MovieChat Forums > Black Mirror (2011) Discussion > Playtest doesn't make a lot of sense

Playtest doesn't make a lot of sense

posted 8 years ago by Daydream_Machine
33 replies | jump to latest

My major gripe with this episode is that it doesn't hold together all that well when you trace back it's steps after it's over. If Cooper died when his phone interfered, how does his brain make up the little beaver, or the meeting with the game developer or the actual game, when he has neither learned what the game is all about nor met the game developer? Why does he live through the things we see during his death struggle or whatever it is? It seems to be some kind of "life flashes by before you die" situation, but things like the game developer have never been part of his life and he never met or seen him, so why should this be meaningful to his brain? The answer is: It isn't. We just have to walk through it in order for the twists to work. It's a pretty transparent attempt to trick the audience without any of it being grounded within a logical and coherent story.

[–] joelcowdroy23 8 years ago

Fair point.

The consensus seems to be that the final twist with his death was just one twist too many and I think I agree, especially with regards to what you're saying.

But that said, I still really liked it overall. Great acting, effects and a really great concept at its core. Shame about the last couple of minutes.

[–] casualfitzy 8 years ago

It was part his memories and part of the VR that they implemented. The employee/game developer was a part of the VR. It's not that hard to understand.

[–] Daydream_Machine 8 years ago

That's arbitrary non-sense. Conveniently picking and choosing a little from his brain and a little from the game without actually laying the ground work to make everything click is pretty much the definition of plot contrivance.

[–] casualfitzy 8 years ago

Picking and choosing is what happened when he plugged his brain into the VR simulation made by the creator. He got some of his brain and some of the game design. It's not that hard to understand.

[–] Goodgoodness-163-381912 8 years ago

Although I understand what you saying, I saw it as the game's program malfunctioned inside his brain so he was taking things from his real life mixed with the components of the game and he fried out.

Not a plot hole

[–] kalelabud 8 years ago

it's a *beep* episode, that's all. it's so *beep* it almost ruined the whole season for me. if this was the first episode, and not nosedive (and THAT is a black mirror episode, guys), i would have probably skipped this season.

[–] joelcowdroy23 8 years ago

Can't help yourself can you?

So sad.

I don't want to hate people, but people make me hate people

[–] sinceimetjc 8 years ago

It ALL happened in his stream of conscienceness. All of it after his phone rang didn't happen. The gophers didn't happen. All of that was in his head. The game might not have even been about gophers. This is why this reminds me of the short story called "An Occurance on Owl Creek Bridge." Spoiler alert for those who haven't read this piece of American Literature, a guy gets hanged. He's dropped to hang, but then his rope breaks, and he runs home, escaping the search party that is looking for an escaped criminal. This all seems to take about 24 hours. He gets all the way home. Runs toward his wife, and boom! He's dead. His rope didn't break. He's hanged, and all of those thoughts ran through his head in the split second it took him to drop while being hanged.

"The hideousness of that foot will haunt my dreams forever."

[–] GuyNCognito 8 years ago

The OP understands all of that and is questioning why those specific events were what his brain imagined during the four seconds. It was a pointless series of events for the sake of that final twist in the end. That is what the OP is pointing out. Although entertaining, an entire episode was written around the effect of that one single twist.

Grant discovered raptor eggs in Jurassic Park

[–] assumedkilla 8 years ago

Yeah, exactly. I loved the episode until the final twist. Also, all those fakeout endings in a row were pretty weird and cheap decisions as I look back at the episode. Hell, I would've preferred the "who am I" ending to the one that we got. It felt like the writer had a chip on their shoulder and they were trying to out do Twilight Zone, Inception, and everyone else way too hard.

I never saved anything for the swim back.

[–] Julie_De 8 years ago

Wow, yes. For anyone who hasnt seen Occurrence at Owl Creek, I highly recommend The Twilight Zone version. It is episode 22, season 5, of The Twilight Zone, and it is on Netflix also. It was based on a short story by Ambroce Bierce. Its a quick watch, less than 30 minutes, but like Playtest, it is disturbing and heart breaking.

[–] lone-foxx 8 years ago

Thanks, I love classic Zone, watching it now. :)

"This is What You Want... This is What You Get"

[–] Julie_De 8 years ago

Cool! Did you like it?

[–] lone-foxx 8 years ago

Pretty good, surprised I'd never seen it. I really like stories about multiple realities and challenging what life & death mean so yes it struck a strong note with me. His wife's smile was insane. Thanks for sharing.

"This is What You Want... This is What You Get"

[–] lone-foxx 8 years ago

This seems kind of ironic to ask someone with your username but, have you ever had a dream? Your brain fills in the missing parts and normally you don't question it.

He saw a picture of the developer and he said he'd played the previous classic game (something akin to Resident Evil or even Silent Hill), so he knew what he looked like, had probably seen him in pictures/video in the past, again, he had played the game and was a fan of it to the point where he knew exactly what that building was.

When he was hitting the gophers he said he had played that game many times before. So his brain anticipated something like that would happen during the demo and later thats what he saw, because that is what he expected to see.

Its meaningful to his brain because its an exploration of his current consciousness and emotions. He is dreadfully afraid of Alzheimer's disease happening to him, and what to say to his mother that he's been avoiding.

Back to the dream interpretation, have you never had a dream pour into another dream, or turn into a nightmare, or wake up only to wake up again? You probably have but then it fades and we forget it ever happened, at least on a conscious level. Well, some of us have experienced waking dreams, where you are caught in between, thats normally when you are aware you are dreaming and you can get away with full dream control; such as flight & astral projection.

His biggest mistake was sending the picture, that almost got him caught as well. He should have snapped the pic and sent it after the fact.

"This is What You Want... This is What You Get"

[–] Julie_De 8 years ago

I had whats called a -false awakening - only one time. It usually occurs after a lucid dream or a very vivid dream. I remember I woke up and thought to myself -wow that was a crazy dream- got out of bed and walked to the kitchen. The windows were crooked and I said to myself -Am I still dreaming?- and then I woke up. Freaked me out. Our brains are really powerful.

Cooper saw a lot of the things his brain was interpreting in the dream/brain death sequence. For example, in real life, right when he walked in to the company, he looked at a scary house in a picture on top of the chinese guys head, the same house his brain constructed, And that house had a light on in the window in the picture, the same light in the picture his brain saw.

[–] Daydream_Machine 8 years ago

I see your point and it actually adds some nice wrinkles to the story (for example: He sees that the game developer is japanese and, being the obnoxious american stereotype he is, his brain automatically assumes that he can't speak english).

But still I can't help but think "Isn't it awfully convenient that his "dream" is perfectly built to trick the audience several times"? The episode just feels like it's built around the twists and not around story substance and it can't help but feel contrived.

[–] arizonabay6-671-900060 8 years ago

Isn't the VR built to trick him several times? I presumed that was what the game was designed to do in order to scare, but it was just way to powerful at the memory mining stuff.

"To err is human...so...errrr..." - Gary King

[–] GuyNCognito 8 years ago

But how can you know if it the VR really does that as all of that was said while he was already inside the VR?

Grant discovered raptor eggs in Jurassic Park

[–] Julie_De 8 years ago

But was the game really designed to scare?
We dont know that for sure, maybe it was Coopers mind /brain that interpreted the game that way.

[–] arizonabay6-671-900060 8 years ago

Yes, it was noted earlier that the creator makes horror games.

"To err is human...so...errrr..." - Gary King

[–] MarkAnthony1990 8 years ago

(for example: He sees that the game developer is japanese and, being the obnoxious american stereotype he is, his brain automatically assumes that he can't speak english).

Except, in the final scene, we see the game developer can't speak a word of English as the woman speaks to him in his native language AFTER the American guy is dead.

Babies kill TV shows!

[–] movoroch 8 years ago

Well said, this is what I was thinking as well.

The tester said it made "every synapse in his brain fire at once", so his experience would be honestly just like a dream, where every recent thought would be brought through his subconscious and filtered through his personality and fears. Yeah it was a plot device, but it was well executed when you stop and think about it. I thought this was a very smart episode.

[–] Julie_De 8 years ago

Thinking abut it, when Katie said the synapses fired all at once, wasnt that when the phone rang? So almost immediately before the phone rang, is when the game wouldve been activated,

[–] movoroch 8 years ago

Now THAT is an interesting theory...that could add a whole different wrinkle to things

Rationalization's more important than sex. You ever go a week without a rationalization?

[–] Xsplizzle 8 years ago

I would just like to point out that he had definitely seen a picture of him as sonja showed him on the cover of a mag only the day before

realistically speaking, why would the owner of a huge company meet a beta tester? That was the biggest clue for me right there.

Also it wasnt 4 seconds, it was 0.04s which is quite different.

Everything that happened after his mom called was all in his head and then he died from overload

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] thefirestarter 8 years ago

Well he had seen the game developer before. Sonja showed him a magazine with his face on. And the house the "game" was set in was the same house featured in the horror game he played as a kid.

I thought it felt a bit illogical at first, but after analyzing it over night this episode feels solid.

[–] assumedkilla 8 years ago

To me it was never about if the episode made sense, there are ways to see it as that. My problem is the repetition of the main character always losing on this show and so many false endings/twists at the end made it feel cheap. The idea that he really just sits in the room with her for 2 minutes, he turns his phone on because of the idea of his hookup girl, and then dies while everything else we see is pretty much imaginary made me feel cheated.

So he learns his lesson about his mom but can't do anything about it, the girl will think he just isn't returning her texts/calls, his mom will probably never find out his fate - she'll think he ran away forever or died during the trip, the second half of the episode didn't really happen... to me none of that is very satisfying and I don't need a happy ending. They out did themselves here... in a bad way, with the final twist.

I never saved anything for the swim back.

[–] GuyNCognito 8 years ago

My feelings exactly.

Grant discovered raptor eggs in Jurassic Park