Pirates of Silicon Valley (TV) | | Cast : | Anthony Michael Hall, Noah Wyle, Joey Slotnick | | Director : | Martyn Burke | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned | | Released Date : | June 20, 1999 | | DVD Released Date : | August 30, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | Unrated | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 22, 2005 | | Summary | Apple vs. Microsoft = FUN! | Content
 | This was a fantastic TV movie. The best TV movie I have ever seen, actually. It represented the history of Apple and Microsoft extremely well (even though they can't cram all that history into just a movie-size timeframe) Still a perfect movie as far as I am concerned. I can't wait until I can buy it on DVD. Not only was this movie informative, but it was also entertaining, a rare find in movies (for TV or not) these days. I recommend this for anybody who is even a little bit curious about the history of Microsoft and Apple. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 22, 2005 | | Summary | Good movie, Book even better | Content
| This movie is very good. I've seen it so many times Steve Jobs & Bill Gates look less like themselves to me than Noah Wiley & Anthony Michael Hall. It starts from 1997 and then goes back to the early days for Jobs & Wosniak and college days for gates & crew.
I haven't seen the DVD but only the vhs so I can't attest to the dvd itself.
After watching it, read the book while you watch it and follow along and see how the movie differs from the book. The movie is based on "Fire In The Valley." |
| Rating | | | Date | August 20, 2004 | | Summary | The Only Made-For-TV movie I have ever enjoyed. | Content
| Going in I expected little of this movie, as I am very skeptical about the low budget made-for-TV style of film making. Most "based on a true story" movies are trite and nothing more than exploitation. Ripped from the headlines movies using someone's suffering or crime as a ratings getter. Pure crap!
I must say however, that Pirates Of Silicon Valley is brilliant. Every aspect of the movie appeals to me. It's visual style, it's pacing, it's characters, it's humor, and most engrossing, it's history. I knew much of the parallels between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs already and was pleasantly surprised to see much of the facts faithfully reproduced. The parts that were inaccurate were obviously for entertainment value, but they did fit the theme of the story and are forgivable (it is a movie after all).
The film makers were very original for two reasons. First, for focusing on the more interesting moments of computer history. Second for the brutally honest look at the two pivotal character's lives and personalities, they aren't depicted nicely. The movie flows from moment to moment, historical event to historical event, over the course of two decades, following the exploits of the two most influential men of the computer industry. We see thier origins, their beginning ventures in the industry, thier major deals, thier double-crosses and shady conquests, thier flaws, thier bad judgement, and ultimatley thier confrontation.
My favorite moments come from the bonehead mistakes that are made by the corporate types. IBM allowing Microsoft to retain ownership of DOS, Xerox not developing its own inventions (the mouse and the GUI), HP not even wanting ownership of the apple, and the biggest mistake of them all, Steve Jobs trusting Bill Gates.
I absolutely love this movie, and the only negative thing about it is that it doesn't exist in DVD format. I have the VHS but I would pay whatever price TNT asked for a DVD full of extras. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 14, 2004 | | Summary | Interesting Story | Content
| But....you know what...Both Gates and Jobs are thieves..Infact who isn't in this day and age. Look at what happened at ERON....A-DUH ..Typical Corporate America. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 20, 2004 | | Summary | not completely accurate, but still informative/entertaining | Content
| If you're looking for a documentary that accurately explains the beginnings of the personal computer industry, then "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" is not it. You'd be better served watching the excellent 1995 PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" instead. If however, you're looking for an entertaining movie that gets most of the major details right, then you're in luck. The script is pretty bad (it's obvious that this was a TNT-original, made-for-TV movie), but Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall do such a superb job, each *nailing* their roles of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, respectively, that it's worth watching. This movie is based on the excellent book "Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer". However, that book was published in 1984, and this movie covers events slightly farther in the future. Many of the details are combined, left out, or sometimes fabricated (a.k.a. "creative license"), and I'm told that some of the additional information not in the book came from the director Martyn Burke himself watching "Triumph of the Nerds" (and having his actors watch it, too, to help them get in character). Still, I'm a high school computer science teacher, and I have my students watch this every year to give them the big picture before following it up with "Triumph of the Nerds" to accurately place the details. Overall, this is a decent movie, and the whole cast does a laudable job portraying their characters. The story is an interesting one, and despite the generally poor script and often seemingly needless inaccuracies, "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" is a glimpse behind the scenes at the events and personalities that built the computer industry as we know it today. |
|
