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A lone, cloaked swordsman wanders an apocalyptic wasteland. At his side is Puck, a golden, floating orb and guide through this hellscape full of vicious, gigantic mutants. “Eat,” Puck says to this nameless traveler, “or be eaten.”

The twist is what we’re talking about Pac Manthe classic, typically child-friendly arcade game. However, this shocking realization is precisely the point. The team behind it Secret levelAmazon’s animated anthology series, in which each episode adapts a specific video game, had a rule of Pac Man Owner Bandai Namco: “We want the audience to ask themselves: What the hell did they do?” Pac Man?” Dave Wilson, senior director and executive producer, remembers their conversations with the game publisher.

“When I pitch it to people, I think, ‘It’s actually our goriest episode ever,'” adds series creator Tim Miller. “And they’re like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait.'”

A swordsman (voiced by Aleks Le) traverses hostile terrain in the Pac-Man episode Secret Level.

Amazon MGM Studios


As I said Weekly entertainment by Wilson, Miller and JT Petty (Secret level‘s television play writer of the Pac Man episode and the general EP of the series), the trio based themselves on their previous joint project, Love Death + Robotsanother collection of animated genre shorts for Netflix. They built giant pitch decks that served as encyclopedias for each video game, then commissioned a group of writers, mostly novelists and short story writers, to pitch ideas. “They could be just a page or even a paragraph,” says Wilson, “and from those we selected the winning ideas.” The best concepts were then written down in prose before the screenwriters began creating teleplays.

Pac ManIn particular, it proved challenging. “We have some typical (pitches) that you would expect Pac Man thing,” explains Wilson. “We played through this round a few times and never found an idea. Then one weekend JT – I’m oversimplifying – went to his woodshed and came back with the script you have now.”

In this script, a man (voiced by Aleks Le) awakens from his sleep hanging in a water tank. He has no memory of who he is or how he got there. Over email, Le likens this character “conceptually to a newborn, but with the motor functions and abilities of an adult.” The actor wanted to give the swordsman a “raw way of speaking” and said: “It’s a bit subtle and I’m not sure a lot of people get it at first, but when he speaks it’s almost as if he does “He’s not familiar with using his own mouth and the diction and clarity is a bit out of place.

All this character knows is that there is some kind of spherical android floating in front of him (voiced by The Mandalorianis Emily Swallow). Puck – named after Pac-Man’s original nickname Puck-Man – claims he is “the chosen one”, someone destined to escape the maze they are currently trapped in. Whether you can actually trust Puck or whether there is more to this reality is another question. Puck leads the man to a sword with which he fights through the jungles and barren deserts of this world to find a way to escape.

Puck (Emily Swallow) from the Pac-Man episode of Secret Level.

Amazon MGM Studios


“I was immediately intrigued and intrigued by how disturbing it was to me!” Swallow says separately via email. “My associations with Pac Man were very superficial – I remembered the pastel colors, the pixelated figures and the sometimes monotonous repetition that I felt when playing as a child. As an actor and storyteller, I am fascinated by the underbelly of the stories we tell because they give us the opportunity to explore the very present shadow of ourselves as individuals and our culture without being challenged in ways that leave us in could drive the defensive. That’s why I’m even more interested in the things that become such cultural phenomena – what Is the underbelly of something as pastel pretty as Pac Man?”

All Swallow knew from reading the script was that Puck is “feminine and kind.” Speaking with casting director Ivy Isenberg, the actress learned that this kindness isn’t entirely altruistic. “She was a character who adapts to the specifics of the ‘human’ she meets that day…not because she’s just kind and gentle, but so that she can get what she really wants,” Swallow explains.

What is the purpose of this swordsman? “Eat,” Puck replies. This includes eating “Ghosts,” the Prime Pac Man Enemies now reimagined as flesh-eating mutant monsters. “We have tried for a long time to respect the entire 50-year history Pac Man and lots of cute cartoons made in retro style Pac Man s—,” Petty says. “At one point Dave and I thought we just had to do the John Melius version of it. what is Blood meridian Pac Man?”

Conan the Barbarianone of Melius’ many scripts, served as the inspiration for the 10-minute Pac-Man episode directed by Victor Maldonado and Aldredo Torres. It did that too Black mirror and even Mandythe 2018 psychedelic horror fantasy starring Nicolas Cage. “Pac Man is Joe Pesci and the swordsman is Guy Pierce Memory” Wilson also throws out – and you know he’s not kidding.

A swordsman (Aleks Le) faces off against a monstrous mutant in the Pac-Man episode of Secret Level.

Amazon MGM Studios


“We learned a lot about how mythical the center is Pac Man is,” explains Petty. “Even the original game is very candy-colored and poppy-colored, but you eat pills in a maze while being chased by ghosts. We were in the room talking about how you can eat them, but never their eyes.” – referring to the way in the game a ghost’s eyes travel back to the center of the maze, only for the creature to respawn afterwards can be eaten by Pac-Man. “That sounds deceptively powerful,” Petty continues. “Honestly, it was about acknowledging that Pac Man is that Beowulf of narrative gaming. It’s that Um Putting text at the center of characters in video games and trying to take that seriously. If this is a world driven solely by vile appetites, how does that work?”

Traces of the classic G rating Pac Man remain in the DNA of this dystopian story. Cherries play a small role – one that, as Wilson notes, “caused quite a stir” when footage was shown at New York Comic-Con in October. This came from Mitchell Foster, head of animation development at Amazon. “They gave us a lot of freedom, but Mitchell called and said, ‘Can we put some cherries in there?'” Wilson remembers. “With great reluctance, I said, ‘Right, dude.'” Given the geek crowd’s reaction, he admits, “Sh–, he was right.”

Other game elements are far more exaggerated for Secret Level, dark distortions that make sense for the world of this episode. “There is strength in repetition,” Puck tells the swordsman as he slashes through one monster after another, not unlike the player’s experience at the start Pac Man over and over again to beat the game. “We were careful not to be completely self-absorbed the whole time,” Petty notes. “We always tried to say: What would it actually be like to exist in this world? Respawning and dying and learning and grinding and doing it again is so central to the gaming experience, and.” Pac Man Above all, it’s such a repetitive game, but it still totally works 50 years later.”

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The guys note that they screen-tested the “Pac-Man” episode to get general audience feedback, but Miller admits there might be a world where fans aren’t interested , considering how much the short film differs from the source material. “I think we might get some negative (responses),” Miller said.

A swordsman (Aleks Le) and Puck (Emily Swallow) traverse a harsh jungle in “Secret Level.”

Amazon MGM Studios


“I think sometimes negative things can happen when expectations don’t match reality,” chimes in Wilson. “There are people who expect it.” Pac Man to be something and say, “What the hell was that?” Tim and I had a big debate. I thought we should start the whole series with Pac-Man. He said: “We learned from it.” Love Death + Robotsthey won’t make it past this episode.’”

“It’s hard to say for sure what the reaction will be,” comments Le, “but whether the viewer is a gamer or not, I hope they go home thinking, ‘Wow, that was that one Hammer.'”

“As with anything involving a well-known property, I’m sure there will be a vocal group of enthusiasts and a vocal crowd of detractors,” adds Swallow. “What I love about the concept of this whole series is that each episode is just one of countless potential inspirations brought about by the game’s origin story. The conversations surrounding the game and the ideas that come from it are neither good nor bad; the fact that we’re even having the conversation is the interesting thing.

Secret level will premiere on Prime Video on December 10th.

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