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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Dec 28, 2018 8:24:36 GMT
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Post by Niccc on Dec 29, 2018 8:17:10 GMT
I just finished Bandersnatch. What a fucking ride. Holy shit. It's goddamn brilliant. I hope they do more of these "interactive films"
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Dec 30, 2018 2:07:07 GMT
My girlfriend and I just watched Bandersnatch and it was frickin wild. I mean, honestly I found a lot of it hilarious? Which... I'm pretty sure was not the intended effect, but still, it was a ton of fun.
As a Black Mirror episode itself I think it was pretty weak but the interactive element does a lot to elevate it and I kinda like how it forgoes theme in favor of just becoming a nightmare reality of insane situations. Honestly, I do hope that now that they've sort of gotten this out of their system, they can go on to make something that's both just a good, interesting episode and works as an interactive film. This kind of does both, but separately, if that makes sense.
2 and half out of 5 stars :P
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Post by thatstoo2019man on Dec 30, 2018 13:53:19 GMT
Finished (or at least got the credits rolling) bandersnatch. It was pretty good, would love to see more episodes like this. I took a shitton of different paths and yet I've still haven't seen everything. I think I've reached three different endings. Like on two I've had the option to exit to credits or change my path and on the last one the credits started without my input. And the Netflix path is so ridiculous.
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Dec 30, 2018 18:00:03 GMT
Finished (or at least got the credits rolling) bandersnatch. It was pretty good, would love to see more episodes like this. I took a shitton of different paths and yet I've still haven't seen everything. I think I've reached three different endings. Like on two I've had the option to exit to credits or change my path and on the last one the credits started without my input. And the Netflix path is so ridiculous. The Netflix path is literally the best, it's such a wild four wall break if it's the first path you go down, like it was for me
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Dec 30, 2018 18:14:11 GMT
Gonna post some thoughts here:
While I think in general all the talk of free-will and the confines of our reality are a smokescreen for what's really going on - the excuse to have a fun choose your own adventure story as opposed to the point in and of itself - I do think it congeals into a kind of point when you take the general tone of the film with some repeated pieces. First off is the fact that the past is immutable. When you first see Stefan's past, you only have one choice - keep looking for Rabbit. Beyond this, even though Stefan is continually pushed to "try again", there is no good or happy ending to the story. No matter how many times he tries, he can never escape. As far as I can figure, the final credits roll only happens when you've exhausted all your current paths. There's no pattern. And lastly, the role death plays in this universe. Pac-man dies over and over again only to be reborn into the same "nightmare", just as Stefan does, and now matter how many different choices he makes, there will always be more than lead to more death.
So, I don't think the episode is making any kind of grand point about free-will or the nature of reality, so much as it's showing the futility in trying to even think about choice as anything meaningful in the first place. We can't change our past, and even if we could, we'd only be repeating the same suffering in slightly altered forms. I think it's a bit more clever than it initially seems, hiding in the shadow of the novelty of being an interactive film.
Secondly, I think the fact that so many paths acknowledge the viewer as an active participant in the story is no surprise(in fact... I think all of them do?). Obviously we're meant to reflect on the suffering we cause Stefan, but I like how this ties into the larger ideas of Black Mirror as a whole. Two major repeated concepts in Black Mirror are the cookies, and an extreme version of the criminal justice system. Cookies are treated as sub-human, and are often abused for no reason despite being fully intelligent and emotional beings, whereas episodes like White Bear and Black Museum show a repeated theme of suffering as spectacle. In White Bear, even though Victoria is obviously a bad person, it's hard not to be shocked that so many people are entertained by her continued suffering, and yet, aren't we somewhat the same? After all, we watch that episode to be entertained by someone's suffering. Even if they're not a real person, or we don't see them as a real person... but isn't that lack of empathy for a digital person reflected in the cookies?
Obviously, we're not bad people for watching a tv show, I'm not saying that and I doubt Charlie Brooker is saying it, but it does raise an interesting question. Why do we enjoy not only watching suffering for entertainment in Black Mirror, but also - in the case of Bandersnatch - actively participating and having the feeling of responsibility for that suffering?
I'm still letting all this stuff churn about in my mind, and I'll certainly have more to say once I've done a few more playthroughs, but as of now... those are some of my thoughts on Bandersnatch.
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Dec 31, 2018 17:49:22 GMT
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