Mal

There was a lot in this movie that did not make sense. Some of the confusion was definite. The droids' definitely ability to think were obvious from scenes like the boarding house dining room scene and the saloon scene with the prostitutes so what was surprising that they could rebel? Let me sum up a quote from a review on this movie in an old movie book. "Uneven, disappointing future schlock". Now I see all that is uneven but what is disappointing? The fact that Anne Belamy ( that beautiful, interesting mature lady on the plane) had sadly little to do in the film and we got to see almost zero of her sexy adventures in Roman World? That could've been and is one big disappointment right there. I mentioned this before see my reviews!

Maybe the robot woman in the dungeon was damaged and was on the verge of glitching out anyway? We don't know that the robots ever have independent thought, we do know they're programmed to behave a certain way. The lady running the hotel is only focused on running the hotel, the sheriff is there to enforce the law, the prostitutes stick to their obvious purpose, the gunslinger is there to start fights, the Black Knight serves a similar purpose in Medieval World, and Daphne the serving wench was supposed to be a sexbot but malfunctioned.

My issues are with the guarantees of safety (the way the technicians react to the snakebite reaffirms injuries are rare) when you have explosives, the ability to fall off a horse, barroom brawls, and bladed weapons in Roman and Medieval World. As far as the heat sensors on the guns go, you'd still have ricochets, hearing loss, bullets fired into the air dropping back to earth, and the possibility the heat sensors wouldn't detect someone behind a wall or beyond a certain range... and why would the androids need live rounds? Why is the gunslinger's revolver powered by a battery? Where did the guests and robots all disappear to? Why did the technicians have electronically controlled doors that would suffocate them if they ever broke? Why would they put the gunslinger back in Westworld to challenge the same guest again the day after he "killed" it? His continued presence alone would damage the immersion. In the park's scenario, the gunslinger comes after Peter in the hotel supposedly as revenge for being killed the day before, and this act is not considered a malfunction within the movie. It's a shame the film has so many holes in it, because it's a good premise.

@Quincey_Morris said:

Maybe the robot woman in the dungeon was damaged and was on the verge of glitching out anyway? We don't know that the robots ever have independent thought, we do know they're programmed to behave a certain way. The lady running the hotel is only focused on running the hotel, the sheriff is there to enforce the law, the prostitutes stick to their obvious purpose, the gunslinger is there to start fights, the Black Knight serves a similar purpose in Medieval World, and Daphne the serving wench was supposed to be a sexbot but malfunctioned.

My issues are with the guarantees of safety (the way the technicians react to the snakebite reaffirms injuries are rare) when you have explosives, the ability to fall off a horse, barroom brawls, and bladed weapons in Roman and Medieval World. As far as the heat sensors on the guns go, you'd still have ricochets, hearing loss, bullets fired into the air dropping back to earth, and the possibility the heat sensors wouldn't detect someone behind a wall or beyond a certain range... and why would the androids need live rounds? Why is the gunslinger's revolver powered by a battery? Where did the guests and robots all disappear to? Why did the technicians have electronically controlled doors that would suffocate them if they ever broke? Why would they put the gunslinger back in Westworld to challenge the same guest again the day after he "killed" it? His continued presence alone would damage the immersion. In the park's scenario, the gunslinger comes after Peter in the hotel supposedly as revenge for being killed the day before, and this act is not considered a malfunction within the movie. It's a shame the film has so many holes in it, because it's a good premise.

Uh no. The lady robot reacted John's politeness in particular. She thought to say what she said to him. Bullets did not ricochet.

The robots were clearly outright thinkers. What was the Sheriff robot possibly thinking when he asked arrested John where he was from. John said Chicago and the robot answered back that Chicago was a long way off. Was the robot imagining 19th century Chicago? John obviously meant 20th century Chicago. So intriguing a thought for us to ponder.

Computer games 35 years ago were preprogrammed for different scenarios, Westworld would be no different. A certain action prompts a certain response. The robots are simply preprogrammed to be able to interact with guests. Chicago's location hasn't changed. If John said "Tucson," the sheriff would have simply answered differently, saying "mighty pretty country" or something appropriate to the situation.

Why do you think the bullets couldn't ricochet? If a guest shot a rock at an odd angle, what would keep it from careening in another direction? I'm a certified firearms specialist, a projectile traveling at 860 fps wouldn't just come to a complete stop without something to stop it.

The bricks from the exploded jail would not hit humans.

The guns were made not to be too loud. What disappeared guests are you talking about? In Medieval World ?--they were simply elsewhere. Since the gunslinger robot was getting rogue he may have stole a gun he was not supposed to. He rode a robotic horse he may not have supposed to.

You are missing one fundamental, Quincy. The droids could indeed think. That was totally painfully obvious over and over. The moral of the movie is do not destroy thinking beings-- even if the being is not human and does not have a God-given soul. The humans thought they had all the advantages over the robots and the former believed themselves more important in God's eyes ( see my postings).They were half right they were more important spiritually. But that was not an excuse to pick on and attack on these unfortunate droids that indeed had the power of thought also.

@tmdb43737777 said:

Early in film Gunslinger drinks a liquid, presumably whiskey, with no problems. About 01:24:00 we see a woman in a dungeon being forced to drink water by Richard Benjamin's character and her electronics shorting out as a result.

Why would she malfunction and not Gunslinger who did basically the same thing?

Possible the robot in the saloon was served some sort of lubricating fluid?

How do you know the bricks "wouldn't" hit humans? Or splinters of wood for that matter? They were using real dynamite. I'm not saying the people who could make a robot theme park couldn't engineer quieter revolvers, but there's no evidence they did. They sound just as loud as any other movie gunshot.

When Peter and John wake up after the barroom brawl there are no other guests or robots in Westworld, save the gunslinger. No bodies, nothing. The robots have no more individual thought than Siri or Amazon Alexa, the ability to answer questions doesn't change that. As for picking on and attacking "thinking beings," the gunslinger's purpose was to start confrontations with guests, he wasn't even going against his programming, he was just more efficient than he should have been. He had no character growth like the robots in the series did.

Michael Crichton said the moral was about corporate greed, even if the movie itself makes more of a point about over-reliance on technology with the park's finances only getting a brief mention during a meeting. He wrote and directed it, so I'm thinking he decided to attach that "corporate greed" message after production. An ongoing computer virus that affected everything from mechanical doors, to air-conditioning, to the guns' sensors, to robots (including ones resembling animals) was the cause of the chaos, not the robots becoming sentient and seeking revenge.