HBO's Westworld Discussion

[GIF REACTION]

Westworld is an upcoming science fiction thriller television series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy for HBO, based on the 1973 film of the same name, which was written and directed by American novelist Michael Crichton. Nolan serves as executive producer along with Joy, J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk with Nolan directing the pilot.[3] It is scheduled to premiere in 2016.[4]

Described as "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin,"[5] the series tells the story of a futuristic theme park called Westworld.

[QUOTE]Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Robert Ford, the brilliant creative director of Westworld.[5]
James Marsden as Teddy Flood, a newly arrived gunslinger in pursuit of a local beauty.[6]
Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores Abernathy, a Western girl who discovers her entire life is an elaborately constructed lie.[5]
Jeffrey Wright as Bernard Lowe, head of the Westworld Programming Division and creator of artificial people.[7]
Thandie Newton as Maeve Millay, the beautiful and sharp madame of Westworld.[8]
Sidse Babett Knudsen as Theresa Cullen, Westworld’s terse operations leader, responsible for keeping the park from sliding into unscripted chaos.[9]
Rodrigo Santoro as Harlan Bell, a wanted man bent on survival.[7]
Ed Harris as the Man in Black, a mysterious villain.[10]
Shannon Woodward as Elsie King, a rising star in the Programming Division tasked with odd behavior in the park's artificial beings.[7]
Ingrid Bols

[Thorpesaurous]

I just started reading about this yesterday when looking up a few other tv projects. I'm surprised I wasn't aware of it. It's got a lot of good people involved, and I like the Crichton pedigree. But I hope I can be excused for my hesitance based on nothing more than a weird feeling I still have from Will Smith's Wild Wild West, and Aliens Vs. Cowboys, which have both made me queasy about the Western Meets Sci-Fi relationship.

[StephHamann]

JJ Abrams

[GIF REACTION]

JJ Abrams will be the toast of the town when Star Wars drops and breaks box office records and is critically acclaimed

[StephHamann]

JJ Abrams will be the toast of the town when Star Wars drops and breaks box office records and is critically acclaimed

A chimpanzee could direct Star Wars and it would break box office records.

[Thorpesaurous]

Yeah, JJ Abrams has done some iffy stuff, but he's also done some great stuff, and even some of his flawed stuff is at least interesting.

I'm a Lost guy. I like Cloverfield even though it's missed some potential. I'm not a Star Trek guy, but it's a viable reboot. I'm not a Mission Impossible guy, but it does the things it's supposed to do for the people it's intended for. And I was a real fan of Super 8.

He's not a guy where I say I have to check out whatever he's doing, but I know it's going to be competent, even if it's goes off the rails at times.

[GIF REACTION]

Super 8 was a really good movie

Was that the one where the kids are making a film and then that monster on the train arrives?

[dazzer87]

JJ Abrams very overrated.........

not enough lens flare

[DonDadda59]

I just started reading about this yesterday when looking up a few other tv projects. I'm surprised I wasn't aware of it. It's got a lot of good people involved, and I like the Crichton pedigree. But I hope I can be excused for my hesitance based on nothing more than a weird feeling I still have from Will Smith's Wild Wild West, and Aliens Vs. Cowboys, which have both made me queasy about the Western Meets Sci-Fi relationship.

Me neither. Hadn't heard a thing about it before seeing the teaser. Looks great even if I have no idea what it's all about.

It's almost as if they were trying to keep everything under wraps.

[Thorpesaurous]

Super 8 was a really good movie

Was that the one where the kids are making a film and then that monster on the train arrives?

It is. And Coach from FNL's is in it. It feels like a love child between ET, The Goonies, and about everything else that came out under that Amblen Entertainment label from that era.

[Thorpesaurous]

Me neither. Hadn't heard a thing about it before seeing the teaser. Looks great even if I have no idea what it's all about.

It's almost as if they were trying to keep everything under wraps.

I honestly stumbled on it last night looking up info after hearing that the HBO / David Fincher project, Utopia, was all but dead. Which I started wondering about, because I had heard a few people musing about the possible nixing of True Detective, and was wondering what HBO has in the pipeline, because like TD or not, they'd be running out of content it seems if they lost it.

That got me looking into the David Simon project that's just about to kick off, Show me a Hero, that I'm looking forward to. And the Terence Winter project Vinyl, which they ran a teaser for before the TD finale. Both projects have great casts, and great crew, but both are at this point listed as miniseries, single season runs. (Show Me A Hero seems impossible to be anymore than that).

After that I stumbled onto a few trailers for Amazon's Sneaky Pete, which looks interesting if a little procedural. Giovanni Ribisi is a con man who gets out and fakes his identity as his cell mate in order to hide within that family from the mob. The family runs a Bail Bond business, and it looks like it runs a weekly plot off of that, in addition to the overarching story.

Next thing you know I stumble onto this Westworld trailer, and I was shocked I hadn't heard about it. (Obviously it's not as if I don't follow entertainment).

I was going to make a thread about all of it last night.

[Myth]

This prompted me to finally watch the movie. Wanted to watch it for years, but didn't have access to it. I currently have Netflix by mail, so I put it on the top of my list.

Trailer for the show looked good too.

[dunksby]

Yeah, JJ Abrams has done some iffy stuff, but he's also done some great stuff, and even some of his flawed stuff is at least interesting.

I'm a Lost guy. I like Cloverfield even though it's missed some potential. I'm not a Star Trek guy, but it's a viable reboot. I'm not a Mission Impossible guy, but it does the things it's supposed to do for the people it's intended for. And I was a real fan of Super 8.

He's not a guy where I say I have to check out whatever he's doing, but I know it's going to be competent, even if it's goes off the rails at times.

It is a remake of a good film, I just hope they don't murder it. Here are the trailers for both
Yul Brynner's Westworld:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjyOfTEeNHA

HBO's not very original:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuS5huqOND4

[Steven Kerry]

Is there a release date yet? Or are they still saying "Late 2016"?

[dunksby]

Is there a release date yet? Or are they still saying "Late 2016"?

2/10.