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March 28, 2024, 02:07:46 PM

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Black Mirror; Bandersnatch

Started by Dex Sawash, December 26, 2018, 02:44:02 AM

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Dex Sawash

It shows up in netflix with a few thumbnails and text "be right back" but no play button.

Is this the choose your adventure one?

mjwilson

That's what people seem to be thinking, probably with a tie-in to 80s computer games.

BritishHobo

I believe it is. Over five hours of footage, apparently. It'll be interesting to see how they do the choosing part in a way that doesn't seem jarring. I'm really excited to see how it works.

Norton Canes


olliebean

It'll be interesting to see how long people's interest lasts before they can't be arsed to play it again to try different choices. I doubt many people will ever see the full five hours.

St_Eddie

As someone whom doesn't have Netflix and has resorted to torrenting the show from season 3 and beyond, I wonder if a part of the reasoning behind this choose your own adventure special of Black Mirror is in the interest of making it unviable to pirate and therefore getting more people to sign up to Netflix.


Tag: [Remote of Chaos by Ian Livingstone]

biggytitbo

It's the story of Imagine software.

St_Eddie

Quote from: biggytitbo on December 27, 2018, 06:02:31 PM
It's the story of Imagine software.

Mate.  You're the story of Imagine software.


olliebean

Laughing my arse off at the sheer audacity of this.

McChesney Duntz

It's a joy, it really is. I wouldn't dare spoil a thing about it at this juncture; all I can say is that we may have achieved Pure Brooker with this one. Not sure where he can even go from here.

Norton Canes


olliebean

Who's going to be the first to load the Speccy program that's on the soundtrack at the end?

Norton Canes

#15
Hah, just doing a bit of Googling to refresh my recollections of the Imagine debacle - I didn't realise that the completed aspects of Bandersnatch were tarted up and released as the OK-but-hardly-Earth-shatteringly-good Gift From The Gods. Perhaps we didn't miss out on much after all.

A bunch of it probably went into the Frankie Goes To Hollywood game as well.

justin_bennett

Someone on Reddit has already mapped it on a flowchart.  I'm not studying it closely until I've watched it at least another twice.

Astonishing stuff so far.

mjwilson

I've managed to find 2 "proper" endings, where the story seems to end and it goes to the end credits, as well as a fair few which go to a sort-of-ending but then it tells you to change your mind and try again.

Small Man Big Horse

It didn't offer me the chance to have sex with his dad's corpse or kill Colin's stupid baby, so I'm very disappointed with it.

Waking Life

I reached an ending with credits, then it basically asked me to return to various choices to play out the permutations. Once this is done, it does 'finish' and start another episode.

I didn't think it was particularly good. A novel concept, but I found the more 'meta' bits a bit irritating (although Alice Lowe did provide a big laugh) and didn't actually find the story engaging beyond the novelty. And I have enjoyed the majority of Black Mirror episodes. I wonder if the choices would have worked better if I'd cared more about the characters or story, but it was only very mild curiosity driving my selections and a desire to finish it!

Small Man Big Horse

I quite liked it but I felt it took a bit too long to get going, once he was going a bit crazy it was a lot more fun. There was a fair amount to like about it though, I especially enjoyed seeing the WH Smiths eighties look again, I remember some pictures leaking of that a while ago as they filmed it in Croydon.

BritishHobo

Bits of that were a masterclass in something eating itself. A couple of bits were three or four levels deep of mad fourth-wall-swallowing meta madness. I bet Dan Harmon has a wank to this.

BritishHobo

I also quite like that it understands the way people play these games - they don't always want to start from the beginning just to change one decision, hence the old joke about keeping your fingers on different pages.

Rocket Surgery

My telly isn't smart enough to get it to work.

Timothy

Kotaku wrote a review. Havent disagreed with a review this much in ages. Pissed me off tbh.
Curious what you all think. Dont read the title of the review before watching the movie.

https://kotaku.com/black-mirror-s-new-interactive-netflix-movie-is-a-letdo-1831364019   

BritishHobo

Gotta be honest, I agree. Undoubtedly there's plenty more I've not yet seen, but the few hours I've spent with it have almost entirely ended up Stefan has a mental breakdown and ends up killing someone, usually his dad. I keep wanting to see more 80s gaming stuff, or more Poulter weirdness, or go deeper into Bandersnatch and its batshit author - maybe all of those options are there and I've not gotten them yet, who knows.

I feel bad saying it though, because it's a really fun experiment and I think they've done it fucking well - it's constructed brilliantly, and the way it all flows without buffering or dragging is very clever.

Junglist

Its a very interesting concept, and done really well but I found the story to be utter bobbins and the little paths you can head down were all a bit shit. Shame.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Norton Canes on December 28, 2018, 11:25:36 AM
Er

Yes, the Kim Justice documentary about them is great. Bandersnatch eventually did emerge in some form as the weird, slightly broken Brattacus on the St and Amiga:


olliebean

Quote from: justin_bennett on December 28, 2018, 02:16:20 PM
Someone on Reddit has already mapped it on a flowchart.  I'm not studying it closely until I've watched it at least another twice.

Astonishing stuff so far.

I had a look at that flowchart, intending to stop as soon as I encountered something I hadn't seen yet, but I reckon I've pretty much seen all of it - with one or two very minor exceptions (i.e. things where both choices lead to the same place, but presumably via slightly different scenes) - after one viewing, and not all of it via the routes shown on the flowchart. If there's really ~5 hours of footage, I reckon there must be a fair bit of stuff that isn't on that flowchart. (Also if there's ~5 hours of it, some of which you'd have to watch twice to map it all, how can he have mapped it within 4 hours?)