Review: 'Steve Jobs' an electric depiction of Apple's enigmatic founder

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  • Reply 61 of 164
    wigbywigby Posts: 692member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NolaMacGuy View Post





    I trust the NASA findings because they were in the room. you've never been in the room with Jobs during any of these events, nor have you met him, talked with him, etc. nor do you know his friends. you're a guy who reads shit on websites, just like me. we aren't experts on the truth of these people. we're just fanboys. you need to realize that.

     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NolaMacGuy View Post





    you're attempting to declare Cooks opinions and motivations when in fact you're completely ignorant about them. you've likely never been in the same room together let alone met the man or have any insight into his thoughts.



    in other words, you're just making shit up. next.



    OK, I'll go tell all those historic biographers that they're all just "making shit up" because they couldn't possibly know what someone might be thinking because they never met them. Why are you so adamant in telling everyone here that they know nothing about Tim Cook when none of us would even disagree? We're merely speculating based on public record and what we believe. Until we all have mind reading machines, I don't really think you have a better approach yourself except for everyone to be quiet about everything all the time.

  • Reply 62 of 164
    solipsismy wrote: »
    nolamacguy wrote: »
    sorry, but you're in no position to discern truth from fiction when it comes to jobs. nor anyone on this site, most likely.

    I'm not? We're not? By that reasoning then the new pictures of Pluto, and NASA saying there is still water on Mars you would then claim are just as likely to be false information. I've never seen the FAA HQ so maybe that's all a lie, too. Maybe Steve Jobs isn't actually dead since I've never exhumed his body and compared DNA samples. Does DNA even exist? I can't see it so how can I really know?¡

    I think you're being a little too literal and too harsh. I intererpreted NolaMacGuy's comment to mean that relative to Sorkin, none of us can really make the claim to know particularly more or less. After all, he's also presumably seen and read a lot of the things that we have, on top of which he had to write a screenplay on the subject, which none of us have had to. You may or may not like his take on things, but that does not diminish his knowledge of the subject in question relative to yours. Also, none of us really has a clue about the contents of the movie, except for second-hand information.
  • Reply 63 of 164
    solipsismy wrote: »

    1) You trust an agency funded by the US gov't who now has 1/10th of the budget they had 50 years ago over your own common sense? I don't. I trust my common sense and having read about Steve since the 1980's I feel confident I can create a decent picture of the man without having met him (as if a meeting him one would be enough to know anyone), or getting NASA to sign off on my interpretation of the man.

    2) No, I'm not a fanboy, because I don't blindly put my trust in any one company. If you want a fanboy see sog35's posts. I analyze the fuçk out shit and even though today I mostly use Apple for my CE, I will drop them in a heartbeat if someone comes out with something that better suits my needs. In fact, as I've stated on this site many times, I love my Amazon Echo and the new Fire TV supporting both 4K with H.265 encoded content and being an Alexa extender, is leaning me toward buying it over a new Apple TV. I will still use my Mac mini as the iTunes Server but will just re-enable Plex Server and use the Fire TV UI for it. The biggest holdout for me right now are the mixed reviews I've read about the Plex app for the Fire TV.

    1) Irrelevant.

    2) Your claims about analyzing the "fuçk" out of blogs and being an Apple user are also irrelevant unless you can claim to know Sorkin does on those fronts. I understand he's quite an Apple user too.
  • Reply 64 of 164
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by foggyhill View Post

     

     

    Films are not "telling the absolute" or close to the truth, its a dramatization with a POV.

    Most documentary are even farther from the "truth" than fiction! They have a very heavy POV.

    Only a clip show would present truth (we have some of those already); most would not be really interesting as drama.

     

     

    When doing a film, you're painting a brief moment of life, not documenting the whole of life.

    Your not posing a summary judgement on all Jobs was, but doing a quick sketch of one POV at those moments in time.

     

    As long as you go see those movies with that in mind, you're set.

     

    There's been hundred of rendition of Lincoln in fiction and performing arts, some just after he died,

    and most I'm betting don't have anything to do with the truth.

    By, most later accounts from historian, he wasn't really the man depicted in myth for more than a hundred year.

    Doesn't mean all of these are crap or not worth seeing.

     

    BTW,  No one really knows EXACTLY what occured during the time this occured, so even a depiction by people who were at the scene would give a varied view that some people would not agree with.


     

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post





    Why? Why would I praise Sorkin now?



    This article just confirmed my belief and Tim Cooks conclusion. The film is a big ball of Bullshit.



    I mean seriously. If they are not going to base the film on fact why even bother? Why not just do a film about a fictional character based on Jobs instead of making a psuedo-biography that most of Jobs closes friends say is not based on fact at all.



    My conclusion stands. You want to see a realistic portrail of Jobs based on fact? Don't watch this movie.

     

    I don't know why you're getting all bent out of shape about a movie that does not try to say it's a factual biography. By your thinking you should never like or look at any painting by Monet because his depictions (impressions) of landscapes are not true or factual replications of the actual location. Besides an artist being able to paint a subject with 99% replication, art is also impressionistic, which is Monet. If you squint real hard a Monet, one can get a better idea of the feeling and movement of his subject and content at the time it was painted.....a feeling and movement which can't be felt by viewing the 99% accurate-looking painting. 

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post



    What have you seen about this film that can be defined a ridiculous distortion? From the trailers and my long history of what I've read it all seems to fit with how I'd describe the man.

    And that's the point of the movie. This is Sorkin's impression of the life and times of Steve Jobs and Apple. Is it based on facts? In a round-about way, yes, it is. Was the movie Titanic based on fact? Yes, but to make it more entertaining Cameron took many opportunities for creative license, which made it greatly entertaining and ultimately a classic film work.

     

    All in all, although I have not seen it yet, I feel that the goal was to paint a picture of who the man, Steve Jobs, was, and although it's not 100% factually accurate, it does the job. (no pun intended :D)

     

    It seems like there are certain people here that were looking for a technical brief of Steve Jobs and Apple in the form of a motion picture. 

  • Reply 65 of 164
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post



    If Steve Jobs was alive this wouldn't have happened.

    Possibly the best comment of the thread.

     

    But Pirates of Silicon Valley came out when Jobs was very much alive and some scenes painted him in an pretty unkind light. Especially the scenes regarding his daughter Lisa and scenes where he is being a tyrant.

     

    Yet Steve Jobs had Noah Wyle come out on stage for the 1999 NY Macworld. So he couldn't have hated the movie entirely. 

     

    I have a feeling there was some artistic license taken with Pirates of Silicon Valley just as there will be with this latest Sorkin take on things.

  • Reply 66 of 164
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    I think you're being a little too literal and too harsh. I intererpreted NolaMacGuy's comment to mean that relative to Sorkin, none of us can really make the claim to know particularly more or less. After all, he's also presumably seen and read a lot of the things that we have, on top of which he had to write a screenplay on the subject, which none of us have had to. You may or may not like his take on things, but that does not diminish his knowledge of the subject in question relative to yours. Also, none of us really has a clue about the contents of the movie, except for second-hand information.

    1) I think that's the other way around. [@]NolaMacGuy[/@] is literally saying we can't know anything about Jobs. He' practically using a solipsistic definition (like, from the dictionary). Whether he's argument is to say that Sorkin then should have written nothing or that Sorkin can then write whatever he pleases is irrelevant to his core argument that we don't know anything about Jobs simply because we didn't get obtain it directly. How many women have come forth accusing Bill Cosby of drugging and rapping them? I've never met Bill or any of these accusers, most of which whose names I've never heard of, but I can say with certainly that he's a serial rapist. OF course, that won't hold up in a court of law, because, well, evidence, but the court of law isn't about odds, it's about proof. I can roll two dice in a game of craps and now my odds of a '7' being 6 out of 36 possibilities (1 in 6), and so when the puck is on I play '6' and '8' because I know the odds are 5 out of 36 possibilities, each, giving me a 10 in 36 chance it will hit. That's literally how I play craps. I also know that the odds are still always in the house's favour. And, yet, you can't count dice like you can cards so I don't know what will come up on each roll, only what the odds are... because I used my head.

    2) Of course we have a clue about the movie. We have at least one trailer, and countless articles about who it stars, a history of the writer and director in which to get an idea of the feeling, and plenty of knowledge of how it will be setup. Are you saying that it will be a dramatic three-structure act mostly taking place backstage just before announcing the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube, and iMac. I'll buy you an iPad Pro if that is all a lie.
  • Reply 67 of 164
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post





    Who, Neil Hughes?

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by bulk001 View Post



    So those who trashed Sorkin earlier now going to come out and lovingly fawn over the movie?

     

     

    Perhaps your not wired this way, but I can both simutaneously think Sorkin was a dick for his comments regarding Tim Cook, but also think he did a good job with the movie. Although I will wait until the movie hits DVD to see. 

  • Reply 68 of 164
    bulk001 wrote: »
    So those who trashed Sorkin earlier now going to come out and lovingly fawn over the movie?

    Nope. I have no desire to see this movie.
  • Reply 69 of 164
    solipsismy wrote: »

    1) I think that's the other way around. [@]NolaMacGuy[/@] is literally saying we can't know anything about Jobs. He' practically using a solipsistic definition (like, from the dictionary). Whether he's argument is to say that Sorkin then should have written nothing or that Sorkin can then write whatever he pleases is irrelevant to his core argument that we don't know anything about Jobs simply because we didn't get obtain it directly. How many women have come forth accusing Bill Cosby of drugging and rapping them? I've never met Bill or any of these accusers, most of which whose names I've never heard of, but I can say with certainly that he's a serial rapist. OF course, that won't hold up in a court of law, because, well, evidence, but the court of law isn't about odds, it's about proof. I can roll two dice in a game of craps and now my odds of a '7' being 6 out of 36 possibilities (1 in 6), and so when the puck is on I play '6' and '8' because I know the odds are 5 out of 36 possibilities, each, giving me a 10 in 36 chance it will hit. That's literally how I play craps. I also know that the odds are still always in the house's favour. And, yet, you can't count dice like you can cards so I don't know what will come up on each roll, only what the odds are... because I used my head.

    2) Of course we have a clue about the movie. We have at least one trailer, and countless articles about who it stars, a history of the writer and director in which to get an idea of the feeling, and plenty of knowledge of how it will be setup. Are you saying that it will be a dramatic three-structure act mostly taking place backstage just before announcing the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube, and iMac. I'll buy you an iPad Pro if that is all a lie.

    1) I've already said how I interpreted his comments. There's no point in arguing that further.

    2) I stated the part about having 'a clue' poorly. What I really meant to say was that all we have at this point are second-hand, not first-hand, information on the movie. In any event, that does not take away from the larger point about our knowledge of what Sorkin may or may not know about Jobs relative to any of us. You did not even address it in your response.
  • Reply 70 of 164
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    And that's the point of the movie. This is Sorkin's impression of the life and times of Steve Jobs and Apple. Is it based on facts? In a round-about way, yes, it is. Was the movie Titanic based on fact? Yes, but to make it more entertaining Cameron took many opportunities for creative license, which made it greatly entertaining and ultimately a classic film work.

    All in all, although I have not seen it yet, I feel that the goal was to paint a picture of who the man, Steve Jobs, was, and although it's not 100% factually accurate, it does the job. (no pun intended :D )

    It seems like there are certain people here that were looking for a technical brief of Steve Jobs and Apple in the form of a motion picture. 

    I know [@]Slurpy[/@] vehemently disagrees with me on this (and since his position is inline with [@]sog35[/@] I implore him to rethink his position :)), but I think Sorkin's primary goal is to make something entertainment and engaging. Conflict = Drama = Entertainment is the rule of thumb. That doesn't mean Sorkin has to lie, but it does mean Sorkin has to take a man who lived over 56 years and make a 2 hour film to capture his life. By comparison Titanic was easy because it was it's maiden (technically 2nd) voyage.

    I think the three acts that take place backstage is brilliant. I love backstage stuff and would love to see a documentary* of the backstage production leading up to an Apple event — why did they need that building in SF for a month for the latest event? — but it also means he has more freedom of the facts since there are so few people that can question how the backstage setup looked, as opposed to having to recreate the front of Apple HQ at 1 Infinite Loop and so on. But is that enough to capture the essence of the man? Of course not! We'd only be seeing one side of Jobs as he was focusing on the biggest product announcements in his life... hence, we need to bring in the personal side of Jobs, warts and all. I think it's not likely that he had to deal with issues with Christen and Lisa Brennan on those very days right before those events, but it's not impossible, and we need those personal aspects to make this story work. I don't care if the time frame is off by hours, days, weeks, or months, so long as it coincides with what what can be researched about the dramatic elements. Imagine if Sorkin didn't interweave these stories but kept them all separate? That would sound dull to me. Let's keep the drama going for the entire act. That the magic. Boom!


    * I don't count that intro video from WWDC with Bill Hader.

    techlover wrote: »
    Possibly the best comment of the thread.

    But Pirates of Silicon Valley came out when Jobs was very much alive and some scenes painted him in an pretty unkind light. Especially the scenes regarding his daughter Lisa and scenes where he is being a tyrant.

    Yet Steve Jobs had Noah Wyle come out on stage for the 1999 NY Macworld. So he couldn't have hated the movie entirely. 

    I have a feeling there was some artistic license taken with Pirates of Silicon Valley just as there will be with this latest Sorkin take on things.

    Who here has read Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. I've always liked that idea, not the one where we suddenly talk kindly about someone simply because they are dead, but we accept them in death the way we accepted them in life: as a person.
    "Speakers research the dead person's life and give a speech that attempts to speak for them, describing the person's life as he or she tried to live it. This speech is not given in order to persuade the audience to condemn or forgive the deceased, but rather a way to understand the person as a whole, including any flaws or misdeeds."
  • Reply 71 of 164
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    In any event, that does not take away from the larger point about our knowledge of what Sorkin may or may not know about Jobs relative to any of us. You did not even address it in your response.

    What is there to address that hasn't already been addressed about what he does know about this film? I thought I clearly stated what we do know about Sorkin's film and how I feel about how it lines up with my 4 decades of hearing about Jobs.
  • Reply 72 of 164
    quinneyquinney Posts: 2,528member
    asdasd wrote: »
    quinney wrote: »
    et tu, AI?

    Et tu, AI. Taken from Shakespeare's appalling play on Caesar where Caesar supposedly said "et tu, Brutus" but didn't in reality. Shakespeare made all the dialogue up and has his characters speaking a language in the play they didn't speak in reality, because it didn't exist. Nobody who knew Caesar was consulted ( they were "dead" according to Shakespeare) and most people who played Caesar historically didn't look like him. Shocking play. Read a history book.

    You almost got it. If you realized that's what makes it the perfect opportunistic backstabber reference, you would be all the way there.
  • Reply 73 of 164
    solipsismy wrote: »

    What is there to address that hasn't already been addressed about what he does know about this film? I thought I clearly stated what we do know about Sorkin's film and how I feel about how it lines up with my 4 decades of hearing about Jobs.

    I think the discussion is wandering into the territory of being a non-sequitur. I've completely lost you at this point, and perhaps it's time to get on with my day... :-/
  • Reply 74 of 164
    gqbgqb Posts: 1,934member
    I guess it's understandable that tech types can't get their heads around the fact that a great film is one that ends up being more than just another biopic. It says something about the human condition or creativity or imperfections. I feel sorry for those who are whining about the 'lack of historical accuracy' or the fact that the lead isnt the spitting image of Steve. You're so missing the point.
  • Reply 75 of 164
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    I think the discussion is wandering into the territory of being a non-sequitur. I've completely lost you at this point, and perhaps it's time to get on with my day... :-/

    Very well. My suggestion to you is to simply avoid the movie, articles, blogs, and forums that discuss it if you have such a big problem with a screenwriter writing a dramatic piece that even he says isn't a biopic. I'll wait for the reviews to roll in and then judge based on critics and word of mouth of those whose previous recommendations I've come to trust (sometimes because their opinion will be opposite of mine), at which point I'll decide to see it in the theater, at home, or not at all.
  • Reply 76 of 164
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Arlor View Post

     

     

    More relevant (important?) than Lincoln or Edison? Woah now, let's check back in a hundred or a hundred and fifty years. 




    I will do and I will prove you wrong.

  • Reply 77 of 164
    gqb wrote: »
    I guess it's understandable that tech types can't get their heads around the fact that a great film is one that ends up being more than just another biopic. It says something about the human condition or creativity or imperfections. I feel sorry for those who are whining about the 'lack of historical accuracy' or the fact that the lead isnt the spitting image of Steve. You're so missing the point.

    If historical accuracy is unimportant, don't call the film "Steve Jobs". Call it "Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs" in the same way that we got "Walt Disney's Snow White". This is definitely Sorkin's story, accuracy be damned.
  • Reply 78 of 164
    solipsismysolipsismy Posts: 5,099member
    arlor wrote: »
    More relevant (important?) than Lincoln or Edison? Woah now, let's check back in a hundred or a hundred and fifty years. 

    How does one quantify that? Why only look ahead that far? Why not look at where they had to start from? What about their humanity during their lifetime*? What about what these people did to inspire others in their time, or people they allowed to survive or thrive by their inventions which lead to those people doing something important for humanity, or their children, or children's children, etc.


    * Personally, I can't stand Edison. I consider him a hack, a thief, and a greedy asshole. He didn't invent the lightbulb and even today in the US we use Tesla's design for the screw in bulk because Edison wouldn't license the rights to Edison's design to the British because Tesla was part of the project, as I remember it; but since Tesla only had to find a way around Edison's patent we may only have this superior design as the standard because Edison was a selfish, immature prick, so that, in the end, did some benefit.


    edit: This video is relevant to what a discovery or action, accidental or intentional, can do.

    [VIDEO]
  • Reply 79 of 164
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismY View Post

     

    Who here has read Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. I've always liked that idea, not the one where we suddenly talk kindly about someone simply because they are dead, but we accept them in death the way we accepted them in life: as a person.

    Quote:

    "Speakers research the dead person's life and give a speech that attempts to speak for them, describing the person's life as he or she tried to live it. This speech is not given in order to persuade the audience to condemn or forgive the deceased, but rather a way to understand the person as a whole, including any flaws or misdeeds."



    I'll have to pick up Speaker for the Dead at my local library as I have not read it.

     

    Speaking of books/movies written about the dead. What about Jesus? I mean that dude has been dead for a really long time now. 

     

    Isn't it time we just let Jesus rest in peace and stop being opportunistic regarding him? At least we should do nothing but 100% factual documentaries and books about him. You know, like how the Bible is all historical facts. Not a single word made up in there. Nope, not a word that isn't 100% historically accurate in the Bible. :rolleyes:

     

    </sarcasm>

  • Reply 80 of 164
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    foggyhill wrote: »
    Or maybe there is no "truth", what you think you know is already miles from the truth (which is highly probable).

    Even Cook only knew Jobs during the last part of this film. Most people that were around him in 2011, weren't there for the first two chapters. And many who were there for the first, weren't around for the last. Everybody's got a skewed view. And that's only people who actually met him. For everyone else, I'm betting were not that close to knowing anything... And so what? We were not his friends.

    When fiction becomes fact, print the fiction... Why? Because nobody really going to believe the truth anyway whatever it is...

    This. Your statement reminds me of a meeting in which the historian of one of my professional organizations spoke. His responsibility is to chronicle the lives and works of luminaries famous and obscure in our profession. He said: "There are no facts." On the job, these people are mathematically rigorous. However, in dealing with personal history, we are constrained by the vagaries of the documentary record and human memory. We now know that eyewitness testimony is severely limited at getting at the truth in criminal investigations. Perhaps, we can also admit that in the absence of a 24/7 video record of everyone that a historical figure dealt with, we may not have an inaccurate picture of the historical figure.
    solipsismy wrote: »
    Really? That's all you know and, subsequently, have projected your admitted ignorance onto everyone else? You don't know anything about his widow, or house he had to fight to raze, or his battle pancreatic cancer, or his transplant, or his biological sister's novel being made into a well received Hollywood film, or his sale to Pixar to Disney, or the yacht that he had commissioned, or any of the countless other things not about product announcements that weren't the first 7 things that came to mind in an instant when you foolish stated. "All we really know is the guy […] sold us stuff." Maybe you need to start paying attention.

    Steve Jobs is a biographical movie. The movie is about a man that I worship like a god. I would absolutely love for Steve Jobs to be absolutely accurate. Unfortunately, this is not the case. To the best of my knowledge, a statement shown in one the movie's trailers is just dead wrong. If the trailer shows historically inaccurate events, then I hold out little hope that the film is anything other than replete with historical inaccuracies.

    Unfortunately, historical inaccuracy is the norm for historical films. Steve Jobs will not be the first historical film that I have seen. I have seen others that make the complaints made here look like nitpicking. There have been several films in which central characters are depicted as alive at times after the historical record proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had been murdered. On the flip side, the TV show Lizzie Borden Chronicles showed that Lizzie Borden murdered Tom Horn during the 1890's. In 1903, however, Tom Horn was executed in one of the most famous hangings in American history for the 1901 ambush murder of a boy. If Borden had indeed killed Horn, then that boy and others murdered by Horn may have lived to an old age.

    Earlier, I implied that a 24/7 video record was required to have accurate records of historical figures. Although such a record is necessary, it is not sufficient. There was a time when we believed that two people given the same set of facts would arrive at the same conclusion. We now know this to be not the case. We each process the facts available to us through filters borne of a lifetime of experiences. No matter what you may think you may know about Steve Jobs the man, the Steve Jobs the man of your memory is the product of the information available to you processed through your filters.
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