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Home / Entertainment

Who is the Man in Black really? Plus 8 other big questions from Westworld's first episode

Daily Telegraph UK
4 Oct, 2016 05:00 AM5 mins to read

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Westworld is new to HBO. Photo / Supplied

Westworld is new to HBO. Photo / Supplied

Warning: This article contains spoilers for HBO's TV series, Westworld.

Film fans and those born before 1965 will all remember Michael Crichton's Westworld.

It was the director and novelist's first foray into filmmaking and was both a worldwide smash and inadvertently acted as a first draft of his later novel Jurassic Park (both are about theme parks gone fatally wrong).

Now it's been given a graphic reboot - set somewhere in the future at a time when 3D printing can create biologically complex humanoids (and horseoids).

But us pesky humans are about to take our technology-loving ways to a dangerous new level that will cause a wild west theme park full of robots to go rogue.

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Warning: contains spoilers

1. What's up with the Gunslinger?

In the original Westworld, the Gunslinger/Man in Black played by Yul Brynner was one of the robot hosts who goes on a killing spree. But here, showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have given him a new twist.

This character, now played by Ed Harris, isn't bad because he's a robot that lacks human compassion, instead he's an unhinged superfan (he's been coming for decades) who has decided to unravel some mysterious conspiracy in the sprawling park.

But weirdly no one in hi-tech command centre seems to notice his particularly sadistic behaviour (though maybe that's because everyone who comes to this park is a dreadful person).

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But to drag off a host and empty three buckets of blood from him before slicing off his scalp would surely attract some attention from those who seem to otherwise notice everything. Yet they don't even mention him. Instead they're too distracted by the hosts straying from their scripts.

2. What was that on the host's scalp?

The Man in Black rode off into the distance, a piece of synthetic head strapped to his saddle. Is it really the map of a maze, as it looks? Or is it something more complex, like a circuit board? It certainly doesn't look like it corresponds to the sweeping location as seen from the high-up tower. And why is it on a man's head?

3. Big surprise, give the public a fully immersive interactive experience and they turn it into an elaborate brothel. But must they really?

This park looks like it cost a fortune, and tickets surely don't come cheap as the guests spend weeks there. But what do they do upon arrival? Well they rub their hands together and bolt straight for Thandie Newton's whorehouse. If they're particularly unlikeable, they also casually do some murdering.

It's certainly a gloomy alternate future, though not exactly a surprising one - we are fairly basic creatures after all. But would we really reduce such an elaborate park to its most base levels?

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4. What's to stop a guest from shooting or raping another guest and claiming they thought it was a robot?

If it hasn't happened already, it probably will.

5. Are you sufficiently afraid of technology yet?

Rule number one of all fictional AI: don't ever let the robots think for themselves. But it seems that the ambition of the park's founder Dr Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) has created an enormous headache for his staff.

By adding in a new update, Ford has allowed the hosts to access old memories. And given they're regularly reused as different characters that can be a pretty vast well of information - so poetically demonstrated by Dolores's Shakespeare-quoting father (Louis Herthum).

And now the already crumpled and world-weary head of the programming division Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) is now having to contend with the rarely impressed Theresa (Sidse Babett Knudsen), whose job it is to clean up other people's mess.

6. When will we see the other worlds?

Westworld is set to be several seasons long so you can't bet we'll be seeing more of this futuristic place than just the Wild West. In the film, Westworld is just one of three themed worlds.

Guests also get to choose between Roman World and Medieval World. There was also an unsuccessful sequel called Futureworld, which introduced a fourth. So how long before we get to poke around the world of English knights or have a go at stabbing Julius Caesar?

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7. How much time is spent fixing beat up and broken hosts?

When they're shot, they bleed. And the bullets are real, meaning they make real holes (as neatly displayed by the milk pouring out of one sadistic tertiary cast member).

The bit we haven't seen yet is the poor minimum wage dogsbody whose job it is to polyfiller the holes and scrub off the fake blood. Not to mention those who must keep Dolores's dress clean.

Poor Teddy (James Marsden), Dolores's love interest, seems to be the series' Kenny, doomed to die in every episode. Yet when the park's script rolls over again he's patched up and back on his own mortality train.

8. Can you really see a similarity to Game of Thrones?

Let's be honest, the two programmes have almost nothing in common. They're both made by HBO and the women wear flowing dresses sometimes but that really is it. (Yes, it's violent but so are the majority of other sweeping dramas too.)

It may well go on to emulate a degree of Game of Thrones's success but the constant comparisons do neither programme any favours.

9. When is all the whispering going to make sense?

"These violent delights have violent ends," Dolores recalled that her father Peter whispered in her ear. But was the Romeo and Juliet quote really all he said to her?

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And how about what Bernard whispered into the ear of Peter before he was sent off into storage? Were they instructions? Calming words?

No doubt those moments will come up again later in the series.

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