"Say hi to the Internet!"
The Far Cry Experience - alternatively known as The Vaas Montenegro Experience - is a web series Prequel to Far Cry 3, starring actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse As Himself and Michael Mando as Vaas Montenegro. It begins with Chris filming a survival show on the incredibly dangerous Rook Islands as a means to promote the In-Universe version of Far Cry 3, with only his snarky cameraman Barry for company, but things quickly go From Bad to Worse when they encounter the island's most dangerous inhabitants; Vaas and his band of pirates.
The series was released for free online, and can be viewed in its entirety here
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Tropes applying to this series include:
- Adam Westing: Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays himself, as a huge Jerkass with an equally huge ego.
- Affably Evil: As expected of Vaas. When you're not pissing him off, he's actually a pretty jovial guy, and genuinely tries to bond with Chris when he captures him, even if this could just be him biding his time as he's holding Chris for ransom and plans to sell him into slavery.
- Big "NO!": Barry screams one of these out in his last moments, upon seeing Vaas aim a rocket-propelled grenade at him.
- Big "WHAT?!": This is Chris' reaction to learning the lump of metal he spit out of his food was the bullet Vaas' pirates put in Barry's leg.
- Black Comedy: You'd be hard-pressed not to laugh at least once at all the shit that Vaas puts Chris through. Highlights include, but aren't limited to: burying him in the sand with only his head peeking out, nearly drowning him with the Islands' high tide, electrocuting him with a car battery, and pissing on his face to "freshen him up".
- Blood from the Mouth: Happens to Chris in his first torture session, due to Vaas yanking out one of Chris' teeth.
- Celebrity Paradox: Chris is filming a survival show to promote Far Cry 3. Perhaps the game is much different plot-wise In-Universe?
- Cluster F-Bomb: Chris, Vaas and Barry drop plenty of these across the course of the series.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The second half of the series is just Vaas inflicting this on Chris every, single, day, and all throughout Chris is never shown getting any kind of nutrition and hydration outside the second-to-last part. It's also implied that he was exposed to the elements the whole time and had no freedom to relieve himself... beyond his own pants, that is.
- Day One has Vass rip a tooth out of Chris' mouth with a pair of pliers.
- Day Two has Chris caught in the tide, forced to breathe through a snorkel in his mouth for however long it takes the water to recede - with Vaas jamming a cigar down the tube at one point after Chris spits water in his face.
- Day Three has Vaas shocking Chris into unconsciousness via electric paddles connected to a battery, then shocks him back to consciousness - with Chris waking to realize he's shit himself.
- Day Four has Vaas promise to bring Chris water, only to cover his head with a fishbowl containing some giant tarantula spiders, leaving Chris to freak out as they crawl over his exposed head.
- Day Five has Chris get his head sealed under a metal bucket with a lit bushel of firecrackers, which explode and leave him knocked him out with scorch marks all over his face.
- Day Six has Vaas urinate on Chris' face (for an impressively long time), with Chris inadvertently swallowing some of it.
- Day Seven has Chris' first ever moment of peace flipped upside-down upon learning Vaas' home-cooked meal for him was made from Barry the cameraman's leg, after Chris spits out the bullet that was in said leg while eating his food. His reaction - revolted, disparaged weeping - is the last time we see him alive.
- The day that Chris' vote for his life ends, he finally ends up dying from the combined toll of the exposure and tortures.
- Developing Doomed Characters: The first episode has a cold open showing some pirates filming a bloodied man as he's executed by Vaas... with an RPG. The next scene, captioned as taking place several days prior, reveals Chris' cameraman Barry is the same man Vass blows up - leaving the viewer painfully aware that no matter how much time the show spends developing Chris and Barry's bond, it won't have a happy ending.
- Downer Ending: Chris and his friends die, and now Vaas is coming for some poor souls landing on the island.
- Early-Bird Cameo: In the ending, Vaas gets a call about some fresh meat on their way to the island. As we know from Far Cry 3, this is Jason Brody and his loved ones.
- Electricity Knocks You Out: Vaas' third day of torturing Chris involves him bringing out a battery with two electric paddles, which he presses against Chris' head to electrocute him - causing Chris to scream and convulse in pain until he falls unconscious. Granted, Vaas himself actually seems aware that this is not how electrocution normally works, getting worried that Chris actually died when he doesn't respond immediately and being angry that Chris "scared" him like that.
- Evil Is Hammy: Vaas, all the way. He just Chews the Scenery in nearly every scene he's in.
- Excrement Statement: After moving Christ to a spot with shade, Vaas mockingly states he'll freshen Chris up only to then start urinating on him, mocking the Hollywood Star until eventually realizing he is "pissing on Hollywood" by Proxy and proclaims it right as the video cuts.Vaas: I'm.. PISSING ON HOLLYWOOD!!
- Expy: Chris' clothes are very similar to Jason Brody's.
- Exact Words: Vaas promises that he'll let Chris live if enough of the viewers comment "life". But he never says that he'll let Chris go free, revealing at the end that voting to let Chris live was actually voting for Chris to get subjected to several more weeks of torture verses dying on-the-spot.
- A Father to His Men: Vaas clearly cares for his gang of pirates, and gets pissed when Chris shoots at them.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Though they start out disliking each-other, their traumatic encounter with Vaas' pirates cause Chris and Barry to form a genuine bond. It's to the point Barry was willing to face Vaas' torture over telling Chris to come, while Chris himself tries to invade Vaas' camp upon hearing Barry's screams on the radio.
- Foil: Chris is one for Jason Brody.
- Chris starts off as a total Jerkass who drops the entitled attitude when the danger amps up, while Jason starts off as a Nice Guy who steadily becomes apathetic to the death and madness around him.
- Chris and Jason both have absolutely no combat experience and are clearly out of their element on the unforgiving Rook Islands - but while Jason eventually adapts and becomes a competent warrior, Chris very barely becomes able to defend himself and gets captured rather easily...(and embarassingly).
- Something noteworthy about this contrast is that Chris is an accomplished actor, even if he's not exactly A-list. Jason is just some no-name rich kid from LA, and yet he later becomes The Chosen One.
- Chris unfortunately dies with no chance to save himself and fails to save his friends. Jason can die if he chooses to join Citra and kill his friends; something Chris, for all his unpleasant attitude, wouldn't dream of doing to even a cameraman he met just recently.
- Foreshadowing:
- A subtle one in the first episode, which depicts Barry being blown up by Vaas with an RPG rocket. This sets up how he got reduced to small enough chunks of meat for Vaas to easily cook up and feed to Chris. The bleeding bullet-hole in his leg is also visible on close inspection, hinting to how Vaas captures him.
- Chris and Barry come across Vaas' "garden" of victims buried up to their necks outside his camp. This shows how Vaas has a favored way of "playing" with his guests, in turn serving as a heads up for what awaits Chris.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- You can find Chris' head still buried in the sand in Far Cry 3 proper, so anyone who's played the game first will already know how Vaas' torture sessions end for him.
- The series starts out showing Barry's death at the hands of Vaas, so the audience already knows Chris' attempt to rescue him won't work out.
- The Hero Dies: Chris, as well as all of his friends, are killed on the island.
- Hope Spot: Vaas tells the audience that he's decided to listen to fan demand and spare Chris' life... only to find that he's already died from a mix of exposure and the torture Vaas has been subjecting him to.
- I Ate WHAT?!:
- On his first day "surviving" the Rook Islands, Chris finds a freshwater stream to drink from and is too busy preening for the camera to realize the remains of a dead monkey are bleeding into it just upstream of him. Cue Chris puking his guts out when he realizes this.
- After six days of torture, Chris is so happy to get fed proper food that he doesn't question where Vaas got the meat. Naturally, Chris is horrified to learn it was the leg of his cameraman Barry.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Shown off disturbingly well with Vaas' voice-actor from Far Cry 3 playing him in live action. While there'd been live-action trailers beforehand, it's this series that truly hammers in how much of Michael Mando's likeness was captured in the design and creation of Vaas; from his appearance to his mannerisms, he looks as if he's stepped straight out of the game.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chris may be an asshole, but he does everything he can to save his friends.
- Potty Failure: On the third day of his torture, Chris is shocked into unconsciousness by Vass with electric paddles; fearing Chris died, Vaas keeps shocking him until he wakes back up, upon which Chris exclaims he soiled himself. Of course, considering he was buried up to his neck in sand, it's not like he could relieve himself before the tortures started.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Barry urging Chris to leave him behind and save himself, which tragically proved pointless as Chris couldn't bring himself to ignore Barry's tortured screams over the radio and came back to try and save him.
- Shout-Out: Vaas, being Wicked Cultured, makes many references to film.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The way Chris "adapts" to the island compared to Jason Brody is a more realistic look at how some random, normal guy from America would fare on an island full of ruthless pirates. Instead of becoming a badass in a very short span of time, he kills a total of four people - one from behind with a machete and three with panicked fully-automatic spraying from an AK at close range - and later fails to hit anyone when firing his rifle at a distance. Naturally, he gets captured in almost no time at all, doesn't manage to save any of his friends and ultimately expires from Vaas' tortures.
- Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream can be heard when the pirates shoot up the boat in Episode 2.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: How Chris and Barry start out, mocking each-other with very little respect for one-another. After witnessing Vaas' hunt for "Bambi" (AKA, a man he stuffed into a deer carcass), the two put aside their mutual antagonism in the interest of survival.
- Trauma Conga Line: With someone like Vaas, you're lucky if a quick bullet to the head is how you go out - which Chris and Barry learn the hard way:
- Chris' promotional survival trek sees him witness Vaas' demented hunt for a man stuffed inside a deer carcass, the murder of his entire production crew, Vaas' "garden" of buried victims and the maiming of his cameraman - with his attempt to rescue the latter culminating in Chris' capture. Chris is then buried up to his neck in sand and made the subject of a web-series by Vaas, where the viewers vote in the comments whether Chris lives or dies - and spends at least eight days bounced between constant exposure and being tortured by Vaas in different ways note , until he finally dies at some point during the ninth day.
- Barry gets shot in the leg, beaten into unconsciousness, strung up, shot in the same leg a second time, spends three days in captivity (seemingly without getting any medical attention for his wounds), gets tied against a rock face as a blood-soaked mess and is finally blown up with an RPG by Vaas.
- The few members of Chris' filming and production crew that survive the pirate attack are put through a game of Sadistic Choice by Vaas, with one member being forced to shoot one out of two other survivors. And then the other one gets shot anyway.
- Villain Override: Vaas takes the reins as host of the show after he captures Chris.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Chris and Barry start becoming this in the face of Vaas' madness, trading swears and barbs with less antagonism then when they started. Unfortunately for therm, it's short-lived thanks to Vaas.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The last two tortures are this in a nutshell, both starting with Vaas seemingly having a Pet the Dog moment only to revert to form by the end:
- Day six starts out with Vaas announcing that he's skipping the day's torture session after failing to wake a seemingly-dead Chris; he moves him out of the sun to a new spot in the shade, plans to "freshen him up a little" and then let him recuperate a bit. Then it turns out Vaas' idea to "freshen him up" is to piss on his face.
- Day seven begins with Vaas feeding Chris a cooked, homemade meal and a glass of wine, complete with attempts at polite conversation. Then Chris finds something small and hard in his latest mouthful of meat, which Vaas identifies as the bullet that was in his cameraman Barry's leg - horrifying Chris with the knowledge of both Barry's death and that his corpse was the source of his lunch.
- It turns out the whole vote for Chris' life was this in a nutshell. When Vaas reveals that the viewers voted for Chris to live, he cheerily tells Chris that this means he will continue to live... through the next two or three weeks of tortures. In a way, Chris might have been lucky to die when he did.
Chris: Noooo! I'm a cannibal...! Ohhh, fuck you!! - Your Mom: Vaas busts one out when Chris says that he has a small penis.Vaas: That's not what your mother said while I was fucking her in your dad's laundry room, you motherfucker! That's right I fucked your mama you McLovin' motherfucker!