HBO's decision to cancel Westworld in 2022 just got even worse. The ambitious science-fiction series debuted in 2016 and had a four-season run exploring lifelike robots known as hosts and their autonomous journeys. It was inspired by Michal Crichton's 1973 Westworld movie, which also features a Wild West park where guests get to interact with the hosts, only for them to veer significantly from their intended programming.
Westworld season 4 ended with Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) setting up a test that would determine the future for all sentient life, and it was taking the show back to a simulated version of the original park. This set up a fifth and final season that would bring the series back to its season 1 roots and provide a conclusion to the intricate story. Unfortunately, this never became a reality because the show was canceled in 2022 and later removed from the HBO Max streaming service entirely.
Now, four years later, Westworld is being rebooted by Warner Bros. as a movie written by David Koepp, whose other credits include Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Steven Spielberg's upcoming science-fiction movie Disclosure Day. As frustrating as the HBO show's cancellation was four years ago, the reboot only makes it worse.
Warner Bros.' New Westworld Movie Proves HBO Was Wrong To Cancel Westworld
Westworld was already one of the most disappointing cancellations of the 2020s. Season 1 was a masterpiece and remains an all-time great season of television. While the following seasons didn't quite reach the same heights, they were still deeply compelling, featuring unparalleled performances, rich character development, genuinely shocking plot twists, epic action sequences, and a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be sentient.
What the series achieved with the journeys of Dolores, Maeve Millay (Thandiwe Newton), Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright), William/The Man in Black (Ed Harris/Jimmi Simpson), Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), Teddy Flood (James Marsden), Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul), and the rest of the characters was genuinely special and deserved a proper ending. HBO squandered the potential to build on these strengths and deliver a satisfying conclusion to the story, which is all the more baffling now that Warner Bros. is returning to the Westworld IP anyway.
This proves that Warner Bros. recognizes the enduring value of the IP, but this should have always been the case. If they had understood that value all along, Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy, and the rest of the show's creative team would have been given the opportunity to complete the story, and the show would have never been removed from HBO Max's library.
Westworld Season 5 Is Still The IP's Best Future
In 1973 for the movie and in 2016 for the show, the concept of the hosts and their evolution felt groundbreaking and original. In the decade since Westworld season 1's debut, there has been an overwhelming number of new stories about artificial intelligence, and the topic has come to inundate everyday life too. The movie reboot will have a more difficult time standing out now, especially if it returns to the IP's premise of hosts transcending their program in a Wild West park for the third time.
Regardless of what the story of the movie reboot ends up being, it will never live up to the potential of Westworld season 5. Dolores' test, returning to a simulated version of season 1's iconic setting, and deciding the future of sentient life after four seasons is still more intriguing than the idea of starting fresh, and it is different from any of the other stories about artificial intelligence that have come out in recent years.
Nolan previously shared that he hopes to finish Westworld, and stars such as Wood, Marsden, and Paul have all expressed interest in getting to return one day if possible, with the actors still wanting to know the ending and where it was all headed as much as the audience does. It could be logistically challenging, but with so many of the key creatives already invested in coming back, it would be wiser to conclude the existing story rather than starting a brand new one.
Westworld
- Release Date
- 2016 - 2022
- Network
- HBO
- Showrunner
- Jonathan Nolan, Lisa Joy
Cast
-
Dolores Abernathy -
Maeve Millay
WHERE TO WATCH
- Directors
- Fred Toye, Jennifer Getzinger, Stephen Williams, Vincenzo Natali, Craig William Macneill, Anna Foerster, Craig Zobel, Hanelle M. Culpepper, Helen Shaver, Jonny Campbell, Michelle MacLaren, Neil Marshall, Nicole Kassell, Tarik Saleh, Uta Briesewitz, Lisa Joy, Meera Menon
- Writers
- Roberto Patino, Carly Wray, Ron Fitzgerald, Daniel T. Thomsen, Karrie Crouse, Wes Humphrey
