Bandersnatch

Finally played it, interesting mechanics, especially in terms of the ease of moving to other choices and the way that plays with Collin as a character, and I think it will set up a lot of interesting future interactive films. I just wish the subject matter was a little bit cheerier on what we would be CYOA designers do, but I guess I shouldn’t expect that from Black Mirror, heh. The ultimate idea that the viewer/player is as much limited as Stefan suits the story, but hoping that future movies can do some wilder things with it. :slight_smile:

Looks like I’m in the minority, but I loved it. Film is always going to be a less ideal medium than text for IF, because of the work it takes to create each branch, so I didn’t expect anything too fancy. The early fail state was a bit annoying, for reasons that have already been detailed, but moving past that it was a lot of fun, and I didn’t stop watching until I’d seen every possibility. Black Mirror holds onto its place as one of my favourite shows.

I really loved Bandersnatch for the way it appeared to be delivering one thing, and then turned around and unexpectedly walloped me with something different - twice.

At first, the story appears to be a typical time loop/many-worlds story of some sort - Colin understands what’s going on, well before Stefan does. It cleverly ties the medium, a choice-based game, to the plot. It’s well-done, but what yanked me in deeper was when, in one of the later options to communicate with Stefan, I was offered the Netflix logo. For me that was a chillingly effective breaking of the fourth wall - and, typically of Black Mirror, I felt like I was being asked uncomfortable questions. As Stefan’s therapist later observes, who’d get enjoyment out of watching this ordinary person suffer?

Now, in a typical choice-driven game, you can think of all of your choices as being part of the same universe, in a sense. If an NPC is a villain on this run, they’re a villain on all of them even when you’re not following the paths that uncover their storyline. So once the fourth-wall break happened, I expected Bandersnatch to keep exploring the implications of me, the viewer, making choices that cause a character to experience what felt like convincingly real suffering. But instead, to my shock, the next branch was completely irreconcilable with Stefan being a character on my screen. Bandersnatch had established my reality as part of its reality, and then turned around and made my reality merely one among many. And in what felt to me like the final ending (in my case, it’s the one that led to Netflix offering to show me another episode, rather than looping me back to Bandersnatch,) we see Stefan on the bus again, but instead of listening to music he’s listening to the staticky digital sounds of a computer program, which is in a sense what he himself really is.

There’ve been other stories that dealt with these themes and ideas, but I found Bandersnatch a pretty powerful one.

While all the Black Mirror episodes are standalones, there’s a reference here that’s subtly meaningful if you know the episode White Bear. The symbol that haunts Stefan is central to that episode, which is about a woman who committed a horrible crime and was mindwiped. As punishment she’s sentence to repeatedly live through a terrifying day, only to be told at the end it’s her punishment for a crime she can’t remember committing - and to be mindwiped again so it can be repeated once more. Which is kind of like the existence of character in a computer game, from a certain point of view …

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The general issue with interactive film/game versus interactive fiction is that you need a relatively fleshed out character first because you’re seeing him or her, so anyone who prefers to create their character from scratch essentially will have an issue with that. I definitely think there’s an audience for them regardless though.

We disagree on this. The reason Colin is so well liked compared to the other characters is because he is developed and fleshed out. None of the other characters, including the protagonist, was developed sufficiently for me to appreciate them.

If the rest of the “Black Mirror” episode Bandersnatch had as well developed and fleshed out characters as Colin, I would have enjoyed the show much more.

The only reason I was able to force myself to experience the 5 endings was to experience Colin’s development and role in the episode from start to end.

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Fair point, though I think Collin is well liked more because of the nature of his role in the story and apparent ability to be above the changes and recognise them because of how he views the world. To the extent that the confusion the viewer has over whether he is supposed to be dead or not when he’s missing in some endings is smart.

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Not true, in my case! I’m a huge proponent of having as much control over who your character is as possible. I literally will not play most games that don’t allow me to self-insert.

But this story isn’t about your character. This story is about a man being guided. It’s not even a game. It is a branching story.

That’s the big divergence. It may feel like a game, due to the branching paths and different possible endings, but the reality is that it is not. It isn’t even like the old CYOA novels. This story was always about Stefan, his dad, his mom, his therapist, and Colin.

The genius of it is that you are a separate entity from Stefan - sort of like Fatehaven.

Idk. I guess what my half-dead, flu-addled brain is getting at is that you definitely can be a fan of Bandersnatch whilst also being a really big fan of character customization.

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I really enjoyed Bandersnatch. Sure, most of the choices are fake, but some of them are done really well, like the Acid tripping choice. The story is also really dark and unsettling, and everything from the characters and the cinematography are top notch. I was annoyed by the solitary choices, but even CSGs have been known to have them on occassion. A- from me. :slight_smile:

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With recent news that Choose Your Own Adventure is pursuing a lawsuit against Netflix for “infringing on their trademark”, I was curious what you guys thought about it, since this is a CYOA company.

I’m a bit surprised about it since there are so many “knock-offs” off their concept that CYOA is now its own genre

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We’re not “a CYOA” company, where a “Choose a path” company. :wink: But seriously, if you don’t know about trademark, the suit is only about the term “Choose Your Own Adventure” (which if you look, we don’t use anywhere, because, well, we can’t, the same as Netflix can’t), it’s not about design.

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I was disappointed for the same reasons, but I still found it entertaining. Apparently they filmed 5 hours of footage, so there are a lot of different scenes you can encounter.

I’ve only watched it once, but I get the feeling that the overall story is generally the same in most cases. There are probably just different scenes that ultimately lead you down the same path. Yes, I encountered different endings, but then was given the option to go back. So it didn’t really feel like an ending. It felt more like it could be the ending, but it’s not really.

With that being said, I thought it was creative. I did not expect it to go in the direction it did in regards to your control of the character’s action.

Sidenote: On the CYOA/CAP note: would CYOA-style be okay?

According to what I’ve been told, no. If you want to limit any hint that there’s TM infringement, you don’t compare your stuff to CYOA.

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good gracious. thanks.

It’s because they specifically mentioned Choose Your Own Adventure in the story rather than copying the genre and general terminology people use to describe most of Interactive Fiction. Still stupid though… when has ChoiceCo actually released anything new or significant? The glory days of Edward Packard and RA Montgomery are long behind them

Right, it’s arguable (hence the suit!) that the phrase “choose your own adventure” should now be a genericized trademark, like “dumpster” or “aspirin.”

I mean…I assume that Netflix wants to argue that. I can’t imagine they’d be so stupid as to challenge ChooseCo with an infringement they didn’t believe they could defend against.

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Which, if Netflix does win…so much the better for us.

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Indeed. Though I was wondering how this would play out because the moment he said “It’s a choose your own adventure book” I shouted at my television: You can’t say that!!!

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Has chooseco even released any new books since my YA years? I feel like they are just reaching on this suit and hoping Netflix settles out of court.

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ChooseCo sent us our own Cease and Desist years ago. It doesn’t matter if they’ve published anything or not, as long as they defend it.

I hope Netflix fights it and the trademark is ruled genericized.

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