Boo-hoo! You hate every movie about Apple, just like the rest of the people here. There is always dramatic effect added to any type of biography movie. It is well documented that he was a colossal jerk at times. It is part of his biography, whether you like it or not. So deal with it. Consider it entertainment and take what you want from it. I am sure you will hate the 'Steve Jobs' movie from Universal too.
You don't know me, so your completely erroneous presumptions will be excused.
My first post with my new screen name. I lost my old account because of a lost e-mail.
I didn't think the trailer for the film was negative. It just showed some of the brilliance of a complicated man. I have no issue with the trailer. Personally I find Steve Jobs dark and contrasting side necessary to the whole of an individual. We all have dark sides. Nothing new here.
None of these Jobs movies much interest me. At this point, seriously, we know the stories, we know he could be a jerk. I don't see the point. The Jobs drama is more interesting to me, but I'll still probably wait for Netflix unless the overall consensus is brilliant.
Pirates Of Silicon Valley will always be my favorite Jobs movie...
Wow so not interested in this then. Doesn't sound the least bit objective.
I'm not at all discouraging anyone from seeing this movie, but it is a pure character assassination piece, and Cue's comment about "mean spirited" is something I agree with.
The list of people interviewed--or more accurately--the list of people interviewed PLUS those whose testimony was cribbed from archival interviews--sums up the whole problem with Alex Gibney's documentary, and why he said he reached the conclusion that Steve was a horrible person not worthy of the adoration of grieving Apple fans. The only people who provide character testimony are people who knew or worked with Steve a long time ago. The early years. The young asshole years. Like, 30+ years ago. People like Chrisann Brennan, his high school girlfriend who had a vexatious relationship with Jobs, and is still bitter about it. There are no contemporary interviewees. No one from his family. Here's my problem with that: even if none of his family wanted to be interviewed, Gibney could have included already published media archives or quotations from them. But he doesn't. He omits anything positive. The rest of the interviews are contemporary writers from tech media: Jason Chen (who was at the center of the Gizmodo iPhone 4 prototype leak), and Yukari Iwatani Kane (who wrote the Apple-is-doomed screed Haunted Empire), among other Apple critics. Guess what they had to say.
There are lots of cherry-picked soundbites too, snippets of previously recorded interviews from elsewhere that were used to make Gibney's point, rather than provide a broader, balanced portrait of Steve. For example, the famous Woz story about being bilked out of the payment for the Atari Breakout game. That incident happened like 40 years ago. And it doesn't define Woz and Jobs' full relationship. There's no mention that Jobs and Woz were equal partners when it came to splitting profits and ownership of their own business ventures (including the founding of Apple). Because that wouldn't fit the unflattering image of Steve that Gibney is trying to make.
Gibney naively thinks his documentary shines light on "the Steve Jobs you never knew." But that's his personal naiveté speaking (I say naive because he says he started this project out of curiosity about why so many people were personally moved when Steve died); the topic of Steve Jobs has been extensively written about, and I fault Gibney for not doing his homework, and/or if he did, he ignored complex, contradictory aspects of Jobs, and simplified it down to "Steve Jobs = selfish prick." Except we knew that already, and we also know that's not how his story ends.
My take on Gibney is that he's an ernest documentary filmmaker, but he allowed himself to be seduced by the most salacious details of Jobs' life and relationships, the most negative scandals associated with Apple, and the people he interviewed--like Chrisann Brennan who still has an axe to grind--basically setup his movie's thesis, which is "Steve went looking for Zen enlightenment and 'blew it' (because he was so selfish)". That might be a truth about Jobs 35 years ago, but Gibney concludes that is the man Steve Jobs was when he died. And he offers nothing to back that leaped-to conclusion up.
Not to rip your words too out of context, but actually I am. I was 13 in 1984 when my Dad brought home a Macintosh 128k (only the single 400k internal floppy with no external drive) and ImageWriter I printer, our first true home computer system. Around Christmas 1983 he was offered either a cash bonus or a Mac. He chose the Mac. That was my start with Apple (I never used the Apple I or II series), and I've been a Mac/Apple fan ever since. I've used Windows since version 2, DOS, Commodore 64 and 128's, a university VAX during my engineering school years, Radio Shack computing devices, and the list goes on. So yes, I'm somewhat of a nerd too. I subscribed to MacUser sometime in 1984 and maintained my subscription through the years, even through the time they merged with Macworld, and now I read Macworld in digital form on my iPad. Probably my first book on Apple was The Little Kingdom, and I've snapped up other books on Apple and Jobs since. That doesn't make me an expert on Apple or Jobs. But it does make me an old fart who knows the meaning of "ditto" even though I almost never use the term. However, I love mint ice cream and yogurt so the occasional flatulence is sometimes almost pleasant.
I'm on my Mac now so I was able to give you a thumbs-up on your earlier post. Not a lot of people here seem to click that thumb icon, maybe because everyone is on mobile these days and that button is hopelessly broken on mobile. (AppleInsider, may this forum more mobile friendly, please!) Or maybe because most people just don't care. But I give credit where credit is due, and I felt you deserved a thumbs-up. And now you have it. Best wishes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xixo
Pirates Of Silicon Valley will always be my favorite Jobs movie...
I feel the same. No other movie about Jobs casts a guy (Noah Wyle) who looks so much like a young Steve Jobs. If the actor playing the real life character looks hardly like the real life character, you the viewer (if you're like me anyway) feel rather detached from the film. It touches on a lot of the key points I've read in books and articles. It's a good film.
There is an unfortunate habit of people to make excuses for people they admire (for other reasons) so they neatly fall into either saint or sinner categories.
Show me one person in these forums who has put Steve Jobs "neatly into the saint category."
Time heals all wounds. After these documentaries are gone and forgotten Steve will be remembered for his accomplishments more than his personality quirks.
Gibney is a mean-spirited guy. That's why his best docs are about people who deserve to get trashed. Like Enron and the Scientologists. JObs is the wrong subject for Gibney.
Just saw the trailer. It looks fascinating, warts and all.
It's interesting to read comments both praising and criticising Steve Jobs' behaviour. Of course he has been aggrandized, but, meh. That he wasn't liked by some is partly a function of the character of those beholding.
The point I'd like to add is that Apple was floundering and seemingly a chaotic mess before his return, at which point matters changed rapidly. That's an incontrovertible fact - love him or loathe him. I reckon Steve Jobs was the ONLY person in the world who could walk on stage and convince many people that the floppy-disk-less (such temerity!) iMac with it's foggy-translucent body allowing one to see the innards (joy! ??) was 'beautiful'. Fair dues though, I suppose the main selling point was the all-in-one simplicity. The design may have already been in place before Jobs' return, but can anyone imagine, say, Michael Dell announcing a similarly-designed Windows PC, drawing anywhere near the degree of attention Steve Jobs got?
My father worked with him for the US music festivals in the 80's, and with Apple on audio initiatives. He was a total bastard to people, embarrassingly mean at times, totally machiavellian. His vision for what he would do was next level he wasnt into cutting corners, would freak out. My old man liked him but said he was a trip
My father worked with him for the US music festivals in the 80's, and with Apple on audio initiatives. He was a total bastard to people, embarrassingly mean at times, totally machiavellian. His vision for what he would do was next level he wasnt into cutting corners, would freak out. My old man liked him but said he was a trip
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the US music festival completely Wozniak's thing? As I recall, Jobs had nothing to do with it.
Musk and Hawking have warned that AI is “our biggest existential threat” and that the development of full AI could “spell the end of the human race”. But others, including Wozniak have recently changed their minds on AI, with the Apple co-founder saying that robots would be good for humans, making them like the “family pet and taken care of all the time”.
Thanks for the Ex Machina tip. Just pre-ordered it on the iTunes Store. It won't be available until August 15th here in Germany... but look forward to it
A little historical perspective. When portable printed books first appeared in the early 1500s, there was a lot of anguish among the Schoolmen invested in the manuscript culture of scarce, very scarce, books. The Church had most to lose, because the copyists were the stock in trade of the monasteries, and thought could be controlled almost absolutely. Would you have referred to the new printed books as "stuff?" People went off to the taverns and coffee shops and buried their noses in them, and even discussed what they learned by forming social networks around ideas, which later became the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason.
We're seven years into the Jobsian parallel to the Gutenberg revolution, which has been running things for 500 years. It's too early to write this new one off as stuck in this initial phase of hypnosis and narcissism. I agree that's happening, by the way, but it's very temporary. The early years of print were plagued with terrible episodes of self-righteous indulgences.
Everything is temporary. But we never go back. If anything, the man/machine integration of the future is going to be made possible by the narcissism of today.
Comments
Boo-hoo! You hate every movie about Apple, just like the rest of the people here. There is always dramatic effect added to any type of biography movie. It is well documented that he was a colossal jerk at times. It is part of his biography, whether you like it or not. So deal with it. Consider it entertainment and take what you want from it. I am sure you will hate the 'Steve Jobs' movie from Universal too.
You don't know me, so your completely erroneous presumptions will be excused.
My first post with my new screen name. I lost my old account because of a lost e-mail.
I didn't think the trailer for the film was negative. It just showed some of the brilliance of a complicated man. I have no issue with the trailer. Personally I find Steve Jobs dark and contrasting side necessary to the whole of an individual. We all have dark sides. Nothing new here.
None of these Jobs movies much interest me. At this point, seriously, we know the stories, we know he could be a jerk. I don't see the point. The Jobs drama is more interesting to me, but I'll still probably wait for Netflix unless the overall consensus is brilliant.
Pirates Of Silicon Valley will always be my favorite Jobs movie...
Wow so not interested in this then. Doesn't sound the least bit objective.
I'm not at all discouraging anyone from seeing this movie, but it is a pure character assassination piece, and Cue's comment about "mean spirited" is something I agree with.
The list of people interviewed--or more accurately--the list of people interviewed PLUS those whose testimony was cribbed from archival interviews--sums up the whole problem with Alex Gibney's documentary, and why he said he reached the conclusion that Steve was a horrible person not worthy of the adoration of grieving Apple fans. The only people who provide character testimony are people who knew or worked with Steve a long time ago. The early years. The young asshole years. Like, 30+ years ago. People like Chrisann Brennan, his high school girlfriend who had a vexatious relationship with Jobs, and is still bitter about it. There are no contemporary interviewees. No one from his family. Here's my problem with that: even if none of his family wanted to be interviewed, Gibney could have included already published media archives or quotations from them. But he doesn't. He omits anything positive. The rest of the interviews are contemporary writers from tech media: Jason Chen (who was at the center of the Gizmodo iPhone 4 prototype leak), and Yukari Iwatani Kane (who wrote the Apple-is-doomed screed Haunted Empire), among other Apple critics. Guess what they had to say.
There are lots of cherry-picked soundbites too, snippets of previously recorded interviews from elsewhere that were used to make Gibney's point, rather than provide a broader, balanced portrait of Steve. For example, the famous Woz story about being bilked out of the payment for the Atari Breakout game. That incident happened like 40 years ago. And it doesn't define Woz and Jobs' full relationship. There's no mention that Jobs and Woz were equal partners when it came to splitting profits and ownership of their own business ventures (including the founding of Apple). Because that wouldn't fit the unflattering image of Steve that Gibney is trying to make.
Gibney naively thinks his documentary shines light on "the Steve Jobs you never knew." But that's his personal naiveté speaking (I say naive because he says he started this project out of curiosity about why so many people were personally moved when Steve died); the topic of Steve Jobs has been extensively written about, and I fault Gibney for not doing his homework, and/or if he did, he ignored complex, contradictory aspects of Jobs, and simplified it down to "Steve Jobs = selfish prick." Except we knew that already, and we also know that's not how his story ends.
My take on Gibney is that he's an ernest documentary filmmaker, but he allowed himself to be seduced by the most salacious details of Jobs' life and relationships, the most negative scandals associated with Apple, and the people he interviewed--like Chrisann Brennan who still has an axe to grind--basically setup his movie's thesis, which is "Steve went looking for Zen enlightenment and 'blew it' (because he was so selfish)". That might be a truth about Jobs 35 years ago, but Gibney concludes that is the man Steve Jobs was when he died. And he offers nothing to back that leaped-to conclusion up.
So you're an Old Fart...
Not to rip your words too out of context, but actually I am.
I was 13 in 1984 when my Dad brought home a Macintosh 128k (only the single 400k internal floppy with no external drive) and ImageWriter I printer, our first true home computer system. Around Christmas 1983 he was offered either a cash bonus or a Mac. He chose the Mac. That was my start with Apple (I never used the Apple I or II series), and I've been a Mac/Apple fan ever since. I've used Windows since version 2, DOS, Commodore 64 and 128's, a university VAX during my engineering school years, Radio Shack computing devices, and the list goes on. So yes, I'm somewhat of a nerd too. I subscribed to MacUser sometime in 1984 and maintained my subscription through the years, even through the time they merged with Macworld, and now I read Macworld in digital form on my iPad. Probably my first book on Apple was The Little Kingdom, and I've snapped up other books on Apple and Jobs since. That doesn't make me an expert on Apple or Jobs. But it does make me an old fart who knows the meaning of "ditto" even though I almost never use the term. However, I love mint ice cream and yogurt so the occasional flatulence is sometimes almost pleasant. 
I'm on my Mac now so I was able to give you a thumbs-up on your earlier post. Not a lot of people here seem to click that thumb icon, maybe because everyone is on mobile these days and that button is hopelessly broken on mobile. (AppleInsider, may this forum more mobile friendly, please!) Or maybe because most people just don't care. But I give credit where credit is due, and I felt you deserved a thumbs-up. And now you have it. Best wishes.
Pirates Of Silicon Valley will always be my favorite Jobs movie...
I feel the same. No other movie about Jobs casts a guy (Noah Wyle) who looks so much like a young Steve Jobs. If the actor playing the real life character looks hardly like the real life character, you the viewer (if you're like me anyway) feel rather detached from the film. It touches on a lot of the key points I've read in books and articles. It's a good film.
There is an unfortunate habit of people to make excuses for people they admire (for other reasons) so they neatly fall into either saint or sinner categories.
Show me one person in these forums who has put Steve Jobs "neatly into the saint category."
Gibney doesn't really make his movies he has low paid staff do all the work then comes in and takes the credit.
Just saw the trailer. It looks fascinating, warts and all.
It's interesting to read comments both praising and criticising Steve Jobs' behaviour. Of course he has been aggrandized, but, meh. That he wasn't liked by some is partly a function of the character of those beholding.
The point I'd like to add is that Apple was floundering and seemingly a chaotic mess before his return, at which point matters changed rapidly. That's an incontrovertible fact - love him or loathe him. I reckon Steve Jobs was the ONLY person in the world who could walk on stage and convince many people that the floppy-disk-less (such temerity!) iMac with it's foggy-translucent body allowing one to see the innards (joy! ??) was 'beautiful'. Fair dues though, I suppose the main selling point was the all-in-one simplicity. The design may have already been in place before Jobs' return, but can anyone imagine, say, Michael Dell announcing a similarly-designed Windows PC, drawing anywhere near the degree of attention Steve Jobs got?
My father worked with him for the US music festivals in the 80's, and with Apple on audio initiatives. He was a total bastard to people, embarrassingly mean at times, totally machiavellian. His vision for what he would do was next level he wasnt into cutting corners, would freak out. My old man liked him but said he was a trip
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the US music festival completely Wozniak's thing? As I recall, Jobs had nothing to do with it.
EDIT: I was right.
http://www.edibleapple.com/2009/12/21/when-steve-wozniak-put-together-a-us-music-festival/
Yeah... the Woz Is A Wonder... isn't he? Tucked away inside this Guardian article - Musk, Wozniak and Hawking urge ban on warfare AI and autonomous weapons - towards the end... once again Woz shows his childish naivete:
IMO, he was very lucky that Jobs exploited his genius. He owes much of his success to good timing.
1) That does read as extremely naive.
2) Have you seen Ex Machina?
Thanks for the Ex Machina tip. Just pre-ordered it on the iTunes Store. It won't be available until August 15th here in Germany... but look forward to it
Everything is temporary. But we never go back. If anything, the man/machine integration of the future is going to be made possible by the narcissism of today.