Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[sheercon@earthlink.net]

Brian Hammack wrote:

>  Bedlam chanted almost zenlike:
>
>  "<| What do you guys think about the "docudrama" that TNT aired last
>    | night, "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?
>
> Poorly done.  A freakin' soap opera.
>
>  "<| I've heard that Steve Jobs is a terrible boss to work for, but he
>    | was portrayed as an egomaniacal psychotic on the show.  Bill
>    | Gates, on the other hand, came off looking like the Saint of the
>
> I don't know there... he wasn't given too much harshness, albeit he did
> get painted socially inept, but you have to admit that that end scene
> where he is portrayed as Big Brother did cut into his saintliness.
>
>    | if you ask me. Is Ted Turner buddies with Bill Gates?
>
> Two of the five richest men are respresented in this movie:  the
> subject (Bill Gates) and the producer (Ted Turner).  Mathematics?
>
>    | Is somebody afraid of the iMac, the best selling computer
>    | right now?  What's going on with this?  I smell a private agenda.
>
> What does the iMac have to do with the movie?  The end of the story is
> where Gates buys shares of ("is part owner of") Apple to keep it afloat
> and the subtitle mentions Jobs is back at Apple.  This was before a new
> product was announced, and you have to admit that the movie didn't give
> much shrift to Apple's product line (the I, the II line broadly, the
> Lisa without calling it a failure, the Mac self-contained units)... the
> Newton was never mentioned and the iMac was well in the future.
>
> What cracked me up is,
>  #1 - We see Apple //'s (and even a ///!) on people's desks in the Mac
> development area; so what were they programming Mac wares on again?
>  #2 - The Mac that made a startup beep during a demo
>  #3 - The PC that made an Apple // startup beep
>  #4 - Woz in bed playing a nonexistant Atari game with nonexistant
> joystick cables (he was NOT holding a radio-control joystick)
>  #5 - Was it me or were the three Apple ][ prototypes at the trade show
> in platinum cases instead of beige?  (Nice of them to play Apple Panic)
>  #6 - Not just that the Mac demo didn't SAY the word "hello" in the
> movie like it did in real life, but what the heck was Jobs doing with
> his hands on that keyboard, rebooting?
>
> Private agenda...  Hmm.  Softer treatment of business practices, yes.
> When Gates tells Jobs near the end that having a better product doesn't
> matter, I had figured he'd explain things like marketing what you have.
> Of course, having Jobs say the Apple II was "insanely great" to Woz at
> the trade show had me wondering how accurate to history this was to be.
>
>                                                         << mushroom >>
>
>  * 2qwk! 2.04 * For this I evolved a thumb?

jeeze... it was *just* a movie people; it's not the end all be all. I
didn't get a chance to see it but I read an article which said the eggheads
would disect it. I imagine Disney's Pocahontas was not historically
accurate either but that didn't stop people from enjoying it for it's
entertainment value.

It's funny reading through this thread with people yelling, "*I* was there
man!" (like some post-Woodstock battle cry) in the context of them pointing
out the inaccuracies of how such and such could never have happened or so
and so didn't do this or that. Jeeze... what do you expect from a 2 hour
(minus comercials), low budget, made for TV movie?

Brian