The interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, in which viewers are asked to make choices that determine the direction of the branching storyline, is now available to view on Netflix. Set in 1984, Bandersnatch follows young programmer Stefan Butler as he adapts the adventure gamebook Bandersnatch into a video game for the company Tuckersoft.
Written by Charlie Brooker (co-creator of the Black Mirror anthology series) and directed by David Slade, Bandersnatch regularly blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, involving the viewer in a narrative arc that touches on themes such as free will, trust, control and parallel timelines.
At specific decision points viewers are given ten seconds to select from on-screen choices, otherwise a default decision is automatically selected. According to Netflix, there are five ‘main’ endings (with variants within each ending) and between ten and twelve endings overall. Bandersnatch includes 150 minutes of unique footage divided into 250 segments.
Has anybody seen it yet? Any thoughts on it?
I enjoyed it. Nothing revolutionary, just a decent story and ideas with solid production. Haven’t played it multiple times to see all of the branches and endings, but certainly liked what I have seen. The interactivity doesn’t have a lot of depth, yet I thought it worked as well as I’d expected.
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