Game of Thrones season 7 ended last August. Game of Thrones season 8 won’t start until sometime next year. Fans need something to plug the vast empty hole in their souls, and their schedules. Westworld, another high-end HBO drama, could fit the bill.
Westworld is about a futuristic theme park populated with advanced robots called hosts. When season 1 ended, the hosts had risen up against the human guests, and all hell was breaking loose. Obviously, this is a science fiction show, but at the end of the day, it’s an action-packed thrill ride driven by a gripping narrative, morally ambiguous characters, and tremendous special effects. In other words, it features a lot of the same things that have made Game of Thrones so popular.
Westworld season 2 premieres on Sunday, April 22, in the same slot new episodes of Game of Thrones usually occupy. Why should Thrones fans hop aboard this train? Let’s take a look.
Ramin Djawadi composes music for both shows
Here’s an obvious one. Westworld and Game of Thrones share a composer: Ramin Djawadi, who rose to prominence by writing instantly recognizable songs like the Game of Thrones opening theme:
Djawadi’s writing for Westworld is different — he uses fewer strings and more synthesized instruments, for one, and Game of Thrones certainly never featured a player piano arrangement of “Black Hole Sun.” But Djawadi writes music on Westworld with just as much craft and love as he does for Thrones, and shows the same flair for setting different moods, from wistful to epic to eerie. Even the show’s haunting opening theme, while not as famous as the one for Game of Thrones, is well on its way to becoming iconic:
An excellent soundtrack can turn a good show into a great one. Westworld’s soundtrack is in excellent hands.
Game of Thrones and Westworld both take place in fantastical, richly imagined worlds
Westworld is a science fiction show and Game of Thrones a fantasy show, but they’re both genre entertainment, and as such, take place in imagined worlds. A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin is famous for his detailed world-building. Westeros is chock-full of invented cities, tows and castles, each with their own rich history. Westworld isn’t quite there yet, having only been around for a year, but it’s on its way. The park itself is full of interesting places, from the bucolic burg of Sweetwater to the decadent border town of Pariah, with the Mesa Hub hanging over all. And in season 2, it looks like things will expand into a whole new park: Shogun World. How big is this world going to get?
Then there’s the important role of history in building a world. On Game of Thrones, the events of the story proper are heavily influenced by things that happened years before the first episode, including Jaime Lannister’s murder of King Aerys, Rhaegar Targaryen’s secret marriage to Lyanna Stark, and many more. We don’t see those events happen in real time, but they shape the story nonetheless.
The past plays an important role in Westworld, too. Knowing what transpired between Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) and his deceased partner Arnold when they were building the park in their youth is hugely important to understanding what happens to it in the present day.
In short, the worlds of both Game of Thrones and Westworld have texture and weight. George R.R. Martin even pitched the idea of “Westerosworld” to the show’s creators, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. And while we’re probably never gonna see that, it’s good to know he appreciates the place.
These shows cost a lot of money and look really freaking good
People tune in to Game of Thrones mainly for the characters and the story. But let’s be honest: it helps that the show is gobsmackingly gorgeous. The same is true of Westworld. Just look at the beautiful shot of Dolores and William above, compared to the shot of Jaime and Bronn below. Whether it’s Spain, Northern Ireland or the American west, HBO goes all in on location shooting for its prize shows.
Like Game of Thrones, Westworld also sports impeccable costume and set design, although it’s in a very different milieu. With a trip to Shogun World on the horizon, we’re excited to see what else the Westworld costume team can come up with.
Game of Thrones has become justly famed for its special effects-heavy, budget-busting action set pieces, from the Massacre at Hardhome to the Loot Train Attack. Although Westworld has had some very impressive action photography, as a show just entering its second season, it hasn’t gotten around to doing anything quite on that scale. However, because it’s set in a science fiction world, it can use special effects to bring us sights we’d never see on Game of Thrones, like this horror from the uncanny valley:
The budget for Game of Thrones grew as it went on. If Westworld follows suit, we shudder to think what sights it could show us down the line.
Both shows explore the hazy boundaries between good and evil
Game of Thrones features a rich roster of characters who have done terrible things — the Hound, Cersei, Daenerys — but with whom we still sympathize to varying degrees. That’s because, in Westeros, the line between good and bad, and right and wrong, isn’t always clear. So it on that show, so it is on this one.
Example: In Game of Thrones, Jaime Lannister starts out the series as a villain best known for pushing a child out a window in an attempt to kill him. Now, after we learned more about what drives him, he’s a popular character, even though the good he’s done hasn’t blotted out the bad. In Westworld, we meet a character named the Man in Black (Ed Harris) as he does unspeakable things to hosts in the park. He’s a villain, right down to his black hat. But over the course of the first season, we see how he got to where it is, and even though he’s a long way from being sympathetic, we understand him more than we did at first, and are compelled to see more.
Knotty questions of morality are the bread and butter of both Game of Thrones and Westworld. Take a bite.
Like Game of Thrones, Westworld has multiple storylines that add up to more than the sum of their parts
Westworld — the park, not the show — is run by a massive company called Delos Incorporated. In the first season, they rule over the park without opposition, but there’s plenty of struggle at the top. Dr. Robert Ford, one of the park’s creators, is trying to hold on to power, but faces opposition from unruly employees like writer Lee Sizemore and quality assurance head Theresa Cullen, and even the Delos board, which wants to phase him out. Throughout season 1, we see the top brass implode with infighting, backstabbing, actual murder, and the rise of a new queen in Delos executive director Charlotte Hale. Just another day in King’s Landing.
Westworld is also similar to Thrones in that this political infighting is only one strand in a vast tapestry. While Ford struggles to hold on to power, a host named Maeve (Thandie Newton) begins to remember things she shouldn’t, a man named William and his brother-in-law-to-be Logan sample what the park has to offer, and the Man in Black continues to torment hosts for reasons unknown.
And like in Game of Thrones, if the people at the top had spent more time paying attention to these smaller stories rather than fighting each other, perhaps they could have averted the Red Wedding-like catastrophe at the end of season 1, when the hosts begin to realize who they are and turn on their human masters. It’s like if Game of Thrones were told from the perspective of the White Walkers.
All those stories will continue when Westworld season 2 kicks off on April 22, on HBO. It’s not Thrones, but it’s a thrilling, eminently bingeable series that offers many of the same delights, violent and otherwise.
Next: Season 8 filming: A giant crossbow shows up at Titanic Studios
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