Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs Biopic: Three 30-Minute Scenes Taking Place Before Three Product Launches

wow what a joke

he's not even trying

hey lets just copy 3 product launches

all of which are available on youtube already

all of which have been seen by every fanbwoy on the planet

PROFIT $$$$

not to mention his terrible hack Sorkinese Speak will screw up Jobs Cadence Boom Mere Mortals But there is ONE MORE THING !

As soon as I read about the structure of the movie I thought it was a great idea.

I go to the movies about once a year. It has to be something special to get me into a movie theatre rather than simply watch the Bluray at home 4 months later.

I will go to this one though.

tigres said:

you mean iCloud....

oh wait, same thing.

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You living you living you life wrong. You should have listened to your Mother.

BMNB1tch said:

wow what a joke

he's not even trying

hey lets just copy 3 product launches

all of which are available on youtube already

all of which have been seen by every fanbwoy on the planet

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Wow, people have seen what happened prior to the product launches? You gotta provide the YouTube link!

I think you haven't quite understood the premise of the film.

What have the product launches themselves got to do with this film? The product launches are just the setting to explore a aspects of Steve's life and his goals. The keynote won't even feature in the film.

hbt15 said:

I hate to bag on Sorkin as he's done some great work......but this sounds like utter ****.

30 minutes in real time of steve before a product launch? How does that tell us anything about his life that viewers might cling to and gain a better understanding of what made him "steve".

Sounds like a bomb waiting to happen.

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But you see no one really cares about what made him steve outside of this little echo chamber. Steve's life is just not that interesting for a movie. You need something else (drama) for a larger appeal, let's hope Sorkin finds it.

How much does Aaron Sorkin look like a younger (thinner) Val Kilmer in that pic?

A continuous, real-time thirty minute segment is a very difficult thing to pull off. Sorkin's not taking the easy route here, because the question is how do you make a real-time scenario like that engaging? Films comprised of many scenes are easier to construct (I didn't say easy, just easier) because there's a lot you can do with editing and scene order to keep it engaging... but what Sorkin's doing will either be an incredible success or a gigantic failure.

So basically, its gonna suck.

Thank god "Pirates of Sillicon Valley" was made

Um... uh... this guy... uh... needs a... um... speech coach...

towg said:

How much does Aaron Sorkin look like a younger (thinner) Val Kilmer in that pic?

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How fat has Val Kilmer gotten. Sorkin doesn't look all that thin.

You guys made it to BBC News

Towards the end of the article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20356996

MacNut said:

How fat has Val Kilmer gotten. Sorkin doesn't look all that thin.

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Hopefully this thing will never be released on DVD or Blu-ray because as we all know optical is dead.

Removed.

Mal said:

I actually really like this idea. The thought of getting a feeling for what Jobs was like before each of those major launches (without a doubt the most significant points in Jobs' career) is really intriguing. I have a feeling I'll enjoy seeing this, unless it's just really poorly done.

jW

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And you think Sorkin will convey what Jobs was really like? Considering the amount of stuff in The Social Network that was just plain made up and dismissed by Zuckerberg as utter nonsense, this movie is going to have zero historical accuracy. Had it been a run-of-the-mill biopic that chronicles some dude's life, at least the major events would be accurate, with fabricated BS to fill the space between them, but here we're talking about a movie about three conversations that never took place.

It will have awesome dialogue, Sorkin is the king of that, but story wise it'll be The Social Network minus the facts. What did Steve do backstage before keynotes? Well, all the other key people at Apple are already seated in front row. The last rehearsals are done the day before, according to this account from an insider. In the final 30 minutes, Steve probably sat in some room and went through his talking points, and maybe meditated a bit. But in Sorkin's version of history the iPod launch keynote will probably be preceded by heated arguments between Jobs, Ive and Schiller, and an inexplicably out-of-character and out-of-place Steve Wozniak (played by Paul Giamatti) bursts into the room and yells "This isn't Apple, man! You've lost it, man! Remember what we used to be about? Remember the Blue Box? This is a travesty, man!"

iGrip said:

This strikes me as a boring way to do it, and that the story told will be woefully incomplete.

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Well, it is only 3, half hour segment of his life.

Anuba said:

And you think Sorkin will convey what Jobs was really like? Considering the amount of stuff in The Social Network that was just plain made up and dismissed by Zuckerberg as utter nonsense, this movie is going to have zero historical accuracy. Had it been a run-of-the-mill biopic that chronicles some dude's life, at least the major events would be accurate, with fabricated BS to fill the space between them, but here we're talking about a movie about three conversations that never took place.

It will have awesome dialogue, Sorkin is the king of that, but story wise it'll be The Social Network minus the facts. What did Steve do backstage before keynotes? Well, all the other key people at Apple are already seated in front row. The last rehearsals are done the day before, according to this account from an insider. In the final 30 minutes, Steve probably sat in some room and went through his talking points, and maybe meditated a bit. But in Sorkin's version of history the iPod launch keynote will probably be preceded by heated arguments between Jobs, Ive and Schiller, and an inexplicably out-of-character and out-of-place Steve Wozniak (played by Paul Giamatti) bursts into the room and yells "This isn't Apple, man! You've lost it, man! Remember what we used to be about? Remember the Blue Box? This is a travesty, man!"

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I'm still thinking about Paul Giamatti as Steve Wozniak. Perfect casting. If anybody ever was born to play a part that would be it.

It is unrealistic for anyone to expect a Hollywood biopic to be concerned with historical accuracy. They are nearly always about entertainment and rarely about history. The exceptions are so scarce as to be notable on that account alone.

I would rather have seen a mixture of pre-launch as well as aftermath. The MobileMe "come to Jesus" meeting for example when Jobs ripped that entire team apart.

IJ Reilly said:

I'm still thinking about Paul Giamatti as Steve Wozniak. Perfect casting. If anybody ever was born to play a part that would be it.

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I know. Philip Seymour Hoffman might work too. As for Steve... tricky. Maybe Aaron Eckhart.

It is unrealistic for anyone to expect a Hollywood biopic to be concerned with historical accuracy. They are nearly always about entertainment and rarely about history. The exceptions are so scarce as to be notable on that account alone.

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Sure, that's a given, but like I said... in a normal chronicle-style biopic they at least get the basic facts right, even if they dramatize the hell out of everything and fabricate conflicts and love stories that never were... but with this concept of three real-time 30 minute segments, I fear they'll have to go from 75% fictionalized/overdramatized to 99%.

Anuba said:

And you think Sorkin will convey what Jobs was really like? Considering the amount of stuff in The Social Network that was just plain made up and dismissed by Zuckerberg as utter nonsense, this movie is going to have zero historical accuracy. Had it been a run-of-the-mill biopic that chronicles some dude's life, at least the major events would be accurate, with fabricated BS to fill the space between them, but here we're talking about a movie about three conversations that never took place.

It will have awesome dialogue, Sorkin is the king of that, but story wise it'll be The Social Network minus the facts. What did Steve do backstage before keynotes? Well, all the other key people at Apple are already seated in front row. The last rehearsals are done the day before, according to this account from an insider. In the final 30 minutes, Steve probably sat in some room and went through his talking points, and maybe meditated a bit. But in Sorkin's version of history the iPod launch keynote will probably be preceded by heated arguments between Jobs, Ive and Schiller, and an inexplicably out-of-character and out-of-place Steve Wozniak (played by Paul Giamatti) bursts into the room and yells "This isn't Apple, man! You've lost it, man! Remember what we used to be about? Remember the Blue Box? This is a travesty, man!"

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Read what Sorkin's intention actually is:

"Drama is tension versus obstacle. Someone wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it. They want the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia - doesn't matter ... And I need to find that event and I will. I just don't know what it is"​

In other words, he is looking for those things in Steve's life (and he is currently researching this and interviewing those people who were closest to him) and will depict those things, whatever they happen to be, in the moments prior to the product launches. Perhaps he will find those things, those events described above, that are tied to the product launches he chooses to focus on. What actually happens and what is said in those moment before the product launches may not be historically accurate, but that doesn't necessarily undermine the historical accuracy of the depiction of Steve. You can still leave with an accurate depiction of the man even if the scenes that provide that depiction are not themselves accurate.

It'll be interesting, that's for sure.

On the one hand, the whole story of Apple and Jobs is incredible, so it seems a shame not to do a movie based on that incredible story.

On the other, it sounds interesting and different. And Sorkin does after all have a great track record. If he can write some great dialogue, and get some drama into those scenes, they could be great. Can't help thinking of the two great scenes in Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds - the very first scene with Christoph Waltz, and the one later on in the bar. Very simple, long scenes with great dialogue - fantastic cinema.

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Topher15 said:

Read what Sorkin's intention actually is:

"Drama is tension versus obstacle. Someone wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it. They want the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia - doesn't matter ... And I need to find that event and I will. I just don't know what it is"​

In other words, he is looking for those things in Steve's life (and he is currently researching this and interviewing those people who were closest to him) and will depict those things, whatever they happen to be, in the moments prior to the product launches. Perhaps he will find those things, those events described above, that are tied to the product launches he chooses to focus on. What actually happens and what is said in those moment before the product launches may not be historically accurate, but that doesn't necessarily undermine the historical accuracy of the depiction of Steve. You can still leave with an accurate depiction of the man even if the scenes that provide that depiction are not themselves accurate.

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I agree - they don't necessarily have to be accurate depictions of what literally happened in those 30 minutes. I'd assume the idea is just to use it as a device. To have the launch as a backdrop to depict part of Jobs' character. Most likely an aspect quite different to the public persona we all saw during the launches themselves, and so create some dramatic difference between off stage Steve and on stage Steve.

A simple one line description of Jobs might be "achieved great things at Apple, but often treated people like crap to achieve those things". So perhaps Sorkin thought that it might be difficult to cram in all the nuances of that in a regular two hour without reducing it to the obvious and cliched. But by taking this route, perhaps have time in three great scenes with great dialogue really get into it more.

Who knows - I guess time will tell.

Best writer/director for the film

Aaron Sorkin's writing and directing methods make him the PERFECT choice for this film. Anyone that's seen The West Wing or Newsroom will agree. Can't wait for the true Steve Jobs movie to come out. I wonder who he's thinking about to play Steve?

It's unlikely that there will be three thirty minute segments of Jobs simply muttering to himself with a presenter in his hand. I expect that, similar to the Social Network or Walk The Line, the presentation scenes will just be larger containers for flashbacks, all of which reference the events leading up to that moment in time. And he's picked perfect products to do it. Obviously, the original Mac launch was hugely significant. The NeXT launch inherently tells the story of Jobs ouster from Apple, which is a key moment in time. And the iPod began the summit of Jobs second act — he had been back at Apple long enough to introduce OS X and the iMac, but not long enough that we're rehashing the part that everyone already knows. If that's what unfolds, I think Sorkin is making a strong decision here. No one wants to see the movie end with Steve Jobs in a hospital bed — this isn't Philadelphia. This is a story about life and everything you can pack into it. And Jobs packed in a lot.