Pirates of Silicon Valley
starring: Anthony Michael Hall, Noah Wyle, Joey Slotnick, J.G. Hertzler, Wayne Pére
directed by: Martyn Burke
directed by: Martyn Burke
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Product Description:
The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works lives and communicates. The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust greed ambition love and hate" writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.Running Time: 97 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 053939699623
Amazon.com:
This dramatization of the tangled history of Apple Computer and Microsoft, based on a book by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, hits enough of the right notes to make its failures all the more frustrating.The script follows the entwined paths of Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates with a pointed sense of the cultural divide between the hip, self-absorbed Apple cofounder and the brilliant alpha geek behind Microsoft's eventual software empire, contrasting the Mac's countercultural underpinnings with the PC's more strait-laced origins.But Pirates of Silicon Valley seemingly can't decide whether it wants to be a serious-minded history of these key figures in the personal computer revolution or a trashy wallow in the more ignoble foibles of its principals. As a result, it falls short of exacting history while never achieving the guilty pleasure it might have.
If Gates has become synonymous with corporate conquest at its most striking, Pirates' interest lies more with Jobs, given a nervous energy and flashes of adolescent selfishness by Noah Wyle, who benefits from a reasonable physical resemblance to the Apple chief. Eyewear and a comb-over do nearly as well for Anthony Michael Hall, who also grafts some of Bill Gates's better-known mannerisms onto his performance and renders Gates as a smart if socially maladroit entrepreneur who, like Jobs, provides the ambition and business savvy to exploit his partner's computing talents. There are a few fanciful touches (Ballmer and Wozniak become Greek choruses, addressing the viewer as they comment on the principals), but the story plays out in straightforward fashion.It's tantalizing to consider how the Apple/PC melodrama might have fared with an edgier, more openly satirical script. --Sam Sutherland
The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works lives and communicates. The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust greed ambition love and hate" writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.Running Time: 97 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 053939699623
Amazon.com:
This dramatization of the tangled history of Apple Computer and Microsoft, based on a book by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, hits enough of the right notes to make its failures all the more frustrating.The script follows the entwined paths of Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates with a pointed sense of the cultural divide between the hip, self-absorbed Apple cofounder and the brilliant alpha geek behind Microsoft's eventual software empire, contrasting the Mac's countercultural underpinnings with the PC's more strait-laced origins.But Pirates of Silicon Valley seemingly can't decide whether it wants to be a serious-minded history of these key figures in the personal computer revolution or a trashy wallow in the more ignoble foibles of its principals. As a result, it falls short of exacting history while never achieving the guilty pleasure it might have.
If Gates has become synonymous with corporate conquest at its most striking, Pirates' interest lies more with Jobs, given a nervous energy and flashes of adolescent selfishness by Noah Wyle, who benefits from a reasonable physical resemblance to the Apple chief. Eyewear and a comb-over do nearly as well for Anthony Michael Hall, who also grafts some of Bill Gates's better-known mannerisms onto his performance and renders Gates as a smart if socially maladroit entrepreneur who, like Jobs, provides the ambition and business savvy to exploit his partner's computing talents. There are a few fanciful touches (Ballmer and Wozniak become Greek choruses, addressing the viewer as they comment on the principals), but the story plays out in straightforward fashion.It's tantalizing to consider how the Apple/PC melodrama might have fared with an edgier, more openly satirical script. --Sam Sutherland
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Good start for Gates & Jobs research
I originally borrowed this documentary to show in my high school economics class. I wanted to fill in the gaps on how Microsoft & Apple were started & to clarify what I believed Gates has taken from Jobs. I was not only enlightened on that, but also on all the various other ways these two people were able to take things that existed & create an incredible enterprise in personal computers, and still do. Great for anyone wanting to know just how they did it.
Rating: - I Love Nerds
A superhero story for nerds...where would we all be if these guys had never existed or never had the confident nerve to make personal computers a reality...now a necessity?!The story, tho told like a Lifetime movieevent, is fascinating. Ya gotta respect these guys...tho you really won't like a few of them.
Rating: - What it was about
In the end, most people know who Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are. If you're into computers or watch the news it is kinda hard not to know. What I liked the most about this movie is the underlining story of Steve Wozniak. In the end both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are businessmen. The person who is mostly responsible for today's computers is Steve Wozniak. Gates and Jobs only marketed products made by other people like The Woz as he was called.
At times the acting in this movie is a little ... Read More
Rating: - If your a geek like me then you will love this movie
I loved this movie because it gives the Hollywood treatment to a computer geek fairy tale. Good movie, great portrayals, really helps you to understand the Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Xerox dynamic.
Rating: 
- A Fun Little Romp That's Incomplete
The film is a great piece of entertainment, a composite of fact and fiction.Enjoy it for what it is, warned of what it is NOT: a complete history of the personal computer.
- Good start for Gates & Jobs researchI originally borrowed this documentary to show in my high school economics class. I wanted to fill in the gaps on how Microsoft & Apple were started & to clarify what I believed Gates has taken from Jobs. I was not only enlightened on that, but also on all the various other ways these two people were able to take things that existed & create an incredible enterprise in personal computers, and still do. Great for anyone wanting to know just how they did it.
- I Love NerdsA superhero story for nerds...where would we all be if these guys had never existed or never had the confident nerve to make personal computers a reality...now a necessity?!The story, tho told like a Lifetime movieevent, is fascinating. Ya gotta respect these guys...tho you really won't like a few of them.
- What it was aboutIn the end, most people know who Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are. If you're into computers or watch the news it is kinda hard not to know. What I liked the most about this movie is the underlining story of Steve Wozniak. In the end both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are businessmen. The person who is mostly responsible for today's computers is Steve Wozniak. Gates and Jobs only marketed products made by other people like The Woz as he was called.
At times the acting in this movie is a little ... Read More
- If your a geek like me then you will love this movieI loved this movie because it gives the Hollywood treatment to a computer geek fairy tale. Good movie, great portrayals, really helps you to understand the Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Xerox dynamic.
- A Fun Little Romp That's IncompleteThe film is a great piece of entertainment, a composite of fact and fiction.Enjoy it for what it is, warned of what it is NOT: a complete history of the personal computer.
