July 29, 2023 • 29 mins
Interactive Movie – In this episode we will discuss the very amazing interactive movie and the concepts hidden within. There are easter eggs scattered all throughout the movie and I dare you to find them all. Here they explore pre-determined destiny and a bit of the multiverse. Not just making different choices, but remembering them. All of this in an interactive experience where we make all the decisions… or do we? Is it control, or just the illusion of it?
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Thank You for Listening
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Thank you, Thank you. Welcopodcast joint host hoh as he discusses the
rivting Netflix original series Black Mirror nowhere he is broadcasting from the kind of
(00:30):
studio. Welcome to Black Mirror Podcastand as always I'm your host, ho
host. How y'all's doing I hopeyou're doing good. I really do.
Today we are revisiting the Netflix interactivemovie Extraffic Ganga entitled Bandersnatch. Oh yeah,
(00:50):
man, I'll tell you what.This thing did not disappoint. It
really didn't my first and by theway, before we get into it too
far, spoiler alert, we aregoing to be talking about the movie,
and we're going to be talking aboutmore than just a movie. Now.
My first experience with an interactive movie. You really couldn't call it an interactive
(01:17):
movie. I mean you really couldn'tbecause it was on VHS. So it
was the movie Clue. It wasa 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 theend, because it was on VHS,
you know you've only got rewind,fast, forward, pause, stop,
(01:40):
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 thenit 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 tochoose your ending, and it was it
(02:01):
was phenomenal. It was amazing,you know. So whenever I heard that
Netflix Black Mirror was doing an interactivemovie, I was like, oh,
this is going to be good.And they definitely did not disappoint. I
(02:24):
mean, they did not disappoint inthe least whatsoever. Now, the first
time I watched this movie, Iwent, I went full on geek,
okay. I mean I'm sitting therewith 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'mwriting down the questions or the the scenario
(02:46):
and then my you know, theoptions that you have, and then which
direction I went. I mean Iwrote it all down, okay, because
I went full on gee, fullon geek. And it didn't take me
long to really regret that decision becausethe amount of options, the amount of
(03:07):
questions, the different directions that thestate can go was just staggering. I
mean, holy cow, it wasstaggering. But they had so many options
in there. I mean, wow, they really did it, and it
really was a fun time. Nowthis time doing it, I mean I
(03:30):
had, you know, the firsttime 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 tothe point to where I'm just having fun
with it and you know, we'redoing absurdity, and holy crap, it
did not disappoint. Now I gotled down several different rabbit trails. I
(03:53):
got led down, you know,um possibilities that that kind of dead ended,
and I want to explore more becauseit gave you that option to back
up things. And I was like, Okay, cool, let's explore this.
And it ended up taking me quitesome time to watch this movie.
I mean I spent over two hours. I mean I spent close to three
(04:14):
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 bitmore chaotically. I wanted to do this
a little bit different. You know, I wanted to have you know,
I wanted to see if I couldgo down different paths and what would happen.
(04:36):
And again it did not disappoint becausethis time around, I mean I
got I mean, I went alittle bit different. Please at me.
Granted, I mean I ran intoa lot of the same stuff that I
did last time. But the magicis in the different types of endings that
is embedded within this and holy crowd, there's a lot of them. I
(04:59):
mean there's quite a few. Imean, I had such a different type
of an experience this time around.Watching it was almost like watching a different
movie altogether, you know. Imean it was more like the difference of
watching you know, the theatrical releaseof Return of the King, you know,
the last of the Lord of theRings movies, you know, the
(05:20):
part three. You know that itwas a difference of watching the theatrical release
versus watching the extended cut where theyadded like fifty two additional minutes and it
basically changed the feel of the entiremovie. I mean, that's what it
felt like. That's more or lesswhat it was. And boy howdy,
(05:42):
I mean it was it was awesome. I mean it really was. I
could probably watch this thing again andhave a totally new experience. I mean
not totally new, but enough knewthat it's like watching another movie. You
know, so many differ from pageyou can take absolutely amazing. And this
(06:03):
time I spent you know, maybea 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. Imean, 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, thismost recent time. You know, I
didn't do like a clock, youknow, I didn't record what time I
(06:28):
started and how long it took andwhen I actually got finished, and you
know, when the rabbit hole stuffstarted 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 watchingit afterwards, I got this, you
know, I got this question.It's like, how how long is this
puppy? You know, That's whatthe question was. It was like how
(06:50):
long is this movie? I mean, how much time did they actually take
how much actual movie is their footis this, that and the other?
And so I had to look itup, 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
(07:12):
the region that you're at, youknow, may determine different you know,
things and run times, and itdoes 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 runtime at the time of release, you
(07:33):
know, back in December, Ibelieve 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 movieand what it had to offer, the
(07:58):
different outcomes and possibilities that were there. I believe it. Five hours and
twelve minutes. It does not seemlike 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 evenmore that they threw into this that didn't
even make the movie. It wasyou know, ideas and concepts that they
(08:20):
you know, had some of whichthey 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 meanthey 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
(08:45):
Mirror, it did not disappoint.You know, the the concept of the
movie I found absolutely fascinating, noother way to put it. I found
it absolutely fascinating. Now Here,here's the premise of this whole thing.
Okay, you got this nineteen yearold kid whom gets um infactuated with this
(09:07):
book. I believe this book belongedto his mother. I don't remember on
that. I think it belonged tohis mother. He found it, read
the book, and this was aninteractive book. And this book was freaking
huge. I mean, this bookwas like Stephen King's it huge. You
know. This thing was big,two biblical proportions. Okay, see what
(09:31):
I did there. Bible it's abig book. So was this. And
of course the book was entitled BanderSnatch and you come to find out that,
you know, the author of thisbook, you know, kind of
went he went, he went fullon Luna TUN's all right, he went
crazy, all right, this bookdoing this everything that it was going on.
(09:58):
You know, the guy, theguy went kind of crazy. You
know, he went crazy to thepoint to where he killed his wife.
And a symbol popped up in thisand you kind of find this out a
little bit later as far as asymbolism into this, but it was also
a roll back in easter egg toanother movie I believe it was entitled White
(10:20):
Bear, and it had a specificsignificance in this movie. It really did
you know, the options the Aor B that this that the the the
braintree or the mind tree of howhe mapped out never mind, never mind
what We'll get into that a littlebit later. Okay, But this book
(10:41):
was huge. And the aspect ofthis book that the kid found extremely fascinating
was, you know, it wasan interactive choose your path book. You
know, to read this thing coverto cover wouldn't make any sense whatsoever,
because you get the points in thebook where it's like, you know,
(11:01):
you can choose this and of whichcase 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, likeI remember back in school they had interactive
books like this, or I thinkthey were more like like maybe not necessarily
like like book book, just words. I mean they were you know,
(11:22):
picture books, comic books, youknow, 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 hewent crazy with the with the possibilities and
(11:52):
whatnot, you know. And sothis 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 ofthing. I mean, there was
(12:15):
innovation going on in here. Imean there really was, you know,
not just how a typical game hasrun, but something that you can play
with a controller, which at thetime was had never been done before.
I mean, it truly was agroundbreaking innovative video game that he was making,
(12:35):
not just a computer game, buta video game. Very very awesome
concept, and he wanted to givehonor to the book and have it structured
the same way to where you werethe one who was choosing the path of
this and as you can imagine,it got out of control. Now this
(13:00):
might have been and I didn't puttwo and two together until, you know,
just you know, after watching themovie. But you know, I
was, I dabble in computer programming. I write, you know, I
do some Python stuff. I've donea 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 andhave been working on, is an interactive
(13:22):
action adventure game. And of whichcase 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 itwas 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
(13:46):
played Organ Trail, you know,one of the ways that you die,
you know, a lot a reoccurringdeath that most everybody has is dying of
dysentery. I don't know what theheck doesn't Terry is I was young.
I was a kid. I wasin you know, elementary school and junior
high playing this game. I hadno idea. I just died of dysentery.
It's like, holy crap. NowI got to start over from the
(14:07):
beginning and do this again, youknow. And that was the model that
I had whenever I was you know, started programming this game. And the
rabbit Hole, holy crap. SoI can feel for what this kid was
going through whenever he was right inthis game, you know. Now,
I decided that the only way towin this game was to go through the
(14:28):
most absurd, never going to worktype of scenario. Otherwise, if you
didn't choose that path, everybody diedof dysentery, all right, because apparently
in Oregon Trail they were infactuated withTerry Crews and Dis and him caused your
death. And so I'm like,that's how everybody dies in my action adventure
(14:48):
video game or action adventure ms DOSgame, dis and Terry play on words.
I know, bad dad joke,whatever. Don't hate me. It
was fun, all right, ButI get the rabbit Hole and the Stephen.
You know the issues that Stephen washaving programming this game, because he
(15:11):
would do this, He would dothat. He would work out, you
know, work out this line ofoptions, go to this line of options,
and this line of options, andso many options in here, so
many different directions. You know,he would add a new this and then
just break the entire game, youknow, and death, you know,
(15:33):
I mean it was just that thegame kept crashing. He had issues with
it because and you know, atthe end you see the the brain treat
of this game and all the pagesthat 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 onthis week, all the different avenues and
(15:56):
roads that you can go down.Holy cow, it's no wonder he went
a little loopy and lost his freakingmind. I mean, holy cow.
And it's like through watching the movie, you know, I mean, some
things happened, okay, and heuh through the movie, through the adventure
(16:23):
that you're going on one of thepaths that you can take, or I
guess several of the paths that youcan 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 thegame creator. You know, this is
what he is saying, as in, the only way to really do this
(16:45):
game and not you know, justlose your mind with it, is realizing
that it's not about all the choicesand the possibilities that you can do,
because what you need to do isit give the player the illusion of choice
(17:07):
whenever the outcome is truly set byme, the game creator. Blew my
mind. Holy crap, that isjust whoa you know, and it brought
a whole new light into this moviethat no matter what I chose, no
(17:30):
matter the decision that I made inthis, you know, there was a
predetermined path that the only way tosuccessfully navigate this movie to come to the
conclusion that basically it's taking you tois to take their chosen path. Now,
the awesome thing about this is thatthey're there. You know, that
(17:51):
they add a whole new dimension ormultiple 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 thathe was remembering the choices that he was
making and in the navigation that someof the stuff became to where it was
(18:15):
you know, you had to goback five or six different steps, but
you didn't have to make the precedingthe preceding steps to follow it, because
it automatically navigated you through the wholething, and it was like whoa,
But they were remembering what was goingon, or at least two characters were,
you know, Stephen, the protagonists, and then a fellow coder,
(18:37):
a fellow game creator in this Ithink his name was Colin in the movie.
You know, they were kind ofon the same level. If you
will, you know, adding thatmultiple dimensions and being able to if you
make a wrong decision, go backand change your mind, make a different
decision and continue with this story anddiscover more to a point of having a
(19:03):
completely different outcome. Amazing movie.I mean, holy crap, that that
was whoa. Just adding that additionallevel, that additional layer, that additional
concept into the movie. Wow,I mean it really was just next level.
(19:25):
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 adifferent experience, because this time I really
(19:45):
did. I mean, I hadI went down avenues that I didn't previously
go down and it was a completelydifferent 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
(20:07):
they actually do talk about, youknow. I mean, I'm not sure
if y'alls are familiar with the Mandelaeffect 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'sdetails that are different now, you know.
It's the Mandela effect researching. Youknow. Now, I don't know
(20:30):
how I feel about some of thatstuff 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 himas an adult gave me a different
experience, you know. For instance, you know, one year, for
(20:51):
Christmas, Now this was probably tenyears back or so, I mean,
I don't know, it was awhile ago, but for Christmas, my
mom gave me a a box setof He Man and the Matches End of
the Universe, Volume one, Seasonone, there you go. And I
remember watching this as a kid.This was like one of my absolute favorite
(21:11):
cartoons. It was awesome. Itwas a great cartoon. Rewatching it as
an adult, I'm like, howdid I like this? This is not
what I remembered it to be,you know, and just a completely different
viewing experience, a completely different mindsetof the show, you know. And
(21:33):
then I went back and I watchedwith a buddy of mine because his wife
had never seen this movie, sowe introduced it to her the movie Lost
Boys with Keif for Sutherland and severalother people, and it was everything we
can do to make it through thismovie because we both remembered this movie as
being an awesome, amazing movie.It was cool, it was great.
(21:57):
Keif for Sutherland as a vampire,this is awesome. Rewatching it as an
adult, it was like, thisthing sucks, you know. I mean
it was it was bad. Imean, his wife was making fun.
It's like, what is this typeof a thing, you know? And
I made my decision right then andthere. It's like, I am not
(22:18):
revisiting movies that I have seen becauseI don't want to ruin the nostalgia.
I don't want to ruin how Ithink about this movie. I mean,
there's something that I'd really like torewatch 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
(22:41):
them as being awesome, amazing movies. I remember them being fun, and
it's like, I don't want toruin that, you know, by watching
it as an adult with maybe differentexpectations and as no one do it.
So, you know, I don'treally put a lot of weight into it,
(23:03):
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 muchweight I put behind it. But at
the same point or at the sametime, I guess you can say,
(23:26):
it's like, huh, maybe maybe. I mean, scientifically speaking, we've
discovered several universes per seing of whichcase his to say, what's real,
what's not? All these other possibilitieswhy not type of a thing? I
(23:52):
mean, just the concept of itI thought was intriguing, and how they
brought this was just phenomenal. Imean, they did a great job with
this movie. They truly did,you know. And and here's the thing
too, you know, and thisis where we're going to end it.
(24:15):
Okay, as with this concept righthere, because the theme of this movie
was having choice, but the truthbeing you know, because the Choices was
a lie. You know, thecake is a lie. These choices was
a lie because it wasn't actual choicesthat you were making is the viewer,
(24:37):
because the creator had already decided thatthis is what the outcome is going to
be. It was the illusion ofchoice. 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 actuallyhave? You know? Sometimes two steps
(25:00):
forward, one step back, youknow, it seems like we're navigating this
thing called life, but we arenot in control. How many of us
feel like that, at least insome 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
(25:23):
like like full on, we ain'tgot nothing, you know as far as
choices goes, But I mean atthe same time, it's like, yeah,
there's a lot of choice that's beentaken away from us, and either
we can choose to go with thegrain and maybe have a little bit easier
of a time, or we cancompletely try to go against the grain and
(25:45):
struggle through hardships with different things allthe time. Again, how many of
us feel like we don't really havea choice, that somebody else is pulling
the strings and the outcome has alreadybeen predetermined. A weird concept. I
know from time to time I feltlike that, and I'm sure at some
(26:08):
points in time maybe y'alls have too. But it's intriguing how they tied all
these multiple things together. And youknow, I tell you what, Like
that aspect of it wasn't even somethingthat I thought about the first time around
watching Us. You know, itwas something that was in my psyche,
(26:30):
but it wasn't necessarily something that Ithought about. And it was like,
Dude, once I did think aboutthis, I mean, it brought this
movie to a different light entirely forme. It was like, dude,
I mean, maybe you guys werequicker on the onset to what I was.
Maybe I was just slow to theuptick, but it was Wow,
this is cool. I mean,this is like scary, this is trippy,
(26:53):
if you will, dude, youknow, 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 canwatch it multiple times and have a different
viewing experience. I still want towatch it again. I still want to
explore and see just how many differentpossibilities I can take, you know,
(27:18):
before you know, coming to anice conclusion. You know, it's it
really was a fun one. Sothat 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 isgoing to be Striking Vipers. Of
(27:41):
course it is by by request,We're doing Striking Vipers. I can't wait
to do that. When that onewas 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 forkids. That movie is not or I'm
(28:02):
sorry, that episode, that episode, it is not for kids by any
stretch of the imagination whatsoever. I'mgoing 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 nuanceinto it as possible, but it's just
a topic is not for kids.Just throwing that out there, man,
(28:25):
you have been warned. You've beenwarned. And I haven't decided if I'm
going to be doing that that episodethree or not. I might skip that
and go directly into from Striking Vipersinto season six. I don't know.
I haven't decided yet. It's possibilitiesat this point, you know. But
(28:48):
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 herof a great one and I will see
you crap in the next one.Thank you for listening to the Black Mirror
(29:15):
podcast. If you would like tojoin 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 boardfor this s
Thank you, Thank you. Welcopodcast joint host hoh as he discusses the
rivting Netflix original series Black Mirror nowhere he is broadcasting from the kind of
(00:30):
studio. Welcome to Black Mirror Podcastand as always I'm your host, ho
host. How y'all's doing I hopeyou're doing good. I really do.
Today we are revisiting the Netflix interactivemovie Extraffic Ganga entitled Bandersnatch. Oh yeah,
(00:50):
man, I'll tell you what.This thing did not disappoint. It
really didn't my first and by theway, before we get into it too
far, spoiler alert, we aregoing to be talking about the movie,
and we're going to be talking aboutmore than just a movie. Now.
My first experience with an interactive movie. You really couldn't call it an interactive
(01:17):
movie. I mean you really couldn'tbecause it was on VHS. So it
was the movie Clue. It wasa 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 theend, because it was on VHS,
you know you've only got rewind,fast, forward, pause, stop,
(01:40):
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 thenit 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 tochoose your ending, and it was it
(02:01):
was phenomenal. It was amazing,you know. So whenever I heard that
Netflix Black Mirror was doing an interactivemovie, I was like, oh,
this is going to be good.And they definitely did not disappoint. I
(02:24):
mean, they did not disappoint inthe least whatsoever. Now, the first
time I watched this movie, Iwent, I went full on geek,
okay. I mean I'm sitting therewith 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'mwriting down the questions or the the scenario
(02:46):
and then my you know, theoptions that you have, and then which
direction I went. I mean Iwrote it all down, okay, because
I went full on gee, fullon geek. And it didn't take me
long to really regret that decision becausethe amount of options, the amount of
(03:07):
questions, the different directions that thestate can go was just staggering. I
mean, holy cow, it wasstaggering. But they had so many options
in there. I mean, wow, they really did it, and it
really was a fun time. Nowthis time doing it, I mean I
(03:30):
had, you know, the firsttime 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 tothe point to where I'm just having fun
with it and you know, we'redoing absurdity, and holy crap, it
did not disappoint. Now I gotled down several different rabbit trails. I
(03:53):
got led down, you know,um possibilities that that kind of dead ended,
and I want to explore more becauseit gave you that option to back
up things. And I was like, Okay, cool, let's explore this.
And it ended up taking me quitesome time to watch this movie.
I mean I spent over two hours. I mean I spent close to three
(04:14):
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 bitmore chaotically. I wanted to do this
a little bit different. You know, I wanted to have you know,
I wanted to see if I couldgo down different paths and what would happen.
(04:36):
And again it did not disappoint becausethis time around, I mean I
got I mean, I went alittle bit different. Please at me.
Granted, I mean I ran intoa lot of the same stuff that I
did last time. But the magicis in the different types of endings that
is embedded within this and holy crowd, there's a lot of them. I
(04:59):
mean there's quite a few. Imean, I had such a different type
of an experience this time around.Watching it was almost like watching a different
movie altogether, you know. Imean it was more like the difference of
watching you know, the theatrical releaseof Return of the King, you know,
the last of the Lord of theRings movies, you know, the
(05:20):
part three. You know that itwas a difference of watching the theatrical release
versus watching the extended cut where theyadded like fifty two additional minutes and it
basically changed the feel of the entiremovie. I mean, that's what it
felt like. That's more or lesswhat it was. And boy howdy,
(05:42):
I mean it was it was awesome. I mean it really was. I
could probably watch this thing again andhave a totally new experience. I mean
not totally new, but enough knewthat it's like watching another movie. You
know, so many differ from pageyou can take absolutely amazing. And this
(06:03):
time I spent you know, maybea 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. Imean, 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, thismost recent time. You know, I
didn't do like a clock, youknow, I didn't record what time I
(06:28):
started and how long it took andwhen I actually got finished, and you
know, when the rabbit hole stuffstarted 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 watchingit afterwards, I got this, you
know, I got this question.It's like, how how long is this
puppy? You know, That's whatthe question was. It was like how
(06:50):
long is this movie? I mean, how much time did they actually take
how much actual movie is their footis this, that and the other?
And so I had to look itup, 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
(07:12):
the region that you're at, youknow, may determine different you know,
things and run times, and itdoes 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 runtime at the time of release, you
(07:33):
know, back in December, Ibelieve 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 movieand what it had to offer, the
(07:58):
different outcomes and possibilities that were there. I believe it. Five hours and
twelve minutes. It does not seemlike 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 evenmore that they threw into this that didn't
even make the movie. It wasyou know, ideas and concepts that they
(08:20):
you know, had some of whichthey 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 meanthey 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
(08:45):
Mirror, it did not disappoint.You know, the the concept of the
movie I found absolutely fascinating, noother way to put it. I found
it absolutely fascinating. Now Here,here's the premise of this whole thing.
Okay, you got this nineteen yearold kid whom gets um infactuated with this
(09:07):
book. I believe this book belongedto his mother. I don't remember on
that. I think it belonged tohis mother. He found it, read
the book, and this was aninteractive book. And this book was freaking
huge. I mean, this bookwas like Stephen King's it huge. You
know. This thing was big,two biblical proportions. Okay, see what
(09:31):
I did there. Bible it's abig book. So was this. And
of course the book was entitled BanderSnatch and you come to find out that,
you know, the author of thisbook, you know, kind of
went he went, he went fullon Luna TUN's all right, he went
crazy, all right, this bookdoing this everything that it was going on.
(09:58):
You know, the guy, theguy went kind of crazy. You
know, he went crazy to thepoint to where he killed his wife.
And a symbol popped up in thisand you kind of find this out a
little bit later as far as asymbolism into this, but it was also
a roll back in easter egg toanother movie I believe it was entitled White
(10:20):
Bear, and it had a specificsignificance in this movie. It really did
you know, the options the Aor B that this that the the the
braintree or the mind tree of howhe mapped out never mind, never mind
what We'll get into that a littlebit later. Okay, But this book
(10:41):
was huge. And the aspect ofthis book that the kid found extremely fascinating
was, you know, it wasan interactive choose your path book. You
know, to read this thing coverto cover wouldn't make any sense whatsoever,
because you get the points in thebook where it's like, you know,
(11:01):
you can choose this and of whichcase 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, likeI remember back in school they had interactive
books like this, or I thinkthey were more like like maybe not necessarily
like like book book, just words. I mean they were you know,
(11:22):
picture books, comic books, youknow, 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 hewent crazy with the with the possibilities and
(11:52):
whatnot, you know. And sothis 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 ofthing. I mean, there was
(12:15):
innovation going on in here. Imean there really was, you know,
not just how a typical game hasrun, but something that you can play
with a controller, which at thetime was had never been done before.
I mean, it truly was agroundbreaking innovative video game that he was making,
(12:35):
not just a computer game, buta video game. Very very awesome
concept, and he wanted to givehonor to the book and have it structured
the same way to where you werethe one who was choosing the path of
this and as you can imagine,it got out of control. Now this
(13:00):
might have been and I didn't puttwo and two together until, you know,
just you know, after watching themovie. But you know, I
was, I dabble in computer programming. I write, you know, I
do some Python stuff. I've donea 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 andhave been working on, is an interactive
(13:22):
action adventure game. And of whichcase 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 itwas 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
(13:46):
played Organ Trail, you know,one of the ways that you die,
you know, a lot a reoccurringdeath that most everybody has is dying of
dysentery. I don't know what theheck doesn't Terry is I was young.
I was a kid. I wasin you know, elementary school and junior
high playing this game. I hadno idea. I just died of dysentery.
It's like, holy crap. NowI got to start over from the
(14:07):
beginning and do this again, youknow. And that was the model that
I had whenever I was you know, started programming this game. And the
rabbit Hole, holy crap. SoI can feel for what this kid was
going through whenever he was right inthis game, you know. Now,
I decided that the only way towin this game was to go through the
(14:28):
most absurd, never going to worktype of scenario. Otherwise, if you
didn't choose that path, everybody diedof dysentery, all right, because apparently
in Oregon Trail they were infactuated withTerry Crews and Dis and him caused your
death. And so I'm like,that's how everybody dies in my action adventure
(14:48):
video game or action adventure ms DOSgame, dis and Terry play on words.
I know, bad dad joke,whatever. Don't hate me. It
was fun, all right, ButI get the rabbit Hole and the Stephen.
You know the issues that Stephen washaving programming this game, because he
(15:11):
would do this, He would dothat. He would work out, you
know, work out this line ofoptions, go to this line of options,
and this line of options, andso many options in here, so
many different directions. You know,he would add a new this and then
just break the entire game, youknow, and death, you know,
(15:33):
I mean it was just that thegame kept crashing. He had issues with
it because and you know, atthe end you see the the brain treat
of this game and all the pagesthat 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 onthis week, all the different avenues and
(15:56):
roads that you can go down.Holy cow, it's no wonder he went
a little loopy and lost his freakingmind. I mean, holy cow.
And it's like through watching the movie, you know, I mean, some
things happened, okay, and heuh through the movie, through the adventure
(16:23):
that you're going on one of thepaths that you can take, or I
guess several of the paths that youcan 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 thegame creator. You know, this is
what he is saying, as in, the only way to really do this
(16:45):
game and not you know, justlose your mind with it, is realizing
that it's not about all the choicesand the possibilities that you can do,
because what you need to do isit give the player the illusion of choice
(17:07):
whenever the outcome is truly set byme, the game creator. Blew my
mind. Holy crap, that isjust whoa you know, and it brought
a whole new light into this moviethat no matter what I chose, no
(17:30):
matter the decision that I made inthis, you know, there was a
predetermined path that the only way tosuccessfully navigate this movie to come to the
conclusion that basically it's taking you tois to take their chosen path. Now,
the awesome thing about this is thatthey're there. You know, that
(17:51):
they add a whole new dimension ormultiple 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 thathe was remembering the choices that he was
making and in the navigation that someof the stuff became to where it was
(18:15):
you know, you had to goback five or six different steps, but
you didn't have to make the precedingthe preceding steps to follow it, because
it automatically navigated you through the wholething, and it was like whoa,
But they were remembering what was goingon, or at least two characters were,
you know, Stephen, the protagonists, and then a fellow coder,
(18:37):
a fellow game creator in this Ithink his name was Colin in the movie.
You know, they were kind ofon the same level. If you
will, you know, adding thatmultiple dimensions and being able to if you
make a wrong decision, go backand change your mind, make a different
decision and continue with this story anddiscover more to a point of having a
(19:03):
completely different outcome. Amazing movie.I mean, holy crap, that that
was whoa. Just adding that additionallevel, that additional layer, that additional
concept into the movie. Wow,I mean it really was just next level.
(19:25):
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 adifferent experience, because this time I really
(19:45):
did. I mean, I hadI went down avenues that I didn't previously
go down and it was a completelydifferent 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
(20:07):
they actually do talk about, youknow. I mean, I'm not sure
if y'alls are familiar with the Mandelaeffect 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'sdetails that are different now, you know.
It's the Mandela effect researching. Youknow. Now, I don't know
(20:30):
how I feel about some of thatstuff 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 himas an adult gave me a different
experience, you know. For instance, you know, one year, for
(20:51):
Christmas, Now this was probably tenyears back or so, I mean,
I don't know, it was awhile ago, but for Christmas, my
mom gave me a a box setof He Man and the Matches End of
the Universe, Volume one, Seasonone, there you go. And I
remember watching this as a kid.This was like one of my absolute favorite
(21:11):
cartoons. It was awesome. Itwas a great cartoon. Rewatching it as
an adult, I'm like, howdid I like this? This is not
what I remembered it to be,you know, and just a completely different
viewing experience, a completely different mindsetof the show, you know. And
(21:33):
then I went back and I watchedwith a buddy of mine because his wife
had never seen this movie, sowe introduced it to her the movie Lost
Boys with Keif for Sutherland and severalother people, and it was everything we
can do to make it through thismovie because we both remembered this movie as
being an awesome, amazing movie.It was cool, it was great.
(21:57):
Keif for Sutherland as a vampire,this is awesome. Rewatching it as an
adult, it was like, thisthing sucks, you know. I mean
it was it was bad. Imean, his wife was making fun.
It's like, what is this typeof a thing, you know? And
I made my decision right then andthere. It's like, I am not
(22:18):
revisiting movies that I have seen becauseI don't want to ruin the nostalgia.
I don't want to ruin how Ithink about this movie. I mean,
there's something that I'd really like torewatch 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
(22:41):
them as being awesome, amazing movies. I remember them being fun, and
it's like, I don't want toruin that, you know, by watching
it as an adult with maybe differentexpectations and as no one do it.
So, you know, I don'treally put a lot of weight into it,
(23:03):
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 muchweight I put behind it. But at
the same point or at the sametime, I guess you can say,
(23:26):
it's like, huh, maybe maybe. I mean, scientifically speaking, we've
discovered several universes per seing of whichcase his to say, what's real,
what's not? All these other possibilitieswhy not type of a thing? I
(23:52):
mean, just the concept of itI thought was intriguing, and how they
brought this was just phenomenal. Imean, they did a great job with
this movie. They truly did,you know. And and here's the thing
too, you know, and thisis where we're going to end it.
(24:15):
Okay, as with this concept righthere, because the theme of this movie
was having choice, but the truthbeing you know, because the Choices was
a lie. You know, thecake is a lie. These choices was
a lie because it wasn't actual choicesthat you were making is the viewer,
(24:37):
because the creator had already decided thatthis is what the outcome is going to
be. It was the illusion ofchoice. 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 actuallyhave? You know? Sometimes two steps
(25:00):
forward, one step back, youknow, it seems like we're navigating this
thing called life, but we arenot in control. How many of us
feel like that, at least insome 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
(25:23):
like like full on, we ain'tgot nothing, you know as far as
choices goes, But I mean atthe same time, it's like, yeah,
there's a lot of choice that's beentaken away from us, and either
we can choose to go with thegrain and maybe have a little bit easier
of a time, or we cancompletely try to go against the grain and
(25:45):
struggle through hardships with different things allthe time. Again, how many of
us feel like we don't really havea choice, that somebody else is pulling
the strings and the outcome has alreadybeen predetermined. A weird concept. I
know from time to time I feltlike that, and I'm sure at some
(26:08):
points in time maybe y'alls have too. But it's intriguing how they tied all
these multiple things together. And youknow, I tell you what, Like
that aspect of it wasn't even somethingthat I thought about the first time around
watching Us. You know, itwas something that was in my psyche,
(26:30):
but it wasn't necessarily something that Ithought about. And it was like,
Dude, once I did think aboutthis, I mean, it brought this
movie to a different light entirely forme. It was like, dude,
I mean, maybe you guys werequicker on the onset to what I was.
Maybe I was just slow to theuptick, but it was Wow,
this is cool. I mean,this is like scary, this is trippy,
(26:53):
if you will, dude, youknow, 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 canwatch it multiple times and have a different
viewing experience. I still want towatch it again. I still want to
explore and see just how many differentpossibilities I can take, you know,
(27:18):
before you know, coming to anice conclusion. You know, it's it
really was a fun one. Sothat 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 isgoing to be Striking Vipers. Of
(27:41):
course it is by by request,We're doing Striking Vipers. I can't wait
to do that. When that onewas 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 forkids. That movie is not or I'm
(28:02):
sorry, that episode, that episode, it is not for kids by any
stretch of the imagination whatsoever. I'mgoing 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 nuanceinto it as possible, but it's just
a topic is not for kids.Just throwing that out there, man,
(28:25):
you have been warned. You've beenwarned. And I haven't decided if I'm
going to be doing that that episodethree or not. I might skip that
and go directly into from Striking Vipersinto season six. I don't know.
I haven't decided yet. It's possibilitiesat this point, you know. But
(28:48):
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 herof a great one and I will see
you crap in the next one.Thank you for listening to the Black Mirror
(29:15):
podcast. If you would like tojoin 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 boardfor this s
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