Charlie Brooker Doesn’t Have Time for ‘Bandersnatch’ Critics
Written by SOURCE on January 13, 2019
Black Mirror‘s creators have heard your Bandersnatch critiques … and they really don’t care.
In an interview with HuffPost UK, series creator Charlie Brooker talked about the various criticisms he’s received since dropping the choose-your-own-adventure film onto Netflix. He said he’s been taking in the wide range of opinions, but had choice words for people who weren’t fans of the format.
“It’s been interesting that you get different reactions from different people, partly based on what they’re expecting, or what they want,” Brooker said. “So some people go, ‘oh, I’m sh*t at this,’ and you sort of go, ‘no no, it’s alright, we’ve built in that you’re going to fail.’ We’re trying to make you fail a couple of times so that you have to go around and do things again, and that’s sort of baked into the story.”
Brooker had no time for people who didn’t want to make choices as they watched along,
“Some people that are like ‘I don’t wanna make decisions,’ ‘I don’t want to do any of it,'” he said. “Well f*ck off, then. Do something else!”
Brooker said that he’s also seen a lot of blowback from people unwilling to accept the movie on its own terms: that is, as an interactive film and not a video game.
“And then there’s some people who think ‘oh, it’s too simple as a game’ or ‘games have done this before’ — well this isn’t on a gaming platform, it’s on Netflix. I’m well aware of what a computer game is, thanks,” he said.
The criticism of Bandersnatch has been too much for some of the people involved in its creation to take. Actor Will Poulter backed away from social media after the reaction to the movie became a burden.
“In light of my recent experiences, I am choosing to take a step back, of sorts, from Twitter. Before I do, I’d like to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody who has watched Bandersnatch and for their responses (whatever they may be) to the material we created,” he wrote. “I accept all criticisms and it’s been a delight to learn that so many of you enjoyed what many people worked very hard to produce.”
