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Post by Zarnium on Sept 3, 2017 18:32:47 GMT -8
Season 4 trailer is out. I'm really curious about how the different aesthetics of "USS Callister" and "Metalhead" are going to be used.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Sept 5, 2017 18:03:01 GMT -8
"USS Callister" strikes me as a very poor idea: I've never seen a Star Trek parody that manages to be insightful. Brooker is very good at parodying cliches, Subjectwipe and all that, but Black Mirror aims a little higher than shit-talking bad TV. Maybe it'll end up doing meta-humor in the vein of that "John Scalzi" novel that amounted to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are On A Sci-Fi Show From The 60's, Also I Am So Much Better At Writing Than That Gene Roddenberry Cuck.
"Metalhead" looks like a lot of fun, more pulpy than anything. "Arkangel" is probably going to be my favorite of the bunch (an opinion confirmed by Google-- Jodie Foster directing Black Mirror? Be still, my heart). "Hang the DJ" could be fun. "Black Museum" has Letitia Wright in it, so it has to be at least okay. I don't know how I feel about "Crocodile."
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Post by Zarnium on Sept 5, 2017 19:34:26 GMT -8
I don't typically spring for the exaggerated Trek-parody visual style either, but it's so overdone in those clips I think it might wrap around to being something insightful again. Goofy parody isn't really Black Mirror's style, so I'm thinking it's more along the lines of some sort of meta-commentary on sci-fi television or something rather than "haha the guys in red shirts always die, see??"
With Metalhead, that brief shot of that quadrupedal robot standing up really creeps me out. It's like one of those "robot pack animal" things that are being built in real life, those fall in the uncanny valley for me more than any humanoid robot for some reason.
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Post by Zarnium on Dec 29, 2017 19:35:50 GMT -8
Time for my thoughts so far:
USS Callister Wow, not what was I expecting based on the trailer, but way better than anything I imagined. I was surprised at how quickly I went from being sympathetic towards Daly to thinking he was the most evil person on the planet once it was revealed what was going on. I mean, Daly doesn't just keep the game characters around to play out his fantasies; if that were all it was, he could have just programmed them to do whatever he wanted automatically. Instead, he maintains their original personalities and intelligence and gets a kick out of making them suffer. The obvious parallel is I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, except that it's a human doing the tormenting instead of a computer. Which, come to think of it, is pretty typical of this series; it's never intelligent AIs doing the bad stuff, it's always humans doing it to themselves.
Arkangel You know how in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox has those sunglasses that turn opaque whenever they see something dangerous? "Arkangel" is that idea, but played straight, and I can't help but think that it's too absurd of an idea to be taken seriously; this episode might have been better off without the visual censorship aspect and just the eye-camera part, since I can understand why a responsible adult would create the latter but not the former. Regardless, this is still a very good episode, and does a good job playing off of the insecurities and fears of both parents and children at the same time. The way that the mom tries to control her child by spying on her every move and taking invasive, secret actions is both extremely creepy and understandable.
Metalhead I skipped ahead to watch this one. This is perhaps the simplest episode to date and there's not really a lot to chew on or think about, but I still enjoyed it a lot. The high contrast black-and-white combined with the bleak environment creates a very unsettling aesthetic, and the robot "dog" is very well animated and looks like a real object most of the time. From the trailer I was expecting it to be much larger, but having something the size of a microwave oven be such a credible threat that the characters are absolutely terrified of turned out to be more effective.
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Post by Zarnium on Dec 30, 2017 19:26:55 GMT -8
Crocodile The problem with this one is that it doesn't really dive into the featured technology a whole lot... with a little tweaking, this same story could've been done without the memory-reading device. I initially thought this was going be about how human memory is fallible and different people will remember the same scene in different ways, or how after-the-fact suggestions can alter memories during recall, but that's barely touched upon here. There are loads of interesting implications that simply aren't explored in favor of doing something more banal. Character-wise, I liked Shazia, but Mia is too stupid and one-note to be sympathetic, while also not being evil or psychotic enough to be a compelling villain. On the whole, kind of a dud.
Hang the DJ This one is alright, but didn't leave much of an impression on me. The basic concept is interesting, but the twist is both bizarre and anti-climactic, and I'm not sure what statement it's supposed to make. This one might have been better off if the Orwellian dating app were a real system imposed upon real people and the app itself were explored more thoroughly, or if the episode actually explored the ethical implications of the computer simulation more instead of just going "It was all a simulation! What a mind-blow!" at the end.
Black Museum Uh... not really a fan. The over-the-top self-parody didn't click with me, and most of the concepts have already been done better by other episodes in the series. Really, what else is there to say?
...Kind of a letdown compared to what I watched yesterday.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Jan 4, 2018 16:46:47 GMT -8
"USS Callister" strikes me as a very poor idea: I've never seen a Star Trek parody that manages to be insightful. Brooker is very good at parodying cliches, Subjectwipe and all that, but Black Mirror aims a little higher than shit-talking bad TV. Maybe it'll end up doing meta-humor in the vein of that "John Scalzi" novel that amounted to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are On A Sci-Fi Show From The 60's, Also I Am So Much Better At Writing Than That Gene Roddenberry Cuck. "Metalhead" looks like a lot of fun, more pulpy than anything. "Arkangel" is probably going to be my favorite of the bunch (an opinion confirmed by Google-- Jodie Foster directing Black Mirror? Be still, my heart). "Hang the DJ" could be fun. "Black Museum" has Letitia Wright in it, so it has to be at least okay. I don't know how I feel about "Crocodile." "USS Callister" is by far the strongest of the new episodes in my opinion. It's a great deconstruction of male entitlement and sci-fi tropes, and effortlessly switches between the two tones. "Arkangel" had a great idea, but was very poorly executed. "Crocodile" was like "Shut Up and Dance"-extremely unpleasant with no real purpose beyond that. I really liked "Hang the DJ" as well. It believably sold the core relationship, and the twist ending was earned and believable. "Metalhead" was very effective, and "Black Museum" seems like a self-parody. Overall I'd rank them: USS Callister>Hang the DJ>Metalhead>Black Museum>Arkangel>Crocodile. Season 4 is not a bad season of Black Mirror by any means, but it shows how the show struggles to put together compelling dystopian episodes more than it used to.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 19, 2018 11:13:45 GMT -8
Looks like there's a new Black Mirror episode debuting next week. Or maybe it's a 90-minute Black Mirror movie. I'm not clear on the details, since Netflix is being typically Netflixy.
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Post by Zarnium on Dec 19, 2018 11:25:09 GMT -8
The "film" is only one minute shorter than the longest "episode," so... your guess is as good as mine how to classify it. But regardless, I'll be looking forward to this. I'll probably see it after watching Series of Unfortunate Events next month.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Dec 19, 2018 14:55:17 GMT -8
Is this "White Christmas" 2?
Is this the one with Miley Cyrus?
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Dec 19, 2018 16:04:50 GMT -8
Is this "White Christmas" 2? "White Christmas" is the best Black Mirror episode, so hopefully.
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Post by otherscott on Dec 21, 2018 3:00:28 GMT -8
Having anything other than San Junipero as the best Black Mirror episode is blasphemy.
(Okay not really, San Junipero is basically the Black Mirror episode for people who don’t like Black Mirror that much, like myself. Still, it’s a terrific achievement in television.)
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Dec 21, 2018 8:29:51 GMT -8
Having anything other than San Junipero as the best Black Mirror episode is blasphemy. (Okay not really, San Junipero is basically the Black Mirror episode for people who don’t like Black Mirror that much, like myself. Still, it’s a terrific achievement in television.) Funnily enough, I don't like Black Mirror that much. It often feels like it's trying to be dark and absurdist for the sake of it, rather than having a profound point to make ("Shut Up and Dance"). "San Junipero" is awesome though.
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Post by Zarnium on Mar 5, 2019 11:56:08 GMT -8
So, Bandersnatch was kind of cool, but it's really not as groundbreaking as some people are claiming. Video games have been doing the same thing for a very long time, and doing it better.
It's by no means bad, but it's a fairly pedestrian implementation of the core concept. Games like Undertale, The Stanley Parable, and Doki Doki Literature Club are all more thorough in their "game characters realize they're in a game" theme, and even a lot of "standard" games like Skyrim that don't tout branching story paths as their main gimmick are more or less on par with the choose-your-own-adventure complexity shown in Bandersnatch. The only thing that's really keeping the public eye on Bandersnatch is the novelty of it being on Netflix instead of a computer.
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