Steve Jobs, the movie


  • Dupa

    So the iPhones just launched and it made me think of the movie Steve Jobs (2015), the one with Fassbender, directed by Danny Boyle, written by Sorkin.

    I've really enjoyed it, both times I've seen it. I've been a fan of Sorkin since the West Wing, I really dig the way he tells stories, the fast dialogues, the walk&talk style of cinematography (some say that it was all Tommy Schlamme, but Boyle proved them wrong with this movie), plus I'm ashamed to say he's extremely capable of treading the fine line between being touching without being cheesy, crossing it only for brief moments that don't make it unbearable, just well… touchy.

    I also wanted to say that this movie is well researched, but it's probably not, it seems it's just based on the Isaacson's biography, however it's used in an extremely skillful manner. It's very much a play in fact, not a movie, with the characters' story being modified for better storytelling (Jobs never talked with Scully after leaving Apple, Hoffman left Next to work elsewhere, so she couldn't be there for the iMac's launch). Sorkin even went out of his way to take real quotes from the book and put them into dialogues. There are these playful little nuggets (like Jobs's admittance that the Apple with a bite taken is not a homage to Turing -- but how cool it would be if it was?), like Jobs's habit to cool his feet in a toilet bowl, or Hoffman's finally pleading to Jobs to square things with Lisa, something I seem to remember she never did, although she admitted it had been painful to watch for her (since she met her father for the first time when she was already 10 and enjoyed only a brief time with him).

    Overall, I really like this movie, it's a great homage to Jobs, but it does take great pains to show how much of an asshole he could be, too. At the same time it remains engaging and thrilling for the full 2 hours. It's in great part because of the great performance of Winslet, Fassbender and Daniels, though other actors do great job as well (which probably tells more about Boyle's capabilities).

    I'd say it's 8/10. Would watch again.

    But what's your opinion?



  • What, no apple trigger warning?


  • Dupa

    @shamelesssockpuppet said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    What, no apple trigger warning?

    Isn't the title exactly that?



  • @kt_ Never seen it. Don't plan to. I think the Steve Jobs worship is ridiculous, and frankly most of Apple's best years (by my own criteria which do not at all emphasize financial return) were when he was booted from the company.

    Frankly, the guy was an asshole. And because he was an asshole, we have this business climate where, for example, Travis Kalanick thinks the one trait you should take from Steve Jobs is being an asshole-- not the perfectionism, not the strong vision of the ideal product, but the asshole.

    Steve Jobs is responsible for more Silicon Valley douchebags than any fraternity.


  • Dupa

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_ Never seen it. Don't plan to. I think the Steve Jobs worship is ridiculous, and frankly most of Apple's best years (by my own criteria which do not at all emphasize financial return) were when he was booted from the company.

    I thought you liked the classic Mac?

    Steve Jobs is responsible for more Silicon Valley douchebags than any fraternity.

    Haha! :)

    Anyways, you're missing on a lot of fun. The movie is really good and if you can get over your dislike for Jobs, you're in for a nice ride!

    As I said, the filmmaking is what sets it apart. The form itself is unusual, everything happens before 3 launches: the Macintosh, NEXT and iMac. It's just the 40 minutes before each launch that Sorkin packs with lots of drama, great dialogues, humor and his sentimentalism. And the guy is matter at this very thing: dialogues.

    Have you seen the Social Network? Well, so exactly like that, just a bit better.



  • @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I thought you liked the classic Mac?

    I did, look at a fucking calendar. For like 90% of Mac Classic's existence, Jobs was not CEO of Apple.


  • Banned

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Have you seen the Social Network? Well, so exactly like that, just a bit better.

    I was going to watch the movie in topic up until that sentence. I saw Social Network in conema (school trip), and all I remember is a propaganda piece how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.


  • :belt_onion:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    Oh, so basically Steve Jobs?


  • Dupa

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Have you seen the Social Network? Well, so exactly like that, just a bit better.

    I was going to watch the movie in topic up until that sentence. I saw Social Network in conema (school trip), and all I remember is a propaganda piece how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    I think I saw a different movie, then. I seem to even remember that Zuckerberg said it hurt how this movie portrayed him.

    I think you should revise all of your interpretations of movies you saw in conema. ;)


  • Dupa

    @sloosecannon said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    Oh, so basically Steve Jobs?

    :D

    But actually, say what you want about Jobs, it was him that made Apple into a business. Wozniak was never really into creating a business and if not for jobs, he would have given away the schematics for Apple I and thus Apple II would never have happened.

    I think this is the one thing that even people who don't like Jobs (but know their history!) agree on: without him the PC revolution would've looked entirely different.


  • Dupa

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I thought you liked the classic Mac?

    I did, look at a fucking calendar. For like 90% of Mac Classic's existence, Jobs was not CEO of Apple.

    Yeah, but he did bully people into creating the Macintosh.



  • @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    But actually, say what you want about Jobs, it was him that made Apple into a business.

    That's the thing about many of the debates on "X didn't invent A, he stole it from Y" (Edison vs. Tesla...). Often, the guy who was "stolen" from did not have the impetus, the business acumen, or simply the idea of making a business from what he invented.

    So yeah, maybe someone else did have the idea before, maybe someone else did all the maths, electronics... Yet there are not that many cases where the guy who is credited with it is really unjustly credited (as in, mugged the inventor at gun point and didn't do squat hinself). Maybe they should be credited more as businessmen than as inventors, but still, very often without them the idea would have stayed that, an idea.


  • area_deu

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @sloosecannon said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    Oh, so basically Steve Jobs?

    :D

    But actually, say what you want about Jobs, it was him that made Apple into a business. Wozniak was never really into creating a business and if not for jobs, he would have given away the schematics for Apple I and thus Apple II would never have happened.

    I think this is the one thing that even people who don't like Jobs (but know their history!) agree on: without him the PC revolution would look entirely different.

    (Possibly) true, but that doesn't change the fact that he was an asshole. He might have had a good business sense, but I personally never found him likeable and I agree with @blakeyrat that a lot of people seem to have taken the view that "Steve jobs was an asshole and successful so I need to be an asshole as well". I think more Wozniak-types and a few less Jobs-types wouldn't be too bad...


  • Dupa

    @akko said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @sloosecannon said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    Oh, so basically Steve Jobs?

    :D

    But actually, say what you want about Jobs, it was him that made Apple into a business. Wozniak was never really into creating a business and if not for jobs, he would have given away the schematics for Apple I and thus Apple II would never have happened.

    I think this is the one thing that even people who don't like Jobs (but know their history!) agree on: without him the PC revolution would look entirely different.

    (Possibly) true, but that doesn't change the fact that he was an asshole. He might have had a good business sense, but I personally never found him likeable and I agree with @blakeyrat that a lot of people seem to have taken the view that "Steve jobs was an asshole and successful so I need to be an asshole as well". I think more Wozniak-types and a few less Jobs-types wouldn't be too bad...

    Yeah, yeah. But what did you think of the movie?


  • area_deu

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @akko said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @sloosecannon said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    Oh, so basically Steve Jobs?

    :D

    But actually, say what you want about Jobs, it was him that made Apple into a business. Wozniak was never really into creating a business and if not for jobs, he would have given away the schematics for Apple I and thus Apple II would never have happened.

    I think this is the one thing that even people who don't like Jobs (but know their history!) agree on: without him the PC revolution would look entirely different.

    (Possibly) true, but that doesn't change the fact that he was an asshole. He might have had a good business sense, but I personally never found him likeable and I agree with @blakeyrat that a lot of people seem to have taken the view that "Steve jobs was an asshole and successful so I need to be an asshole as well". I think more Wozniak-types and a few less Jobs-types wouldn't be too bad...

    Yeah, yeah. But what did you think of the movie?

    I though "Now that's a movie I have no intention of watching". And so I didn't.

    (Only partially because I don't like Jobs, I just don't care for that genre of move in general)



  • I HATE biopic movies. If they make the plot even a little bit realistic, it's bound to disappoint me. You are not gonna see something spectacular or memorable. No thrilling drama or unexpected twists or a nicely wrapped ending. Just an ordinary human life, with all its messiness and pointlessness.

    I like the way Tarantino did it. Fuck history. WW2 ends when his Jew character empties a clip into Hitler, then his surviving buddies carve a swastika into the main antagonist's forehead.

    That said, since I mildly enjoyed Social Network, I guess I might watch this at some point.



  • @cartman82 What do you think of The Aviator? Or Patton?

    There are a lot of good biopics.

    But yeah a lot are exaggerated to shit and back. You really need to find larger-than-life people to make it work.



  • @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I was going to watch the movie in topic up until that sentence. I saw Social Network in conema (school trip), and all I remember is a propaganda piece how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    I'll give you a pass since you obviously young when you saw it (i.e. young enough to be taken to the movies on "school trips"), but subtextually The Social Network makes it perfectly clear that Zuckerberg is something of a high-achieving asshole.



  • @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 What do you think of The Aviator? Or Patton?
    There are a lot of good biopics.
    But yeah a lot are exaggerated to shit and back. You really need to find larger-than-life people to make it work.

    I don't remember Patton.

    The Aviator has exactly the problem I am referring to.

    It simply follows the life of this guy, Howard Huges. He has ups, he has downs, he does cool stuff occasionally, end then... it kind of ends. No great twist, no big point or lesson to be learned. Just a bunch of stuff happens in a sequence.

    I guess if you are interested in history of this guy and hate reading, this can serve a purpose. But as a movie, it is underwhelming.

    Imagine how cool it'd be if they actually wrote a story about someone like Huges. They could actually make it be about something. The story could have a real arc, where DiCaprio's character grows and overcomes something (government bureaucracy, his illness, whatever). The screenplay could guide our emotions up and down, bringing it to crescendo at the end, without deference to the messy reality. We could leave the theater (or turn off the TV) actually feeling something.

    Instead, what we get is a sequence of scenes based on actual events and then it ends kind of ambiguously, but then you open wikipedia and find out all his struggles were for nothing. What a great movie-going experience.


  • Dupa

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 What do you think of The Aviator? Or Patton?

    Aviator was a really good movie, indeed.

    There are a lot of good biopics.

    But yeah a lot are exaggerated to shit and back. You really need to find larger-than-life people to make it work.

    Not necessarily. You need a good director and a good screenwriter. In case of Steve Jobs, you got both and that's what makes it a good movie. E.g. the 2 years older Jobs starring Kutcher is supposed to be as good a movie as Kutcher is an actor, i.e. not at all. ;)



  • @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    It simply follows the life of this guy, Howard Huges. He has ups, he has downs, he does cool stuff occasionally, end then... it kind of ends. No great twist, no big point or lesson to be learned. Just a bunch of stuff happens in a sequence.

    I think you need to rewatch it.

    Way of the future. Way of the future. Way of the future.

    @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Imagine how cool it'd be if they actually wrote a story about someone like Huges. They could actually make it be about something. The story could have a real arc, where DiCaprio's character grows and overcomes something (government bureaucracy, his illness, whatever). The screenplay could guide our emotions up and down, bringing it to crescendo at the end, without deference to the messy reality. We could leave the theater (or turn off the TV) actually feeling something.
    Instead, what we get is a sequence of scenes based on actual events and then it ends kind of ambiguously, but then you open wikipedia and find out all his struggles were for nothing. What a great movie-going experience.

    Yeah that stupid Hamlet play! Pfft! It's like this dude just murders a dude and loses everything, no real story arc or ending! What was Shakespeare thinking?!

    The Aviator is a tragedy in the classic mold. I'm sorry you didn't get that.

    Neither The Aviator or Patton follows their characters until the end of their lives. They follow them until the end of the story of their lives.



  • @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Yeah that stupid Hamlet play! Pfft! It's like this dude just murders a dude and loses everything, no real story arc or ending! What was Shakespeare thinking?!
    The Aviator is a tragedy in the classic mold. I'm sorry you didn't get that.

    Yeah, they tried to cram an arc over the historic account of this guy's life. But it just doesn't work 100%. There is too much random historic cruft they just had to keep. It's not tight, like a real movie would have been.

    Hugh's life didn't have a big arc or a point. It was just a life, like any other. You need to really cherry pick to pack it into a coherent story. Aviator is above average successful at this, but that's only compared to other stupid biopics. That's like winning the special olympics, it can't measure to real films.

    If they wanted to make a tragedy, they should have made a tragedy. Not a biopic.


  • Dupa

    @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Yeah that stupid Hamlet play! Pfft! It's like this dude just murders a dude and loses everything, no real story arc or ending! What was Shakespeare thinking?!
    The Aviator is a tragedy in the classic mold. I'm sorry you didn't get that.

    Yeah, they tried to cram an arc over the historic account of this guy's life. But it just doesn't work 100%. There is too much random historic cruft they just had to keep. It's not tight, like a real movie would have been.

    Hugh's life didn't have a big arc or a point. It was just a life, like any other. You need to really cherry pick to pack it into a coherent story. Aviator is above average successful at this, but that's only compared to other stupid biopics. That's like winning the special olympics, it can't measure to real films.

    If they wanted to make a tragedy, they should have made a tragedy. Not a biopic.

    But they made you think and type all this stuff, which in and of itself is a tragedy, so… they succeeded in the end, I guess?



  • @kt_ said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    But they made you think and type all this stuff, which in and of itself is a tragedy, so… they succeeded in the end, I guess?

    Sad music will play during this scene in the biopic about my life.

    It will still be pointless, though.



  • @cartman82 We'll have to agree to disagree and also I'll have to call you an idiot. Maybe it just didn't localize well into whatever space-Euro-language you speak when you're not here communicating with us humans.

    I'd watch a 2-hour biopic about the making of Hell's Angels alone. And The Aviator only dedicated maybe 40 minutes to that part of Hughes' career.



  • @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 We'll have to agree to disagree and also I'll have to call you an idiot. Maybe it just didn't localize well into whatever space-Euro-language you speak when you're not here communicating with us humans.

    It localized perfectly.

    Rich american crashes planes then goes crazy. Boo hoo.

    Lets have a bunch of stupid Americans watch it cramming greasy popcorn into their mouths, then waddle off telling themselves it was a great movie while secretly thinking it was kind of boring but too afraid to admit it, then die because their healtcare is shit because all their money went into beefing up military to protect us Europeans and making shitty biopic movies.


  • Banned

    @gwowen said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I was going to watch the movie in topic up until that sentence. I saw Social Network in conema (school trip), and all I remember is a propaganda piece how great this guy who stole a business idea from his best friend was.

    I'll give you a pass since you obviously young when you saw it (i.e. young enough to be taken to the movies on "school trips"), but subtextually The Social Network makes it perfectly clear that Zuckerberg is something of a high-achieving asshole.

    Yes, but I've had an impression the general message was "it's good to be an asshole". They were too positive of the main character.

    Also. Making a site for comparing looks of female classmates against each other and building a campus-wide ranking out of it. With a side effect of DDOSing entire local network. What's genius about that?


  • Banned

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 We'll have to agree to disagree

    Cool! At least once a friendly conclusion to a discussion here.

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    and also I'll have to call you an idiot.

    For fuck's sake...

    @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Maybe it just didn't localize well into whatever space-Euro-language you speak when you're not here communicating with us humans.

    Now, it's you being an idiot and an asshole. Why should we trust you with an opinion about a movie? Given your attitude, it's more likely you're trying to make us a boring, horrible movie that will be nothing but a waste of time.



  • @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Now, it's you being an idiot and an asshole. Why should we trust you with an opinion about a movie? Given your attitude, it's more likely you're trying to make us a boring, horrible movie that will be nothing but a waste of time.

    You are not into friendly nationalistic trolling, are you?


  • Banned

    @cartman82 I am, but I'm more into mocking Blakey.


  • FoxDev

    @gąska What about blocking Makey?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I don't remember Patton.

    Great movie. It just focuses on WWII, so it's fairly focused as far as biopics go.



  • @boomzilla said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I don't remember Patton.

    Great movie.

    Agreed, but somewhat hard to watch as a military vehicles enthusiast :) (Still, better than The Battle of the Bulge — but that’s not exactly an achievement.)


  • Dupa

    @gurth said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @boomzilla said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    I don't remember Patton.

    Great movie.

    The Battle of the Bulge

    You mean this place ?


  • BINNED

    @kt_
    No, the bulge in my below the belt part.
    But only if you consider the language border a belt and think of Walloons as asses.


  • Dupa

    @luhmann said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_
    No, the bulge in my below the belt part.

    :thatsthejoke:

    In the picture, it's a gay bar. ;)


  • BINNED

    @kt_
    I made a nationalistic joke about your bulge joke


  • Dupa

    @luhmann said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_
    I made a nationalistic joke about your bulge joke

    You're a sneaky Belgian bastard. You should be a detective or something.


  • Considered Harmful

    @luhmann said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @kt_
    No, the bulge in my below the belt part.
    But only if you consider the language border a belt and think of Walloons as asses.

    0_1505415759241_d3c3dbc1-e9e9-4a6c-9c46-b08ae1f206d4-image.png



  • @gurth said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    Agreed, but somewhat hard to watch as a military vehicles enthusiast (Still, better than The Battle of the Bulge — but that’s not exactly an achievement.)

    You have to remember that by modern standards all those movies were made really cheaply. Also they couldn't just CGI-up tanks like, say, Fury could.

    Even movies from the 60s-70s that were "famously" expensive, like Fitzcarraldo or Bridge over the River Kwai, by modern standards would be considered quite modest.



  • @blakeyrat said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    You have to remember that by modern standards all those movies were made really cheaply. Also they couldn't just CGI-up tanks like, say, Fury could.

    Oh, certainly — I last watched them when CGI was approximately at this level. Not to mention there were hardly any restored vehicles in running order around that they could hire, like they also did for Fury, among many others.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @luhmann said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    the bulge in my below the belt part.

    Too much good food. Not enough exercise. A lesson for us all.



  • @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 I am, but I'm more into mocking Blakey.

    To do that properly, you need to compare him to a group of religious zealots whose mission is to keep useful technology out of everyone else's hands. Or whose name makes for a useful pun on his, whichever.


  • Banned

    @scholrlea said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @gąska said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @cartman82 I am, but I'm more into mocking Blakey.

    To do that properly, you need to compare him to a group of religious zealots whose mission is to keep useful technology out of everyone else's hands. Or whose name makes for a useful pun on his, whichever.

    Masonrat? Illumiblakey?


  • Considered Harmful

    @dkf said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    @luhmann said in Steve Jobs, the movie:

    the bulge in my below the belt part.

    Too much good food. Not enough exercise. A lesson for us all.

    Health at any size, you Nazi.


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