“Black Mirror: Bandersnatch” is an interactive film that allows viewers to choose their own path. And some of them in the dark world of MK-ULTRA. Here’s a look at the deeper meaning of Bandersnatch.
By Vigilant Citizen
Described as a “Netflix event”, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an interactive film that allows viewers to “choose their own adventure”. On several occasion during the film, viewers are presented with two options and are given 10 seconds to decide. Upon selection, the option plays out and the narrative adapts accordingly. Consequently, the choices made by the viewers lead to different scenes, story paths and, ultimately, to different endings. However, once an ending is reached, the film loops the viewers back to unselected choices, making it easy to view the entire film and analyze it as a whole.
The viewers are making the decisions for Stefan Butler, a young computer whiz who is adapting a fantasy choose-your-own-adventure book into a video game. The film appears to be heavily inspired by this 1984 BBC documentary that follows the creation of a “mega-game” named Bandersnatch by the London software company Imagine before the holiday season. That game was never released.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch takes the context of this fascinating period of British tech history and