History Film / BlackMirrorBandersnatch

* SlippingAMickey: If Stefan refuses to take acid with Colin, Colin will slip it into Stefan’s tea when he’s not looking.

->'''Stefan''': Now they've only got the illusion of free will, but really, I decide the ending.\\
'''Haynes''': And is it a happy ending?\\
'''Stefan''': I think so.

* OneHundredPercentCompletion: Not only can you rewatch the whole film, before you reach the credits it lets you choose other pathways from all your decisions. There’s a lot. Netflix's tracker bar will show you how far into the entire footage you are -- if you finish the film in a MinimalistRun, it'll look less than a quarter of the way through, ''because it is''.

** It appears throughout the film, like in blood on the walls of Jerome F. Davies' room, and on the wall of Stefan's house where it’s formed by the shape of the windows, [[spoiler:[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs in blood on the wall of Stefan's house]]]], and later appears [[FreezeFrameBonus very briefly]] on [[spoiler: Pearl's computer screen]] in the DistantFinale ending.
** On the inside of Stefan’s house, when he [[spoiler:goes to get the rabbit]], the windows visible form half the symbol, showing only one path.

* BitingTheHandHumor: An extremely disturbing version. [[spoiler: One of the options you can select as the sinister force controlling Stefan's life is...''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou a Netflix viewer.]]'']]

---> '''Colin:''' Skip to the next bit.\\

** Stefan is making a video game with a Christmas deadline, and believes he is trapped in a world which he can’t control, like "[[Recap/BlackMirrorUSSCallister USS Callister]]". He also has the choice to kill his hero coder, like Nanette.

** Colin will also remember meeting Stefan even if, in that timeline, they haven't met yet. [[spoiler: If he jumps from the balcony,]] his last words to Stefan are "See you around." Restarting back to their first meeting leads to this exchange:
---> '''Colin:''' We've met before.
---> '''Stefan:''' No.
---> '''Colin:''' We've met before. I told you I'd see you around, and I was right.

** When Stefan demonstrates his game to Mohan, we see an encounter with a government agent where the options are to "BACK OFF" or "KILL AGENT". Later, the viewer has a similar pair of options in a confrontation between [[spoiler: Stefan and his own father.]]
** Early on in the movie while Stefan and his father are having breakfast, a dog begins to dig a hole in their backyard, to which Stefan's father says "that dog will be the death of us". If you choose to [[spoiler: kill Stefan's father and bury him, this same dog will dig up the body, resulting in Stefan being sent to prison.]]

* HistoryRepeats: Stefan himself is following in the footsteps of Jerome F. Davies; both are creating works titled ''Bandersnatch'' which feature branching story paths and parallel realities, and both slowly go mad in the process. [[spoiler: Both end up murdering someone important to them - Davies his wife, and Stefan if the viewer goes through with the option of killing his dad.]] The path then ends in the present day, where [[spoiler: Colin's daughter Pearl, now a Netflix programmer, is attempting to adapt Stefan's game into an interactive film and begins experiencing the same hallucinations as Stefan and Davies]].

* LoggingOntoTheFourthWall: Netflix also made the ''[[VideoGame/BlackMirrorNohzdyve Nohzdyve]]'' game featured in the episode, though it's [[https://www.reddit.com/r/blackmirror/comments/aabhd3/so_yeah_you_can_play_nohzdyve/ hard to find]], and an advertisement for Tuckersoft that said it was hiring, with links to Netflix's job advertisements (as well as a full website that really looks like a fan's/Mohan's personal attempt to write a history of the company). See: [[https://tuckersoft.net/ 1980s website]] and [[https://tuckersoft.net/ealing20541 History website]]. Said History website has pages on the company's titles (i.e. [[https://web.archive.org/web/20181229001826/https://tuckersoft.net/ealing20541/bandersnatch/ Bandersnatch]], [[https://web.archive.org/web/20181229190031/https://tuckersoft.net/ealing20541/nohzdyve/ Nohzdyve]], [[https://www.tuckersoft.net/ealing20541/metlhedd/ Metl Hedd]]), full of ''Black Mirror'' {{Mythology Gag}}s.

** Throughout the story, Stefan notices certain actions that the viewer makes on his behalf. [[spoiler: He even begins to defy actions that would otherwise derail the story.]]

** To ''Film/TheMatrix''. In one story branch, Stefan is offered a drug (implied to be LSD), the drug in this case [[spoiler: allows him to perceive a higher level of reality]]. ''The Matrix'' also shares references to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'' and a character who in one scenario [[spoiler: discovers that they are part of a mind-bending conspiracy]].

--> '''Colin''': Sorry, mate. Wrong path.

** The title itself is a shoutout to a rather famous-in-the-80s vaporware from Imagine Software[[note]]said game would undergo constant DevelopmentHell until it was finally released as ''Brataccas'' by Creator/{{Psygnosis}} for the [[Platform/{{Amiga}} Commodore Amiga]], UsefulNotes/AtariST and UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh[[/note]].

** The title itself is a shoutout to a rather famous-in-the-80s vaporware from Imagine Software[[note]]said game would undergo constant DevelopmentHell until it was finally released as ''Brataccas'' by Creator/{{Psygnosis}} for the UsefulNotes/CommodoreAmiga, UsefulNotes/AtariST and UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh[[/note]].

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%%Who was it who said this? I distinctly remember that there was someone who said something like this:
%%** At one point, such-and-such says that he feels like his actions aren't his to control, that he's being directed by someone who he can't see or hear.
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** Alternatively, the rest of the story can be taken as a middle finger to all the overambitious, endless beta indie games that are sold on similar slogans of "endless possibilities" and "free will of the player", while in reality being simply modelled into a scenario where players ''think'' they have a choice, rather than being railroaded. The fact Stefan talks this on screen in the same strain in which his the game receives the perfect review further cements it.

* AliceAllusion: Bandersnatch makes numerous references to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'':

** In-universe, the "true" ending of the story where Bandersnatch becomes a bestseller has Stefan admit that he pulled it off by making most of the choices fake and forcing the player on a preset path.

** To ''Film/TheMatrix''. In one story branch, Stefan is offered a drug (implied to be LSD), the drug in this case [[spoiler: allows him to perceive a higher level of reality]]. The Matrix also shares references to Alice in Wonderland and a character who in one scenario [[spoiler: discovers that they are part of a mind-bending conspiracy]].

** The idea of "roaming a maze while avoiding a creature named Pax" is a part of the actual game ''Prisoner 2'' - which, although it was released in 1992, was based on an earlier game from the 80s, and was notable for including MindScrew elements. (They were both based on ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'')

** Jerome F. Davies' original book, a MindScrew piece of MetaFiction where characters in the various nested narratives get driven insane by engaging with the multilayered nature of reality, is highly reminiscent of Literature/HouseOfLeaves. (The biggest difference is that House of Leaves, though it is a DoorStopper that encourages flipping back and forth, has no actual GameBook elements.)
** In terms of gaming history, the story of a legendarily surreal work of literature being adapted into an even more legendarily surreal computer game in the 1980s is highly reminiscent of VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1984, although neither the subject matter nor the real-life circumstances were nearly as dire as Bandersnatch. The Hitchhiker's game was even, like Bandersnatch is in-universe, a notoriously TroubledProduction due to Douglas Adams sharing Stefan's problems with deadlines. Creator/{{Infocom}}'s followup to the HHGG game, VideoGame/{{Bureaucracy}}, was an even more troubled production that reflects Adams' paranoid view of a surreally hostile universe to an even greater degree (invoking real life ConspiracyTheorist culture along the way), thus making it an even stronger parallel.

** The title itself is a shoutout to a rather famous-in-the-80s vaporware from ''Imagine Software''[[note]]said game would undergo constant DevelopmentHell until it was finally released as ''Brataccas'' by Creator/{{Psygnosis}} for the UsefulNotes/CommodoreAmiga, UsefulNotes/AtariST and UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh[[/note]].
** The Netflix route has some similarities to ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'': Stefan finds out his being controlled by a Netflix viewer (you) in the same way The Narrator of The Stanley Parable finds out that Stanley is being controlled by the player (also you) in the "Real Person" ending. Also, the therapist suggesting that, if it was a really a Netflix film it would be more exciting and then suddenly turning everything in an action-packed sequence resembles the narrator teleporting Stanley to "better games" if he refuses to follow the orders and then fails to play his "Save the Baby" game.

** [[EpicFail The shortest path to the credits]] can be interpreted as a potshot at big-budget video game publishers. An independent game developer with a fresh, revolutionary idea sells himself out at the prospect of hitting it big, only for his brainchild to end up "streamlined" and ChristmasRushed for maximum profit by a guy who clearly doesn't have the slightest clue about what gamers want. The result is a soulless, critically panned a-dime-a-dozen product that nobody is happy about. It's even lampshaded InUniverse.
--> '''Colin''': Wrong choice, mate.

* TooCleverByHalf: Combined with WrongGenreSavvy, this is why people who work on Bandersnatch go insane. They have no way of knowing if the dimension they're in is the one where their suspicions are vindicated or simply misguided. For example, in one timeline, a government conspiracy theory might be government conspiracy fact, but you might have gotten a clue to it from a universe where the machinations don't exist, making you think that the sinister municipal goings-ons are constant throughout rather than unique to that strain.
* TomeOfEldritchLore: The in-universe book "Bandersnatch" appears to be this. Anyone who delves too deeply into it tends to go insane. Jerome went mad writing the original version, Stefan slowly goes insane adapting it to a computer game, and [[spoiler:Pearl is implied to start experiencing her own hallucinations as she makes a film version of it.]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Invoked to such a point to be deconstructed. In hindsight, it appears that the happiest ending for Stefan is for Bandersnatch to be rushed out for Christmas and fail. No-one dies, but Stefan ''insists'' on using the choose your own adventure feature to go back in time to do things differently. From there, it's near-impossible to make a choice that isn't horrible for Stefan. It's often invoked, such as when Stefan needs to choose between [[spoiler:chopping up or burying his father's body.]]