WESTWORLD MAESTRO J. Ricardo Félix

WESTWORLD

Master Jesús Ricardo Félix

Michael Crichton's name is associated with movies like Jurassic Park, Twister, Disclosure, among others. But he was not only a renowned writer, he also directed and produced some series such as ER Emergency Room. Without neglecting his professional training as a doctor, his most successful stories revolve around science and technology but at the same time and inadvertently wanting to study human behavior. Some of his main influences recognized by him were Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and Alfred Hitchcock. Taking into account the characters that are included in the list, it is normal that he feeds his scripts under atmospheres of suspense with scientific explanations that border on fiction while he weaves the narrative thread. That is why this time we will talk about the 2016 Westworld series based on his own work made into a film in 1973.

Westworld is a science fiction story with a dystopian air that has some similarities with Jurassic Park, later I will try to clarify why I think so. Among the producers, names such as J. J. Abrams or Jonathan Nolan (brother of director Christopher Nolan) stand out. The plot revolves around a futuristic amusement park controlled by a corporation called Delos. Affluent tourists have access to this fictional world, almost like a trip to the past where they can experience life in the old west. The themes of the Middle Ages and the Roman Empire were also included in the 73 film. The hosts are androids programmed with a particular personality whose objective is to satisfy the most basic needs of the clients.

The hosts begin to present some failures or modify their programming, we do not know if caused by some technological failure or the interference of a hacker.

If we remember Asimov's first law of robotics, it tells us that "a robot will not harm a human being", in Westworld the human species is not only exposed to harm but is placed under the focus of analysis showing its selfish nature, arrogant, sadistic In the responses of some serial killers, they stated that when attacking a victim they experienced a unique sensation of power that they felt the need to repeat. At the end of the 19th century, the British Lord Acton said "Power corrupts" in the world of social sciences, an attempt has been made to answer these questions. The psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted some experiments where he tried to analyze human behavior in contexts where he was given some power or authority, the Stanford prison experiment is one of the best known and its results are not very optimistic regarding our nature.

At the beginning he mentioned that Jurassic Park and Westworld had certain similarities and that is that both are amusement parks created by man to satisfy his needs and create life as if playing god. The man's ego is blinded to the point of not perceiving the threat his Frankenstein poses to life itself. The dinosaurs show more intelligence and adaptability than their creators calculated, just like the androids who tire of the arrogance of the human species.

Definitely recommendable, tourists seek to explore new worlds, without the barrier of laws or the limit imposed by the religious morality of their original society. In the old west, we live under the Darwinian premise of the law of the strongest or the fastest to shoot. The androids begin to generate a kind of consciousness about their own existence and step after they seek to emancipate themselves from the executioner who oppresses them as slaves. There are great performances from Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood and Anthony Hopkins as one of the founding partners. In the end, one comes to ask the question: is it true that these artificial societies corrupt man or is it that they strip him naked until they show his true essence?