As a proponent of a good TV series (and, by virtue, a sceptic of films) it is with great sadness that I've just witnessed the beginning of the end of the humble box-set.
TV series' have traditionally been lower budget forms of entertainment that won over audiences with characters and story arcs so brilliant they just couldn't be contained by an hour and a half of popcorn-induced banality. However, now, filmmakers are poking their greedy fingers into the box-set market and, armed with the budget of a small continent, are turning TV shows into exactly the opposite: high-quality epics with low-quality storytelling. Now, we have TVs shows that are big-budget just for the sake of being big-budget, that use lashings of CGI to drown their boring, unrelatable characters and tedious storytelling. Now, we have Westworld.
Westworld is show all about the creation of humanoids with artificial intelligence. But, here's the twist: the humanoids start thinking for themselves and battling the humans.
Yawn.
I like a dystopian as much as the next cynic, but I just can't get excited by this tired old storyline anymore. We've seen it all before in Ex-Machina, I, Robot, The Machine, The Matrix, Wall-E (and frankly, I can't be bothered to type any more). The only difference here is that, instead of waiting an hour for something to happen on-screen, you have to wait ten. And instead of the humanoids being made of metal, they're made of fibres and dipped in yoghurt.
Actually, that's not the only difference. What makes Westworld really stand out is its entirely ludicrous and laughable premise: that, if you were able to create humanoids that were as agile as humans, unable to feel pain and so visually convincing they were indistinguishable from a real person, you wouldn't make them spies, slaves, or soldiers. Of course not. You'd make them act in a park.
Unfortunately, this sets the tone nicely for a slough of other mysteries, like: shooting a gun at a tree will blow it to pieces but, if you shoot it in a human's face, they'll be absolutely fine. Instead of bothering to explain that, the series is obsessed with stringing us along with boring executive politics and a backstory about some super-mysterious bloke in a hat we're supposed to care about.
Overall, Westworld combines the worst of film and TV: It has the arrogance of a film dragged out over the longevity of a series, but with a fanbase smitten with its pretty visuals and casual voyeurism, I imagine it's here to stay.
Right now, I'm just four episodes in, so I'll edit this rant as soon as I've seen the whole series.
EDIT: No, I still hate it.
TV series' have traditionally been lower budget forms of entertainment that won over audiences with characters and story arcs so brilliant they just couldn't be contained by an hour and a half of popcorn-induced banality. However, now, filmmakers are poking their greedy fingers into the box-set market and, armed with the budget of a small continent, are turning TV shows into exactly the opposite: high-quality epics with low-quality storytelling. Now, we have TVs shows that are big-budget just for the sake of being big-budget, that use lashings of CGI to drown their boring, unrelatable characters and tedious storytelling. Now, we have Westworld.
Westworld is show all about the creation of humanoids with artificial intelligence. But, here's the twist: the humanoids start thinking for themselves and battling the humans.
Yawn.
I like a dystopian as much as the next cynic, but I just can't get excited by this tired old storyline anymore. We've seen it all before in Ex-Machina, I, Robot, The Machine, The Matrix, Wall-E (and frankly, I can't be bothered to type any more). The only difference here is that, instead of waiting an hour for something to happen on-screen, you have to wait ten. And instead of the humanoids being made of metal, they're made of fibres and dipped in yoghurt.
Actually, that's not the only difference. What makes Westworld really stand out is its entirely ludicrous and laughable premise: that, if you were able to create humanoids that were as agile as humans, unable to feel pain and so visually convincing they were indistinguishable from a real person, you wouldn't make them spies, slaves, or soldiers. Of course not. You'd make them act in a park.
Unfortunately, this sets the tone nicely for a slough of other mysteries, like: shooting a gun at a tree will blow it to pieces but, if you shoot it in a human's face, they'll be absolutely fine. Instead of bothering to explain that, the series is obsessed with stringing us along with boring executive politics and a backstory about some super-mysterious bloke in a hat we're supposed to care about.
Overall, Westworld combines the worst of film and TV: It has the arrogance of a film dragged out over the longevity of a series, but with a fanbase smitten with its pretty visuals and casual voyeurism, I imagine it's here to stay.
Right now, I'm just four episodes in, so I'll edit this rant as soon as I've seen the whole series.
EDIT: No, I still hate it.
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