"What The F--- Is Wrong With Us?": Jonathan Nolan Talks About The Big Question At The Heart Of 'Westworld'

HBO started the year with the launch of an expensive, high-profile show with “Vinyl” and….well, we all saw how that turned out. (If you didn’t, it was canceled after one season). Now they are closing the year with another expensive, high-profile show in “Westworld,” and the network is likely breathing a bit easier that the early buzz on the sci-fi series is very good. And more than just spectacle, the show is bringing with it some brains.

READ MORE: Reality Is Turned Upside Down In New Trailer For HBO’s ‘Westworld’

Based on Michael Crichton‘s 1973 film, the premise finds the robots in a futuristic theme park — where you can live out your wildest, sexiest, most violent fantasies in a wild west setting with no consequences — going haywire and attacking the guests. The updated version digs a little deeper into the darkness of Crichton’s vision of humanity, that’s only glanced upon in the film, and expands it outward from there.

“The trend is toward human beings’ ability to turn more and more of their world into game space and narrative space—you’ve got peak TV, you have VR. We’re starting to ask, why are all these narratives so similar? Why are many of these narratives so violent? And the series very much asks the question: What the fuck is wrong with us?” series co-creator Jonathan Nolan told Wired.

However, exploring that subject, and depicting it on screen can wind up walking a very fine line, and there have been concerns about HBO’s tendency toward the graphic and explicit when it comes to violence and sex even though it doesn’t always serve a narrative purpose. But it’s something series co-creator Lisa Joy is aware of.

“The way we portray violence of any sort, including sexual acts, is something that we spend a lot of time talking about. With every scene, we ask ourselves: Is it integral to the story? Are we doing it in a fair way, not a gratuitous way? Of course, questions like that are subjective,” she said. “Especially with a theme park in which humans are encouraged to let their id run free, to indulge in whatever their heart desires, it felt like these were topics that we did have to touch on in order to fully explore human nature.”

Sounds like there will be a lot to discuss as the show unfolds this fall. “Westworld” debuts on October 2nd.