Westworld: Seasons 1-2 [DVD] [2018]

Stellar performances from Hopkins, Harris, Wood, Newton and some others make this a very watchable series. Hopkins plays one of the original creators of the robots/hosts (as their job is to entertain the guests) along with his partner Arnold who died some years ago in mysterious circumstances. Harris is one of the major shareholders who often visit the theme park to discover, like many others, who he really is. Wood and Newton are two of the robots assigned a set of story-lines and dialogue in their interactions that they have to constantly repeat if they die in game loops. The main focus is on the 'western' park but there are others.Season 1Clearly made complete as one story as they probably didn’t know whether a 2nd season would be commissioned or not. This first part is really about the rise to consciousness of the robots/hosts through understanding the maze of memories they hold within them which have previously been erased every time they die. This was always the original creators’ goal to make them fully sentient beings. An update program called ‘Reverie’ allows such access them if they choose through awareness. Those that do so come to see how they are enslaved by the humans and want to fight back.This season is overall very nearly excellent apart from the repetition of scenes to emphasise the game loops the characters have which does get a bit tedious.Season 2Depicts the battle between the newly awakened robots/hosts against their human oppressors and also reveals that every guest who comes to the park is also being scanned and monitored at all times in order to build up a database on them to replicate them in the future for profit. In other words, so their minds could be transferred to a host to achieve eternal life. This season is somewhat spoiled though by the constant flashbacks many characters have which make the story-line overly convoluted and muddled as though the writers really didn’t know where exactly to go with the plot.Still watchable but very flawed and not as good as season 1 where they probably should have left it alone.

Season one is brilliant, season 2 gets better. I now have Season 3.You will by the end question reality, what's now, what's past and what is real.The acting is sublime (never get to say that word much), Anthony Hopkins is awesome. There are some familiar faces and actors/actresses I've never heard of, but I was addicted from start to end of S2, bought S3, which I'm watching after a short break. I NEEDED to know what happened and how it ended.Worth the money, packaged well, prime next day delivery. Enjoy.P.s. I loved the old film too!

The second season disc are the same as season one

Love this series, arrived quick and in one piece as well thanks

I enjoy and take a great interest in science fiction. This series is interesting. However, the amount of violence that it shows seems unwarranted, unjustified. Furthermore, much of the violence is especially callous, especially cold-blooded. After a season and a half, I had had enough. It seems to me that to enjoy watching this series, one has to become somewhat desensitized. I had moral qualms about becoming callous, and I do not think that I am squeamish.

A good box set to binge, although the second series has a lot of padding and doesn't particularly make sense

Difficult to honestly rate this as the dialogue is difficult to follow. By this I mean that when played through a two channel set-up the speech really is reduced to a mumble at times.I have experienced this before with transfers that do not offer the option of simple two channel delivery on the disc menu. Some decode better than others but this one is quite poor. If you have a Dolby multi-channel receiver it may well be brilliant.Once the sound has been compromised it makes following the complex (preposterous?) plot line in Season Two near impossible. By way of example Bernard's speech is barely audible at times (almost as if there is no microphone in use, rather than for dramatic effect).I tried to get through four episodes before giving up. Indeed from what is admittedly haphazard viewing I thought Season Two to be monumental tosh. The clever plot lines from Season One have been replaced largely by people on horses doing a lot of shooting, some chase scenes involving running away from 'savages' that seem strangely unable to catch up, and the interior sets now look like something from early Blake's Seven. There may be a central plot but my limited viewing revealed four discernible plot-like strands and these were a largely incoherent jumble.There is a great review entitled 'Westworld' Season 2: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of HBO's Sci-Fi Western on the Forbes website which captures just how difficult it is to create a convincing Season Two. Be warned, it reveals the ending should you really want to watch that far.

Decided to buy this after seeing the original movie. Speedy delivery. Great series, have already ordered s3.