So finally the final instalment of Black Mirror has arrived. Pretty solid, fresh, nice and interactive. The plot is also good, maybe the acting is not what I FOR ONE expected, but who am I to judge? In my opinion it's deserves to be seen and some will be huge fans of it. Here are some quotes from the film:
Peter Butler: The bloody hound from next door... be the death of us.
Mohan Tucker: Imagine, OK? A whole team just for graphics, another for sound, for gameplay. We're going to be a hit factory. Like Motown but for computer games. You heard it here first!
Will Poulter: Well, pre-rolled has strychnine in them, so the joke's on him.
Stefan Butler: It's actually an adventure game.
Mohan Tucker: Like The Hobbit?
Stefan Butler: Yeah, without any typing.
Mohan Tucker: Without any typing??
Stefan Butler: Jerome F. Davies was a genius.
Will Poulter: Didn't he go bonkers and cut his wife's head off?
Stefan Butler: Yeah, but, I mean, apart from that...
Mohan Tucker: OK, so the first thing we need to do is streamline the project a little. We can't fit a breeze block of a book into 48K.
Will Poulter: Sorry, mate. Wrong path.
Leslie (tv presenter): The next game under our Christmas spotlight is Bandersnatch, in which the player navigates a shifting timeline of parallel realities, based on the book of the same name by Jerome F. Davies. That's how Bandersnatch works, but did it "snatch" your respect?
Robin (kid game reviewer): I'm afraid not, Leslie, for the simple reason that it's just way too short. It's over before it's even begun. This is the one of the first team-created games from Tuckersoft, and I think that's given it a very designed-by-committee feel, almost like they just rushed out the simplest, quickest cash-in they could. What they should've done is just gone right back to the start and tried again.
Will Poulter: A lot of divergent realities in that book. It was ahead of its time. In as much as time exists.
Will Poulter: I get it, the lad's a craftsman. He's a lone woodsman. I'm the same.
Will Poulter: It's like I say, teams are fine for things like action titles, but when it's a concept piece, a bit of madness is what you need and that works best when it's one mind.
Stefan Butler: It just feels like being...I don't know, monitored.
Stefan Butler: No voices, but there is something. I-I don't know, an impulse.
Dr. Haynes: I'm sure there is.
Dr. Haynes: OK. The fact that you're aware of your mental state is actually reassuring. But it sounds like you're starting to dissociate so we want to nip that in the bud before you start to seriously entertain delusions. I don't think we're there yet though. We can't overlook the fact that the anniversary of your mother's death is due, and as we know, that's a stressor. With that in mind, I think it's important that you stay on the pharmaceutical path at least for the next few months. I'm upping the dosage slightly. Stefan. Don't see this as a setback. You're not alone. We're in it together. One for all, and all...
Stefan Butler: For one.
Dr. Haynes: If anything happens, just call me.
Stefan Butler: Jerome F. Davies was into his conspiracy theories.
Mohan Tucker: Before or after he went psycho?
[From the taped documentary] Towards the end of his life, Davies was apparently self-administering hallucinogens on a daily basis. This, coupled with his attempts to complete the complex multiple narratives of Bandersnatch was to prove the final straw. He became obsessed with bizarre symbols and the limitations of his own free will. In his notes, Davies repeatedly sketched a glyph which to him represented multiple fates, potential realities splitting in two. It was the start of his complete mental collapse. Davies became convinced he had no control over his fate because his wife was spiking him with psychoactive drugs at behest of a demon called Pax, a sort of lion figure who he claimed he'd seen in a vision, and who ended up being incorporated into the book. It was this that led him to kill her. He decapitated her and daubed the glyph symbol on the walls with her blood. After his arrest, he told police we exist within multiple parallel realities at once. One reality for each possible course of action we might take in life. Whatever we choose to do in this existence, there’s another one out there in which we’re doing quite the opposite,which renders free will meaningless. Nothing but an illusion. If you follow that line of thinking to its logical conclusion they're not even your actions. Your fate has been dictated, it's out of your hands. You're just a puppet. You're not in control. OR So, why not commit murder? Maybe that's what destiny wants. You're just a puppet. You're not in control.
Stefan Butler: Who's doing this to me? I know there's someone there. Who's there? Who are you? Just give me a sign. Come on. If there's someone there, just give me a sign. Will you give me a sign? I now there's someone there. Just give me a fucking sign. Fucking hell. Who... What the fuck is Netflix? Seriously, what does that mean? I don't know what that means. You're not making any sense.
Can you make sense? I don't understand. I-I don't understand
Dr. Haynes: OK, well, let's try to pick it apart logically, to see if we can define if this is reality or delusion. So all of this is happening to entertain someone. Someone who's controlling you. So why aren't you in a more entertaining scenario?
- What do you mean?
Dr. Haynes: Well, look at you. You're in a small ordinary room, in an ordinary part of the world, talking to an ordinary woman. If this was entertainment, surely you'd make it more interesting. Inject a little action, isn't that right? I mean, wouldn't you want a little more action if you were watching this now on telly? [after a while, shouting] COME AT ME. COME ON, MUMMY'S BOY. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? COME ONE! I DARE YOU!
Will Poulter: How's Bandersnatch going?
Stefan Butler: Not good. Not good. I'm just... lost.
Will Poulter: You're in the hole.
Stefan Butler: In the what?
Will Poulter: In a fight with your own head.
Stefan Butler: Yes. That's exactly it.
Will Poulter: You got anywhere to be later?
Stefan Butler: Well, no.
Will Poulter: Come with me.
Will Poulter: Stefan, this is Kitty. And this is Pearl. Daddy's little legacy. Stefan's in the hole, Kit.
Will Poulter: People think there's one reality but there's loads of them, all snaking off, like roots.And what we do on one path affects what happens on the other paths. Time is a construct. People think you can't go back and change things, but you can, that's what flashbacks are, they're invitations to go back and make different choices. When you make a decision, you think it's you doing it, but it's not. It's the spirit out there that's connected to our world that decides what we do and we just have to go along for the ride. Mirrors let you move through time. The government monitors people, they pay people to pretend to be your relatives and they put drugs in your food and they film you. There's messages in every game. Like Pac-Man. Do you know what PAC stands for? "Program And Control.". He's Program and Control Man, the whole thing's a metaphor, he thinks he's got free will but really he's trapped in a maze, in a system, all he can do is consume, he's pursued by demons
that are probably just in his own head, and even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze what happens? He comes right back in the other side. People think it's a happy game, it's not a happy game, it's a fucking nightmare world and the worst thing is it's real and we live in it. It is all code. If you listen closely, you can hear the numbers. There's a cosmic flowchart that dictates
where you can and where you can't go. I've given you the knowledge. I've set you free. Do you understand?
Will Poulter: I'll show you what I mean. Come with me. We're on one path. Right now, me and you. And how one path ends is immaterial. It's how our decisions along that path affect the whole that matters. Do you believe me?
Stefan Butler: I don't know.
Will Poulter: I'll prove it. One of us is going over. Over there.
Stefan Butler: You'd die. You'd die.
Will Poulter: It wouldn't matter because there are other timelines, Stefan. How many times
have you watched Pac-Man die? Doesn't bother him. He just tries again. One of us is jumping,
so who's it going to be?
Stefan Butler: Dad, please get away from me. I'm not in control. Please, I'm not in control.
Dr. Haynes: And how is your father?
Stefan Butler: He's visiting his sister. She's in the South of France, so...
Dr. Haynes: So you've been left to your own devices.
Stefan Butler: It's been good actually. Not having him. It's meant I could work with a real sense of purpose. I've actually had a bit of breakthrough with the game. I think I'd got bogged down before
but now I can see.
Dr. Haynes: So you finally finished it?
Stefan Butler: Finished, delivered, everything. I'd been trying to give the player too much choice. So I just went back and stripped loads out. And now they've got the illusion of free will, but really I decide the ending.
Dr. Haynes: And is it a happy ending?
Stefan Butler: I think so.
Dr. Haynes: Then that's great.
Leslie (tv presenter): So Bandersnatch? Yes or no?
Robin (kid game reviewer): Yes, yes, and yes. It's got all the bases covered. The perfect game.
Leslie: Well, that is a first. So your rating is...
Robin My rating is five stars out of five. Magnificent.
That was the game Bandersnatch being reviewed on TV back in 1984. But shortly after its release,
a dark secret emerged. Its author Stefan Butler was discovered to have murdered his own father. The game was pulled from shelves and all the copies were pulped. Now, in a move that's bound
to cause controversy, a new coder wants to reboot the game for a new generation.
Pearl (the daughter of Will Poulter): My dad was a coder himself back in the day, and I found Stefan's game in an old crate, I ran it on an emulator, RetroArch. And I found it really ground-breaking. I can see why people think it's controversial to be remaking it today, but the free will concept is fascinating.Today, interactive stories of this kind are available on your TV, or laptop, your phone, so I'm developing this for streaming TV platforms.
Stefan Butler: I keep thinking about that morning. Reliving it. Rabbit. It was because of Rabbit. He was this stupid toy that my mum had made for me when I was born. I used to take him everywhere. I think Dad thought it was sissy or something. He and Mum used to have these rows about it. I know he took rabbit away and hid it somewhere. That morning, Mum was going to visit Granddad and Grandma. I was supposed to be going with her, but I couldn't find Rabbit anywhere. And I refused to go without him. [...] Because of me she had to catch a later train. Because of me.
Dr. Haynes: Stefan, how old were you when this happened?
Stefan Butler: Five.
Dr. Haynes: You were five years old. And you couldn't have known. Stefan. You couldn't have known.
Stefan Butler: I fucking hate him for it.
Dr. Haynes: The past is immutable, Stefan. No matter how painful it is, we can't change things, we can't choose differently, with hindsight. We all have to learn to accept that. Remember, any time you need me, just pick up the phone. You know the number.
Stefan Butler: Don't know if it's the deadlines, but my head is all over the place. I keep having these vivid dreams. Like thinking weird things.
Dr. Haynes: What sort of things?
Stefan Butler: Like I'm not in control.
Dr. Haynes: Of?
Stefan Butler: Anything, little things, tiny decisions. What I have for breakfast in the morning. What music I listen to. Whether I shout at Dad, or...
Dr. Haynes: You feel like you're not making these decisions?
Stefan Butler: I feel like I'm not guiding them. Like someone else is.
Dr. Haynes: You're not hearing voices or...?
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