MovieChat Forums > Black Mirror (2011) Discussion > Playtest made no sense

Playtest made no sense

posted 8 years ago by jstreeter3163
29 replies | jump to latest

Why does the phone call kill him? Was it the electrical interference from the phone that caused some kind of malfunction? If this is the case, then nothing that happened in this episode after getting the chip implanted actually mattered. Because of this, we know almost nothing about the game, the AI, the intentions of the employees, etc since none of that actually occurred.

So this brings me to the next point...whether or not you believe that the game and AI actually worked as described from the simulated employees...why and how did the game's AI go rogue and kill him in 0.04 seconds? At first I thought that the game's AI had used the phone to escape the confines of it's programming by accessing the internet, but there is no *absolutely* indication that this was the case.

You could say he died from a broken heart or something, I refuse to believe this because the simulation only lasted 0.04 seconds (which is also very hard to believe, but I won't go there) Even if the simulation *subjectively* lasted for days, your physical body cannot possibly be affected to such a degree that simulated terror/hopelessness/etc could cause you to die in a few milliseconds.

[–] bilboatthehpac 8 years ago

Did you watch the episode? Yes. It was the phone call causing interference. They pretty clearly explain that. No, nothing else matters because everything in the episode happened in the one second between him being implanted and the phone ringing. The entire episode was in the vr.

[–] paulmarkj 8 years ago

"nothing else matters"

He died, that matters.

[–] danavenell 8 years ago

Did he sign anything saying that if he died that was a risk he was willing to take? I thought he was assured it was safe before the chip went in... in which case are the tech company going to tell anyone they just killed someone? Or will some friend or relative of Cooper alert the authorities that he's missing? There is some evidence where he was last from using cashpoints etc... not sure if the woman he slept with was actually in on it, thinking about it. She convinced him to do it, didn't she? If not, I think she would be traceable from phone records and could tell the police when she last saw him, going off to a weird job offer at that tech company.

[–] skylorwold 8 years ago

It was said in the episode that the company had been linked to other mysterious disappearances or deaths, I can't remember which, but he was "put with the others," so I'm pretty sure they won't be telling anyone. Also, it is mentioned that they were targeting tourists to make it possibly easier to cover up their disappearances.

[–] danavenell 8 years ago

That does make sense - except that to be super-picky, all it would take is for any of the tourists to be in regular contact with someone who they told exactly where they were going and who was involved. I did one of those drug-trials for money once (lasted a day and got bored and figured i wouldn't be able to take a month imprisoned in a hospital, so left before it started) and of course several people knew where I was going before I went. In the episode they are not told it's a secret, so I think there would be plenty of ways that it would be hard for one of these people, let alone several, to vanish off the face of the earth with nobody knowing where they were last planning to go.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] sleddawg63 8 years ago

There is nothing to suggest the company gets away with it. The reference to the disappeared is when he is in VR, so that's his imagination speaking. The same with 'put him with the others.' It could have been the first death during testing.

His Tinder hookup would have expected to hear from him. His phone would have pinged his last location or at least proven he was there at one point.

[–] JFByers 8 years ago

The "other mysterious disappearances or deaths" is not a fact, it's something "fake-Sonja" said inside the simulation. Maybe it's true, but it would be a coincidence.

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Sorry if my linguistic skills aren't good enough. English is not my first language.

[–] sleddawg63 8 years ago

The claim that the company had other mysterious disappearances was in VR thus was created by his subconscious. As he had left home and ignored all of his mother's calls then his family would eventually suspect he was missing. The only hole is that his phone would have pinged the company's location. That along with his Tinder date would be enough to eventually expose them.

[–] danavenell 8 years ago

The claim that the company had other mysterious disappearances was in VR thus was created by his subconscious. As he had left home and ignored all of his mother's calls then his family would eventually suspect he was missing. The only hole is that his phone would have pinged the company's location. That along with his Tinder date would be enough to eventually expose them.

I just checked and you're right - they don't even suggest that they will be hiding the body from any authorities. It is suspicious how they have a bodybag right on hand though!

[–] inuimari 8 years ago

The joke (well I thought it was) comes from the fact that people are asked to turn off all electronic devices when they board the plane. There was a scene depicting this in the episode as well. I think the writer decided to take this caveat that a lot of people find it annoying to the extreme.

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[–] cintia-meira 8 years ago

inuimari, My thoughts exactly.

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[–] Mantiso 8 years ago

It wasn't the phone that killed him. It was a call FROM HIS MOM. This is what brought her into his dreams. This is why he starts to freak out towards the end over the thought that he's going to be confronted by something terrible related to her and why he DOES discover something terrible at the very end. Because his biggest fear in life was losing his mom to the same thing as his dad and his own inadequecy to deal with it and phone her back.
The game thing literally took his biggest fear in 0,04 seconds, triggered by the phone and the person he knows is calling him (seeing as hiw he calls out Mom, Mom, Mom!), and broke his goddamn brain. So yes, the game did work. It worked only too well.

[–] jstreeter3163 8 years ago

I understand what the movie was implying, but look at it this way: Would all of the events that transpired (except for anything with his mother) have happened regardless of the phone call? If you say yes, then the program was already designed to enter the patients brain into a horrifying simulation that was destined to spiral out of control in a few milliseconds. The AI didn't need the phone call to understand his mom, after all it was designed to probe his mind. He would have been worried about his mom regardless of the phone call, so it didn't serve any purpose.. Also remember: we know NOTHING about his mom or her state of affairs, because that none of those scenes were real. Do you understand my point?

You say he died from a "broken brain". This part doesn't make sense either. The simulation subjectively may have lasted for days but there is no way 0.04 seconds of brain activity could cause you do just drop dead like that. I'm not a neuroscientist but I don't see how you could rewire the synapses to that extent in 0.04 seconds (assuming that the chip could in fact do that). So the only explanation for his death is that the phone call "zapped" his brain somehow. This means the ENTIRE plot in the latter part of the episode has no connection to the ending whatsoever. He could have been called by that girl he hooked up with and been killed for the same reason. Besides, don't you would think the company would take their no phone call policy more seriously if that was the case?

I know I'm nitpicking, but I think this episode was the best Black Mirror episode yet until the ending. I think it would have made much more sense of the protagonist was really in the office the whole time (not the white testing room), then lost his mind from the game. Instead of exploring the fragile nature of the human mind and AI going rampant, it's a cautionary tale about not turning off a phone.

[–] General_Haberdashery 8 years ago

It wasn't the phone that killed him. It was a call FROM HIS MOM.

No it was the phone call.
His entire experience lasted less than ONE second.

A call from his mom isn't going to cause his brain to short out.

The interference happened right after he received the implant.
After that everything that happened was in his head.
Including the wack-a-mole game.

As soon as the phone rang he started to die.

[–] soccerplyr8898 8 years ago

All I know is that Cooper was a really unlikable character...

[–] pete-40-630109 8 years ago

Yes, he was very insufferable, one-dimensional. Like a high school actor in a bad adaptation of "Dark of the Moon". Over, over, over expressing everything.

[–] dengeist 8 years ago

It was a cautionary tale, that's all.

[–] Gorgeous_Mistake 8 years ago

You completely missed the entire point of this episode

[–] DeftPunk79 8 years ago

I thought it was pretty clear. Phone interference caused the device to malfunction. His brain fried because he experienced everything that happened in the episode in .04 seconds.

[–] Turcafinwe 8 years ago

Actually it made perfect sense and I think you missed the important nuances of it all. Firstly, the subconscious mind can process information thousands of times greater in a given time frame than the conscious mind. As the experience of events in our higher-consciousness correlates to a perception based upon the rate of processing external stimuli and therefor marks the passage of time. The only true capability to mark any movement of time passage is the observation of the laws of entropy, anything else is perception based on your brains process. Because of this, a subconscious mind can cause complete disparity to your higher-conscious mind with an exponential increase of time dilation, which would allow for "days of events" to happen in a span of 0.04s.

Secondly, the terrors he faced from the program were not what caused his death, it was the phone-call. As how there is the possibility(though extremely minute), of a cellular phone causing interference with the instruments on a plane - hence why they ask you to deactivate your phone - the hypotheses of the story was based upon the same idea: The call from his mom interrupted the signals being generated through the very sensitive neural program and very shortly after it caused his death from the malfunctioning of the hardware. Everything else is moot; all of the terror and insanity he faced was merely the program triggering his subconscious to elevate his deepest fears, but his death was caused from hardware malfunctions spurred by he cellphone signal.