noiseredux's Monthly VG Movie: Once Upon Atari

[noiseredux]

I rule it On Topic. I like seeing what related discussions these movies inspire.

[noiseredux]

my wife and I were talking this morning about how disturbing that part is when it shows Beta in Alex's bed sort of morphing into his skin. Shit was creepy.

[noiseredux]

NOW PLAYING - FEBRUARY 2016:

Once Upon Atari



2003, 120 Minutes, Unrated

Trailer:

This month's Together Retro title is Pitfall, so it seemed fitting that we watch a documentary about the golden era of Atari.

Once Upon Atari is a documentary by Howard Scott Warshaw. Who better to walk us through such a story? This is the man who created the 2600 games Yar's Revenge and E.T. - the ying and yang of game design on the VCS.

The documentary was originally released as four half-hour episodes and then later edited together into this full length release. The story of Atari is told through interviews with various game designers and employees.

The cast includes HSW, Nolan Bushnell, Todd Frye, Larry Kaplan, and many others.

Perhaps the film will encourage you to pull out some other 2600 games along with Pitfall this month...

Once Upon Atari is available on DVD. It's also up for digital sale through GOG.

[noiseredux]

did anyone else watch this? Not my best pick. Unfortunately the 'documentary' amounts to nothing more than two hours of interviews. I mean, there was some interesting stuff in there. But much of it has been covered (better) elsewhere. And the fact that it's just close-up shots of interviewees answering questions or retelling anecdotes makes the whole thing feel pretty cheap.

[TSTR]

WELL

I was gonna watch it, but not anymore lol.

[noiseredux]

well, you may enjoy it more if you haven't already seen other Atari documentaries. I watched Atari Game Over in the last year, so a lot of what was being covered here felt like retreads of stuff still fresh in my mind. I'd have probably liked this more if I had seen this first.

[Ghudda]

As someone whose favorite film genre is documentaries (especially VG documentaries), I haven't seen this one, and will most likely give this a watch at some point this weekend. I've been meaning to make a thread on the forums for Video Game/related cultural documentary recommendations. I feel like I've seen them all, but there must be some gems and rarities tucked away in the underbelly of the Internet somewhere.

I don't particularly find the Atari saga all that interesting, so I won't have high expectations, but definitely down to try it out.

[CRTGAMER]

did anyone else watch this? Not my best pick. Unfortunately the 'documentary' amounts to nothing more than two hours of interviews. I mean, there was some interesting stuff in there. But much of it has been covered (better) elsewhere. And the fact that it's just close-up shots of interviewees answering questions or retelling anecdotes makes the whole thing feel pretty cheap.

This was my impression watching the trailer, a pass for me.

Why mostly interviews with very little insight and just a few old photos and game play videos? Come on, Atari has so much archive that could have been shown. I doubt there will be any mention of the battle between who was the father of video games and the story behind it or the 7800 during the Commodore buyout. Irritating that video of Breakout was shown but no history of where the game came from. This was Steve Wozniak's baby the true programmer behind the start of Apple; Steve Jobs took credit and rights money from the real engineers all the way thru the Apple II, iMac, iPod and iPhone.