Review: Netflix's Real-Life Spinoff Can't Recreate Squid Game's Allure

In Squid Game: The Challenge, contestants don't really risk their lives.

The original, fictional show Squid Game was gripping because every character's financial life was dire. Contestants were willing to die playing marbles or tug of war just for the chance of winning a prize. They even had the opportunity to leave once they knew they would likely die, and most of them returned to the games anyway. Making it even more harrowing were the masked, obscenely rich people watching the life-or-death struggle like it was the Super Bowl.

In light of the show's spectacular viewership—over 142 million households watched in the first month of 2021 alone—Netflix decided to make the fake reality show into a real one. In Squid Game: The Challenge, the grand prize is a reality-show record of $4.56 million (although much of that will be lost to taxes).

The Challenge starts with 456 contestants. Obviously the show can't kill real-life human beings, so they eliminate people basically by bursting a ketchup packet on their chest. (Talk about lower stakes.) There is some interesting trickery and deception between the contestants, but the fact this game show even exists indicates that the creators completely misunderstood the point and attraction of the original Squid Game.

Comments

[AT]

Making it even more harrowing were the masked, obscenely rich people watching the life-or-death struggle like it was the Super Bowl.

Actually, that was the dumb part. It had zero bearing on the plot or any characters in the show. It was completely unnecessary, and was shoehorned in for no reason whatsoever other than to tell the audience, "Rich White People Bad." Every scene with them could have been omitted, and it wouldn't have changed the story in any meaningful way.

[mtrueman]

Without a paying audience, the entire spectacle would have been gratuitous. So the scenes served the purpose of the plot without detracting from the main story. It highlights the difference between audience and participant. Watch any Superbowl. The main action is on the field, but the cameras occasionally show the paying crowd - the people who enjoy themselves and make the game possible. If anything should have been cut, I would have opted for the organ harvesting sub plot.

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Honestly, that was probably one of the more revealing parts of the show. It portrayed the technocratic oligarchs who run the whole thing as a claque of degenerate faggots who get off on their little social experiments that they dream up, and like today's western left, the success of these experiments hinge on the willingness of the plebs to volunteer to participate in their torture and destruction for the oligarchs' amusement.

Note also that the participants are largely people who made extremely stupid, short-sighted choice with their lives instead of being responsible members of society.

And in the end, the protagonist rejects the sensible side of the dilemma he faces, by choosing to go off on a crusade to bring the oligarchs down, instead of realizing that he dodged a bullet and going to be with his daughter, who needs him to be a stable presence in her life.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I'm confused, I don't watch much television but I read about it on sites where I'm trying to get useful information.

Are you saying "The Squid Game" wasn't a real game show but a scripted series about an over the top game show like the ones "advertised" in The Running Man (the original with Arnold and Richard Dawson)?

Now Netflix has the bright idea of making a "real" game show based on the fake one bit won't actually kill people for the entertainment of rich white people only fake kill them for sick comedy.

What the literal fuck? Is it any wonder people with a lick of common sense want to return to the fucking 1950s!

[Red Rocks White Privilege]

Now Netflix has the bright idea of making a “real” game show based on the fake one bit won’t actually kill people for the entertainment of rich white people only fake kill them for sick comedy.

East Asian game shows, especially in Japan, can be pretty sadistic by our standards. The worst we've ever seen was goofy clown shit like Wipeout. Japan's stuff can be "Ow My Balls" x10.

[Olman Grand]

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