When I was first starting my career, I helped teach a class at the University. It was an advanced class in the communications school. Basically a creative thinking class, I can’t recall its real name. In it, there was a project where we asked students to come up with a new idea for a movie. Inevitably, every semester someone would go with the choose your own adventure concept. Nothing was ever great, but it was always interesting to think about and work through those ideas with the kids.
One thing they always had to deal with was how to get movie goers to interact with the film. Would there be a remote control? How would there be consensus in the crowd? Does there need to be extra light? Never once did we consider the movie taking place outside of a theater in your home while watching Netflix.
True, Netflix didn’t exist at the time. But we were always locked into the theater idea. It was so powerful. Turns out we were poor futurists. Watching Bandersnatch got me thinking about that class experience. If only we had left the theater behind. Once that happens, the idea seems a lot more natural.
