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

This certainly cranks up the nostalgia. If you grew up playing the Tony Hawk games, or skateboarding, then you will probably enjoy this.

As great as the subject matter is, it's a rather bland documentary. Just a lot of talking heads, a lot of patting eachother on the back, and a quick overview of the series itself.

The documentary is best when talking about the first two iconic games; in particular their development. The impact the games had on not just the skating world, but the bands who featured on the soundtracks was interesting too.

This makes me want to listen to the music featured on the Tony Hawk games even more than it does play the games themselves. You're probably not going to learn anything new here. The sheer volume of quick interviews is enough to make you more dizzy than the gameplay angles.

But for all its documentary shortfalls, it's still a nice enough trip down memory lane.

I had heard about the Tony hawk video games though I did not know much about them.

I liked the interviews with pro skateboards and people involved with the video games.

I found it interesting to learn about some of the skateboarding video games that came out before the Tony Hawk video games. I suppose I thought that Tony Hawks games were the first skateboarding video games.

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!

I just saw the movie in Google Play Movies (Youtube Movies). Gave it 9/10, because, while it is a good movie, I really want to see more of what Neversoft guys have to say about the story. In short - the movie is otherwise good. Not as good as Stacy Peralta's documentaries on skateboarding, but still good. I enjoyed seeing it. I am one of these people, which this video game inspired to get into skateboarding, even late as now I am 44 years old. and I know I am not the only one. In the past I started with THPS2 and since then, every new game for me and my brother was like a holiday - we played for countless hours. So for sure, there was a need for this movie to be made and I am glad it is a reality now. Good thing about the movie is, that there are interviews not just with the skaters and few Neversoft guys, but also some of the musicians from the soundtrack and some of the influenced kids.

Basically, the movie represents more of Tony Hawk's point of view on the story and it is a good one. We see of course interviews also with the other core game skaters, such as Rodney Mullen, Steve Cabalero and more. I was looking to see Elissa Steamer, but she was not featured in the movie. Still, the presented material was interesting. There were stories, Tony tells what other options he had, the development around the game, which is the X-Games competition and the legendary 900 and many other things. Just as in the game, the movie features cool soundtrack.

Fun fact: Rodney Mullen wears a Debian linux logo t-shirt. I am curious why - is he a linux guy too? Won't be surprised, but need to ask. Asked him on his Facebook and Instagram, so let's see what he will reply.

The movie duration is like 1:11hrs and the rental price on Google was like 4$, so it was affordable and fun to watch.

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!