Westworld Season 2 Trailer Thoughts

Note: Obvious spoilers for season one. I don’t underestimate people’s stupidity.

Jonathan Nolan might be another sibling who lives in the shadow of their older brother. However, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his own impressive wealth of talent and achievements. Prior to adapting Westworld (based on the 1973 film). Jonathan created the short story that led to Memento. He also co-wrote most of Christopher Nolan’s films, including The Prestige, The Dark Knight trilogy and Interstellar. Alongside his wife, Lisa Joy, Jonathan also brought us one of the best series of 2016. The second season is set to premiere in less than a month and this trailer will make that month pass by slowly.

Side note, I always found it interesting that the author of Jurassic World, Michael Chrichton previously created another work about a theme park where the guests end up threatened by the attractions. Both Westworld and Jurassic Park analyze the hubris of humans and the consequences of meddling with technology beyond our understanding.

The music from Westworld’s first season was actually one of my highlights. The opening credits are one of the few ones I always watch. While the visuals are arresting, the music is what I remember better. Ramin Djawadi helps to bring the show to life, just like he did with his score for Game of Thrones. The music in this trailer ended up being the highlight for me as well, with Djawadi’s orchestral version of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box”.

Last season ended on what many people might call a cliffhanger, with the hosts apparently primed for war. This second trailer shows us that wasn’t a bait and switch. Most of the footage we see are the hosts fighting against military forces trying to threaten their sanctuary. Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) appears to have a key role in the revolution, along with Teddy (James Marsden). Meanwhile, Maeve (Thandie Newton) is still deadset on finding her daughter. Am I the only one that thought she should have just stayed on the train last season? Anyway, last season ended with her getting a map to other worlds hidden within the park, including Shogun world. It will be interesting to get some deviation from the Western-themed park that dominated the first season. Maeve’s story also brings back Hector, who was one of my favourite characters from the first season.

In this trailer, and some promotional pictures, we actually see a host-in-progress attacking someone. By host-in-progress I mean the hosts who have not yet had skin dye grafted on. They are just the white shells that all the extra features are molded over.

I am interested most in seeing where William a.k.a The Man in Black goes from this point on. He says he wants to burn the whole place down and I am curious to see exactly what he does to reach that point. There are promotional stills and shots in the trailer where we see the older version of William (Ed Harris) speaking with Dorothy. It looks like they may be allies for some point in the story, at least until they draw closer to their respective goals.

It looks like there is more world-building to be done, but the second season still looks like it will offer a more explosive season than the last. However, I am sure there will also be plenty to digest in terms of character development and the philosophical questions that always accompany shows that revolve around the idea of consciousness.