Thank you, Thank you. Welco podcast joint host hoh as he discusses the rivting Netflix original series Black Mirror now here he is broadcasting from the kind of studio. Welcome to Black Mirror Podcast and as always I'm your host, ho host. How y'all's doing I hope you're doing good. I really do. Today we are revisiting the Netflix interactive movie Extraffic Ganga entitled Bandersnatch. Oh yeah,
man, I'll tell you what. This thing did not disappoint. It really didn't my first and by the way, before we get into it too far, spoiler alert, we are going to be talking about the movie, and we're going to be talking about more than just a movie. Now. My first experience with an interactive movie. You really couldn't call it an interactive movie. I mean you really couldn't because it was on VHS. So it
was the movie Clue. It was a murder mystery Who'd done it? Very fun movie, might I add, but it was you watched the entirety of the movie, and then at the end, because it was on VHS, you know you've only got rewind, fast, forward, pause, stop, and play, and that is it. You don't have skip you don't have chapters, you don't have menus, you got none of that. So it was you watched the movie and then it gave you three possible endings and it
was fun, don't get me wrong. And then it came out on DVD where you actually had the ability to choose your ending, and it was it was phenomenal. It was amazing, you know. So whenever I heard that Netflix Black Mirror was doing an interactive movie, I was like, oh, this is going to be good. And they definitely did not disappoint. I mean, they did not disappoint in the least whatsoever. Now, the first time I watched this movie, I went, I went full on geek,
okay. I mean I'm sitting there with a remote control in one hand and you know, a pen and paper, you know, a pad of paper in the other, and like I'm writing down the questions or the the scenario and then my you know, the options that you have, and then which direction I went. I mean I wrote it all down, okay, because I went full on gee, full on geek. And it didn't take me long to really regret that decision because the amount of options, the amount of
questions, the different directions that the state can go was just staggering. I mean, holy cow, it was staggering. But they had so many options in there. I mean, wow, they really did it, and it really was a fun time. Now this time doing it, I mean I had, you know, the first time watching this, I had the mindset of, you know, I was, Okay, let's do this the way I think I would do it, you know, kind of navigating it that
way. And then it went to the point to where I'm just having fun with it and you know, we're doing absurdity, and holy crap, it did not disappoint. Now I got led down several different rabbit trails. I got led down, you know, um possibilities that that kind of dead ended, and I want to explore more because it gave you that option to back up things. And I was like, Okay, cool, let's explore this. And it ended up taking me quite some time to watch this movie.
I mean I spent over two hours. I mean I spent close to three hours the first time watching this movie. But this time around, I had a little bit different of a mindset, different goals. You know, I wanted to do this a little bit more chaotically. I wanted to do this a little bit different. You know, I wanted to have you know, I wanted to see if I could go down different paths and what would happen. And again it did not disappoint because this time around, I mean I
got I mean, I went a little bit different. Please at me. Granted, I mean I ran into a lot of the same stuff that I did last time. But the magic is in the different types of endings that is embedded within this and holy crowd, there's a lot of them. I mean there's quite a few. I mean, I had such a different type of an experience this time around. Watching it was almost like watching a different
movie altogether, you know. I mean it was more like the difference of watching you know, the theatrical release of Return of the King, you know, the last of the Lord of the Rings movies, you know, the part three. You know that it was a difference of watching the theatrical release versus watching the extended cut where they added like fifty two additional minutes and it basically changed the feel of the entire movie. I mean, that's what it
felt like. That's more or less what it was. And boy howdy, I mean it was it was awesome. I mean it really was. I could probably watch this thing again and have a totally new experience. I mean not totally new, but enough knew that it's like watching another movie. You know, so many differ from page you can take absolutely amazing. And this time I spent you know, maybe a little over two hours into it. I mean I spent you know, quite a bit of time into it just
going down to rabbit hole. I mean, you really do kind of loose track of time watching this movie. And I didn't the first time, and I didn't, you know, this most recent time. You know, I didn't do like a clock, you know, I didn't record what time I started and how long it took and when I actually got finished, and you know, when the rabbit hole stuff started happening to our I'm going down different
paths and and everything else. Like, I didn't keep track of any of that, and I really should have, you know, just to get an idea, because this second time watching it afterwards, I got this, you know, I got this question. It's like, how how long is this puppy? You know, That's what the question was. It was like how long is this movie? I mean, how much time did they actually take how much actual movie is their foot is this, that and the other? And so I had to look it up, you know, I had to
know the answer to this question. So I looked it up, and what I found was, you know, not granted, you know, depending on the region that you're at, you know, may determine different you know, things and run times, and it does vary. But according to a thing that I've found in the wikipedias, you know, it was a Korean something or another, and its official run time at the time of release, you know, back in December, I believe of twenty eighteen, was like five
hours and twelve minutes. Holy cow, that's a long freaking movie. And I can believe it, man, I can't believe it. Watching this movie twice, going through the options, going through the rabbit holes, and doing my best to just explore the movie and what it had to offer, the different outcomes and possibilities that were there. I believe it. Five hours and twelve minutes. It does not seem like it's outside the realm of possibility.
Now Here's the thing though, too. Researching this, like, I come to find out that there was even more that they threw into this that didn't even make the movie. It was you know, ideas and concepts that they you know, had some of which they actually filmed but didn't actually make it into the final cut of the movie. And of which case it was like
wow, you know, I mean they did even more with this. It was it was just it was, Holy Council, let's go ahead and get into the movie, all right, because this this movie, it like Black Mirror, it did not disappoint. You know, the the concept of the movie I found absolutely fascinating, no other way to put it. I found it absolutely fascinating. Now Here, here's the premise of this whole thing. Okay, you got this nineteen year old kid whom gets um infactuated with this
book. I believe this book belonged to his mother. I don't remember on that. I think it belonged to his mother. He found it, read the book, and this was an interactive book. And this book was freaking huge. I mean, this book was like Stephen King's it huge. You know. This thing was big, two biblical proportions. Okay, see what
I did there. Bible it's a big book. So was this. And of course the book was entitled Bander Snatch and you come to find out that, you know, the author of this book, you know, kind of went he went, he went full on Luna TUN's all right, he went crazy, all right, this book doing this everything that it was going on. You know, the guy, the guy went kind of crazy. You know, he went crazy to the point to where he killed his wife.
And a symbol popped up in this and you kind of find this out a little bit later as far as a symbolism into this, but it was also a roll back in easter egg to another movie I believe it was entitled White Bear, and it had a specific significance in this movie. It really did you know, the options the A or B that this that the the the braintree or the mind tree of how he mapped out never mind, never mind what We'll get into that a little bit later. Okay, But this book
was huge. And the aspect of this book that the kid found extremely fascinating
was, you know, it was an interactive choose your path book. You know, to read this thing cover to cover wouldn't make any sense whatsoever, because you get the points in the book where it's like, you know, you can choose this and of which case turned to this page or you choose this and you turned to this page, you know, and I've read books like this, you know, like I remember back in school they had interactive books like this, or I think they were more like like maybe not necessarily
like like book book, just words. I mean they were you know, picture books, comic books, you know, what have you. I mean, they were, they were neat, they were entertaining. It was pretty sneak and awesome, it was. They were. They were great because it made you part of the story, you know, and that was the that was the awesome part of it. But this author took that concept to a whole new level and he went he went crazy with the with the possibilities and
whatnot, you know. And so this kid decided that he was going to make a video game, groundbreaking, never been done type of a video game, you know, new technology type of thing. I mean, there was innovation going on in here. I mean there really was, you know, not just how a typical game has run, but something that you can play with a controller, which at the time was had never been done before. I mean, it truly was a groundbreaking innovative video game that he was making,
not just a computer game, but a video game. Very very awesome concept, and he wanted to give honor to the book and have it structured the same way to where you were the one who was choosing the path of this and as you can imagine, it got out of control. Now this might have been and I didn't put two and two together until, you know, just you know, after watching the movie. But you know, I was, I dabble in computer programming. I write, you know, I
do some Python stuff. I've done a little bit of stuff in C sharp and whatnot, and I dabble, okay, And one of the things that I was that I was doing and have been working on, is an interactive action adventure game. And of which case I was going to model it more or less after the Organ Trail, very old school game that was on three point five inch floppy or maybe it was the four and a half, the bigger floppy disks, you know, but it was something done on you know,
MS DOS type of the game. You know, and if you've ever played Organ Trail, you know, one of the ways that you die, you know, a lot a reoccurring death that most everybody has is dying of dysentery. I don't know what the heck doesn't Terry is I was young. I was a kid. I was in you know, elementary school and junior high playing this game. I had no idea. I just died of dysentery. It's like, holy crap. Now I got to start over from the
beginning and do this again, you know. And that was the model that I had whenever I was you know, started programming this game. And the rabbit Hole, holy crap. So I can feel for what this kid was going through whenever he was right in this game, you know. Now, I decided that the only way to win this game was to go through the
most absurd, never going to work type of scenario. Otherwise, if you didn't choose that path, everybody died of dysentery, all right, because apparently in Oregon Trail they were infactuated with Terry Crews and Dis and him caused your death. And so I'm like, that's how everybody dies in my action adventure video game or action adventure ms DOS game, dis and Terry play on words. I know, bad dad joke, whatever. Don't hate me. It was fun, all right, But I get the rabbit Hole and the Stephen.
You know the issues that Stephen was having programming this game, because he would do this, He would do that. He would work out, you know, work out this line of options, go to this line of options, and this line of options, and so many options in here, so many different directions. You know, he would add a new this and then just break the entire game, you know, and death, you know,
I mean it was just that the game kept crashing. He had issues with it because and you know, at the end you see the the brain treat of this game and all the pages that is on the wall and on the ceiling and in notebooks and everything else. I mean, holy crap, this kid spent so much time working on this week, all the different avenues and roads that you can go down. Holy cow, it's no wonder he went a little loopy and lost his freaking mind. I mean, holy cow.
And it's like through watching the movie, you know, I mean, some things happened, okay, and he uh through the movie, through the adventure that you're going on one of the paths that you can take, or I guess several of the paths that you can take. You know, it leads you down the path of you know, enlightenment to where and this is what
the Stephen says that the protagonist the game creator. You know, this is what he is saying, as in, the only way to really do this game and not you know, just lose your mind with it, is realizing that it's not about all the choices and the possibilities that you can do, because what you need to do is it give the player the illusion of choice whenever the outcome is truly set by me, the game creator. Blew my
mind. Holy crap, that is just whoa you know, and it brought a whole new light into this movie that no matter what I chose, no matter the decision that I made in this, you know, there was a predetermined path that the only way to successfully navigate this movie to come to the conclusion that basically it's taking you to is to take their chosen path. Now,
the awesome thing about this is that they're there. You know, that they add a whole new dimension or multiple dimensions to this, you know, to this movie by adding you know, those layers of a multiverse type of a thing to where you know that he was remembering the choices that he was making and in the navigation that some of the stuff became to where it was you know, you had to go back five or six different steps, but
you didn't have to make the preceding the preceding steps to follow it, because it automatically navigated you through the whole thing, and it was like whoa, But they were remembering what was going on, or at least two characters were, you know, Stephen, the protagonists, and then a fellow coder, a fellow game creator in this I think his name was Colin in the movie.
You know, they were kind of on the same level. If you will, you know, adding that multiple dimensions and being able to if you make a wrong decision, go back and change your mind, make a different decision and continue with this story and discover more to a point of having a completely different outcome. Amazing movie. I mean, holy crap, that that was whoa. Just adding that additional level, that additional layer, that additional concept into the movie. Wow, I mean it really was just next level.
It really was next level. Man. So watching this movie twice and just having a blast with it, you know, I could probably watch it once twice more and still have a different experience, because this time I really did. I mean, I had I went down avenues that I didn't previously go down and it was a completely different experience. It was that is cool,
you know, that was so cool. So here we go, you know, because it's it's uh, you know, the the multiverse, different decisions, making different decision I mean, that is one of them concepts that they actually do talk about, you know. I mean, I'm not sure if y'alls are familiar with the Mandela effect and different things that you know may or may not be you know, and things in our reality that has shifted from one to another, and there's details that are different now, you know.
It's the Mandela effect researching. You know. Now, I don't know how I feel about some of that stuff because it's like, all right, look, I remember as a kid, I used to like certain things, or even as a young adult, I watched certain things and I liked it, you know, and then revisiting him as an adult gave me a different
experience, you know. For instance, you know, one year, for Christmas, Now this was probably ten years back or so, I mean, I don't know, it was a while ago, but for Christmas, my mom gave me a a box set of He Man and the Matches End of the Universe, Volume one, Season one, there you go. And I remember watching this as a kid. This was like one of my absolute favorite cartoons. It was awesome. It was a great cartoon. Rewatching it as
an adult, I'm like, how did I like this? This is not what I remembered it to be, you know, and just a completely different viewing experience, a completely different mindset of the show, you know. And then I went back and I watched with a buddy of mine because his wife had never seen this movie, so we introduced it to her the movie Lost Boys with Keif for Sutherland and several other people, and it was everything we can do to make it through this movie because we both remembered this movie as
being an awesome, amazing movie. It was cool, it was great. Keif for Sutherland as a vampire, this is awesome. Rewatching it as an adult, it was like, this thing sucks, you know. I mean it was it was bad. I mean, his wife was making fun. It's like, what is this type of a thing, you know? And I made my decision right then and there. It's like, I am not revisiting movies that I have seen because I don't want to ruin the nostalgia.
I don't want to ruin how I think about this movie. I mean, there's something that I'd really like to rewatch again, Critters, you know, Gremlins again. Maybe you know, I think that may be fun, But at the same time I'm scared too, because I you know, I remember them as being awesome, amazing movies. I remember them being fun, and it's like, I don't want to ruin that, you know, by watching it as an adult with maybe different expectations and as no one do it.
So, you know, I don't really put a lot of weight into it, because sometimes we just remember things different, maybe not as it was, but how we viewed it to be, which may or may not match facts and truth. It was perception, you know, So as far as that goes, I don't know how much weight I put behind it. But at the same point or at the same time, I guess you can say,
it's like, huh, maybe maybe. I mean, scientifically speaking, we've discovered several universes per seing of which case his to say, what's real, what's not? All these other possibilities why not type of a thing? I mean, just the concept of it I thought was intriguing, and how they brought this was just phenomenal. I mean, they did a great job with this movie. They truly did, you know. And and here's the thing too, you know, and this is where we're going to end it.
Okay, as with this concept right here, because the theme of this movie was having choice, but the truth being you know, because the Choices was a lie. You know, the cake is a lie. These choices was a lie because it wasn't actual choices that you were making is the viewer, because the creator had already decided that this is what the outcome is going to be. It was the illusion of choice. I mean, how many of us feel like that? You know, we go through our lives and it's
like how much choice do we actually have? You know? Sometimes two steps forward, one step back, you know, it seems like we're navigating this thing called life, but we are not in control. How many of us feel like that, at least in some part of our lives, you know, I mean it's the rat race, you know, the maze that we're
trying to go through predetermined outcome. If you will look, I'm not saying like like full on, we ain't got nothing, you know as far as choices goes, But I mean at the same time, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of choice that's been taken away from us, and either we can choose to go with the grain and maybe have a little bit easier of a time, or we can completely try to go against the grain and
struggle through hardships with different things all the time. Again, how many of us feel like we don't really have a choice, that somebody else is pulling the strings and the outcome has already been predetermined. A weird concept. I know from time to time I felt like that, and I'm sure at some points in time maybe y'alls have too. But it's intriguing how they tied all
these multiple things together. And you know, I tell you what, Like that aspect of it wasn't even something that I thought about the first time around watching Us. You know, it was something that was in my psyche, but it wasn't necessarily something that I thought about. And it was like, Dude, once I did think about this, I mean, it brought this movie to a different light entirely for me. It was like, dude, I mean, maybe you guys were quicker on the onset to what I was.
Maybe I was just slow to the uptick, but it was Wow, this is cool. I mean, this is like scary, this is trippy, if you will, dude, you know, really was a great movie. I can't recommend watching this one enough. I really can't. And it's definitely one of them things you can watch it multiple times and have a different viewing experience. I still want to watch it again. I still want to explore and see just how many different possibilities I can take, you know,
before you know, coming to a nice conclusion. You know, it's it really was a fun one. So that finishes it for this episode and the next episode I want to be talking. We're getting into season five now now. Of course, the next episode is going to be Striking Vipers. Of course it is by by request, We're doing Striking Vipers. I can't wait to do that. When that one was going to be fun. That one is an interesting, interesting movie. And before we even get into it,
just so, y'all's no not for kids. That movie is not or I'm sorry, that episode, that episode, it is not for kids by any stretch of the imagination whatsoever. I'm going to try to keep it as clean as I possibly can. However, the concepts, the things that are happening I'm going to throw as much nuance into it as possible, but it's just a topic is not for kids. Just throwing that out there, man, you have been warned. You've been warned. And I haven't decided if I'm
going to be doing that that episode three or not. I might skip that and go directly into from Striking Vipers into season six. I don't know. I haven't decided yet. It's possibilities at this point, you know. But at any rate, I'm happy. I'm excited about the next episode because that was That was a good one, Striking Vipers. Whoa. It was a fun time. It really was. All right, guys, that's all I got for today. Y'all have her of a great one and I will see
you crap in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Black Mirror podcast. If you would like to join the conversation, you can comment on this episode a spreaker dot com, or go to the hohoshow dot com, forward slash form and the discussion board for this s