Black Mirror, though relatively new to the SF genre has consistently managed to leave its audience feeling uneasy, well after the credits roll. The show made its debut in 2011 and is no stranger to taboo topics, with its many depictions of violence and psychological horror. It is often described as a contemporary twist on the iconic Twilight Zone from 1959, not to be confused with Jordan Peele’s reboot in 2019. The anthological series finds creative ways to make social commentary on things like trolls on social media, the toxicity in nerd culture, and even the dark side of helicopter parenting. Each plot faithfully incorporates a form of technology into the storyline, whether it be virtual reality, an online game, or a dating app. No matter the type, the show’s writers have always found a way to put viewers on edge. With many of these stories coming to head tragically, it is for this exact reason Netflix succeeds in pulling in fans every new release. All of this to say, the hit series still manages to take it a step further with its 2018 film Bandersnatch. Unlike its predecessors, this movie is interactive, in that it allows watchers to pick choices that will determine how the story unfolds and ends. Bandersnatch also differs in that, on the surface, it is your typical science fiction narrative but upon further inspection, we realize it is much more than that.
Free-will is commonly studied and looked at through the lens of religion and theology, Bandersnatch chooses to go about it differently. Free-will is defined as “the power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints.” (Duignan) To uphold this theory is to believe that we, as human beings are the ones behind the steering wheel of our lives. That we oversee our existence and decide our own destinies based on decisions we make, the sole ruler of our souls. The opposing argument for this would be fatalism which is “the attitude of mind which accepts whatever happens as having been bound or decreed to happen.” (Ray) In other words, things are going to happen in someone’s life and there is nothing that they can do to change it. If life were a train and we the driver, it would be impossible to get off track. It is clear why some people would support either concept, on one hand, there is safety in knowing that things were meant to be, this is especially reassuring when you fail at something, it’s not your fault it was fate. On the other hand, exercising free will would give one complete control and agency and there is some security in that. Whatever you did or was done to you, happened without any outside influence, void of the tyrannical hand of a puppet master.
Now as for the movie itself, Bandersnatch starts simple enough with an easy-to-follow plot from the perspective of the main character Stefan. The story takes place in 1984 and Stefan is a programmer who is working on a video game, he uses a book by the name of “Bandersnatch” written by Jerome F. Davies as inspiration, this book is one where you get to choose your own adventure and ending. He takes his demo to a company and essentially spends the rest of the movie trying to develop the game into perfection in time to be released for Christmas. Throughout these interactions the viewers must choose between several options over what Stefan should do, at first it is things like, which cereal to eat or what music to listen to, but quickly spirals into more troubling choices like whether to chop up his dad’s dead body or bury it. Stefan becomes friends with his coworker named Colin and unlike Stefan he seems to be more self-aware about their world, and in a drug-induced rant, he talks about parallel realities and how one decision in this reality will affect the other timelines.
The movie is well written with a lot of foreshadowing and plenty of Easter eggs from previous Black Mirror episodes. As Stefan reads the biography of Jerome F. Davies, he begins to question his reality believing that he is being controlled by an outside force, this coupled with the stress of making the holiday deadline, he eventually has a meltdown. Later on, the movie breaks the fourth wall, as Stefan is in distress he starts to call out and ask for a sign from some higher being and the viewers get the option to tell him about Netflix. In the most disorienting sequence, he learns that he is a character on a tv show and the audience is controlling him.
Bandersnatch does a proper portrayal of the viewer and Stefan mirroring each other, two sides of the same coin. Neither is in control; Stefan thinks he is making choices on his own accord, that’s not the case. While the viewers think they have all the power but this too is untrue since the options are limited. Absolute free-will ensures that at every step there’s always a choice, but like the movie, it is an illusion. For instance, there was a choice between destroying his computer and yelling at his father, if the former option is chosen the plot doesn’t advance and you are forced to go back and make the choice again. It is as if the writers put a controller in your hand and then said, you can go down any path you want but only the ones we designed. Its not freedom if it comes with terms and conditions. One of the endings show Colin’s daughter Pearl grown up in the future working on developing Bandersnatch into an interactive film for Netflix, towards the end, there is a choice to make her pour coffee over her computer symbolizing that this is an ongoing cycle.
Stefan developed a choose-your-own-ending game and unfortunately fell victim to its design. To the characters of his game, he was God or a higher being but in his life, he’s anything but. This is perfectly paralleled with us and how we manipulate Stefan to get different outcomes. Even after watching you can chalk up the movie’s unraveling to being in Stefan’s head. It is hinted various times as he wakes up that the events prior were part of a dream sequence, so it’s not a farfetched theory. We too get trapped in a prison of our own doing, this can be seen in some tweets about the film, where fans took to the app to express dissatisfaction with the ending they got so they would go back to get all possible endings. As if Bandersnatch had a hold on them and not the other way around, it is almost poetic.
This movie along with other interactive forms of entertainment are amongst the newest faces of science fiction. An adventure that lets users take the reins of the narrative rather than just read and absorb it. SF started with novels and comic books and it is brilliant to watch it grow and evolve as trends change. In the near future, it won’t be surprising to see more content like this, no doubt taken to new heights. One project that seems promising is VR games, where someone would literally use their own body as part of the game, instead of moving a 2-dimensional figure around over a computer screen. Ivan Sutherland is a computer scientist and credited with being the inventor of the first virtual reality headset in 1968 (Burton) so it is not completely new, but it has expanded and developed in the decades following. Thus, it is safe to say that the future is here and now.
Work Cited
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Directed by David Slade, performance by Fionn Whitehead, Will Poulter, Craig Parkinson, House of Tomorrow, 2018. Netflix, www.netflix.com/title/80988062.
Burton, Robert. “Ivan Sutherland.” Ivan Sutherland – A.M. Turing Award Laureate, amturing.acm.org/award_winners/sutherland_3467412.cfm.
“Fatalism.” Edited by Michael Ray, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/fatalism.
“Free Will.” Edited by Brian Duignan, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/free-will.
