The Pirates of Silicon Valley
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Contact and Other Information
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TNT
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| Description: |
A movie about Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and their respective computer companies.
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By Bryan Chaffin and Dave Hamilton
Last night Dave Hamilton and I sat down to watch "The Pirates if Silicon Valley." We thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but we both felt that it was so sketchy in some aspects of the story that it would be difficult to follow had we not already known the story. This was born out by Dave's wife Lisa who did not know the story and found it difficult to follow at times. For those who may not know, "Pirates" is a movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and their respective computer companies.
We both thought that Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall did excellent jobs of getting the "look and feel" of their characters' real-life personas, though our hats have to go off to Anthony Michael Hall and his portrayal of Bill Gates. From the voice to the posture, to the facial expressions, Mr. Hall did an outstanding job.
As has been said by many so far, the movie did not particularly display either character in a very favorable light. Mr. Gates is played as a fixated person bent on world domination at any price while he sells products he does not yet own (wait, is that real life or the movie?). Mac users will appreciate the fact that Mr. Gates admits at the end of the movie that Windows is not as good as the Mac (this scene is set in 1984 and the rollout of the Mac when Jobs has just found out that Windows is a real product). Mr. Gates also accuses Jobs of not "getting it" because it didn't matter whose product was better.
Noah Wyle's role as Steve Jobs focuses on darker sides of Mr. Jobs including hi abusiveness, drugs, and especially his reaction to his illegitimate daughter which he denies is his. Noah does effectively capture the genius of Mr. Jobs while simultaneously showing his "mercurial" side.
We found it interesting that about 70% of the movie focused on Apple and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniac. Very little effort was put into Microsoft outside of Bill Gates's Harvard days with his friends and soon to be fellow executives Steve Balmer and Paul Allen.
We were fairly critical of the fact that there were many aspects of the story left out. No mention was made of the two Steve's stint with Atari, and nary a peep came out about Microsoft's borrowing of their original version of BASIC. Similar small, but seemingly important details were also left out.
As with the case of any movie that attempts to tell the story of 10 or so years in the span of two hours minus commercials, the movie jumped. Sometimes quite a bit. The presence of John Sculley seemed an afterthought and the vital role of A.C. Markula was hardly touched upon. The movie opens with the filming of the famous 1984 commercial, though no explanation of that is given.
"Pirates" closes in 1984, though there is also a mention of the 1997 MacWorld where Mr. Jobs announces that Microsoft has purchased 5% of Apple's stock. There is plenty of room for a sequel, though such a movie is highly unlikely. It is the early days of Microsoft and Apple that have the most mass-market appeal. The goings on since then would be much more appealing to the more limited techno-nerds of the world.
The Bottom Line
To repeat ourselves, the movie was great to watch, especially the reenactments of events known to us, but we felt that many people not knowing the details ahead of time might have found it hard to follow. Dave and I certainly enjoyed it though, and we recommend it to Mac users everywhere.
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Final Score (Maximum score is 5 Gadgies)
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4 Gadgies
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Pros |
Great movie, character potrayals of major
characters was excellent. Great to see reenactments
of real events. |
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Cons |
Many details sparse or left out, hard to follow
for people who are not familiar with the story. |
The Pirates of Silicon Valley
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