Colin Ritman

WARNING: Spoilers for “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Ahead!

*

*

*

*

*

With the ‘Black Mirror’ movie ‘Bandersnatch’ now available on Netflix, fans have already begun their speculation on what Easter Eggs are going to appear in Season 5 of ‘Black Mirror’ from the “choose-your-own-adventure” movie, and now, they can be fueled by words from the creatives themselves. One such theory revolves around the character of Colin Ritman, who both dies and does NOT dies in ‘Bandersnatch‘ based on the choices made by the viewer, namely whether the viewer has him jump out a window to his death early in the movie, or whether they have Stefan kill him later on the story. Or neither, in which case Colin would survive the events depicted in ‘Bandersnatch.’

According to showrunner Charlie Brooker while on the subject of the character of Colin Ritman:

“Ostensibly, he could go on forever, because he’s both dead and not dead. I like the idea that he could show up anywhere. I could see him popping up in ‘San Junipero’ or running around in ‘White Bear.'”

Booker went on to talk about the challenges of the story, especially with characters and storylines like the one with Colin Ritman, and how it all ended up being a bit more complicated to produce than they had originally thought:

“There was quite a bit of trial and error of learning what would and wouldn’t work. Because you have to learn a whole new way of editing. It’s not like editing a standard film where you can often rearrange scenes or cut things. In some respects you have more freedom because you have so many different stories that you can be telling. But then you are restricted in new ways. There’s a whole new language you have to learn and on top of that, you have to write and film so much more.”

While speaking to Booker’s partner and executive producer Annabel Jones, the Hollywood Reporter learned that it was the attempt to keep the world as real and honest (and interesting to the audience) as possible for every choice that proved to be the true challenge of ‘Bandersnatch.’ In her words:

“Something like this is obviously a massive undertaking and bizarrely, the really time-consuming thing is holding onto that truthfulness. You could have created something like this where there were very dramatic and very big, disparate decisions for Stefan to make. But you might have ended up with a sprawling and incohesive story, which wouldn’t have been very satisfying. A lot of the craft comes from keeping the world as small as possible, but also keeping the world as emotionally impactful for Stefan as possible…”There’s so much content and not reflected in the content is the craftsmanship, and what you have to take out to make the world exist — or feel as if it does exist in one cohesive world. So it did take an enormous amount of time and as a result, then season five sort of gets shifted back a little bit. But this is such a huge, interesting new opportunity for Netflix that we’re a part of. And there is so much fun to be had with it. That’s one thing that I hope people take away from it: I hope that you just enjoy the experience.”

Does it make your head hurt to think about the possibilities of what it would mean to see Colin in more ‘Black Mirror’ stories? Did you choose to save him while watching ‘Bandersnatch? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below!