Shogun world
love it. Maeve's quest is always the most interesting out of all
shareYeah, this is really cool. I guess now we know Westworld and Samurai/Shogun World are side by side on the island. You'd think there would be a proper border or barrier or something though, right, to prevent not only guests but malfunctioning hosts from stepping into the wrong area of play.
shareI don't' think hosts are allowed that far near the border between worlds, but yeah you would think some sort of (natural) brier would make sense, Indian safari world was separated from Westworld by a lake? i think.
shareOnce upon a time, there almost certainly were digital barricades in place, just like there was code preventing Hosts from seeing modern objects and certain structures. Those days are gone.
SPOILER The Shogun’s decapitation was the most savage, brutal and hands-on personal act of wrath and violence that I think I have ever seen in a work of fictional entertainment, more than anything that was on Spartacus, Banshee or Game of Thrones. (I won’t watch torture porn, so maybe there are worse examples in that genre.) I didn’t find it gratuitous in the least. It was a perfect summary of the ferocity of the Shogunate era—and delivered by Akane, a WOMAN, a beautiful, graceful geisha (which means artist), who laid low and humiliated the Shogun himself. The writers have done their homework. I am a student, and former teacher, of Samurai sword, and I am impressed with the details in Shogunworld. For example, the ronin whom Akane hired is Mushashi, the most revered samurai of them all, Mushashi Myamoto (Americans would call him Myamoto Mushashi), who, in his most celebrated combat, defeated his enemy by using a wood sword he had carved out of a boat oar! The depiction of the ninja was also accurate, and not the cartoony-superhero way ninja are normally portrayed. A ninja is an assassin, not a warrior. He kills by stealth, cunning and treachery, and lacks honor. We saw Mushashi simultaneously dispatch three ninja, drawn out into the open, without him breaking a sweat. I can barely wait to see more of Shogunworld; but I think the wait will be worth it.
Yeah it's hard to believe that Mr. Kinney's death in the hit 1987 movie RoboCop was so controversial, and now we have Geisha killing Shogun sawing head off deaths as mainstream now. I just hope kids aren't watching this stuff, or we're all fracked when they reach adulthood.
shareThis execution struck me as being much more realistic than anything that I saw in Robocop. It clearly took a lot of effort, fueled by passion, to cut his head off. It wasn’t glamorous at all, certainly not a celebration of violence. I share your concern about its popular influence, but I think it looked like too much work to appeal to a Millenial.
I completely agree with you that we are a world that is increasingly desensitized. What was shocking in 1987 is perceived as mundane in 2018. That doesn’t say anything good about our species or our culture. We pursue sensation, and gleefully abandon sense; and also abandon self-respect, dignity, courtesy, the Social Contract, class and respect for others. That is one of the raisions d’etre of Westworld and the other parks. As Black William recently said, “That’s why [this] place exists. They wanted a place hidden from God, a place where they could sin in peace.”
And some people claim the writing this season is inferior to its predecessor . . . .
That wasn't a cold blooded display of cruelty for its own sake. You had an enraged mother, striking back at the man who killed her daughter. One of the few things that could make the most laid back and peaceful of us commit the most violent acts imaginable. She doesn't realize yet that her daughter can be miraculously resurrected, if they carry her to the nearest Delos pit stop. The crazy shogun only ran her through. Fairly superficial damage for a host.
Actually, after years of talking about kids and violent shows/games you know what they've found? People are only desensitized to TV and video game violence - not the real thing. In other words what's actually happening is that the human brain learns to distinguish the two and dials down its reaction to fake violence. Your response to it starts to resemble any other exciting and engaging stimulus, rather than the trauma triggered by genuine violence. We don't program by repetition. Monkey see, monkey do. Our minds are more sophisticated than that. So all the hand wringing over kids and teenagers playing violent games and watching violent shows is as misguided as it is well-intentioned. A lot of people have been worried for nothing. In order to get the feared result you would have to accustom your children to real people being tortured and killed before their eyes.
Chris, I hope you didn’t get the impression that I thought there was anything cold-blooded about Akane’s impassioned assault on the insane Shogun. I am also aware of the studies you cite, and see the sense of them. My point is that I’ve lived long enough to know for a fact that our world has become ever more rude, crude, mean, self-centered and unaware the more time pssses. I don’t know why; I just know that it’s fact.
Some thoughts on episode 2.5: the tune playing as Maeve and her captured entourage enter the Shogunworld version of Sweetwater is The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black, orchestral edition. And, did anyone else notice that, at the very end of the episode’s closing credits, that it was a Japanese shamisen (three-stringed guitar-like instrument, a Geisha’s go-to musical instrument) playing the opening notes of As Time Goes By when the Warner Brothers logo flashed on the screen? Truly great projects pay great attention to detail. This is a great project.
It was a nearly exact recreation of the heist from season 1, when Hector and his gang robbed Maeve and stole the safe. Pretty much scene for scene. Someone should do a split screen video with the two heists side-by-side. Even the soundtrack was the same.
It was amusing when Lee admitted that he may have copied a few things from Westworld - "you try coming up with 300 narratives in three weeks", or whatever his exact words were. I found it interesting that Armistice (Hector's tattooed partner) and her double seemed fascinated with one another whereas Hector didn't like or trust his.
Well, you know, testosterone.
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