Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuA crew search for all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.A crew search for all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.A crew search for all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.
- Self - Riley Rayburn
- (as a different name)
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"Atari: Game Over" is a film that drives the history teacher in me mad. While the show is interesting to watch for nostalgic reasons (after all, I had an Atari 2600) it's history is poor to say the least. According to so much of "Atari: Game Over" the company was destroyed by the game "E.T." or at least that it died soon after the game died on the shelves--but this is NOT the case at all. The Atari 2600 was soon replaced by the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 and the company limped on through the 1980s and did NOT fold after the failure of "E.T."--so pretty much everything about the film is wrong when it comes to the real history. Saying the popularity of the Atari games peaked with "E.T." and it was all decline from then on, that WOULD be accurate. But the company dying was not just because of "E.T." but the lousy controllers for the 5200 (they were cheap plastic and overly complicated--and broke VERY quickly) and the system wasn't fixed...it was abandoned. As for the 7800, its titles never generated much excitement--especially since folks were afraid the system would also soon be abandoned. A variety of other financial missteps also hastened the decline, so the whole notion that the company disappeared after "E.T." debuted it a hoax. There must be better films about Atari out there...this one is full of sentiment but short on facts.
This is, on the surface, the story of how a nostalgic geek had a chunk of desert dug up to hunt for games cartridges that were dumped back in the early 80s.
As the film develops it becomes more than that, and delves into the story of how a household name company and an intrinsic part of many peoples childhood, crashed spectacularly.
Many of the individuals at the heart of the success and failure of the games' development, come together to tell their part in the story and to be present at the enjoyable final conclusion.
Whilst seemingly aware of the geekieness of the subject matter, the story is informative and told with obvious affection, nostalgia and an ample share of humour. All in all, an entertaining piece of film-making.
Again we're asked to buy in to the S word - subjectivity - and this is where everything falls down . Atari once had an absolute monopoly on video games both in arcades and home consoles . Everyone remembers Pong , a tennis like game involving two players knocking a ball in to their opponents space . Then you had Space Invaders and the likes taking up the market in arcade games and I often remember as a child popping in to the local amusement arcades in Rothesay watching patrons play these games wishing I had the money to play . When I did arcade games had moved forward slightly and grown more intricate and visually better and just all round more fun . It wasn't until I consulted Wikipedia that I found out something important which GAME OVER fails to mention and that is how very few games in the mid 1980s arcades were Atari games . And this means this documentary must be taken wit a large salt mine . By the mid 1980s other consoles by the likes of Sega were eating in to the market and despite what the interviewees are claiming it simply wasn't a bad press revolving around a single game that ended Atari it was simply market forces and more innovative rivals that beat them
This is a pity because this selective rewriting of history damages a very interesting documentary that gives us the story of how video games came in to being . Where it works best is with the visuals . Director Zak Penn best known for his Hollywood superhero screenplays uses the documentary as almost a literal comic book cum video game which works very well in what could have been a boring docu featuring talking head interviews . The history of Atari is also fascinating where game developers were allowed to get stoned at work , think outside the box and makes lots of money . As the laws of evolution show however hippies become yippies become yuppies and there's distinct lack of irony involved when people who have done so much to make a corporate company an absolute minority thinks it's a good idea to dig up a land fill site in Alamogordo causing possible environmental harm as a bit of an ego trip while blaming all the world's problems on a video game that didn't sell . Modesty like truth isn't exactly in evidence here but it still makes for an interesting documentary
There seem to have been a growing amount of video game documentaries over the last few years (roughly 2012-2015), and many of them understandably focus on Atari and bring up the E.T. story. Most of these are pretty good documentaries. And this is one of them.
This was the first I heard that Atari was filled with drugs and had a party atmosphere. However, knowing what I do of computer geeks in the 1980s and 1990s, this hardly surprises me. Even Steve Jobs had his share of experiments with drugs. (Did Bill Gates?) We also get a cool back story on Yars' Revenge (Atari's best-selling original title for the 2600), but E.T. is really the central focus of this story and it pays off. The truth finally comes out about its promotion, failure, alleged burial and the rumors that the game's notoriety "killed" Atari in 1984. Of course, the brand still exists, but that is a whole other story.
With an hour running time not much else could be expected. But digging (pun intended) in the past might uncover something ... well at least will bury the rumors. Ok enough puns - probably. Having watched this I almost want to play ET now ... although ... well at least the documentary is short and really enlightening - for anyone who's interested that is.
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesThis was supposed to be the first episode of a six part documentary series called 'Signal to Noise', made by Xbox Entertainment Studios. However, in July 2014, it became apparent that mother company Microsoft was going to shut down Xbox Entertainment Studios. Because of this, no other episodes of 'Signal to Noise' were made.
- Zitate
Himself - Narrator: [Discussing the chances that the digging of the dump being successful] You're saying that there's a possibility that this could turn out to be a giant waste of time?
Himself - Waste Disposal Expert & Historian: I think I've said it before: I'll bet the car, I won't bet the house.
- VerbindungenFeatures Pong (1972)
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- Erscheinungsdatum
- Herkunftsland
- Offizielle Standorte
- Sprachen
- Auch bekannt als
- Atari
- Drehorte
- Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA(landfill site)
- Produktionsfirmen
- Weitere beteiligte Unternehmen bei IMDbPro anzeigen
- Laufzeit1 Stunde 6 Minuten
- Farbe
- Seitenverhältnis
- 1.78 : 1