Several years before The Matrix, Ex Machina, Morgan, I, Robot, The Terminator and many others taught us all that artificially intelligent robots can never be trusted, the late Michael Cricthon and Yul Brenner taught the same lesson with Westworld. That movie came out in 1973, but ambitious movie scientists have been making the same mistake over and over since.
Enter HBO’s television adaptation of the Westworld film, where the robots featured in this 90-second “teaser” appear to be even smarter and creepier than their homicidal 1973 counterparts. When an android says that its drive is to”meet [its] maker” and then laughs in the face of Anthony Hopkins, you should deactivate it immediately. Behead it. Burn it to ashes and then scatter those ashes in three separate rivers. Basically treat it like a vampire, one of those evil old school vampires of 16th century peasant lore.
This series has struggled to make it to the screen, going through developmental and production issues that have resulted in production being halted and its debut being pushed back more than once. But while it was once thought it wouldn’t come to HBO until 2017, this trailer promises a premier in October of this year. With a very strong cast and a renewed spin on a premise that seemingly never gets old, this certainly has potential to be the latest great HBO series.
