6) It’s An Intoxicating Blend of Influences
We tend to like our viewing to easily slip into nicely labelled boxes, but from the off Westworld sets itself up as something different – a show that unashamedly throws various genres and influences into the melting pot.
On the surface, of course, it’s clearly a blend of science fiction and westerns. In the first episode alone, for instance, we get all the intellectual thrills of the danger of technology going wrong as well as the visual excitement of shoot outs at dawn and a darkly-dressed stranger riding in from the desert. There’s also a third element added in, too – the conspiracy thriller, coincidentally most popular in the 1970s from which the story originally hails. In Westworld, we don’t really know what anyone is up to and who can be trusted.
In terms of specific influences, Jonathan Nolan’s hand is clear and there’s a touch of the work of his brother Christopher to the proceedings as well. If you can imagine Groundhog Day rebooted as an Inception style sci-fi thriller, then you have something approximating Westworld.