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

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!

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!

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.

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 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.