revelation coming after another and the positioning of a lot of character's in a different light happening all at once. Convoluted, pretentious and a lot of cringeworthy dialogue.

[Tommy]

I really need to start a re-watch. It was a different show with Anthony Hopkins/Dr. Ford on board. 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

I rewatched the whole thing up until about halfway through the third season over the weekend. When I first watched it, I didn’t much like the 2nd season. The second time around, having seen a chunk of the third season... I now appreciate that season a hell of a lot more now.

Really quality show

[nudge]

On 10/08/2020 at 08:07, Dr. Gonzo said:

I rewatched the whole thing up until about halfway through the third season over the weekend. When I first watched it, I didn’t much like the 2nd season. The second time around, having seen a chunk of the third season... I now appreciate that season a hell of a lot more now.

Really quality show

I thought Season 1 was fantastic, Season 2 was great, and Season 3 was a disappointment...

[Dr. Gonzo]

9 minutes ago, nudge said:

I thought Season 1 was fantastic, Season 2 was great, and Season 3 was a disappointment...

I really liked Season 3! I actually thought it made Season 2 a lot better, because the first time I watched Season 2... I was pretty disappointed. But I think now with Season 3 out, it improves Season 2 as a sort of "bridge season" that connects seasons 1 and 3. Which, tbh, I've barely ever (if ever) had that feeling about a season that I've had a sort of disappointed feeling about after re-watching.

So I think revisiting the show in full was actually really worthwhile (to me) in terms of getting a better appreciation of a season that I didn't like as much. Because now I think Season 2 is really good. I don't like it as much as Season 1 or 3... but hey, it's gone up in my estimation. That's more than I can say about a certain other incredibly popular HBO... where rewatching the show in full actually made the weaker seasons look worse than I remember them.

I've had a sort of schizophrenic reaction to the show . When it first came out, season 1 had me pretty sure I had a new favourite show. Season 2 then sort of shat all over that. Then I rewatched everything before giving season 3 a shot and now it's back up there amongst the shows I am very eager to give us new seasons again.

[nudge]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I really liked Season 3! I actually thought it made Season 2 a lot better, because the first time I watched Season 2... I was pretty disappointed. But I think now with Season 3 out, it improves Season 2 as a sort of "bridge season" that connects seasons 1 and 3. Which, tbh, I've barely ever (if ever) had that feeling about a season that I've had a sort of disappointed feeling about after re-watching.

So I think revisiting the show in full was actually really worthwhile (to me) in terms of getting a better appreciation of a season that I didn't like as much. Because now I think Season 2 is really good. I don't like it as much as Season 1 or 3... but hey, it's gone up in my estimation. That's more than I can say about a certain other incredibly popular HBO... where rewatching the show in full actually made the weaker seasons look worse than I remember them.

I've had a sort of schizophrenic reaction to the show . When it first came out, season 1 had me pretty sure I had a new favourite show. Season 2 then sort of shat all over that. Then I rewatched everything before giving season 3 a shot and now it's back up there amongst the shows I am very eager to give us new seasons again.

For me Season 3 was a bit too much of a generic action show with pointless fights, shooting, car chases and whatnot; basically just style over substance. They butchered quite a few main characters (Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, even William), while the newly introduced characters weren't very interesting either - with the exception of Serac who was very intriguing, but he was given too little time on screen, whereas Caleb's character and his background was just bland, completely flat and too predictable. I also felt  there was no logical connection to Dolores' actions throughout the season (and previous seasons) and the revelation in the finale...the transformation and character development apparently just happened offscreen and we're simply supposed to believe it because it was revealed in the finale. I thought the writing was a bit lazy overall; the plot and character development in particular was very thin, which for me personally led to being completely disconnected from the characters and detached from the story. Very clumsy, I think they had quite a few great ideas to play with but I didn't like the execution. I will definitely keep on watching and hope Season 4 is an improvement...

[Batard]

1 hour ago, nudge said:

I thought Season 1 was fantastic, Season 2 was great, and Season 3 was a disappointment...

I loved Season 1, Season 2 had some epic highs but some really ponderous lows. Season 3 in places I loved but by the time I reached the end of the season I wondered really what the point of any of the season was. Sudden character motivation shifts that made no sense, clumsy set pieces and an over reliance on the viewer understanding the hidden symbolism (look up the first episode's name and translate it for example). Of course I'll watch season 4 when it finally happens but I really hope it tries to do less and less done better. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

40 minutes ago, nudge said:

For me Season 3 was a bit too much of a generic action show with pointless fights, shooting, car chases and whatnot; basically just style over substance. They butchered quite a few main characters (Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, even William), while the newly introduced characters weren't very interesting either - with the exception of Serac who was very intriguing, but he was given too little time on screen, whereas Caleb's character and his background was just bland, completely flat and too predictable. I also felt  there was no logical connection to Dolores' actions throughout the season (and previous seasons) and the revelation in the finale...the transformation and character development apparently just happened offscreen and we're simply supposed to believe it because it was revealed in the finale. I thought the writing was a bit lazy overall; the plot and character development in particular was very thin, which for me personally led to being completely disconnected from the characters and detached from the story. Very clumsy, I think they had quite a few great ideas to play with but I didn't like the execution. I will definitely keep on watching and hope Season 4 is an improvement...

Well hopefully season 4 to season 3 does what season 3 did for me with season 2.

I can see your point in some of the criticism, although I thought Caleb’s character developed pretty well. I didn’t think the whole him killing his best friend thing was all that predictable, and his PTSD being used to manipulate his “memories” and “code.” To me, that made him a lot more of an interesting character than he was in the season. And it explained some of Delores’s motivation/actions better.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the show (over all the seasons) is a lot of character development happens off screen. It’s more apparent in seasons 2 and 3, than the first season imo. But I think that’s a very fair criticism of the show.

[nudge]

[Viva la FCB+]

On 12/08/2020 at 11:02, nudge said:

For me Season 3 was a bit too much of a generic action show with pointless fights, shooting, car chases and whatnot; basically just style over substance. They butchered quite a few main characters (Maeve, Bernard, Stubbs, even William), while the newly introduced characters weren't very interesting either - with the exception of Serac who was very intriguing, but he was given too little time on screen, whereas Caleb's character and his background was just bland, completely flat and too predictable. I also felt  there was no logical connection to Dolores' actions throughout the season (and previous seasons) and the revelation in the finale...the transformation and character development apparently just happened offscreen and we're simply supposed to believe it because it was revealed in the finale. I thought the writing was a bit lazy overall; the plot and character development in particular was very thin, which for me personally led to being completely disconnected from the characters and detached from the story. Very clumsy, I think they had quite a few great ideas to play with but I didn't like the execution. I will definitely keep on watching and hope Season 4 is an improvement...

I actually stopped watching about midway through season 3 and I dont really know why. There wasnt really any one reason but I also moved on and didnt really care to much about going back. Should I finish it? was it worth it ? It really didnt grab me the same as the others. Season 1 was a masterpiece though so its hard to compare I really dont know if theres any single seasons that can match up.. reminded me alot of Boardwalk Empire season 2 in that way... funnily enough I never finished the finale season in that show either but thats neither here nor there. Anyways... focus... should I go back and rewatch and finish season 3? Guide me Senpai. 

[nudge]

1 minute ago, Viva la FCB said:

I actually stopped watching about midway through season 3 and I dont really know why. There wasnt really any one reason but I also moved on and didnt really care to much about going back. Should I finish it? was it worth it ? It really didnt grab me the same as the others. Season 1 was a masterpiece though so its hard to compare I really dont know if theres any single seasons that can match up.. reminded me alot of Boardwalk Empire season 2 in that way... funnily enough I never finished the finale season in that show either but thats neither here nor there. Anyways... focus... should I go back and rewatch and finish season 3? Guide me Senpai. 

As you can see from the post you quoted, I'm not a fan of Season 3. Too much style and too little substance, murky motivations of the key characters with most of the character development apparently happening off-screen unknown to us, but it still played with some interesting ideas and did a few interesting things, so I think it's still worth watching IF you intend to watch Season 4, too. 

[RandoEFC+]

Season 1 was a masterpiece, Season 2 was as good for a lot of the time but yeah there were some weird bits. I found Season 3 to be a bit cheesy, a bit predictable and I found they started to over use some quirks of the world and the characters to the point that they lost their impact. Also some of the big moments felt a bit fan servicey like the very last scene with Ed Harris. That said, I still largely enjoyed the intrigue, world building and above all the cast. I'm not put off watching Season 4 at all but my expectations are lower now than what they were after watching Season 1.