Written by/Nemo
Pictures/network
Editor/Chen Chen
With the 73-minute first episode airing, the second season of "Westworld" finally returned to the screen after more than a year. By the end of the last season, viewers had a premonition of the robots' impending uprising. In this season, in addition to the fate of the protagonists, the most eye-catching thing is the newly opened theme park "Shogun World" (previously rumored to be "Samurai World"). The Nolans added a large number of Asian cultural elements and invited Japanese stars such as Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi to join. New characters, new puzzles, new worlds, welcome to Westworld 2.0.
△ Season 2 poster
<h1>The actors also don't know the plot</h1>
Westworld has been a game from the start, except that it's more immersive than any OTHER VR. Visitors can experience real killings, crimes, and indulgences here without having to bear any consequences – because the consequences are nothing more than robots being recycled and repaired at night. However, "Westworld 2.0", the rules of the game have changed completely. The iron law of "robots will not harm tourists" has been completely thrown into the Mariana Trench, they are no longer obedient, tourists with blunt objects to beat innocent robot boys, they should think that one day in the future, they will also be hunted and hanged by robots. As Park Designer Robert Ford told William in Black, in this new game, everything you do will have real consequences.
Just like the "reception robots" already know that their time memory is confused, they have begun to "confuse". In the crew, which is highly confidential about the plot, the actors are also confused, "I think our shooting order is to confuse me." "On the set of the second season, people are often unsure about the first few episodes – of course, even if they knew, it wouldn't be useful, so they were waiting for the tv series to air.
<h1>The "World of Generals" is coming</h1>
Westworld is a theme park, and all theme parks are constantly adding new projects to attract visitors. So this season added "General World". "World of Generals" will officially appear in the third episode of this season, and will continue to appear in subsequent episodes thereafter. Based on Edo-era Japan (1603-1867), shogun's world incorporates many representative Japanese elements from the 300 years up and down, with samurai, geisha, and more violent and bloody than the western world.
As Westworld expands, many new characters will naturally appear. First and foremost are the "Shon's World" robot "Musashi" and the geisha "Akane". These two characters are played by two japanese stars, Hiroyuki Sanada and Rinko Kikuchi. In addition, Tatsumi Okamoto, who has acted in blockbusters such as "Wolverine 2" and "Superman vs Batman", and Yujin Kiki, who has acted in the American drama "Hero: Rebirth", will also join.
△Rinko Kikuchi
Westworld and Generals World are not delos' only two theme parks, they have a total of six such robot parks, and the other four have not yet opened, but are destined to appear in future episodes.
Why the "samurai world" was first opened, instead of choosing "medieval paradise" and "Roman paradise" as in the old film, the producers of the show, Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy and his wife, gave a very convincing explanation. For Nolan, Japanese samurai films and Italian Westerns accompanied him throughout his upbringing, and he loved the Samurai Trilogy by Japanese directors Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Inagaki, and Toshiro Mifune was his favorite actor.
△ Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai
Nolan's wife, Lisa Joy, is also fond of oriental culture because she spent her childhood in Taiwan, where she watched many Asian film and television dramas, most of all the martial arts films adapted from Journey to the West. Under her screenplay, not only is there an entire episode of the show that is a samurai world, but the audience can also see that the theme parks are located on an island in Asia. (In the first episode, as the rescue team prepares to travel to Westworld on a boat island, several local soldiers in blue camouflage uniforms appear as they say Chinese.)
△ Chinese Navy
【Old Character】
<h1>A Dolores unlocks a new personality</h1>
Benefiting from Hollywood's "Time's Up" movement, Westworld actresses Ivan Rachel Wood and Sandy Newton will receive a raise in the third season, and they will receive the same salary as Actors such as Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris from next season. At the same time, their characters were also upgraded in the play.
At the end of the previous season, Dolores killed the park's chief designer, Robert Ford, and launched a robot uprising, in which she will lead other robots to kill and take revenge on the humans who abused them in the past. At this time, "Dolores" has completely become her other personality "Wyatt", which was written into her program by another creator of the original paradise, "Arnold", and at the end of the previous season, she solved the puzzle of "Labyrinth" and successfully unlocked the character of "Wyatt".
Upgraded to "Wyatt", "Dolores" becomes the leader of the robot rebellion, and she not only wants to become the master of Westworld, but also to go out and occupy the world outside paradise. How humans treated robots in the first place, she had to give it back as it was.
But not all robots are busy rioting, and "Maeve", played by Sandy Newton, has her own mission. At the end of the previous season, she had the opportunity to leave the park, but stayed because she was looking for her "daughter". In order to find her daughter, Maeve holds Westworld's chief screenwriter "Lee" hostage, and they will embark on this season's adventure together.
<h1>B The Man in Black receives a new mission</h1>
Ed Harris' "Men in Black/William" was the villain in the first season and the most surprising character in the first season. He was originally the executive vice president of Delos, who inherited the company because he was married to the boss's daughter. He is addicted to Westworld games and is a regular here. In the interlaced narrative of time and space in the last season, the audience watched him change from a humble and restrained "William" to a cruel and cold-blooded "Man in Black".
On the night of the robot "Massacre", the Man in Black survived. Now he can finally enjoy the thrill of real danger. And he will also have a new mission, this time not a "labyrinth", but to find a "gate". "Doors" is also a subtitle for this season's Westworld.
The man in black was given the task of the game by no one else, but Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), the chief designer of the park, who had been killed by Dolores, and although his body was dead, his consciousness was written into code and could appear through the robot at any time. In a sense, he is now "alive" in a different way.
<h1>C Bernard "Fragments"</h1>
Jeffrey White's park administrator "Bernard" has become more active in this season, and viewers who have watched the previous season know that Bernard is actually a robot, and his prototype is the park founder "Arnold".
Arnold had Dolores shoot and kill himself before the park opened, and robert, another chief designer of the park, made Bernard according to Arnold's appearance. Except for Robert, no one knew Bernard was a robot.
After the night of the Robot Massacre, Arnold and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) sent by Delos wait for the rescuers to arrive. Because the robot Bernard had committed suicide once before (and was later repaired by Maeve), there was always something abnormal, and there were often fragments. This also brings a lot of mysteries to this season, because he doesn't know what time and space he is in? What happened during the loss of consciousness? In the first episode, the audience will see that during his fragmentation, the entire Grand Canyon has become a vast ocean, drowning many robots. Bernard says he did it, but is he really a reliable narrator?