HBO has a new show with a high budget, so of course it will be getting a lot of attention, but Westworld, a dark, strange sci-fi drama, has more than the usual hype. An enticing, topical pilot drew viewers in and started rumors spinning. Was Westworld going to be the next Game of Thrones?

Well, no. It isn’t, and I’ll tell you why. And I’ll also tell you why Westworld falls into a trap that it’s common for fantasy and sci-fi stories to fall into, and why shows like Westworld will never, unless there are some drastic changes, be able to achieve the true greatness that Game of Thrones achieves at its best moments.

Let’s talk about what makes a story truly great. After all the flashy special effects and the high quality sound and cameras and even good directing and good acting and compelling scenes, it’s character that truly draws us to a story. It’s easy to illustrate this by looking at a famous story and removing the character from it. Saving Private Ryan – a platoon of soldiers is deployed beyond German lines to save a missing private after his brothers are killed in WWII. Compelling? Certainly. Full of potential? Definitely. But what makes that movie great is character. It’s a boy struggling to be righteous in the face of evil. It’s a commander unable to see himself as both a soldier and a school teacher. It’s a soldier, coping with the death of his brothers by telling a story about their childhood and laughing until he cries. Saving Private Ryan has the logline. It has the action set pieces. But it would have been forgotten without the heart. And Westworld doesn’t have the heart.

That’s not to say that Westworld won’t be a successful show. It’s not even to say that it won’t be a good show. It just won’t be great one.

And it’s hard to blame Westworld for not having a ton of character. It, like many other sci-fi and fantasy stories has to establish and develop a world entirely different from our own and make the audience understand it in an extremely limited time frame. WWII actually happened, so Saving Private Ryan doesn’t have to spend thirty minutes explaining fundamentally what’s going on. It can cut straight to the good stuff.

Westworld is handicapped. But so was Game of Thrones. So let me explain the difference. It’s why Westworld = good and Game of Thrones = great. And it comes down to one word: focus.

Let’s look at Game of Thrones’ pilot episode. We are in Westeros – a world of years-long winters and magic and kingdoms and dragons (maybe sort of?). And it’s weird, and not normal, and requires explaining. But Game of Thrones doesn’t focus on the history. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between parents and children. The first thing we are presented with (after some attention grabbing snow zombies) is an execution. A criminal has been caught, and Ned Stark has to kill him, and it’s the first time young Bran will be seeing this, but his father believes he can – and must – learn to handle such things, because (all together now) “winter is coming.” Then we are given Jon Snow – the bastard son of Ned and… someone. Jon is great and everyone loves him except Catelyn Stark, Ned’s wife, for obvious reasons. Now, Catelyn is cool too (she’s my favorite character). She’s smart as a whip and kind and caring, but she can’t stand Jon, and she continues to hold him back because she still resents his existence. We like Catelyn, and we also like Jon, so there’s conflict there, and it’s tragic. And once we’ve been given all this great character stuff, then we can start talking about the magic. That’s good focus.

What does Westworld start with? Narration from a robot about her daily routine, followed by watching that robot and another robot go through that routine. We literally watch pre-programmed action for fifteen minutes (there’s a twist in there too, but whatever). Now this isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, it’s done well, and it’s chilling and enticing, but the focus is off. By the end of the first episode of Game of Thrones we have five – no, ten – no, fifteen interesting characters tied to interesting stories. By the end of the first episode of Westworld we have a cool concept with a lot of potential. I don’t remember a single character’s name, because the characters come second to the ideas in Westworld. That’s not to say there isn’t some interesting character stuff – especially regarding Anthony Hopkin’s character – but the show doesn’t focus on that.

Because of this Westworld will never be a masterpiece. It, and any movie that falls into the same trap of putting ideas before characters, will always rank below those that do. Good, not great.