Netflix Takes Interactive Storytelling to the Next Level with "Black Mirror: Bandersnatch"

Megalith

Megalith

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In what some are calling the dawn of interactive TV, Netflix has released Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a movie that puts viewers in control by letting them choose how the story plays out by way of multiple-choice questions. This special installment of the British techno-paranoia drama hinges on meta, as it traces the path of a video-game designer attempting to adapt his favorite choose-your-own-adventure book until the endless options begin affecting his sanity. There appear to be at least five endings (some claim nine), but only certain devices are supported.

“Bandersnatch” comes with five possible endings. Viewers who choose the quickest path, and decide against any do-overs, can make it through the film in around 40 minutes. The average viewing time is around 90 minutes. Altogether, there are over a trillion unique permutations of the story. However, this also includes relatively simple iterations that don’t necessarily alter the story itself. For instance, one of the first decisions is helping Stefan to choose which cereal to eat in the morning. “We want [viewers] to have a successful choice early on,” said Engelbrecht.
 
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great to see TV innovate like this...wouldn't really work for the majority of serialized TV shows but one-off standalone episodes are great...Black Mirror is the perfect showcase for this
 
Doesn’t work on my Apple TV 4K or Amazon Fire TV (gen 1 box) or my Samsung 46 inch Smart TV in the living room. So I tried to share the screen from my phone (which works) to the Apple TV over AirPlay and it doesn’t work for Bandersnatch.

Well played Netflix, fuck you.
 
I heard this pretty much sucks. Somebody told me they ended up having to backtrack because their choices simply didn't work. "We didn't make a scene for that, please start over" kind of thing.
 
We just finished up with this and personally, I thought it was great. Very meta, very interesting experience.
 
The torrent "version" info :

From the 250 available decision events, this is the default 68 choices
Netflix have defined as the default \'linear\' timeline
Click to expand...

For those that don't want a choose your own adventure movie.
 
Sugar Puffs or Frosties? What kind of choice is that?? There should be a choice for Grape Nuts, that would at least give you a good bowel movement 2/3 of the way through the movie.

Obvious choice is Frosted Flakes, though, because Sugar Puffs are just weird. Cook wheat, then leave it soaking in water until bloated from tissue saturation, then freeze-dry it and coat it with sugar. That's just weird.


P.S. Sorry for not putting a 'Spoiler Alert' on this post.
 
I thought it was a well written episode, watched quite a few of the endings. The credits with one of the endings was very clever.
 
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I loved it. Totally caught me off guard.

A few of the major decisions you can go back and kind of redo your choice.
 
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Hoping that the story is lot better than the Black Mirror episodes I've seen so far. Maybe I try it stoned.
 
Should work a lot better as preloaded content in VR with VRGloves for fast and precise (lag free, intuitive decision) interaction with the timeline to allow the user to backtrack to arbitrary decision and change them, perhaps even only watching the scenes that change. That would be an awesome exploration of how following events are affected without boring the shit out of the pilot by having him rewatch all the bits that were not changed by the decision (perhaps a recap in a superfast forward, kind of like Click movie did when pressing fast forward).
 
so Black Mirror ends up with gimmicks now? Imo the series is way over rated by peeps who don't consume works of scifi that often aka those that get awed by that cgi cartoon Avatar

Peeps should watch Dick's Electric Dreams too rather than having Black Mirror be the end all.
 
The style reminded me quite a bit of Star Trek: Borg, which was a PC CD interactive game from the mid-90s (and many like it.) I would have been a lot happier with it if I could fast forward through the recaps -- started to feel like a real grind to explore two paths. The 10s back/forward buttons were unselectable on the Roku client during the recaps, but available until the choices popped up in the story. The story was a little on the weak side compared to the rest of the Black Mirror series; one of the options with the shrink even sort of reminded me of the film Sucker Punch (and that isn't a good thing.) I saw on the web that there were different endings and easter eggs, but really it wasn't enjoyable enough to go through them all for me. Interesting reboot experience for the younger generation that hasn't experienced interactive-storytelling like this, but ultimately forgettable.
 
Megalith said:
In what some are calling the dawn of interactive TV, Netflix has released Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a movie that puts viewers in control by letting them choose how the story plays out by way of multiple-choice questions. This special installment of the British techno-paranoia drama hinges on meta, as it traces the path of a video-game designer attempting to adapt his favorite choose-your-own-adventure book until the endless options begin affecting his sanity. There appear to be at least five endings (some claim nine), but only certain devices are supported.

“Bandersnatch” comes with five possible endings. Viewers who choose the quickest path, and decide against any do-overs, can make it through the film in around 40 minutes. The average viewing time is around 90 minutes. Altogether, there are over a trillion unique permutations of the story. However, this also includes relatively simple iterations that don’t necessarily alter the story itself. For instance, one of the first decisions is helping Stefan to choose which cereal to eat in the morning. “We want [viewers] to have a successful choice early on,” said Engelbrecht.
Click to expand...

Great idea. Terrible implementation. I just wasted an hour and a ahalf "interacting" with this "movie". Result = trash!

The movie had 0 point. The decisions were DUMB. Its a great idea but this movie simply SUCKED.
 
theBrownLlama said:
so Black Mirror ends up with gimmicks now? Imo the series is way over rated by peeps who don't consume works of scifi that often aka those that get awed by that cgi cartoon Avatar

Peeps should watch Dick's Electric Dreams too rather than having Black Mirror be the end all.
Click to expand...
This. Black mirror is SJW sci fi made for edgy kids. Its awful.
 
The movie was ok. Watched it friday, did all the different options. Was annoying to have to rewatch parts of the film to try a different option.
 
My wife and I watched it and loved it. Like nothing I have ever seen before. The acting and filming, the flow, the redos, everything was incredible.
This was an experience. You were a part of it, and not.
 
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