WestWorld (WW) is the show that is like so many other shows
and movies that viewers get caught in its maze as emotionally as do its
creatures. As you watch WW, if you have been consuming motion picture culture
for the last two decades, you will not only have your mind fucked properly by
the actual plot, but also by trying to name to yourself all the things it is
sampling – Firefly, Memento, Inception, Dollhouse, Ex Machina, Groundhog Day, actual old west
standards from The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Unforgiven to Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid. Of course it's own actual movie West World.
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| No breaks to catch! |
You’ll feel bad for the Teddy character, because just as Teddy is the persistently caring and screwed over pretty boy in WW, so too is James Marsden in Enchanted and XMen.
It’s par for the course for executive producer, JJ Abrams,
to pull all the things you love into one place and mangle them up together into
a new form of nostalgia. A drinking game for references. It has sets from the
Death Star for The Hunger Games with Truman Show boundaries and rules. There’s
even lessons in story telling on how to make the perfect tragic love story taken
from Charlie Kauffman’s genius mind fucks Being John Malkovich and Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
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| Eat your heart out Charlie Kauffman. |
Not to mention the exquisite soundtrack that winds its way
through the Best Standards of Radiohead and The Rolling Stones.
Which is to say, I loved it. Every minute, even when there
are some weird holes (where is the dude who went to look for Elsie? Why does
Charlotte not look more into Teresa’s death, when she clearly knows it’s
fishy?) you want more it to wash over you.
Abrams’ true genius is making deliciously slick morsels of
stuff you already love. Like gourmet mac
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| Nom. In classic cowboy cast iron -- nom... |
Maybe I’m too harsh on Abrams, maybe I’m just getting old
enough that I catch the references. The tug of reality that keeps me from this
is the fact that I’ve watched all the things that led to the writers and
directors and visionaries who made these referenced pieces. Everyone knows
Avatar came from Fern Gully which came from Captain Planet and the world first
discovering deforestation. But most things come from straining the thoughts of
a more diaphanous culture than the blue/silver screen. Like all the Brat Pack
movies. They weren’t referencing Rat Pack movies, they were scrutinizing teens
under the thrall of Reganomics.
Maybe I’m giving Abrams too much credit – there’s a fleet of
minds making this series. Abrams is lending his company Bad Robot and his own
name. I assume most things in the series are not actually his idea, but that he
shows up once or twice a week to review and give his god-like input on
whichever part in the cinematic process they are in.
Regardless, it’s gorgeous, gortesque, and thrilling. Its obvious
strengths of detail, easter eggs, subtle express
And the whole 10 hour spree is like that. And the pay-off
isn’t lame (*cough* Lost. Abrams. *cough*). It’s as intricate as the WW itself,
and more rewarding than The Man in Black (Reference: MIB, The Black Tower
series, Lost, Johnny Cash….ANY “Stranger Comes to Town” story line) could have
conceived his own maze being.
NOTE: there’s even a damn Minotaur, just as we’re all
getting to the center of the maze, as though to acknowledge the viewer’s
dedication to winding and riding along. Then it’s killed and the beat goes on.
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| Literally & figuratively. A freaking Minotaur. |
