This pilot is one of the most compelling, intelligent and elegant hours of television I've ever seen. From the cinematographic standpoint, Niels Arden Oplev brought us the same original directing style that he did use in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the first film from the original Swedish trilogy), and hoped for his audience to be mature enough to digest a plot that evolves at every step, slow paced, gritty and edgy. Gosh, the sequence with Neil Diamond's song was as surreal as beautiful, and yet sad, evoking happiness. This is how you present technology to the public: with real information, explaining some stuff, keeping the plot grounded in reality (couldn't find anything too implausible or wrong in their technospeak). I'm a KDE guy myself since 1997, and I'm typing this review on my favorite Linux distro (that isn't Ubuntu, by the way), so I'm really looking forward for the rest of the season. Then again, I don't keep my hopes too high... Universal has a true innate talent to really screw up any good show that takes more than two neuron synapses to process (when they happen to own it), without exceptions.
It looks great, better than anything on the recent trilogy. The lore is building up and the acting is on the dot. My only problem is the pacing and that the damn episode is too short. I was expecting a 1 hour show, but this is shorter even than network television prime time shows.
Well, it is promising as a new season opener.
"Most coders think debugging software is about fixing a mistake, but that is bullshit… its existence was no accident. It came to you to deliver a message. Like an unconscious bubble floating to the surface. Popping with a revelation you’ve secretly known all along… A bug buzzing its way towards me, to gum up the works, until it forces me to make a call — kill me, or embrace me or kill me; A bug’s only reason for existence is to be a mistake that needs fixing. To help you right a wrong, and what feels better than that. The bug forces the software to adapt, evolve into something new because of it. Work around it, or work through it. No matter what, it changes. It becomes something new. The next version. The inevitable upgrade". Elliot's monologue, his “debugging” metaphor defines the entire series as a whole, its evolution and ultimate goal. We are just as invested in this journey as Elliot, who doesn’t freak or lose his mind when something weird happens. He lets it play out, a backseat rider to his own life... and that's what makes this episode so memorable.
The good about this episode: The New Republic is very serious about law and order, we get to see Twi'leks again, a very unrecognizable Clancy Brown and the cameos of David Filoni and the directors of all the previous episodes as X-Wing pilots. Also, we now get an idea how hyperspace navigation in the Star Wars universe is all bout. The ending with the 3 baddies on the cell alive made this episode very kid friendly, and I don't mind that. The bad about this episode: Zero planning for the prison break, and it shows. The Twi'lek make-up looks very cheap and the acting of both of actors is uneven. The X-Wings arrive more than 20 minutes after the beacon is activated. So, no troops?. Nobody is driving the prison ship anymore, so I guess that it's a death sentence for everyone aboard that ship when they run out of air, water and food, unless somebody gets to them.
Enjoyable. The space skirmish feels like Star Wars. Then the return to Tatooine and the perfect sets for Mos Eisley. Notice that the droid sensors at the Cantina's door are not present, probably because the new bartenders are droids themselves. Wonderful desert scenes, lots of humor and things here and there to remind you the original trilogy. I like it so far, because this is a laid back episode and Mando made a friend, just as the previous one. I'm sure the last couple of episodes in this season will have a nice pay-off.
The last 4 minutes make everything fit right in. Awesome plot twist.
We are only a few years away from the gamification of every activity. This is what meaningful television looks like.
This is one of the best episodes I've seen in a while. Breaking the fourth wall... that's wonderful. This episode proves that you need only a good story and keep it tight.
The opening of this episode was one of the best I've ever seen. This series is getting better every passing minute, and that makes me worry seriously about its longevity beyond the proposed 10 episodes.
This episode had me glued at the screen. It's a huge homage to Sam Peckinpah's films, and clearly sets the mood for a great season finale. This is what really makes Star Wars great: it made deeply care for the characters and I felt despair with every single loss and setback they experience. And the ending... Oh, my gosh. It broke my heart. This is going to be a very long week until the next episode!.
Something very interesting happened between the time I did stream this pilot from Amazon Prime for the first time, and eight months later, that I'm checking it out again. In the weeks following the premiere, writer Agness Kaku complained about that many of the japanese signs in the show were utter non-sense, like the word "Respect" written all over the place, an ad for "Viper Pharmacy" hanging in a place of honor in the Aikido dojo, the fact that naming San Francisco's International Airport as "Hiroito" and the bus station as "Imperial" violates Japanese naming customs and Joel de la Fuente delivering a line that was apparently written using Google Translate ("Yes, let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky. Ta, my good suspect!"). Well, the producers made a different cut, that's the one available for streaming now: the scene with the badly translated line was cut entirely, and several signs on the street (and the one in the dojo) were digitally changed for something more realistic. The Hiroito International Airport and bus station stayed, oddly. Also the Blade Runner homage in the Sunrise Cafe was cut short, and the pilot now has a different narrative, adding more bits here and there, and a whole different ending, with more scenes mashed up to add exposition and increase the story's relationship with the I Ching (as in the source material). Isn't a bad cut at all, and it feels different, probably better than the original.
Just a comment regarding the SAC op. The radios issued in these ops are always rugged, waterproof models, at least IP67, and that means being under salt water for 60 minutes. So there's no chance the "electronics are wet" becomes an issue, but I understand that it's meant to advance the plot, making Bishop leave the boat.
Michelle Yeoh really steals this episode. So far, so good with the story and character development.
I love that I didn't see that one coming at all. Great ending.
Way better than I was expecting. I'm pretty sure the show will find its footing right away. The story is compelling and it really follows onto events that are part of Star Trek's canon. As they say, I am all in for the journey ahead.
Tertia Optio is the motto of the Special Activities Center (SAC), and it means Third Option, as covert action is the next option available after diplomacy and the military.I like how the plot is unfolding so far.
I do happen to like the way they subtly hinted that The Doctor has enough regeneration energy for another go, at least. What I don't like is that this comes along with recent Peter Capaldi's comments on interviews about him being too tired of shooting Doctor Who, after just two series. That means that he's leaving after series 10?. Most likely. Cast a 57 y.o. actor in a physical demanding role, and what do you get?. The episode introduces the concept of a new Doctor in just a couple of lines, and that kept my attention off for the rest of it. When I went back to watch it again, there it was, I wasn't wrong. So, I'm expecting the beginning of the casting process after S9's Christmas special, and a proper send off after wrapping S10. Wearable technology?... sure.
Damn. Goddamn. This is the best episode so far. Pure delight and joy, and some of the best Star Wars canon to date.
This is what I call "to boldly go...". A wonderful episode that respects the legends, and builds up upon them to reach for the stars.
This is what I call the Sergio Leone approach to Star Wars. Taking its time to flesh out the character, and giving us the answer to many questions we never knew we had. Excellent episode.
Stunning episode. Just brilliant acting.
After watching the whole season, this is the only episode I felt was fun, engaging and written pretty much like the original SAC series. It happens outside the story arc, so I recommend it highly.
This fond homage to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is a welcome surprise. I'm so pleased with the path the show is following, taking its time to introduce characters and set the plot, despite the short running time of each episode.
Excellent opening for the season. I love the fact that they decided to film part of the episode in Moscow, very close to the Kremlin and inside the actual Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, It's wonderful to see any American show feeling comfortable enough to be there, given the political climate. I think that they are also setting up the plot from The Cardinal Of The Kremlin for future seasons, and that's great. However, my sense of disbelief was kinda broken when I saw Bogotá standing up as Caracas, given that I know both cities and they are totally different in both landscape, weather and buildings, something that a little CGI could fix. Then again, the average American viewer won't notice that. The Spanish dialogues are accurate translations, and also accents.
This is an excellent love letter to the 80's. I was 13 years old in 1983, so I get the whole feeling and ambiance from the sets and props. I love that the camera angles and narrative are those from the late 70's, instead of the usual steadycam-quick-cut fare we watch every day now. The story is slow and predictable (but just because we're already embedded in this kind of storytelling) but I don't see that as a failure at all. My problem here is that we get so emotionally invested in the characters and that's why the ending of this first season is a huge let down for me. I wouldn't mind another 8 episodes, but I don't see it progressing past certain point. Kids grow fast, so you can't get like 4 seasons without acknowledging the passage of time. They'll have to film as much as possible while the cast still looks like that, and release the episodes at their own pace, in my humble opinion.
Control - of any sort - in a complex system is only an illusion. That's something that Michael Crichton told us once and again in everyone of his books and related material. In a way, this "park" concept is entirely anachronistic per se. Anyway... it's still a good TV show.
This series looks more, and more expensive (production-wise) than anything on TV right now. I hope it gets more audience, or we'll only have this season with tons of unanswered questions. Talulah Riley has the smallest acting range I've ever seen. Luckily, she will get a ton of money from Elon Musk this time around to pursue other interests.
This show is - just as the original movie was, in retrospect - a fine example of why we can't have nice things: we're such a bunch of a*******s, that enjoy destroying and perverting everything we dare to touch. There's never a middle ground. Westworld is a late-21st century place where you can f++k, rape and kill at pleasure - feeling no guilt - at $40,000 US Dlls a day per guest (around $9,000 of today's money), running under the same 3 premises that Crichton had for Jurassic Park: any sense of control is always a delusion, any complex system becomes inherently unestable with every new element that is added, and wherever we try to harness and control something (let's say, nature, genetics, the atom, chemistry, etc) it will invariably turn against us. Putting aside the philosophical and moral implications, the entire primise is outdated. Why would someone travel to somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to f++k, rape and kill, when virtual reality and neural-feedback (that will be most likely available by the end of the century) could provide a better experience (including the f+++++g, of course) without ever leaving your living room?. A late-21st century virtual reality experience will probably be better than anything Westworld has to offer, in a more cost-effective way... and it'll be probably available, even more gory, sexy and violent than whatever this show has to offer for the rest of this season. Anyway... this episode looks very expensive, so Westworld needs to grab the audience fast, lest this be its only season, following the usual curse that J.J. Abrams seems to have right now.
After watching two times in a row this same episode, I couldn't help to notice that it brings back the scary factor in Doctor Who episodes. It has elements from "The Satan Pit" that I like, and it features more problem solving skills. Not a bad episode, at all.
