Text: Seapark
On December 27, 2018, at the first anniversary of the last season of "Black Mirror", Netflix quietly launched a trailer, and on the second day it released the "Black Mirror" special film "Bandersnatch". Whole film. With almost no publicity, this episode of "Bandersnatch" relied on its avant-garde "choice plot" gameplay and multiple hidden endings, instantly blasting the Internet and becoming the last hit film and television work at the end of 2018.
With the help of the convenient interactive form of the Internet, "Bandersnatch" adopts the form of "Interactive movie", hoping to provide the audience with an independent and more immersive experience of watching the drama. After logging in to Netflix, the user enters the "Bandersnatch" page. At the beginning, the system will prompt the audience to hold the mouse or keyboard, and make a choice between the two when the key plot is critical. The choice will affect the plot afterwards. There are dozens of choices in the whole film, ranging from what brand of cereal to eat for breakfast to whether or not to kill, all are affected by the audience's "free will". It is precisely because of this special gameplay that Netflix basically eliminated the possibility of the film being pirated. Because only on their page can you fully experience the film. Any download version up to now has been castrated with interactive screen recording version or non-logic version stacked with materials.
The plot of the film is set in 1984. It tells the story of 19-year-old game designer Stephen Butler trying to adapt an interactive game book "Bandersnatch" from his dead mother's relic into a video game. In the process of designing the game, Stephen gradually fell into a state of madness, always feeling that his choice was being manipulated, and according to the choices of the audience, the reasons for Stephen's madness would be different...
Charlie Brook, the creator behind "Black Mirror", said in an interview that "Bandersnatch" took a total of five hours of material, covering a number of different endings. The average audience will probably finish watching one of the endings. It's 90 minutes, which is also the time indicated on the Netflix page. But if you want to see multiple endings, you must keep returning to the branch point to reselect. On the introduction page of IMDb, it is marked that there are five endings for the film, but in fact, after six hours of constant attempts, the author has played a total of eight to ten different endings, each of which covers the development of the script. Different branches contain at least four distinct directions, and the others are fine-tuned in the direction of the finale, which shows the rich content of this film.
After watching the film, many fans and drama fans said that Netflix redefines film (television), but in the author’s opinion, it is not so much a movie as it is actually a "Black Mirror". IP web games. In fact, as early as 1967, the Czech Republic gave birth to the first "interactive film" "Automatic Film". This movie exhibit exhibited at the Montreal World Expo that year, when watching, you can use the green and red buttons to select different plot directions, so as to get a unique viewing experience every time you watch it. Compared with "Bandersnatch", although the plot of this work is very simple, the gameplay is actually exactly the same.
In the United States, a set of interactive adventure books "Choose Your Own Adventure" (Choose Your Own Adventure) was published in 1979. This set of books was first created by Edward Parker and turned to a specific page according to different choices when reading. Count, read the corresponding consequences, and compose your own adventures. It is no different from the fictional adventure book "Bandersnatch" in the film, and it is also one of the objects of film tribute. This set of books was introduced to China in 2003, and the author also read it that year.
In recent years, with the mutual learning and integration of the two media of film and game, interactive movies have increasingly appeared in the field of video games, such as "The Walking Dead" produced by Telltale, "Game of Thrones", produced by Quantic Dream. "Heavy Rain", "The Extraordinary Twins" and "Detroit: Incarnation" as well as the live-action interactive movie "Night Shift" which is very similar to this film. The emergence of "Bandersnatch" is actually the response of the film and television media to this trend (in fact, with the substantial layoffs of Telltale this year and the decline in the reputation of "Detroit", such interactive movies are actually in the game field. In the low tide period).
Compared with the previous games, "Bandersnatch" is more cinematic. It removes elements such as walking and scouting that are common in the game, and only retains options. But at the same time, when Charlie Brooke was writing the screenplay, he emphasized the influence of the action of "choice" itself on the theme of the series. Just like the line of the character Colin in the film, "Every choice will create a parallel universe." We chose "Yes" in this universe, and "No" in another universe. And the people who died in this universe will meet again in other universes. The audience's "choices" ingeniously explained the "parallel universes" mentioned in the film.
When the ending appears, or the character is forced into a blind spot and cannot continue the plot. The audience will return to the key selection point again and again to reselect. At this point, the movie will re-take the audience to review the previous plot through a quick edit, and due to the different choices of the audience, there will be some slight adjustments in the previous and subsequent plots. For example, a character may say in advance, what other characters want to say, or are affected by another memory of the parallel universe, and discover that they shouldn’t have known things, suggesting that the audience’s previous choices were not actually affected. Completely overthrown, everything is happening in parallel.
(The following articles may involve spoilers, readers can choose:
1. Continue reading 2. Stop reading and come back again after watching the film)
Through different choices, the audience will eventually reach a certain ending, and several different endings can basically be divided into the following genres:
1 Childhood Shadow School, that is, after Stefan learned of the parallel universe, he went back to the past and tried to save his mother, but found that his mother's death was destined;
2. Conspiracy theorists, that is, Stephen discovered that his life and childhood shadows were secretly arranged, just to see what he would choose. In the end, he killed his father and did not complete the game;
3. The evil school. While studying the "Bandersnatch" novel, Stephen fell into obsession with the author's murder of his wife. He believed that all choices would lead to an ending, so he killed and mutilated his father. Finished the game
4. Netflix, Stephen discovered that he is actually the protagonist of a Netflix game, and his choices are all manipulated by Netflix users in the 21st century
The several endings represent the scriptwriting conventions used to end this "Black Mirror" in general, but they also imply some connections. For example, the endings of "Childhood Shadow" and "Evil" all imply destiny. Irreversible, and the endings of "conspiracy theory" and "Netflix" carry an irony on the game flow and the movie format itself.
Just like Stefan revealed to the psychiatrist in one of the endings, all endings are manipulated. We are only given the illusion of free choice, and ultimately lead to several tragedies that seem to be different but are similar in reality. . This is actually Brooke's irony and self-deprecation of "Black Mirror" and Netflix's big data hegemony.
The success of the "Black Mirror" series lies in its fable and irony of the future development of black technology from the perspective of the traditional television industry. But now Brooke and "Black Mirror" have joined the Netflix system and have become part of the devil of technology that they mocked back then. "Bandersnatch" relies on Netflix to stand at the forefront of the movie black technology, shouting on the Internet, you will not be able to see the most advanced movies without joining Netflix. You are choosing, and at the same time you are passively accepting. In the past few years, Netflix has made rapid progress through big data algorithms. They have begun to weaken the score and strengthen the recommendation system, trying to tell the audience what we like to watch and what we should watch. We browse the pages of Netflix or any other video sites, chasing the latest movies and TV series, seem to be choosing, but in fact, we are more passively watching the programs that have been screened. Before we knew it, we had already given up our right to choose, and let the big data that has been watching you help you choose.
Just as in a branch of the ending of the film, the audience chose to jump out of the window, only to realize that the window could not be opened, and everything was in the shooting scene. Faced with such a situation, can he really jump out even if he is as wise as Brooke?
Originally published in "Iris"
View more about Black Mirror: Bandersnatch reviews
