Westworld has heavily teased the introduction of other parks since the season one finale, with viewers getting a sneak peek at some Samurai hosts. Since then, it's been confirmed that a Japanese-themed park is one of Delos' other destinations and that we'll even get to visit Shogun World this season.
Creators and writer-producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy recently talked with Entertainment Weekly to give us some more details on Shogun World, and how much of the new park we can expect to see this season. Nolan said:
We want to try and gently temper expectations. Most of our season is spent in Westworld — the eponymous Westworld. But we do get a chance to glimpse some of the other worlds. And we have a couple of episodes that are spent in Shogun World with one of our storylines, while our other storylines continue elsewhere. So I say we’re trying to temper expectations, except to say that I think the stuff we did for Shogun World is spectacular.
The show is, after all, called Westworld, and since we haven't gotten a good look at Shogun World in any of the trailers for season 2, this doesn't come as a surprise. However, the scenes that do take place inside the samurai-filled park sound pretty thrilling.
Shogun World has been billed as even more violent than Westworld, and Nolan explains that this was drawn from the Japanese films he and his brothers watched growing up:
In addition to (Akira) Kurosawa films, which are plenty bloody, I grew up watching the Sonny Chiba films — those are the ones Tarantino is riffing on in his films with the superfluidity of gore and mayhem; this sense of an alternately brutal and beautiful world that raises the volume on what the guests might be looking for. It wasn’t just about gore, it’s also about being immersive. We wanted to feel like our story dropped into a totally different world. Basically, we have a whole episode in Japanese.
Joy said that the films she watched growing up in Asia also influenced their approach to Shogun World, saying:
You saw new talents with the actors, new fighting styles, new types of wardrobe. It was exhilarating to me. So we looked to all our [department heads] to make sure we had the full thrill of exploring Shogun World
Westworld returns April 22.
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