Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Westworld: Season Three Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 13, 2020

What's in a name? Fans of Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie may be acquainted with another of Barrie’s stage successes which went on to enjoy several film (and television) adaptations, The Admirable Crichton. What some may not know is that there was an actual, honest to goodness real life person who had earned that nickname centuries before the Barrie play co-opted it. James Crichton was a 16th century genius whose interests were so varied and far reaching that they became the stuff of legend even before he was murdered (possibly by the son of his patron) at the tender age of 22. For those of you who put stock in things like surnames, another Crichton, Michael, would seem to be a spiritual if not actual relative of James, since Michael, too, was a genius with interests that spanned a huge gamut of subjects and whose multimedia achievements would certainly qualify as being admirable. Among Crichton’s protean accomplishments were any number of novels that combined science fact with science fiction, often in a context of mystery and intrigue, including such well remembered works as The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, and probably most famously Jurassic Park. Crichton’s overwhelming success with The Andromeda Strain most likely helped grease the wheels for a rather audacious debut as a writer and director for film with Westworld in 1973, in a story that actually presaged at least some salient plot points of Jurassic Park, including a high tech amusement emporium where technology most definitely goes awry. Westworld was followed three years later by Futureworld (which did not have the imprimatur of Crichton). Though few may remember it, this HBO Westworld was not the first television adaptation and/or continuation of the stories told in Westworld and Futureworld, as there was a very short lived television series called Beyond Westworld which ran for only three episodes on CBS in 1980 before it was quickly canceled (kind of incredibly, Warner Archive has released Beyond Westworld: The Complete Series on DVD).

Westworld jumps into its third season without missing a beat from the second season’s wrap up, though the first episode is intentionally disjunctive as it picks up the wending tale of Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood), who has escaped from the park and is “out and about” in the real world (and in fact one of the interesting things about this season is how it's not necessarily confined to any of the park areas, though there are storylines that take place there, as discussed below). That narrative is repeatedly interrupted with what initially seems to be the unconnected tale of a human (we think, anyway, at least for now) named Caleb Nichols (Aaron Paul), an ex-GI haunted by post traumatic stress disorder who works construction but who also utilizes an app called RICO which offers him “side employment” as a petty criminal. While it takes the rest of the episode to “get there”, ultimately Dolores and Caleb meet, in a moment that is probably a deliberate throwback to another moment with Dolores.

If Dolores and Caleb are one ostensible couple in this season, there’s arguably at least one other, namely Maeve Millay (Thandie Newton) and Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel), though in this particular instance it takes a while for that to be completely revealed. If co-creator and at least occasional co-writer Jonathan Nolan is justly celebrated for having provided the story for his brother Christopher’s memorable (sorry) Memento, Maeve’s story this season is positively Inception-esque, with the same kind of “Russian nesting doll” (ostensible) realities courtesy of the fact that the character experiences repeated “reawakenings”. One of these offers the most “traditional” theme park aspects as Maeve is stuck in a World War II Italy environment being overrun by the Germans. But those “reawakenings” ultimately bring her into contact with Serrac. As with some previous seasons’ stylistic gambits, there are some aspect ratio changes to 2.39:1 which alert the perspicacious viewer to the fact that some things may be “simulations”.

The third major subplot for this season involves the interlinked stories of Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) and William (Ed Harris), and I guess these two might be thought of as a third couple even if their characters aren’t in constant interaction. There’s also a kind of Inception like aspect to William’s tale, with the character trying to sort out what’s real and what isn’t in much same way Maeve is. Finally, Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) in what I might term any number of “versions” is connected to several of the already mentioned plot strands.

This brief summary barely hints at the novelistic approach Westworld takes this season, and if the third year isn’t quite the “mind ****” that the second season was, it’s rather brilliantly developed. Occasionally the writing can lapse into metaphysical clichés (is there free will? what does destiny mean?, etc.), but the series’ undeniable style and often astounding special effects certainly help it elide its occasionally silly moments.

Westworld: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Westworld: Season Three: The New World is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of HBO and Warner Brothers Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.78:1 (as mentioned above, some moments, often involving Maeve, shift into a 2.39:1 aspect ratio). While the majority of this season was shot on good old fashioned film, location shooting in nighttime or dimly lit environments necessitated some digital capture this year, as is mentioned in this interview with cinematographer Paul Cameron I found while doing background research for this review. This is another really stunning looking season on Blu-ray, one that benefits from some incredible practical locations in places like Spain and Singapore. Real life futuristic environments are blended seamlessly with some rather nicely detailed looking CGI to offer some evocative visions of mid-21st century life. Fine detail is perhaps most expressive, though, in the practical elements like some of the stonework in the Spanish village filling in for Italy in some of the World War II material. There are a number of interesting grading choices made throughout the season, with blues, greens and teals especially prevalent, but what's commendable about these stylistic flourishes is how they rarely if ever materially affect detail levels.

Westworld: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Westworld Season Three: The New World has an excellent DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that I'm "cheating" a little on by assigning a 4.5 rather than a 5.0, so that I have a bit of "wiggle room" for the 4K UHD's Atmos presentation, which does offer some regular engagement of Atmos channels. Otherwise, though, this surround track is consistently immersive, both in the expected action sequences, but just generally with regard to a lot of both the futuristic environments, where things like zooming "airpods" pan convincingly, or even some of the World War II material, where sounds of battle can echo in both the side and rear channels. LFE is frequently mixed rather evocatively with lower score choices. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and when various episodes veer into non-English territory, subtitles appear automatically, but there are optional English subtitles (in addition to other languages) available for the presentation as a whole.

Westworld: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Escape from Westworld (1080p; 1:53) is a brief overview of the season.


• Creating Westworld's Reality are behind the scenes making of featurettes for episodes on this disc:

  Parce Domine (1080p; 6:36)

  
  

  The Winter Line (1080p; 7:18)

  
  

  The Absence of Field (1080p; 6:05)

• Exploring Warworld (1080p 3:56) looks at the World War II sequences.

Disc Two

• Creating Westworld's Reality are behind the scenes making of featurettes for episodes on this disc:

  Genre (1080p; 3:54)

  
  

  Decoherence (1080p; 4:48)

Disc Three

• We Live in a Technocracy (1080p; 13:44) is a pretty brainy exploration of things like data mining and algorithmic determinism, featuring Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.


• A Vision for the Future (1080p; 14:09) looks at production design.


• RICO: Crime and the Gig Economy (1080p; 7:07) is a kind of fun exploration of the supposed app.


• Westworld on Location (1080p; 11:20) profiles some of the shoots in Spain and Singapore.


• Welcome to Westworld offers an assortment of kind of fun if not necessarily deep conversations between pairs of actors:

  Evan Rachel Wood and Aaron Paul - Analysis (1080p; 3:46)

  
  

  Evan Rachel Wood and Aaron Paul - Who Said It? (1080p; 3:43)

  
  

  Thandie Newton and Tessa Thompson - Analysis (1080p; 3:22)

  
  

  Thandie Newton and Tessa Thompson - Who Said It? (1080p; 2:57)

• Creating Westworld's Reality are behind the scenes making of featurettes for episodes on this disc:

  Passed Pawn (1080p; 4:09)

  
  

  Crisis Theory (1080p; 9:03)

Westworld: Season Three Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Westworld continues to surprise, and if this season doesn't quite have the mindbending qualities of the second season, it's still a multilayered trek through both reality and illusion, with a nice helping of metaphysics as everything from consciousness to predestination gets explored. Performances continue to be involving, and the series has one of the more elegant aesthetic sensibilities of anything on either broadcast or cable television right now. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package very enjoyable. Highly recommended.