At a panel on robots and murderers at SxSW 2016, J.J. Abrams premiered a new sizzle reel for the upcoming HBO remake of the Michael Crichton movie Westworld . The terribly silly idea—a theme park of robot cowboys (and Romans and sex stuff and whatever else you want) fulfills your adventure fantasies, until they go haywire and start killing the guests—is starting to look like something special.
For now the footage is exclusive to SxSW attendees, so here’s a description of what’s in store.
The new sizzle reel opens in a control room, as robot arms wheel out a half-formed humanoid robot posed like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. In case that heavy visual symbolism wasn’t enough to convince you that the new Westworld is aiming for some big, existential themes, Strauss’ Blue Danube waltz plays, stealing some of that ol’ 2001: A Space Odyssey profundity.
Anthony Hopkins, as Dr. Robert Ford, is overseeing his creations. Artificial muscles are painted on the body, the face still a skull with dead eyes. Elsewhere in the lab cowboy robots in glass boxes test out their gunslinging. Robot buffalo pace in circles. Two executives check out a model western landscape.
Then we’re out in the desert, the Westworld dream brought to life.
“So our creatures have been misbehaving. Do you think it’s sabotage? Do you imagine someone’s been diddling with our creations?”
That’s the cue for some serious violence. A Native American-bot scalps a woman. Blood splatters across the ribbon of a player piano. A bleeding woman in a glass box begs for her life. James Marsden mans a Civil War era machine gun, bloodlust in his eyes.
“You practice witchcraft. We speak the right words and we create life itself out of chaos,” Ford says. “ You can’t play god without being acquainted with the devil.”
Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Welcome to #Westworld. Coming 2016 on @HBO.https://t.co/xnywA8yGtG
— Westworld (@WestworldHBO) August 10, 2015
The show was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, with Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions producing. “It’s one of the more exciting projects I’ve ever had the luck to be a part of,” J.J. said. “It’s very much about consciousness.”
Describe Westworld and it sounds mighty silly, but the footage shown at SxSW was engrossing. Westworld doesn’t have a release date yet. It’s even been delayed a few times to work on the scripts. Hopefully that extra work will pay off when we get the chance to finally see Westworld in its entirety.
