‘Westworld’ Season 4 on HBO: Producer Alison Schapker opens up about 7-year time jump in new season
Finally, for all the ardent sci-fi drama fans, the highly anticipated and much talked about ‘Westworld’ Season 4 premiered globally a day back on June 26, 2022, on HBO. The show is based on an iconic 1973 movie and is created and conceptualized by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The current season is going to comprise of eight episodes and packs loads of drama and action alongside the nuanced emotional undertones and struggles of the characters that will make fans get hooked to their screens.
Not many know this but ever since its inception back in 2016, apart from creating its own fanbase across the globe and garnering applauds, the HBO series has received 9 Primetime Emmy Awards, including an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for Thandiwe Newton in 2018.
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The fourth season picks up seven years after the end of season 3, and has been described as a "dark odyssey about the fate of sentient life on Earth.”
We saw how season three of ‘Westworld’ ended, that moment when Caleb, Maeve and Wood’s previous character Dolores ends up completely destroying and causing irreparable damage to the AI system that had kept humanity on a pre-destined path. Whilst fans wanted to actually watch this revolution unfold itself completely, ‘Westworld’ co-creator Lisa Joy spilled beans on why this was something which she wasn’t interested in.
‘Westworld’ Season 4 is set seven years post the gruesome events of Season 3, wherein we all see that with the revolution complete, humanity is no longer a slave to Rehoboam which was created by Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel) in the series.
Rehoboam was an artificial intelligence (AI) system that did foresee the future of humanity. It also went to the extent of literally controlling every person’s life like deciding the apt and exact type of decisions each individual would make and had also proved that free will was a myth at least till the moment when Dolores, Caleb and Maeve finally came into the picture and helped to stop it.
Whilst Season 3 of Westworld took place in neo-Los Angeles 2053, Season 4 is set approximately in the year 2060.
In her recent interview with Newsweek, co-creator Lisa Joy who created this series alongside her husband Jonathan Nolan explained how some might have focused more on the immediate effects of an event like this, she personally felt it would have been too overwhelming and opening up on same, she said, “Well, you know, for a lot of people, the big war season would be really a big focus for it. But, for me, war is the most basic form of tragedy, there is no sense to it. It's just horrible, do you know what I mean? There's nothing, there's not much that you can explore beyond how devastating it is and how sad it is that people get to that point, you know, how tragic it is for all the lives lost. And what concerns me is the legacy of war, what do we learn from it? How do we survive it?”.
She also shared, “Because throughout history, these cycles of violence continue, and continue, and continue, you know? That desire to fight that tribalism seems somehow hardcoded into human nature. And I didn't want Westworld to be like a sports spectacle, like watching who's gonna kick whose ass right, I wanted to explore the aftermath of, and the very real costs and effects, of war”.
Furthermore, Westworld executive producer Alison Schapker sharing the reason for the time jump in ‘Westworld’ season 4 adds, “Well, I think that Jonathan and Lisa very much have a vision for each season and where they want to be putting the emphasis, and I think that last season, in Season 3, it really built this almost battle against this algorithmic control of Rehoboam. And, in some ways, that was never going to be over with just, you know, one Gambit, like the Genie was too far out of the bottle."
She also added, “So, I think that that's definitely where they wanted it to begin, and then the other thing I would just say is I really think thematically we wanted to explore. If we can't go back to just a human species if hosts are going to persist in this new paradigm, what could that relationship be?. And can hosts ever overcome their origins?"
‘Westworld’ Season 4 also stars Jeffrey Wright, Ed Harris, Luke Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Angela Sarafyan, and Aaron Paul. It has globally premiered on June 26, 2022, on HBO and airs every Sunday on HBO at 9 pm ET. Episodes will be available to stream on HBO Max.
Trailer
The official trailer for the series is out, you can also watch it here.