Once Upon Atari
Once Upon Atari
NR | 10 August 2003 (USA)
Once Upon Atari Trailers

In the late 70s and early 80s, ET phoned home on Atari 2600 and became the video game that New Media magazine later described as having toppled a billion dollar industry. We know the industry rose again as a pale, commercial version of its old self, but… did you ever wonder what it was like back in the wild days when the titans of gaming clashed, not on Wall Street, but inside the minds of designers? Want to learn first hand how the barren valley south of The Bay gave birth to cult celebrity that died as quickly as it was born? Take the ride with the folks who made it happen. Walk on walls, smoke the evil weed, and plunge head first into the uncharted (undocumented) world that was game production back in the bad old days.

Reviews
Dorathen

Better Late Then Never

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Siflutter

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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Yash Wade

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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Dana

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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krakanova

90 mns of interviews with Atari game programmers after Atari's extreme success and failure. Rhetoric about their wages, their relationships with other programmers and the smell of marijuana smoke creeping into the office of the Director of Software. He would hold his meetings somewhere else if it was that late into the afternoon.Tod Frye cut his head on a sprinkler when walking the walls of hallways. He had long legs.The engineers/programmers talk about management, gameplay and how clueless marketing was. Some programmers were porting (and recreating arcade games) and some created their own games. No mention of the director's Yar's Revenge or E.T. Looks like its shopping a potential biopic with Matt Damon and what's her fat face. Julia Stiles. She's pretty sometimes

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