I recently watched the HBO remake of Westworld.
For starters, I remember watching the original movie on TeeVee as a kid back in the 1970s. Yul Brynner as the gunslinger-gone-haywire was pretty scary, but the torture chamber in Medieval World gave me nightmares.
The remake was interesting in a number of ways. First off, they start with an interrogation of one of the robot 'hosts', asking the question: "Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?" What a trance-inducing question that is! Listen for it in my next video ;-)
I noticed a lot of therapy-like interactions between the technicians and the 'hosts'. By the end of the 10th episode I was convinced the writers are intimately familiar with hypnotherapy. Age regression, deepening, awakening, and attitude adjustment suggestions must have inspired many of the scenes.
While the shows were entertaining, and interesting, the extreme violence and depravity was shocking. Admittedly, the premise invites violence and deviant behavior, but what is acceptable to portray on HBO seems to be limitless.
Given that the 'hosts' are not human, does it matter that they are raped, tortured and slaughtered for entertainment? They have human shapes, and they behave like humans, so I think yes, it does. Westworld is mind control programming which pushes the viewer's anchor points out past what is acceptable in a civilized society.
