Rebel Moon, Part 2: The Robot and the Freshness

Just saw Rebel Moon, Part 2, on Netflix the other night.  I enjoyed it.  For some reason, my favorite character was the robot, JC-1435, aka James or Jimmy.

I'm not sure what that says about this second part of the movie (which, based on the ending, may well be the beginning of a series of two-part or one-part movies in a saga that now feels to me much more like Dune than Star Wars).  Maybe it's the antlers on Jimmy's head.  Maybe it's the voice -- you can't go wrong with Anthony Hopkins doing the voicing of anything.  But all in all, James conveyed a sensitivity that's rarely seen in robots or androids in movies or TV series, and which in its own way had a subtlety that even Data in Star Trek: TNG seldom quite achieved.

The battles were good and exciting, strong edge-of-your seat stuff.  The villains, however, often verged on cartoonish.   The heroes had more subtlety, and maybe that's because there were more of them than the villains.  I won't warn you about spoilers, because there won't be anything specific in this review, but I will say that this part of the movie which I hope will be a series concluded with fewer heroes than it had at the beginning.

Yeah, I hope we'll see more.  I like looking at the state of the human species at times like these, when we've gone way out into the cosmos, and met other intelligent beings, some of them now deadly foes, others of them loyal friends.  The problem with both Star Wars and Dune, and we can add Foundation to this list,  is that if we've done any reading or watching, we already know who the major characters are and who they will be.  Sometimes we even care about them so much, we don't like it if they're substantially changed in the new treatment (or at least, I feel that way).  But Rebel Moon, even though it deals with very well worn tropes, has a winning freshness and relevance to it.  The heroes in Rebel Moon, when they're not fighting Nazis, are harvesting grain.  Just like they do in Ukraine.

And that's why I'm totally aboard to see more.

See also: Red Moon, Part 1: Galactic Heroes and Villains

Westworld Season 1 Finale: Answers and Questions

Here's what we learned in the excellent season 1 finale of Westworld, and the possible questions raised:

1. The Man in Black is the new majority owner of Westworld.

2. The Man in Black is William, much older.  This is one of the first fine twists - a sequence of turns and revelations of events that cut deep.   What we've been seeing of Dolores during these ten episodes are not just skips and jumps and loops in her mind, but time itself chopped up, that is, earlier and more recent events in her life.   Meaning, regarding William, that every scene we've seen with him happened in the pretty distant past - i.e., decades ago.  Nice touch.

3. Dolores dying in Teddy's arms by the sea is actually the entree to the new narrative Ford has been promising.  I actually realized this a few moments before it was revealed, but it was still memorable to see.

4. Maeve, despite her best efforts, was never going to leave Westworld.  I was actually thinking this, too - the essence of Westworld is that, like the Hotel California, you can check in if you're a host (be created), but you can never leave.  But the pursuit of her daughter being the reason is an effective touch - because, after all, not only does love conquer all, but it's an all powerful component of what makes us human.

5. The path towards consciousness is knowing thyself.  In the Jaynesian bicameral mind - at least, as portrayed in Westworld - this means one half of your brain listening to the other.   Two millennia prior to Jaynes, Socrates urged the same thing: know thyself.   This makes Westworld not only Jaynesian but Socratic, a very good thing in my book.

6. I never bought that Socrates drank the hemlock, though (and my best-known novel tries  to explain what may really have happened back then) - but, with that in mind, I wasn't happy to see Dolores blow out Ford's brains at the end, just as she had done years earlier with Arnold (even though suffering that real-guilt pain is said to be only way she can achieve true consciousness).

And here's is where some questions for the next season come in.  Will Anthony Hopkins return next year as a Ford-host by whatever name, just as Arnold did with Bernard?  Hard to say, since Ford is not around any more to build a new version of him, just as Ford did with Bernard - and Arnold.  On the other hand, Bernard is no slouch, and he may indeed have the capability (and his success in recreating Ford would also be another testament to Ford's as well as Arnold's genius, since Ford built Bernard).  I certainly hope we see Ford again in some form, given the tour-de-force just wonderful performance this year by Hopkins (one of the best of his long and superb career, I'd say).

Also not 100% clear is what happened to the Man in Black aka old-William at the end.  Was that attacking force of (presumably) hosts armed with weapons that could kill him?  Maybe, probably, since it takes real death for the hosts to learn ... but you never know.

Anyway, this was the best television series ever about androids, and one of the best ever of science fiction, periods.  Kudos to all the writers, producers, actors and actresses, and HBO.  I learned a lot as well as enjoyed this series - and the only deaths I had to deal with regarding Westworld were those on the screen.

See also Westworld 1.1: Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick Served Up by Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and J. J. Abrams ... Westworld 1.2: Who Is the Man in Black? ... Westworld 1.3: Julian Jaynes and Arnold ... Westworld 1.4: Vacation, Connie Francis, and Kurt Vonnegut ... Westworld 1.5: The Voice Inside Dolores ... Westworld 1.6: Programmed Unprogramming ... Westworld 1.7: The Story of the Story ... Westworld 1.8: Memories ... Westworld 1.9: Half-Truths and Old Friends

 
another kind of capital punishment

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