and ex machina with sexy violent self-aware robots

That looks to me like it's just an artistic drawing of a brain to make it obvious that it's the inside of his head

i like the idea that ed harris is some high powered businessman who plays westworld as his favorite hobby, but i also like that it's ambiguous and he could end up being a self-aware host with cheat codes turned on.

i like this show

Why are there flies in the lab?

To hammer home the foreshadowing that the hosts couldn't even hurt a fly.

I understand, but still.

By the way, I think the MIB is connected to something in the past. Right after his scene with Dolores where he says he's been there for 30 years, they cut to the lab. They discuss a problem and mention there has not been a critical failure in 30 years.

You gotta let the fly thing happen as a dramatic device (just having it on epilepsy guy and the end wouldn't have made it land). That's a not a good nit. Also remember that's probably an added Viz Effect. If they added more in, it's because the idea was too subtle to read, and believe me they hit it just on the hard side of not subtle. It's not heavy handed foreshadowing, but it's certainly heavily emphasized to make sure the ending lands perfectly (which I think it did).

The problem about the 30 year thing is that we don't know how long the "park" has been open. I would assume (probably wrongly), that they started it 30 years ago, and it was just quirky writing for it to come across as something may have happened longer than 30 years ago. They said Dolores is the oldest one, but I don't think they said her exact "age".

The movie came out in 1973, so if they're nodding at all to the movie's malfunctions then surely the park's been around even longer than 30 years. If this is a pure reboot, then that doesn't (or at least shouldn't) come into play.

I'm thinking the "30 years from last critical failure" has to do directly with the MIB. Maybe he was a host that found a way to break off the grid; or a guest that was involved in something. The fact "30 years" was reference in two sequential scenes in the manner it was has to mean something.

### also, I get the dramatic device with the fly. I was mostly observing that there wouldn't be any flies in such a sterile environment.

Okay, I'm going to take you down a slightly sinister path I just thought of about the fly.

1. What if the fly is intentionally there as a stress test for the robots (making sure they couldn't even harm a fly)?

2. What if Dr. Ford has created a fly to test the creations' reactions to the fly? He'll know his "free will" side of the coin for the robots (if that is his plan, and I think it's plausible that it is) would be working if he saw the fly get killed.

I think number 2 is going too far at this stage, but I think 1 is plausible. I don't think we're looking at a John Stone foot situation here, but I do think it's possible there could be more to the fly than just foreshadowing. I don't think there needs to be anything more than foreshadowing for the fly, but Nolan is a high concept guy who puts a lot of layers in his stuff. So you can't put it past him.

Never watched the movie or read anything about westworld.
After watching the 1st episode, I'm wondering if 'hosts' are used in the society at large. (All the visitors seem taken back by them) If not, the technology and AI would be incredibly valuable and give MIB a motive. Also explains a corporate angle to the show.

As with all things, them as weapons most likely is the big picture.

i took that to mean that WestWorld has only been open for 30 years. if anthony hopkins designed these things, i doubt he was younger than 30 when he did, so add a few years to build the park and he's now about 70, right? or was anthony hopkins just a guy who got a job at the park and now is the boss?

Is it in a dome or structure? Can they control weather?

SA, he invented the technology, and is probably kept around (the bosses probably hate him) for his finessing of that technology toward the real (the Jeffrey Wright character clearly doesn't have as much skill as he does as a programmer). I don't think they've told us much more about Dr. Ford than that.

I don't see any reason they would need to use real ammo.
surely with the advanced tech they have they can create fake ammo that has the desired effect on hosts without posing any danger to guests.


as to the fly in the lab I agree with nunn that it's there intentionally.

agreed.

I think this is where a certain amount of suspension of disbelief has to occur with the show. I think the show (in theory of the show, not necessarily in the actual universe of the show) is laid out like a video game, where everything is pre-programmed based on certain actions happening. If player 1 presses A x happens, if they press B y happens. I think they showed that very well in the first episode (with the can, and different outcomes). The problem is that a certain amount seems improvised, and can be improvised (such as the "deputy" guest shooting the two hosts in an unexpected way). So, I don't think you can realistically answer the question about live ammo at this time. The hosts seem to have guts, and that stuff can be manipulated in a lot of different ways, meaning it's not pre-planned squibs.

Since we're being shown a "real" looking world, it's harder to "believe" the video game type scripted aspects of the programming of the world. For the characters, sure it's easy to get there, but stuff like the can always dropping the same way is "harder" to get to suspension of disbelief. Nolan's other show required a pretty big suspension of disbelief as well, but once you did, it was top notch. It's not hard for me to get past these sorts of issues on this show, but the more you think about them the more it becomes difficult to suspend certain aspects of disbelief.

What I don't get is that the park is shown as a small thing inside a room. But close to the end the woman is talking to the writer of the hosts and they are on what seems like the roof of the place. But to get there, first they show the park and then the camera goes up, like the park is the same size as the lab and it's just down the cliff. I really need to watch that again.

One thing that confused me - is every day the same story (with different possibilities) or are there some longer stories? From Marsden and Wood it would seem the former, but then the script writer talks about how he forced the bad guy to come to town earlier than planned - so it would seem like that was a multi-day plot (I assume this is the same bad guy the sheriff was forming the hunting party to go after).

I always thought the small thing was like a model or a 3D hologram imagae

I have t seen the movie or read any previews, but I immediately assumed something was up with the assistant, and by the end i was 95% sure she was a host.

I am hving a hard time grasping the logistics of how the game works. Seems like the mib took the dealer host and was gone for at least a day, wouldn't they realize that at the HQ?

Both good points. I agree the flies had to be there intentionally given the location.

A fly is a living thing and she killed it

Or it was a robot fly and she killed a non living thing

I guess it has two meanings, but I never saw it as her killing something. During the whole episode you can see flies on people's eyeballs. they didn't do a thing because since they aren't human that didn't annoy them. if the flies are created just like the horses, then I think they can get killed as well.

Kansas, the fly was a huge plot point. Throughout the episode, we were told the hosts couldn't even hurt a fly. The last shot is her killing a fly. It signified a major change in the host, a major malfunction from what they were intended to do. There's no double meaning from that.

Editing to add that the Sheriff probably melted down because he wanted to kill the fly, but couldn't physically do it.