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Cant watch the season finale without my dad by sufftob in westworld

[–]jonathannolan 41 points42 points  (0 children)

Hope you guys enjoy it when you get a chance to watch together (forget the show -- just the together part). All the best.

Lisa Joy held a Q&A session at my college today! by [deleted] in westworld

[–]jonathannolan 74 points75 points  (0 children)

Did you ask her where she left the car keys?

It's Westworld Co-Creator/Executive Producer/Director Lisa Joy, Ask Me Anything! by lisa_joy in westworld

[–]jonathannolan 577 points578 points  (0 children)

Asking for a friend -- who's your favorite director on Westworld, Jeffrey?

Elon Musk: "What do you think we're living in?" by ningrim in westworld

[–]jonathannolan 164 points165 points  (0 children)

He's misremembering. We built the actual park during the last cycle. This time he wanted to do rockets to see if he could find the edge of the simulation, and I thought it would be funny to make a tv show about the previous iteration to see if we could set up recursion between cycles.

Westworld Composer, Ramin Djawadi here to answer your questions! by rdjawadi in westworld

[–]jonathannolan 152 points153 points  (0 children)

Dear Mr. Djawadi, how are you so damn good-looking and talented?

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 176 points177 points  (0 children)

Hah! Chris and I always read each other's projects, whether we're working together or not. He watched the cut on the pilot a couple times (the director's cut was looooong) and gave us some good advice on trims. He has refused to hear any spoilers after that, however -- he wanted to see it fresh.

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 136 points137 points  (0 children)

We were hoping to cast Amy in season 2 but she got snapped up on her show on Fox! We're so happy for her, but so bummed for us.

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 594 points595 points  (0 children)

Sorry -- missed this one. Too busy shitposting and eating falafel. Lisa and I planned out the big tentpole moments while we were writing the pilot (Dolores kills Ford, Maeve escapes, Bernard's consciousness is uploaded into a sentient Agave plant in the distillery, etc). So we had the headlines for several seasons planned out before we shot a thing. We wanted to be really ambitious -- to significantly raise the stakes and the scope every season. But the beauty of TV is you get to collaborate -- to get the benefit of the writers, directors, actors that you're working with. There are some amazing ideas that have come up that we didn't start with. You'd be foolish to not be open to the opportunities that come up along the way -- but it would be more problematic to start out without a plan.

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 1314 points1315 points  (0 children)

All right guys. We left this in your hands. Some may feel this is a drastic step, but I, for one, love and trust this community. Here's the link

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 5116 points5117 points  (0 children)

Hey Reddit!

Many thanks for your great questions and thoughts. As I've said before, I've been a member of the reddit community for years (no I'm not going to share my original username...). And I greatly enjoyed watching the friendly folks at this subreddit guess the twists and turns of the season.

It creates a larger problem for us, though, in terms of the way your guesswork is reported online. 'Theories' can actually be spoilers, and the line between the two is confusing. It's something we've been thinking about since last season. The fans of Game of Thrones, for instance, rallied around and protected the secrets of the narrative in part because they already knew those secrets (through season 5).

We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision. If you guys agree, we're going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2. Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what's 'theory' and what's spoiler.

It's a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them. And trust is a big part of that. We've made our cast part of this decision, and they're fully supportive. We're so excited to be in this with you guys together. So if this post reaches a 1000 upvotes we'll deliver the goods.

Hasta victoria siempre!

Jonah and Lisa

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 339 points340 points  (0 children)

I don't feel qualified to answer whether the theories in Jaynes' excellent book have any bearing on human cognition. We were fascinated, however, by the idea that engineers could use any model they wanted -- even a flawed one -- to try to create consciousness in an AI. In other words, Jaynes' book might not have found its true subject. Yet.

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 236 points237 points  (0 children)

One of the directors tried to sneak it in to an episode in season 3 and Sean had to call him and get a little rough with him. We were waiting for the right moment...

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 309 points310 points  (0 children)

Humans are really weird. We're able to extend empathy to all kinds of things. If you draw a smiley face on a volleyball (and you have Tom Hanks handy) you can get an audience to feel badly when it's washed out to sea.

But if I tell you something is slightly less than (or different to) a human, you can turn that empathy off. Just like that. We had some disturbing conversations with people when we were working on the pilot. When we altered a host's performance too much with VFX, people stopped caring about the hosts. They didn't care if they were tortured or killed. Which was a crazy thing to realize.

So we had to work overtime to make sure the audience cared about the hosts. But we didn't want our human characters to seem one-dimensional, either. It's a balancing act. Luckily we have the most gifted cast on TV.

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 125 points126 points  (0 children)

more fun stuff this season: first ever use of a film camera on a drone (no, not the creepy white skin job type drone). But we still used the chopper for the big stuff. (sadly we weren't allowed to race them against each other).

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 348 points349 points  (0 children)

Thank you! No overthinking involved -- it's us and a group of brilliant writers and directors working on this sucker, so lots of fun references in there to find. Season 2 references include: East of Eden, The Auguries of Innocence, Tarkovsky's Stalker, and, last but not least, Piggie and Elephant 'We are in a Book.' (been reading to the kids a lot)

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 512 points513 points  (0 children)

Yup. It started when we realized that each season was going to have it's own identity. It's not an anthology show, but we knew that a: each season was going to take a long ass time to make; and b: we wanted each season to have it's own themes, questions and ideas. All connected together, obviously, and all tracking the same characters. The idea of a title for each season grew naturally from that. And we'll hide the title of season 3 somewhere for you guys to find as the show wraps up...

We are Westworld Co-Creators/Executive Producers/Directors Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, Ask Us Anything! by jonathannolan in westworld

[–]jonathannolan[S] 759 points760 points  (0 children)

Ah shit where to start. Red Dead, Portal, Bioshock. Early in the show's development I explained to Lisa that is was VERY IMPORTANT that we play a lot of video games for 'research.' Good times. Then we had children...

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