‘Westworld’ Spoilers: Show Designer Explains The Opening Title Sequence

The opening title sequence for HBO’s new sci-fi series “Westworld” is both mesmerizing and haunting, and it will definitely draw in audiences to the production of robotic hosts.

Show designer Patrick Clair told Vulture that opening title sequences are distinct for each show. For “Westworld,” he wanted to take an explicit approach and condense the show’s own design elements.

“By the time I came on the show, they had already created the most beautiful and poetic version of creating robots that I could imagine,” he said. “I could have abstracted that, but when I looked at the hosts inside the show, and the beautiful white translucent liquid, I thought the process itself seemed very poetic as it was, so instead of trying to represent that in an abstract way, I wanted to use the same design elements, the same robot arms, the same way the people turn in the circle.”

But while doing that, Clair was careful not to just pull off scenes from the show. So they used white translucent liquid to bathe the robots in order to give the opening sequence some dramatic flair.

“We never gave it a name, but I found it one of the things that was most aesthetically exciting,” Clair shared. “The footage already existed of them filming with this milky, glue-like, white substance, and it struck me as a fantastic juxtaposition to the dirty, dusty Wild West. Two completely different genres: this industrial, clean, robotic sci-fi with its geometric circles and squares, and then this really rich heritage of the Wild West and cowboy dramas — dirty, dusty, gun-slinging, hard-drinking, pioneer storytelling. And we combine them.”

Earlier, show creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy told Collider that the Western theme park is the “ultimate playground” for them because it enabled them to deal with questions about artificial and human intelligence, as well as human behavior.

“Westworld” premiered on HBO on Sunday, Oct. 2 at 9 p.m. ET, reported Variety. It stars Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and Thandie Newton, among many others.