As I read into it, apparently there were scenes in earlier episodes with the same 'letterbox' ratio so feel free to go watch again or look them up online. It's pretty clear now what they were trying to do with those scenes.

I'm actually loving this virtual Westworld angle because it breathes some life into the plot. The characters on this show are great but this whole Jurassic Park angle to the first few episodes was getting stale. Creating AI copies of human beings is much more interesting!