Did You Know: Westworld Edition

I love looking up trivia and easter eggs for movies and TV shows. I LOVE IT. Actually, that extends to pretty much anything that I get super invested in, to be honest. That being said, my current obsession is with HBO’s Westworld (I think a few of you share this sentiment…) so I decided I would compile a list of my favourite little bits of information that I’ve come across so far.

BE WARNED: some (not all) of the tidbits below CONTAIN SPOILERS. If you have not seen the series and do not want to have it ruined for you, wait until after you’ve finished Season 1.

• One thing that I was wondering throughout the entire first season was what the cost was to visit Westworld. There are numerous references to how expensive it is and how people can’t all afford to go there but they never directly reference the specific dollar amount. Well, the specific dollar amount is $40,000. And that’s not just for an all-inclusive stay, that’s a per day rate. I know that if Westworld did exist, it definitely wouldn’t be accessible for me… but maybe that’s a good thing.
• The sequel to the original Westworld film was titled Futureworld and in that movie, there’s a globe, identical to the one in the abandoned section of the facility where the “livestock” no longer in use are kept. The name of the park was Delos, which you can see on the globe if you look closely.
• Related to abandoned theme parks, I’ve been trying to deduce whether or not Jurassic Park could somehow be connected (otherwise Michael Crichton just had some seriously unresolved issues with theme parks…). In the last episode of the show, when Dolores is speaking to The Man in Black, she talks about when giants once roamed the land but now they’re just “bones and amber” which is a reference to Jurassic Park (!!!!!!!!), leading me to believe that they do exist in the same universe or timeline.



• Ben Barnes, who plays Logan, broke his foot before he arrived on set. Fearing that he would lose the job if anyone found out, he told no one and worked in a limp for his character. Once his foot was better though, he had to continue limping to maintain consistency in the show.
• Ramin Djawadi composed the saloon piano versions of songs such as “Black Hole Sun”, “Back to Black”, “Fake Plastic Trees”, and “Paint It Black” as a way of reminding the viewers that everything within Westworld is scripted. It was Jonathan Nolan’s idea to have this subtle nudge in the show.
• Quentin Tarantino was asked to be one of the showrunners for the series and declined. Honestly, I’m pretty happy about this. I like Tarantino but I think his style wouldn’t be the right fit, but that’s just my opinion.
• There are a bunch of nods to western films throughout the whole first season. For instance, the town is named Sweetwater after the farm in Once Upon a Time in the West, which is Nolan’s favourite western.



• Anthony Hopkins’ character in Westworld is named Robert Ford and if that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because it is the name of the man who assassinated Jesse James (if you aren’t familiar with history, you can think back to the movie with the longest title ever: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Or as my former HMV co-worker once put on a DVD header card: The Ass Assassin of Jesse James).
• The name Dolores comes from the Spanish “Maria de Los Dolores” which translates to Mary of the Sorrows in Latin; her name means sorrow and pain.
• The only “rule” within Westworld is that the visitors cannot be killed. We already mentioned Delos before, and within the TV series, Delos is the name of the company that runs Westworld. Delos is a Greek island that is the first known place to have “Prohibition of Death”, a political social phenomenon and taboo in which a law was passed stating that it is illegal to die.
• Bernard Lowe is an anagram for Arnold Weber… WHoooooOOOOOooA!

That’s all I have for you for now. I hope some of these Easter Eggs maybe inspire you to go looking for even MORE Easter Eggs like I did.