I never understood the complaints about her acting.
She's the Emilia Clarke of the series in that sense, I've always found her acting great but I think she's been the victim of bad writing that makes people think otherwise.
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Westworld |S3| Jump Ahead
- Thread starter RatskyWatsky
- Start date
I never understood the complaints about her acting.
She's the Emilia Clarke of the series in that sense, I've always found her acting great but I think she's been the victim of bad writing that makes people think otherwise.
This episode lost me entirely. No stakes because they're all just back at it for the finale. Convoluted plans because she's "poetic". Katana cause it's cool. I'm curious where the season will end but I'm not enjoying it at all anymore.
Yup. I really liked the beginning to this season. But I've fallen off the boat hard. I'll still watch the last one of course.
I honestly don't understand why does Dolores need Caleb. She has been a killing machine so far so I don't think it's about not being able to commit genocide. Actually since she doesn't know what the "new plan" is, genocide might not necessarily even be her objective. Also, why does she feel she needs a Human ally? Does she trusts him more than one of her copies?
I think the action has been fun, especially when Dolores is involved but it's not quite top tier in execution. Either automatic weapons are set to maximum spray (like in most shows and movies)... or in a world where even the crime is controlled by Rehoboam and the military use drone strikes people just aren't that proficient with weapons. Only scene that didn't work for me was the armed security team in Westworld running away from their one-armed boss clumsily swinging an axe.
OP
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the ball computer said caleb is not fit for the world. in order for humanity to not destroy itself people like him need to be put into storage coffins. so he's basically an uncontrollable variable much like dolores.
I wont be surprised if they create a robot and humans living together world and somehow make a robomeatbaby by the time the show is done.
ugh not really feeling this at all. Completely different show at this point, and I'll admit it now.
I was actually reading this thread on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/westworld/comments/g8u8t6/westworld_no_longer_feels_like_prestige/
And honestly, I agree. Westworld doesn't feel like prestige TV anymore. It's fun, but in a really trashy way. Compared to S1 the quality of writing has dropped massively. There's shit tons of unneeded exposition (the fuck is Bernard's entire purpose this season anyway?) and cheesy lines. There's far too much focus on action and it's just flat out ridiculous honestly. The choreography is something you'd expect from a CW show. Except CW shows have 1/10th of the budget, if that.
Caleb is her Harvey Dent, he's the symbol a robot could never be. That being said, all of these motivations are about an inch deep, they only really serve as excuses for the writers to maneuver characters into the scenes they want.
So who is William going to gun down next week? Maeve, Dolores, Hale? Someone put Maeve and her gang or cameos out of their miseries already, Jesus.
So who is William going to gun down next week? Maeve, Dolores, Hale? Someone put Maeve and her gang or cameos out of their miseries already, Jesus.
Yup. I never thought Westworld was super deep but the writing was compelling. It helped that they had Anthony Hopkins but still. Now it has the same lack of depth but it also sounds forced and cliched. That coupled with bad action and a plot that feels very by the numbers just makes it feel like any other bad action show.
The show had to leave the park eventually I guess but there had to be a better followup than Evil AI.
I am now in it purely for the future tech/robots/soundscape/pretty ladies.
It's laughably bad.
It's laughably bad.
I miss all the season 1 characters. I think the biggest problem with season 3 (and to some extent season 2) is that the characters are driven by plot, rather than the plot being driven by the characters. Season 1 had Dolores, Maeve, and Bernard awakening in different ways; William and the Man in Black on their own adventures; plus the corporate jockeying between Ford and Theresa while trying to run the damn park. There's no questions of why this person does that; their actions just flow naturally and silently inform us of their motivations. And the other characters -- Teddy, Clementine, Hector, Armistice, Lawrence, Logan, Elsie, Sizemore, etc. -- each have their own unique personalities and roles that fill in the story perfectly. The way all these characters and plotlines are layered together is really quite impressive.
Halores seems like the only person in season 3 to exhibit some character progression. She's awkwardly thrust into someone's life and grows to embrace it, and it moves her. It's far more meaningful to observe this through Halores's interactions with her family, than through the backstory dumps that Serac and Caleb got. The other new characters in season 3 -- Liam, Connells, Ash, Giggles -- are unremarkable. And the returning characters -- Dolores, Maeve, Bernard, William -- it's like they're "on rails", just absent-mindedly moving forward as the plot dictates. Even Dolores, who's supposed to be the prime mover, is just kinda one-track and boring now. It's like the writers planned out the overall story for 5-6 seasons, but not the characters.
I'm still entertained and want to see what happens next, I just don't feel invested in the characters anymore. Don't really care who lives or dies, and who succeeds or fails.
I have to wonder if "prestige TV" is really that much of a thing with the networks and streaming giants anymore compared with the golden age in the early 2000s. I mean, the later seasons of GoT and Westworld are big budget but are largely just high budget genre shows; and Netflix is shifting a bit to trash TV.
I don't think Westworld should really be doing melee and hand to hand Fight scenes. I mean, a shoot out with that high powered rifle might have been interesting, but the actors aren't excelling at the kind of action that they think we want. And they don't make sense. The plot is making the artifice of the show hard not to think about, I don't really care about Caleb's false and actual past because they are both fiction that are equally shallow and written by Jonathan Nolan.
So much money for CGI, so little money to hire better/more fight choreographers.
Since they have two years between seasons it's hard to believe this is a time issue. You could have been preparing this fights for some time. You definitely shouldn't be rushing them if you want your action show to have good action.
Since they have two years between seasons it's hard to believe this is a time issue. You could have been preparing this fights for some time. You definitely shouldn't be rushing them if you want your action show to have good action.
Ah man, I can't stand that idiotic way to make the story move forward, they overuse it every time the scenario is stuck. Characters suddenly cannot shoot straight once they have the opportunity to shoot down another main character. It's so annoying...
Prime Dolores would've cleared that bar with a pencil.
You've summarized my thoughts pretty well. Your last paragraph is straight up my feelings on this season, I honestly don't care if aliens arrive and nuke everyone, all of them are shitty and the writing did not manage to convince me to care about anyone at all.
That's a massive change, because I used to care about a lot of them. Early Teddy, early Dolores, Lawrence, Clementine, Bernard, you name it. Even during the mess that was season 2 I was rooting for Bernard the entire way through. Now I just couldn't care less about anyone.
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Halores, Dolores, Caleb and Serac are the only characters in this show. William is kinda but only as a leftover of his previous character. The problem is that some (like Halores) we barely spent any time with them and that a big focus of the show is Maeve, which is a nothing character right now. Since there's no interesting twists or narrative hooks like previous seasons then characters need to carry this, but I don't think they don't.
I think this season started well but I just want it to end now. They barely picked up what Season 2 had (the whole resurrection stuff is no more) and replaced it with something I'm not a fan of. Oh well.
I think this season started well but I just want it to end now. They barely picked up what Season 2 had (the whole resurrection stuff is no more) and replaced it with something I'm not a fan of. Oh well.
Still watching and kinda enjoying but this season doesnt feel much like Westworld. It's reminding me of season 8 of GOT in that everyone keeps turning up wherever they need to be without any setup. I loved Maeve in the two previous seasons but her character is horrendous this season. Her motivations make no sense is dragging down the story for me.
They barely established that relationship. We have been told that, barely shown. That's why a lot of people didn't care about that storyline even back in previous seasons. It's even worse now, and will continue to be worse.
It's terrible. There's no excuse for the action being so poor.
I think people are well aware of this, the problem is that it's a really crappy motivation.
First of all, her daughter doesn't even recognize her as her mother. That entire storyline already had a beautiful conclusion anyway in the S2 finale, it was a very emotional moment when Maeve sacraficed herself just so her daughter and everyone else can make it to the valley beyond safely.
And yet here we are again, same motivation.... But what makes it even worse is the fact that Serac wants to kill every host, it's literally in his best interest to do that, so he can get rid of all the variables and blind spots for Rehoboam. So her decision to do Serac's bidding instead of trying to work something out with Dolores who is working to keep their species alive is so fucking dumb it completely contradicts Maeve's character from the first 2 seasons where she was easily the smartest, most intelligent person on the show, even before she turned her INT stat up to max.
Yup, she already had her moment with her daughter. The daughter is fine in robot heaven. Sure, Serac says it will destroy it but, as a viewer, I can't say I really care at this point and it's hard to care about that motivation when it has been squeezed enough already.
Much like a lot of shows, it has had a shitload of trouble transitioning from it's initial premise to a new, larger one. Shows like Heroes and Prison Break had the same post-season 1 collapse because they are shows with a cool pitch, but no plan for an endgame. There are so many superfluous characters just meandering about. What the hell has Bernard actually done all season? Why are we still following this senile old man who wants to kill all robots? Does anyone actually care about Clementine and the girl from Shogun world?
Yup. It's not new to Westworld. Still a bummer.
Lost had the advantage of never really leaving the island or at least always keeping plot lines there. Westworld could've maybe followed that with still more mysteries in the parks and Delos and Dolores in the real world but maybe that would get tiring too.
Maybe it should've just been one season.
The whole Maeve fake daughter thing is so beyond played out.
I'm liking this season a lot but the only characters I give a shit about are Dolores, Caleb, and William. Everyone else is just boring as shit.
Yes, thank you. I've been wanting to post something similar, that its run into the Game of Thrones final season problem. All the stupidty in the plot can usually be attributed to this.
I'm enjoying this season, but I'm also not? I don't know how to really explain it, but I'll try.
I love the visuals, the music, the near future technology, and the general concept behind the AI/algorithm based approach to humanity.
However I'm struggling with the general behavior of each of the characters and their story arcs. Caleb was a good device to flesh out the AI/algorithm theme, but beyond that he has been pretty boring. This episodes twist was very predictable and drawn out.
Maeve is a complete nonsense character at this point. Again, love the concept - but the general motivation to do all of this crazy stuff to protect her "daughter" again? It's just not working for me.
Dolores is the worst of all of them. No complaints about the acting, but the writing/dialogue is painful. Just constant vague statements and despite appearing to have thought of everything, seems to get caught off guard alot. I'm also still not sure why she brought Bernard back.
As with the previous seasons, I'm expecting a good payoff in the final episode that mostly ties everything together and provides a satisfying ending. But if someone asked me to explain this seasons plot, or even worse, character arcs- I wouldn't even know where to start.
I love the visuals, the music, the near future technology, and the general concept behind the AI/algorithm based approach to humanity.
However I'm struggling with the general behavior of each of the characters and their story arcs. Caleb was a good device to flesh out the AI/algorithm theme, but beyond that he has been pretty boring. This episodes twist was very predictable and drawn out.
Maeve is a complete nonsense character at this point. Again, love the concept - but the general motivation to do all of this crazy stuff to protect her "daughter" again? It's just not working for me.
Dolores is the worst of all of them. No complaints about the acting, but the writing/dialogue is painful. Just constant vague statements and despite appearing to have thought of everything, seems to get caught off guard alot. I'm also still not sure why she brought Bernard back.
As with the previous seasons, I'm expecting a good payoff in the final episode that mostly ties everything together and provides a satisfying ending. But if someone asked me to explain this seasons plot, or even worse, character arcs- I wouldn't even know where to start.
Nah I agree. S2, as bad as it was, was more compelling, ambitious and better constructed than this mindless trash. So much about this season feels poorly made and cheap, except it's not cheap at all. HBO is basically wasting money on this show now.
There are no characters to care about, nobody has any kind of arc worth talking about, it's just not interesting or entertaining to watch anymore. I'm probably out after the finale.
This show has become a damp squib. Season 1 was top flight television but now I just don't care anymore. I'm watching it to see the end, but that's it.
i'm only 3 episodes in but i'm having a hard time picking this show back up. it's just.... boring?
Season one, to me, was one of the best seasons of TV I've ever watched
Season two, was painful
I fell asleep during season 3s first episode...should I continue?
Season two, was painful
I fell asleep during season 3s first episode...should I continue?
Going back and looking at the episode summaries for season 1, I kinda think a problem could be the season lengths.
In season 1, ten episodes was good for the story being told. Good pacing, the character arcs had room to breath.
In season 2, the increase in scope while still resolving character arcs from season 1, resulted in the story getting patchy and handwaving a lot of things to force the plots to converge at the required moments.
Season 3, now they're down by 2 episodes, but wanted to tell a globe-trotting cyberpunk story about world revolution. While still playing out story arcs for characters like Maeve. And introducing entirely new central pillars such as Serac and Caleb.
The show either needed more episodes (12 or 13), or a leaner story that focused on just 2 or 3 characters all the way through.
In season 1, ten episodes was good for the story being told. Good pacing, the character arcs had room to breath.
In season 2, the increase in scope while still resolving character arcs from season 1, resulted in the story getting patchy and handwaving a lot of things to force the plots to converge at the required moments.
Season 3, now they're down by 2 episodes, but wanted to tell a globe-trotting cyberpunk story about world revolution. While still playing out story arcs for characters like Maeve. And introducing entirely new central pillars such as Serac and Caleb.
The show either needed more episodes (12 or 13), or a leaner story that focused on just 2 or 3 characters all the way through.
some of his team yes, he and Francis were saved because they were used to capture the other outliers
i feel bad for alt shift x making these westworld vids. the game way i felt him making those game of thrones ones at the end. Lol