BIT.TRIP Complete: Short Film Collection

Chapter 1: Beat

The scene opens in a white void, completely absent of anything. A narrator’s voice says these words: “Everything comes from something. We were before we became. From life comes rhythm, and from rhythm comes life. We are beings of information. Everything is a conduit for learning. We communicate in bits and bytes. And we will return to something once we become nothing. After our BIT.TRIP is complete.”

Then, the BIT.TRIP logo appears on the screen and fades away. The music playing behind it is the first level of BIT.TRIP Beat.

The next scene has the camera in place of CommanderVideo, waking up for the first time in this white void. Slowly, the lens blinks and stands up.

CommanderVideo realizes that he is a person, looking around confused. Suddenly, a giant cube comes rushing at him and he dodges it, but as it passes it gives him an electric shock that drains away his life force. Eventually, he realizes that he has to deflect the “beats” to progress on his journey. He brings up his hand and begins to drive back the beats, even more intent on stopping their progress.

As he does this, the background changes from pure white to white with tiny black specks, then almost completely black, then entirely black with some white specks. The blue planet hovers over CommanderVideo as he drives back the beats and moves forward. Finally, a giant monstrous beat made out of little beats rises up from the ground and challenges him.

Once CommanderVideo defeats the monster, he realizes that he can walk for the first time. He does this, and it makes him happy. He then proceeds to walk faster, eventually picking up into a run, before he takes off and soars through the air. This leads to homage to the first scene from the video games, where he flies through the air and is bombarded with colored beats until he becomes whole.

The chapter ends with CommanderVideo falling very far until he hits a small tunnel. He crawls through it, seeing light on the other side and noticing that there seem to be other people, too. The film fades to black, with the Commander’s voice saying softly “I… am only… a man.”

Chapter 2: Core

The scene opens with a bunch of shadowy figures that look like CommanderVideo hovering over the screen. The narrator says “Life begins anew, born of the old. Reality replaces truth. Rhythm drives technology. Technology represents life. Life is the seeming giver of knowledge. Knowledge is as tangible as it is fleeting. Wisdom is a distant memory. The BIT.TRIP has begun.”

We see CommanderVideo sitting on the floor of a large room painted blue, looking depressed. A taller, more muscular version of him (Looking very similar to CaptainVideo) and a female version of him approach, encouraging him not to be upset and take his hands. CommanderVideo flies up into the sky with his family, looking up toward the horizon. He sees a large jumbled mass of shapes, and is surprised to find out that he can control the direction that they point and eliminate beats. His father teaches him how to use this laser, essentially the first level of Core.

Later, CommanderVideo returns to the blue room. He realizes that he already knows quite a bit about himself and the world around him. His parents come in and try to do the same thing they did before, but he refuses. His personality has gotten too powerful to control. He flies away and feels free. He runs through to a distant planet, but gets carried away and bumps into another figure that looks just like him. Noticing this, he helps him up, only to be scoffed at as the other Video continues on his way. The screen fades to black as he walks off camera.

The chapter ends with CommanderVideo’s disembodied voice once again saying something… “I am not alone.”

Chapter 3: Void

The scene opens over a distant planet.

CommanderVideo is in a large group of other CommanderVideos on this distant planet. Annoyed, he pushes to get past them, but no one will budge. Finally, he starts to dance. It gets louder and more ridiculous until he generates so much power that it pushes everyone else away. This is very annoying to the others, and they promptly walk away in disgust. CommanderVideo runs off to his destination, the black beat room.

Inside, everyone is consuming beats to make them larger and more powerful, but CommanderVideo is greedy and take them all from them. His eyes are glowing slightly red as he devours them and grows massive, destroying the building and chasing everyone away. He manages to laugh to himself as he charges after the others, but is stopped in his tracks by a face he thinks is familiar… the beat monster he encountered in the first game. It has become its own form, and manages to completely outdo CommanderVideo in terms of his egotistical nature.

Ashamed, CommanderVideo loses the red glow in his eyes and shrinks back to normal size. However, the ones he was just oppressing stand up to the beat monster, linking and turning into an even larger monster and driving him back. Swearing revenge on the Commander, the beat monster blasts off from the planet and runs away. The other Commanders shake CommanderVideo’s hand as they help him stand up, and he realizes that he doesn’t have to bully others to make friends.

Later, the other versions of CommanderVideo wish him good luck on his journey. CommanderVideo gets inside of a large sphere and blasts off into the stars. Inside, he whispers to himself, “I am ready.” The screen fades to black as we see him blast off into the distance as the other Commanders watch him go.

Chapter 4: Runner

The chapter opens on a planet filled with vibrant and trippy colors. A large meteorite plunges into the surface of the world, releasing CommanderVideo from its grasp. He looks around at the unfamiliar territory with astonishment. As he ponders what he should do next, he sees a large shining beacon off in the distance. It’s odd, but everything is telling him to go and examine those beacons… so he does. He runs through the flat surface of the planet, jumping over rocks, kicking over platforms, doing anything he can to get to his destination before anything happens. Along the way, he picks up a strange floating object which gives him a rainbow across his back.

There is also a scene where he runs into a weird looking creature, named Junior Melchkin. He is being tortured by some enemies, and when the Commander tries to help them, suddenly the beat monster materializes with a giant machine. Calling himself the Timbletot, he intends to wipe out CommanderVideo’s kind. The Commander realizes that this thing is the source of his problems and that he must stop him in order to live a better life. He beats the crystal generating machine by kicking it many times, and Timbletot flies away.

Later, he approaches a more grass like area. He sees Timbletot’s minions doing menial labor and mining large beats for unknown purposes. He runs through waterfalls and large mine carts, determined to see what the beacon of light symbolizes. At the outskirts of the mines, he meets Radbot, a machine programmed by Timbletot to do his bidding. At first, he tries to stop him from going anywhere by throwing clouds with smiley faces on them, but CommanderVideo touches his face and makes him realize that there is more to life than being a mindless program. Radbot joins forces with him at the end to defeat the leader of the mines, Non Trotski. He attaches them both to a giant treadmill, but they foil him by hitting minecarts into his face. Then, in defeat, he reports back to Timbletot in shame and he is destroyed.

Finally at the beacon, CommanderVideo realizes that the whole thing was actually the lights of a giant city, filled with strange creatures, but it is in ruins from the Timbletot’s rule. Running past the graffiti filled streets and large buildings, CommanderVideo feels very small and unsophisticated, as if the pleasure of life has been drained out of him. He tries to cross the street, but a traffic light is in his way and he stops for a while. Then it turns green and he can continue on his way. It is here that he meets CommandGirlVideo, and they instantly fall in love, but not before the Timbletot can do one last thing to piss CommanderVideo off- kidnap her.

CommanderVideo chases the Timbletot through the city rooftops, getting his friends to help out and give him platforms to jump over and hitting Timbletot with their weapons. Finally, CommanderVideo makes a daring leap and jumps on the Timbletot’s head, putting him out of commission.

At the end, all his friends gather round and celebrate the defeat of their enemy. However, the Timbletot has one final trick up his sleeve. In a fit of rage, he curses CommanderVideo and everything he loves as he ascends toward the heavens, planning to break his moral once and for all. The chapter ends not with CommanderVideo’s voice… but with Timbletot’s. “You are NOT a man.” Hearing this, and with a bit of red tint in his eyes, CommanderVideo launches after him, determined to prove him wrong. The screen fades to black as our heroes prepare for their final battle in space.

Chapter 5: Fate

The movie opens in space. CommanderVideo and his friends are taking after the Timbletot, who veers left and heads towards a blue asteroid belt. Our heroes wonder how they will go after him, when Junior Melchkin notices a platform for them to travel on. On the platform are laser cannons that they use to shoot down Timbletot’s followers, a group of ragtag mutant beats. Everyone contributes to the cause, even Mr. Robotube, while CommandgirlVideo proves that girls can be awesome at shooting things as well. Moving along the line, they encounter two rather large and creepy bosses, who upon defeat point to where they should go.

Later on their ride, the heroes encounter a ruined and abandoned city. According to Mr. Robotube’s calculations, it is the same city that they knew from their own planet, and Timbletot finally won the battle against it by blowing it all to smithereens. At this point, CommanderVideo sees all the destruction and pain that this thing caused, and he grows increasingly agitated with his friends. CommandgirlVideo, who truly loves him, asks if he is alright, to which CommanderVideo responds yes and continues on.

They travel forward through the destruction until they come to a rather large lava-filled area, which appears to be the Timbletots’ lair. CommanderVideo tells everyone to stay outside while he confronts the thing himself. Everyone obviously objects, but CommanderVideo is impatient and tells them to go away while he jumps into a secret entrance and leaves them behind.

When he finally confronts the Timbletot, he is blind with rage. His eyes turn red as he understands Timbletot’s plan to blow up the entire solar system with explosives, killing every inhabitant. Regardless of the consequences, he lunges for him and takes shot after shot at Timbletot’s face. Finally, when he’s almost beaten, CommanderVideo blindly charges into him, not realizing that he had one more sinister trick up his sleeve- the explosives. They detonate, and CommanderVideo takes the full brunt of the blast. Timbletot couldn't erase everyone he despised; but the Commander was all he needed.

The chapter ends on a very sad note, with CommandgirlVideo running up to the charred remains of CommanderVideo’s helmet, crying and raising her head up in the sky.

As the screen fades to black, you can faintly hear the voice of CommanderVideo saying to him as he ascends, “I have sealed my fate.”

Chapter 6: Flux

A voice is heard. “A lesson is learned. Life is. Simply. There is no Death. There is no Before. There is no After. All is in Flux. Simply.”

A white void. CommanderVideo wakes up to find that he is back where he started… but it isn’t as familiar as it was before. He cries out for his friends and how he let them down, how he thought he could take on the Timbletot himself but failed. Just as he is about to fall, he sees some shapes off in the distance. He realizes that in order to get to them, he has to deflect the beats, same as he did in his first adventure. As he does this, music plays in the background and the screen transforms into different colors.

Finally, he gets to the objects and realizes that they are manifestations of everything he has learned on his journey. He touches them and triggers flashbacks to all the previous movies, which in turn are based on all the previous games. Finally, he gets to the last one and it broadcasts a message to him, teleporting him to an unknown black void. At first, he is scared, but then someone else appears in the void with him… an inverted version of himself with red glowing eyes. He realizes that the only way to end his trip is to face him in a battle, for he is the manifestation of his negative emotions.

Once he wins, the inverted version of himself nods his head knowingly and vanishes, leaving him to move on. Guided by the five objects that he saw when he first came here, he remembers CommandgirlVideo and moves onto the strange blue planet that comes before him.

As the planet gets closer and closer, CommanderVideo stops flying and just calmly walks towards it. He knows what he has to do now. He knocks back the constellations as the screen begins to fade to white.

The blue planet gets bigger and bigger. As the screen fades to white, CommanderVideo’s face gets less and less clear, until all you can see is his eyes. They close, and he turns his head towards you and smiles as he fades out. If you listen closely, you can hear CommanderVideo’s voice saying softly- “I… am… home.”

The entire movie ends with a quote by Alex Neuse: "It's the story of a human's life. You are nothing—or are you? No one really knows before you're born and then you die. People have beliefs but nobody really knows."

There is an after-credits scene with a retro CommanderVideo running twice around the screen, then waving goodbye as he vanishes.