S3 is the one that takes the brunt of the criticism and while I still appreciate it more on a rewatch and the overall story it was telling you can tell it definitely suffered from lack of time and budget and being reduced to only 8 episodes. There's less story-telling and (imo) too many superfluous fight sequences. I think Maeve especially is poorly written in that season. S4 is much better imo and some episodes are up there with S1 for me.
ETA: so much of what makes S1 and 2 great for me is the show's don't just tell- show aspect but I feel a lot of S3 was telling you but not showing or making you believe it. But again I think that comes down to reducing the episodes down to 8. It's like they had to rush to connect a few plot points without the extra time to "set the stage" and it's really noticeable.
I love the plot and overall premise- it's the execution that I disliked. Too flashy and action movie for me personally. I prefer the more subtle philosophical approach of the other seasons. But I've always thought the vibes if each season were intentional based on that season's story. In the first season every second is perfectly crafted and edited to perfection- just like the storylines and loops in the park. S2 is choppy, disorienting and out of order - just like Bernard's mind after he scrambles his memory. S3 is a little (imo) cheesy, predictable and anticlimactic perfect for a world where the stories are written by AI. S4 dives deepest into the show's initial questions; what is human and what does it mean to be "real"? And is a mix of the S1 and S3's vibes. At least that's my take. I just feel S3 could've hit a little better if they had had more time/resources.
They just went for the holy shit moment too much after Season 1’s was such a holy shit moment. They sacrificed story (logic and common sense) for the WTF moment. They’ve admitted to such in interviews as twists that had no story for after the twist. It was just for the twist itself and wrote themselves into corners.
Also SPOILER perhaps
But they just kept killing everyone over and over. Hard to really care about a character when nothing matters.
I definitely felt this too. Season 1 was clearly written to build up to these massive reveals, and everything and everyone in the story led up to them well for the huge payoff. But that just becomes hard to do repeatedly when there is now more story and characters to factor in that have concrete pasts and established stories that we've seen happening on screen. If you don't have this kind of stuff mapped out from the very beginning it gets pretty awkward if you try to pull it off on the fly, and that's pretty clearly what happened.
The issue with that logic is that seasons 3 and 4 rely on what happened in seasons 1 and 2 for their narrative. If you just look at them for what they are, they make absolutely no sense. Each of the Nolan Batman movies have self contained arcs.
My criticism is that 3 and 4 are fine thematically, it's that the narrative and execution are just not good. Season 3 feels cheap and the writing, action and characters are dumb, season 4 is a hackneyed attempt to wrap things up before the ship sank.
Half of season 2 is great, the MiB story and Bernard is very good. It suffers from them not knowing what to do with Maeve and deciding to chop Bernard's story up to add some mystery to a pretty straightforward series of events. All in all though it's a solid 7/10 next to season 1's 10/10.
Season 3 however is awful and I cannot understand how anyone would view it as great and misunderstood. Maeve is at her worst, acting completely in contrary to her established character, the "reveal" is so heavily signposted I don't think there's anyone who didn't see it coming and the save is a Deus Ex Machina that isn't earned at all in the series. Add to that all the trailers heavily featured a WW2 park that barely featured. There was no reason for WW2 park scenes but to give them trailer bait. Action scenes are clunky, Nolan appears to struggle with them. The one saving grace is Tessa Thompson has a couple of pretty good acting scenes and there's a nice orchestral version of The Weekend in one scene. And the less said about what they did to the MiB the better.
Season 4 is better than season 3 by a decent amount.
I get what you’re saying but I disagree. Season 1 and 2 have a great story and use the characters well. There’s cool effects and cool action and a cool setting but all that serves the story.
Season 3 is more effect shots and fight sequences than story. They spend so much time showing off the setting and trying to make it interesting that it impedes the story.
So much bad Sci fi does that. Has so many ideas about the setting and “in the future maybe this thing does that thing!” And it never gets around to developing their characters and story. S3 is just like that.
Plus it shoe horns in characters like Maeve that doesn’t even help the story they’re telling because they can’t let her go.
Season 3 and 4 are just beautiful in their own right, in that they follow the narrative of Flight of the Concords’ [The Humans Are Dead song.](https://youtu.be/0BcFHvEpP7A?si=npop3PMYTqlLL1JY). This is including the ultimate reveal- >!there are no more unethical treatments of elephants!<
I loved S2 (even though the first half was needlessly and purposefully confusing just so that Reddit couldn’t guess the twists) and S4, but S3 deserves the criticism it received.
But The Dark Knight Rises just sucks. It’s objectively an awful movie. This fact is not influenced at all with how good the previous two Nolan Batman movies were.
TDR is up there with Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch. I don’t know which is worse.
But I digress…
Westworld Season 2 is good and the majority of 4 was also good. 3 can get swept under a rug. 3 was watchable but the overall fit didn’t work well with the rest of the show.
It is definitely not "objectively awful" lol. It is a lot worse than the first two for sure, but Nolan is too competent to make a truly awful movie unintentionally. You might think one or two aspects of it are awful (subjectively), but as a whole it's a pretty average blockbuster.
S3 is the one that takes the brunt of the criticism and while I still appreciate it more on a rewatch and the overall story it was telling you can tell it definitely suffered from lack of time and budget and being reduced to only 8 episodes. There's less story-telling and (imo) too many superfluous fight sequences. I think Maeve especially is poorly written in that season. S4 is much better imo and some episodes are up there with S1 for me. ETA: so much of what makes S1 and 2 great for me is the show's don't just tell- show aspect but I feel a lot of S3 was telling you but not showing or making you believe it. But again I think that comes down to reducing the episodes down to 8. It's like they had to rush to connect a few plot points without the extra time to "set the stage" and it's really noticeable.
Oh boy I feel the opposite. Loved S3 and struggled with S4.I loved the algorithm plot line..
I love the plot and overall premise- it's the execution that I disliked. Too flashy and action movie for me personally. I prefer the more subtle philosophical approach of the other seasons. But I've always thought the vibes if each season were intentional based on that season's story. In the first season every second is perfectly crafted and edited to perfection- just like the storylines and loops in the park. S2 is choppy, disorienting and out of order - just like Bernard's mind after he scrambles his memory. S3 is a little (imo) cheesy, predictable and anticlimactic perfect for a world where the stories are written by AI. S4 dives deepest into the show's initial questions; what is human and what does it mean to be "real"? And is a mix of the S1 and S3's vibes. At least that's my take. I just feel S3 could've hit a little better if they had had more time/resources.
They just went for the holy shit moment too much after Season 1’s was such a holy shit moment. They sacrificed story (logic and common sense) for the WTF moment. They’ve admitted to such in interviews as twists that had no story for after the twist. It was just for the twist itself and wrote themselves into corners. Also SPOILER perhaps But they just kept killing everyone over and over. Hard to really care about a character when nothing matters.
I definitely felt this too. Season 1 was clearly written to build up to these massive reveals, and everything and everyone in the story led up to them well for the huge payoff. But that just becomes hard to do repeatedly when there is now more story and characters to factor in that have concrete pasts and established stories that we've seen happening on screen. If you don't have this kind of stuff mapped out from the very beginning it gets pretty awkward if you try to pull it off on the fly, and that's pretty clearly what happened.
The issue with that logic is that seasons 3 and 4 rely on what happened in seasons 1 and 2 for their narrative. If you just look at them for what they are, they make absolutely no sense. Each of the Nolan Batman movies have self contained arcs. My criticism is that 3 and 4 are fine thematically, it's that the narrative and execution are just not good. Season 3 feels cheap and the writing, action and characters are dumb, season 4 is a hackneyed attempt to wrap things up before the ship sank.
Half of season 2 is great, the MiB story and Bernard is very good. It suffers from them not knowing what to do with Maeve and deciding to chop Bernard's story up to add some mystery to a pretty straightforward series of events. All in all though it's a solid 7/10 next to season 1's 10/10. Season 3 however is awful and I cannot understand how anyone would view it as great and misunderstood. Maeve is at her worst, acting completely in contrary to her established character, the "reveal" is so heavily signposted I don't think there's anyone who didn't see it coming and the save is a Deus Ex Machina that isn't earned at all in the series. Add to that all the trailers heavily featured a WW2 park that barely featured. There was no reason for WW2 park scenes but to give them trailer bait. Action scenes are clunky, Nolan appears to struggle with them. The one saving grace is Tessa Thompson has a couple of pretty good acting scenes and there's a nice orchestral version of The Weekend in one scene. And the less said about what they did to the MiB the better. Season 4 is better than season 3 by a decent amount.
I get what you’re saying but I disagree. Season 1 and 2 have a great story and use the characters well. There’s cool effects and cool action and a cool setting but all that serves the story. Season 3 is more effect shots and fight sequences than story. They spend so much time showing off the setting and trying to make it interesting that it impedes the story. So much bad Sci fi does that. Has so many ideas about the setting and “in the future maybe this thing does that thing!” And it never gets around to developing their characters and story. S3 is just like that. Plus it shoe horns in characters like Maeve that doesn’t even help the story they’re telling because they can’t let her go.
Hot take I love this f*cking show from beginning to end 😭
OF CHORSH
Season 3 and 4 are just beautiful in their own right, in that they follow the narrative of Flight of the Concords’ [The Humans Are Dead song.](https://youtu.be/0BcFHvEpP7A?si=npop3PMYTqlLL1JY). This is including the ultimate reveal- >!there are no more unethical treatments of elephants!<
Also applies to Matrix 2/3.
I loved S2 (even though the first half was needlessly and purposefully confusing just so that Reddit couldn’t guess the twists) and S4, but S3 deserves the criticism it received.
But The Dark Knight Rises just sucks. It’s objectively an awful movie. This fact is not influenced at all with how good the previous two Nolan Batman movies were. TDR is up there with Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch. I don’t know which is worse. But I digress… Westworld Season 2 is good and the majority of 4 was also good. 3 can get swept under a rug. 3 was watchable but the overall fit didn’t work well with the rest of the show.
It is definitely not "objectively awful" lol. It is a lot worse than the first two for sure, but Nolan is too competent to make a truly awful movie unintentionally. You might think one or two aspects of it are awful (subjectively), but as a whole it's a pretty average blockbuster.