Pretending I'm a Superman: The Tony Hawk Video Game Story

There is a try hard skater in the movie who whenever says something makes an annoying try hard comment, this for me nearly ruined the documentary, thankfully half way through I remembered I can fast forward past his try hard remarks towards literally everything.

There's not much to learn for someone who is already familiar with Tony Hawk Pro Skater but would be great for a young person who wants to know what his or her dad used to play.

Besides the hater/poser comments from the try hard I did actually enjoy this documentary and will look for a physical copy to gift to my nephew when he's old enough.

A nice little documentary about the franchise. I would have loved it to be a little bit longer with some more footage. Seems like some things were slightly glossed over. That being said, I'm not being a hater. It's worth a watch and will definitely make you want to run out and buy the new remastered games for nostalgia!

It's decent for what it is but the documentary lacked the deep dive into the actual games. It had a much greater focus on the influence of the game on the pro skaters that were involved in it, rather than the actual game/development.

It really does just focus on the succes. Not much else and it doesn't linger on any of the massive failures that came later and how it influenced the company/future. Like you don't hear about Neversoft becoming defunct and Robomodo taking over and how that process went.

The documentary also has a 20 minute section on the history of skating which I thought was a bit much. Especially this being a niche documentary about a very specific skateboarding game. I would expect the audience not to need a history lesson and it felt like wasted time.

So it lacks depth in the game development department which I was looking forward too. Therefore the lower rating.

If you want to hear some legendary skaters talk about how THPS elevated their lives then its great, otherwise not so much.

This documentary, seemingly released to coincide with the release of the remastered versions of "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2", was advertised on Sky Documentaries last week - and being a fan of the game series, I downloaded it. Whilst it has some interesting moments, ultimately the story wasn't quite interesting enough to be worthy of the documentary.

Combining archive footage with recent interviews with various personalities, the documentary tracks the rise of Skateboarding from child's activity, to a rebellious outsider movement, to X-Games popularity. It's most high profile name, Tony Hawk, a lifelong gamer begins to discuss a video game with various parties, before settling in partnership with Neversoft/Activision and producing a series of hit games that both reflect and then influence the skating scene.

The skating side of the documentary is perhaps a bit more interesting than the gaming side. Plenty of interviews with a number of skating figures that take you though that history. There is some needle in there, towards Tony I felt - with him being a big shot and taking their world mainstream with the X-Games and the game itself. It's then really interesting out the other side, when you have skaters that were totally inspired by "Pro Skater" and even learning that some tricks that began in the game and were thought impossible, have become utilised in real life.

The actual game development though unfortunately isn't really that interesting. They had a game they thought was OK, but might not sell. It did catch on though, and sold more than they could have hoped, so they drove the franchise into the ground by releasing too many games too quickly and diluting the formula. There was a little talk about the much derided skateboard peripheral, that didn't really work, but that could have been delved into further. There was no talk about the "Jackass-ification" of the series towards the end there though. There was some discussion about the soundtrack, however, which was a key aspect for some bands to get their music heard by wider audiences.

I enjoyed the huge nostalgia buzz, don't get me wrong - but perhaps a wider target, such as action sports games in general or a wider look at the history of Neversoft, would have been more interesting.

When I first heard about this crowd-funded independent documentary I was expecting it to be a min-documentary uploaded to youtube for free.

When I heard it was a near feature length film with a $10-$15 price tag, ($5 rental) I was pretty apprehensive, I mean much of this info's already online for free, right?

It was one of the later trailers that sold me on the film though, Seeing the production from the prescriptive of neversoft, Tony hawk and other pro's may make this worth the price.

I went 'All In', and bought the film, And I have to say I was very impressed!

It's not just the story of "Tony Hawk Pro Skater" the Video game even just the series as a whole. It really goes into how it changed skate culture forever!

The editing and directing are fantastic, and it far exceeded my expectations! --- I do have a few minor gripes though,

First, I feel the pacing could be a little better in some spots, There's about a 18mins at the beginning, before they talk about the first game's development. It sets up how skateboarding was back in the 70's 90's and early 90's, but I feel it could have been trimmed down a bit, or at least paced better.

Second, I wish they spent a little more time taking about the other entries in the series. Most of the time is spent on the first game, Significantly less on the second, and by the time they get to even Pro Skater 4, we only get a few seconds. Not even a mention on how systems like manuals and reverts effected design. Or even what led to the dramatic changes between Pro Skater 4, and the underground series. And while The motion control games are mentioned, there's Zero mention of Pro Skater 5, the HD collection for even the new 1+2 remake (remake was announced after this film began production)

And 3rd, it would have been cool to see more early development work or production prototypes, But I'd imagine after over 20 years, much of that may have been lost, or may be legally owned by Activision.

--- But Again, it seems like the goal of this documentary was just to hear about how the game series began, and it's influence on skateboarding.

Reading the reports online is one thing, but hearing it first hand from those involved is another thing.

The team behind this did a fantastic job!

If you even have a passing interest in the 'Pro Skater' Series, You NEED to watch this film!