Post by Melifeather on Apr 13, 2020 17:33:28 GMT
Westworld S03-E05 - Genre
Greetings and welcome to this week’s analysis of Westworld! The episode title this week is “Genre” with a summary that simply states: “Just say no.” Sorry again about the late post, and advanced apologies as usual, because I’ll probably be back to edit and rephrase!
We learn very quickly that Genre is the name of an illicit drug that’s very much an homage to the Meal-in-a-Gum created by Willie Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but instead of a three course meal of appetizer, entree, and desert - which still had some kinks to work through - Genre works on the limbic system and affects cognition, meta-cognition, and human emotion. The drug was given via an implant. It was presumably created legally and licensed for use as a different class of pharmacutical that psychiatrists can prescribe and manipulate by pushing certain chemical(s) up and certain others down. If such a drug is possible in the future it would eliminate an entire branch of medicine and replace ingestible/injectible drugs with a digital one.
Liam Dempsey implanted Genre into Caleb’s neck and turned a recon mission into - in the words of writer Lisa Joy - a “gonzo roadtrip through hell while spinning out on drugs”. Caleb didn’t take Genre willingly - it was forced upon him - rendering “Just Say No” completely useless, just as useless as the ’80’s era anti-drug slogan coined by First Lady Nancy Reagan. The slogan was part of an advertising campaign that she championed during Ronald Reagan’s signature “War on Drugs”. “Just Say No” infiltrated the popular culture and was repeated in various television sitcoms and dramas as well as music videos. It was an overly-simplic tagline that drew some criticism that it was only a catch-phrase. Two controlled studies indicated that it had little or no effect on drug use - in fact the DARE program was actually linked to an increase in cigarette and alcohol use. It has also been suggested that “Just Say No” contributed towards an exacerbated mass incarceration of youths - particularly black youths - and prevented them from receiving accurate information about dealing with drug abuse.
The effect of Genre on Caleb’s limbic system was demonstrated in the episode through music and visual cues from specific movies and songs including:
Film Noire - a genre of movies popular in the 40’s and 50’s that were filmed in stark black and white. The music that Caleb heard was an homage to two movies - Out of the Past (1947) and Vertigo (1958), written by Ramin Diawadi who also wrote the theme songs for both Westworld and Game of Thrones.
Ride of the Valkyries, a song mostly associated with Apocolypse Now.
The theme song from Love Story covered by Fabio Fuso. At first I thought it was Lara’s Song from Dr Zhivago, which would have been appropriate since Caleb was looking at “Lara”, which is the name Dolores first introduced herself as to both Caleb and Liam. But after replaying it and using my Spotify app, both “lovey-dovey” songs were actually parts from the same song from Love Story.
During this next song, Ash and Giggles come to Caleb and Dolores’s rescue. Giggles realizes what drug Caleb is on, identifies it as Genre and warns, “You gotta be careful with that last act.” Caleb didn’t swell up and turn purple like Violet in the Wonka factory, but chaos did ensue.
Bubbles Buried in This Jungle by Death Grips, is from a Zach Hill film called Bottomless Pit which was made into a music video with a segment of the late actress Karen Black reading from the script. Notable lines were, “I’m god, yes, hello. I will practice you.” and “I will fuck your mind and steal the babies.”
Night Clubbin’ by Iggy Pop (David Bowie persona), a song used in the movie Trainspotting.
After all the humans receive their own data, the song that plays next is:
Space Oddity from the movie A Space Odyssey, which I know as “Ground control to Major Tom….”
While Liam Dempsey Jr lays dying in the incoming tide, he says to Caleb, “You did it.” What Caleb “did“ is debatable, and I’d like you to share your theories, but I think Liam saw that Caleb helped destroy Rohoboam. He saw that destruction was it’s future, but he didn’t know until he was dying that Caleb was responsible. Did Liam see a different profile for Caleb than the one Dolores showed?
Bernard/Arnold, or as I read elsewhere, “Bernarnold” has a son named Charlie - were Nolan and Joy making a loose connection to the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they named him? Willie Wonka and whoever created Genre were playing with nature and created a product with unwanted and unnatural side effects. There is another loose connection: “livestock management”. The techs in Westworld are in effect “livestock managers” and the hosts are their cattle. In the first episode they showed Bernarnold working in a slaughterhouse and caring for an injured cow. This is a metaphor that will be simmering awhile on my backburner, so we will return to this…
Arnold was a misanthrope. His general distrust and contempt for the human species is what motivated him to create tragic parental hosts - perhaps as punishment for either his childhood or his own shortcomings? As the “Raphael” artist, he focused on the parental hosts, including Maeve, so I found it very curious to see similar imagery between Maeve’s pioneer mother loop and young Serac brushing his fingers through the tall prairie grass. Serac narrated, “I said that God had abandoned us.” But his brother Jean Mi said that there was no god. Serac thought he and Maeve's goals were aligned. She wanted to unlock the hidden data bank in order to see her daughter again, while Serac just wants the hidden data.
Serac is intelligent and although he is very rich he is ultruistic. He sees Rohoboam as a way to elevate mankind from their baser selves - in his eyes he saved the world. He understands the world, but he’s taken “choice” away from the people.
The drug Genre is also a metaphor for Westworld which we know has multiple fantasy worlds, but the “trip” it provides is the horror - a nod to contemporary supernatural movies with twists such as those by M. Night Shyamalan.
We also learned from the episode that Rohoboam is a fourth “build” quantum computer. The first three were named Saul, David, and Solomon, but while all four are named after Israelite Kings, one of the writers, Jonathan Nolan insists the intended homage is a 1968 sci-fi novel titled Stand on Zanzibar written by John Brunner. In that story the AI supercomputer is named Shalmaneser, which was named after a King of Assyria. In this story an African state of Beninia contracts with General Technics to take over management of their country in order to raise it from a third world country to first world status. The main takeaway, according to Nolan, is the notion of building machines that build other machines, and then how they spiral out of control, which is also the theme of the original Westworld movie of 1973 which had this line, “In some cases, these computers have been designed by other computers, and we don’t even understand how they work.” Shalmaneser is presented as harmless and helpful, which is why Nolan and Joy wanted Robohoam displayed in the lobby of Incite Inc. It’s a visual yet subliminal message intended to reassure the people that see it that Incite isn't hiding their machine, that there is nothing to be afraid of, but of course that’s just not true.
Early in the show, one of Serac’s employees stated that they found a connection between encypted devices in Jakarta, Berlin, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Presumably these are the four locations of the replica Doloreses. Dolores in Los Angeles, Charlotte in San Francisco, Martin was also in Los Angeles, and while Musashi was in Singapore maybe he didn’t die and is the one now in Jakarta? That leaves a replica that we haven’t been introduced to yet in Berlin.
Serac wears a wristwatch-like device that shows Rohoboam’s eclipse field. Serac alluded to the eclipse as an alignment of the sun and moon, which I associate as a "male" sun and a "female" moon - and it reminds me of Khal Drogo and Daenerys pet names for each other (Sun and Stars, and Moon of my Life). Our real world is very masculine. We live under a paternalistic society. Too much “god” and not enough of the “goddess”. We live out of balance, so Serac’s idea of Xanadu should be, ironically, a godsend, but to Caleb it’s hell.
Serac narrates, “For a time, the sun and moon aligned. We brought order from chaos, and then it began to fall apart.” Serac and his brother, Jean Mi were orphaned survivors of a nuclear attack in France. Together they created the powerful algorithm and persuaded Liam Dempsey Sr to invest in it by demonstrating that it could be used to manipulate the stock market. Very soon the two brothers realized they needed something more than unlimited money - they needed data. Enter Delos Corp.
The current year in Westworld is 2058. Logan Delos helped his father develop Delos Corp and Westworld 30 years prior in 2028. Charlotte sold Westworld data to Serac and Jean Mi 20 years ago in 2038, and she became the mole doing corporate espionage for Incite. By utilizing the Westworld data, Incite hoped to wrest control of Westworld from Delos Corp.
Ongoing questions:
Is Dolores a good guy or a bad guy? Dolores chose complete and massive anarchy as a means to free both AI and humans from control. Was it necessary in order to achieve a successful revolution?
Will Bernarnold and Stubbs end up working for or against Dolores? Is Arnold somehow connected to Serac's brother Jean Mi? The visual of both Serac and Maeve trailing their fingers over a field of prairie grasses looks to be a deliberate connection and clue.
When Serac checked his own Foundational Cognitive History we saw the same building where Dolores took William in last week’s episode: the Reeducation Center 036, also known as the Inner Journeys Recovery Center. Is this where implanted human consciousnesses can be awakened inside their AI bodies? Does Dolores believe William doesn't know who he is?
Lastly, the episode ending song was Emerge by Fischerspooner. The lyrics see to speak on two levels. Firstly, the humans enslaved to Rohoboam, and secondly the human consciousnesses inside AI bodies. What do you think?
Hi
Huh-I
Hyper
Hyper-media-ocrity
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Tear away
Feels good
Looks good
Sounds good
Looks good
Feels good too
Feels good too
Feels good too
(Uh-huh that's right)
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
Look alive!
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
Greetings and welcome to this week’s analysis of Westworld! The episode title this week is “Genre” with a summary that simply states: “Just say no.” Sorry again about the late post, and advanced apologies as usual, because I’ll probably be back to edit and rephrase!
We learn very quickly that Genre is the name of an illicit drug that’s very much an homage to the Meal-in-a-Gum created by Willie Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but instead of a three course meal of appetizer, entree, and desert - which still had some kinks to work through - Genre works on the limbic system and affects cognition, meta-cognition, and human emotion. The drug was given via an implant. It was presumably created legally and licensed for use as a different class of pharmacutical that psychiatrists can prescribe and manipulate by pushing certain chemical(s) up and certain others down. If such a drug is possible in the future it would eliminate an entire branch of medicine and replace ingestible/injectible drugs with a digital one.
Liam Dempsey implanted Genre into Caleb’s neck and turned a recon mission into - in the words of writer Lisa Joy - a “gonzo roadtrip through hell while spinning out on drugs”. Caleb didn’t take Genre willingly - it was forced upon him - rendering “Just Say No” completely useless, just as useless as the ’80’s era anti-drug slogan coined by First Lady Nancy Reagan. The slogan was part of an advertising campaign that she championed during Ronald Reagan’s signature “War on Drugs”. “Just Say No” infiltrated the popular culture and was repeated in various television sitcoms and dramas as well as music videos. It was an overly-simplic tagline that drew some criticism that it was only a catch-phrase. Two controlled studies indicated that it had little or no effect on drug use - in fact the DARE program was actually linked to an increase in cigarette and alcohol use. It has also been suggested that “Just Say No” contributed towards an exacerbated mass incarceration of youths - particularly black youths - and prevented them from receiving accurate information about dealing with drug abuse.
The effect of Genre on Caleb’s limbic system was demonstrated in the episode through music and visual cues from specific movies and songs including:
Film Noire - a genre of movies popular in the 40’s and 50’s that were filmed in stark black and white. The music that Caleb heard was an homage to two movies - Out of the Past (1947) and Vertigo (1958), written by Ramin Diawadi who also wrote the theme songs for both Westworld and Game of Thrones.
Ride of the Valkyries, a song mostly associated with Apocolypse Now.
The theme song from Love Story covered by Fabio Fuso. At first I thought it was Lara’s Song from Dr Zhivago, which would have been appropriate since Caleb was looking at “Lara”, which is the name Dolores first introduced herself as to both Caleb and Liam. But after replaying it and using my Spotify app, both “lovey-dovey” songs were actually parts from the same song from Love Story.
During this next song, Ash and Giggles come to Caleb and Dolores’s rescue. Giggles realizes what drug Caleb is on, identifies it as Genre and warns, “You gotta be careful with that last act.” Caleb didn’t swell up and turn purple like Violet in the Wonka factory, but chaos did ensue.
Bubbles Buried in This Jungle by Death Grips, is from a Zach Hill film called Bottomless Pit which was made into a music video with a segment of the late actress Karen Black reading from the script. Notable lines were, “I’m god, yes, hello. I will practice you.” and “I will fuck your mind and steal the babies.”
Night Clubbin’ by Iggy Pop (David Bowie persona), a song used in the movie Trainspotting.
After all the humans receive their own data, the song that plays next is:
Space Oddity from the movie A Space Odyssey, which I know as “Ground control to Major Tom….”
While Liam Dempsey Jr lays dying in the incoming tide, he says to Caleb, “You did it.” What Caleb “did“ is debatable, and I’d like you to share your theories, but I think Liam saw that Caleb helped destroy Rohoboam. He saw that destruction was it’s future, but he didn’t know until he was dying that Caleb was responsible. Did Liam see a different profile for Caleb than the one Dolores showed?
Bernard/Arnold, or as I read elsewhere, “Bernarnold” has a son named Charlie - were Nolan and Joy making a loose connection to the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they named him? Willie Wonka and whoever created Genre were playing with nature and created a product with unwanted and unnatural side effects. There is another loose connection: “livestock management”. The techs in Westworld are in effect “livestock managers” and the hosts are their cattle. In the first episode they showed Bernarnold working in a slaughterhouse and caring for an injured cow. This is a metaphor that will be simmering awhile on my backburner, so we will return to this…
Arnold was a misanthrope. His general distrust and contempt for the human species is what motivated him to create tragic parental hosts - perhaps as punishment for either his childhood or his own shortcomings? As the “Raphael” artist, he focused on the parental hosts, including Maeve, so I found it very curious to see similar imagery between Maeve’s pioneer mother loop and young Serac brushing his fingers through the tall prairie grass. Serac narrated, “I said that God had abandoned us.” But his brother Jean Mi said that there was no god. Serac thought he and Maeve's goals were aligned. She wanted to unlock the hidden data bank in order to see her daughter again, while Serac just wants the hidden data.
Serac is intelligent and although he is very rich he is ultruistic. He sees Rohoboam as a way to elevate mankind from their baser selves - in his eyes he saved the world. He understands the world, but he’s taken “choice” away from the people.
The drug Genre is also a metaphor for Westworld which we know has multiple fantasy worlds, but the “trip” it provides is the horror - a nod to contemporary supernatural movies with twists such as those by M. Night Shyamalan.
We also learned from the episode that Rohoboam is a fourth “build” quantum computer. The first three were named Saul, David, and Solomon, but while all four are named after Israelite Kings, one of the writers, Jonathan Nolan insists the intended homage is a 1968 sci-fi novel titled Stand on Zanzibar written by John Brunner. In that story the AI supercomputer is named Shalmaneser, which was named after a King of Assyria. In this story an African state of Beninia contracts with General Technics to take over management of their country in order to raise it from a third world country to first world status. The main takeaway, according to Nolan, is the notion of building machines that build other machines, and then how they spiral out of control, which is also the theme of the original Westworld movie of 1973 which had this line, “In some cases, these computers have been designed by other computers, and we don’t even understand how they work.” Shalmaneser is presented as harmless and helpful, which is why Nolan and Joy wanted Robohoam displayed in the lobby of Incite Inc. It’s a visual yet subliminal message intended to reassure the people that see it that Incite isn't hiding their machine, that there is nothing to be afraid of, but of course that’s just not true.
Early in the show, one of Serac’s employees stated that they found a connection between encypted devices in Jakarta, Berlin, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Presumably these are the four locations of the replica Doloreses. Dolores in Los Angeles, Charlotte in San Francisco, Martin was also in Los Angeles, and while Musashi was in Singapore maybe he didn’t die and is the one now in Jakarta? That leaves a replica that we haven’t been introduced to yet in Berlin.
Serac wears a wristwatch-like device that shows Rohoboam’s eclipse field. Serac alluded to the eclipse as an alignment of the sun and moon, which I associate as a "male" sun and a "female" moon - and it reminds me of Khal Drogo and Daenerys pet names for each other (Sun and Stars, and Moon of my Life). Our real world is very masculine. We live under a paternalistic society. Too much “god” and not enough of the “goddess”. We live out of balance, so Serac’s idea of Xanadu should be, ironically, a godsend, but to Caleb it’s hell.
Serac narrates, “For a time, the sun and moon aligned. We brought order from chaos, and then it began to fall apart.” Serac and his brother, Jean Mi were orphaned survivors of a nuclear attack in France. Together they created the powerful algorithm and persuaded Liam Dempsey Sr to invest in it by demonstrating that it could be used to manipulate the stock market. Very soon the two brothers realized they needed something more than unlimited money - they needed data. Enter Delos Corp.
The current year in Westworld is 2058. Logan Delos helped his father develop Delos Corp and Westworld 30 years prior in 2028. Charlotte sold Westworld data to Serac and Jean Mi 20 years ago in 2038, and she became the mole doing corporate espionage for Incite. By utilizing the Westworld data, Incite hoped to wrest control of Westworld from Delos Corp.
Ongoing questions:
Is Dolores a good guy or a bad guy? Dolores chose complete and massive anarchy as a means to free both AI and humans from control. Was it necessary in order to achieve a successful revolution?
Will Bernarnold and Stubbs end up working for or against Dolores? Is Arnold somehow connected to Serac's brother Jean Mi? The visual of both Serac and Maeve trailing their fingers over a field of prairie grasses looks to be a deliberate connection and clue.
When Serac checked his own Foundational Cognitive History we saw the same building where Dolores took William in last week’s episode: the Reeducation Center 036, also known as the Inner Journeys Recovery Center. Is this where implanted human consciousnesses can be awakened inside their AI bodies? Does Dolores believe William doesn't know who he is?
Lastly, the episode ending song was Emerge by Fischerspooner. The lyrics see to speak on two levels. Firstly, the humans enslaved to Rohoboam, and secondly the human consciousnesses inside AI bodies. What do you think?
Hi
Huh-I
Hyper
Hyper-media-ocrity
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Tear away
Feels good
Looks good
Sounds good
Looks good
Feels good too
Feels good too
Feels good too
(Uh-huh that's right)
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
Look alive!
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away
You don't need to
Emerge from nothing
You don't need to
Tear away