NETFLIX, CAN YOU GET A LITTLE LESS CREEPY

NETFLIX, CAN YOU GET A LITTLE LESS CREEPY

Netflix came out with something I haven't done since the days I wasted a shit ton of coins on Dragon's Lair when I was young. They made a choose your own adventure movie in which you make the choices of the character and basically dictate how the movie is going to play out.

Which I have to wonder, a choose your own adventure that is a movie? I mean, I remember this concept from the 90's. It never took off for some reason then, I don't know why it would take off now. People sort of want a narrative given to them when watching a movie and it's not always a desire to have some sort of interactive feature. How much fun will you have second guessing all of your actions and redoing all the choices you constantly think were a mistake to get a better result?

The whole thing is called Bandersnatch, and that sounds really British, mainly because it's a reference to Lewis Carroll's work. Though, I always lead off with the joke of Bandersnatch? I hardly know her!

On top of all that, you're not really going to make it through this without some reasonable knowledge of the UK game software scene of the early to mid 1980's. "Bandersnatch" was a game that was actually suppose to come out and it was very much hyped up and never actually released by the Software house. So there's some history involved in this much like that one pig fucker episode of Black Mirror.


But basically it's a short film about a guy who eats frosties, listens to Thompson twins, joins a company and makes a poorly received game. I'm pretty confident with the choices I made to get me there and well, no need to try again. I ain't going down that rabbit hole.

At best I feel that the whole thing was just one wonderful experiment. Sure, this just means that Netflix has yet more information on you. What, you think you're streaming movies at $9 a month and nothing more? Netflix knows when you watch anything, how you watch it.. if in chunks or if the whole thing at a time and binge worthy, or if you're even watching anything. They got your info down, my friend. But more on that scary shit later.

Another criticism is that your choices seem to all need to lead to something cinematic. There should have been a version of this that were eleven minutes long with a lame ending you just finished it. The whole choose your own adventure books I remember as a kid would have situations where if you chose to avoid the dangerous options, the story would just end. You would not follow the stranger over the rope bridge and you'd just go home and nothing else happened. Good stories require drama, and this was an opportunity to illustrate that in a different way.

What I'm trying to say is that the next time you play this movie, you should just go Chaotic evil the entire time and see where that takes you. That's even if you can play it. Some of the folks got Netflix tech shaming people's technology with a "sorry you can't play this on your shitty way too fucking old and busted technology. Come back when you can afford a new TV you poor piece of shit" sort of message.

Another thing about Netflix lately is that they really do have some shitty films. Bird Box may have a mixed bag of reviews, but there's no denying that it basically was a film that the studios had no confidence in releasing in theaters and sinking a lot more money into it to market it, so they just basically sold it to Netflix. That's generally what "Netflix Original Movies" are. The latest Will Ferrel Sherlock Holmes movie was suppose to be one of those because the studio knew it was complete shit and then Netflix said fuck that and didn't buy it. Sure enough, it sucked in theaters.

Bandersnatch also spoon feeds you too much shit. There's only really 3 endings that branch off from the final choices you make. An hour into the movie, every other ending happens way too early and basically is stating you fucked up and this is a bad ending, routing you back to the decision you made wrong.

I mean, I guess it's trying to play into the whole illusion of free will in that whole sort of theme. So I guess it's intentional to do it that way, but it annoyed me when rewatching it. I guess it's a cool concept to do once, but I don't know how anyone would want to have this be their default in terms of watching a film. Imagine having more than one person in the room and trying to come up with how both of you want this shit to go down? Talk about annoying.

 I mean, we all expect Netflix to know how many times we have watched shitty Christmas movies this season, but do you really want Netflix to know that you choose to kill your father in this film? What can be done with that information if you really think about how they're gathering personal  data. Can they use the information of you choosing to murder someone in a movie to suggest you watch a lot more violent films? Can they see that you're a pussy who didn't want to kill in the film and just recommend you something different.

The whole concept behind what sort of psychological testing they're doing on you through these films is rather interesting in the long run. What exactly are they collecting on you to store later and to whom are they reporting this or selling this data to? Those are the bigger questions in this whole grand scheme of things.

Something of which I generally think Black Mirror isn't my cup of tea anyway because it constantly is too on the nose when it comes to these sorts of questions that I'd rather not think about it, or at the very least that I already know society is heading in to and this just makes it a bit of a parody of the fact that we're already there in terms of the shit that they show. Maybe this is what it must have felt like to watch The Twilight Zone while it was still live. Because seriously, this series is both too British and way too on the nose for me to actually enjoy it as a means of entertainment.