Westworld producer compares the series to video games like Grand Theft Auto

Tomorrow, HBO will be airing the series premiere for a television adaptation of the film, Westworld. The arrival of Westworld is actually pretty timely as the show takes place in a virtual reality western themed amusement park which is looked after by robot-esque characters. Anyone can visit and do whatever they please and there are absolutely no consequences to anything they do, allowing attendees to live out their darkest fantasies.

One could compare this premise to a game like Grand Theft Auto where players enter a life like replica of an iconic city in modern day America and are allowed to do as they please. Steal exotic vehicles, commit murder, rob banks, and much more. You can do all these things that are considered pretty heinous in real life with very little consequences in the video game. Producer Jonathan Nolan would agree pretty heavily with that comparison.

"When people play Grand Theft Auto, they don't think about the moral repercussions of what they're doing," Nolan said. "So one of the questions the show asks is, as you approach consciousness within these creatures, what is the point at which you start to feel bad? You don't feel bad when you turn the phone off and the Pokemon disappear. You don't feel bad when you turn off the Xbox and those characters go away."

"In the most sophisticated and immersive RPGs, you can be completely immersed in the narrative. A huge amount of effort goes into creating non-player characters in these video games, and that's really what our hosts are; they're non-player characters. At what point does that line blur? We loved approaching artificial intelligence from that perspective, of how it creeps in. You arrive at this moment in which it gets really complicated."

Nolan noted that the series doesn't aim to really glorify the violent and sexual fantasies that people wish to live out, but rather pose a few questions. "If you created a universe where there are no apparent consequences, how far would you go?"

"In the games that we play, the movies that we watch, violence is a common feature of everything you're looking at," he said. "We wanted to get underneath that and find out why people come to this park in the first place. So there is a fair amount in the series of exploring that question. We've tried to do it in a way that's tasteful and compelling as possible."

If you don't have anything filling that Sunday night Game of Thrones timeslot anymore, Westworld will air Sunday nights on HBO at 9PM ET starting tomorrow, October 2nd.

[EW]