WARNING: Mild Spoilers Ahead for Anyone Who Has Not Seen ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch!”
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For everyone who HAS seen ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,’ you already know how crazy complicated the movie is, as the entire trick of the movie is that it is a ‘choose your own adventure’ style movie. The film, set in 1984, follows main character Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) who happens to be a video game developer who is trying to make a game based on a “choose-your-own-adventure” fantasy book and just about goes crazy while trying to do it. Along the way, we the audience get to make lots and lots of decisions, both mundane (like what to eat or what music to listen to) and some ultimately, very important decisions as they lead to one of the 5 main endings of the movie. Apparently, with all the various choices there are over a trillion iterations of the story, enough so that Netflix had to create their own in-house tool to handle the movie, called “Branch Manager,” which allowed series creator Charlie Brooker to bring ‘Bandersnatch’ to life. The end result? Audience members can spend anywhere from an hour to almost three hours exploring the various stories in ‘Bandersnatch’ and coming to various endings, seeing how the myriad choices affect the eventual outcomes of the story, all of which seems to be very well-received by fans.
Downside though, is that making all those possibilities for ‘Bandersnatch’ work means that Brooker and company had to delay Season 5 of ‘Black Mirror,’ as they were clearly very busy getting the movie together. That is not to say we will not see Season 5 in 2019 as reported, just that it will most likely be much later in 2019 than originally thought. Which is not the end of the world in my opinion, as delaying the next season so they can do something cool and original like ‘Bandersnatch’ is ok with me, as projects like this help keep series like ‘Black Mirror’ fresh, and keep the creatives excited.
Did you watch ‘Bandersnatch? Did you explore all the different possibilities and endings? Was it worth delaying season 5 of the main series? Feel free to share your thoughts below!
