Universal's Steve Jobs

David Jimerson

David Jimerson

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With Michael Fassbender. I just don't see that one. No slight of Fassbender; I just don't see him for that role.
 
I didn't think so either, but he really seems to have nailed his voice at least. He may surprise us.
 
Longer trailer is out (no direct link; check the Facebook page). I really don't buy Fassbender. Of course, I don't buy Rogen, either.

The trailer didn't cover any material which wasn't done in Pirates of Silicon Valley or Jobs. And it's Sorkin writing, so the story probably takes copious liberties.
 
My first computer was the first Macintosh. So Apple will always have a special place in my heart. I enjoyed Isaacson's biography and thought it would make a great movie, if they got the right lead actor. The perplexing thing is, the only person I can think of that would do the part justice is Tom Cruise.



But it's bad timing, because Cruise is 53. He looks great and would be fine for portraying Jobs's comeback years. But Jobs in his 20s was a crucial part of the story, too, and they'd have to do some serious CG to make Cruise look 25 again. (I later found out that Aaron Sorkin was lobbying for Cruise to play the role too.)

David Jimerson said:
I really don't buy Fassbender. Of course, I don't buy Rogen, either.
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Bruce Webster agrees with you, David, in his post on another forum:

"I didn't know Jobs well, but I did have a number of direct conversations with him, sat in on meetings at NeXT with him, spent five years developing software for NeXTstep, and had many talks with people who worked closely him (again, mostly at NeXT); our last conversation was him calling me up to yell at me for an op-ed piece of mine in BYTE (Nov 94) called 'Whither Nextstep?'

"With that tee-up, I'll say that Fassbender's portrayal of Jobs in this trailer pretty much falls flat. Fassbender looks too professional and lacks that burning gaze that Jobs used to such great effect, even while using up the people around him. Frankly, Fassbender comes across more like John Scully trying to act like Steve Jobs than like Jobs himself. Also, it took me a bit to realize that Seth Rogan was supposed to be playing Woz; again, the wrong vibes and aura. Frankly, I think that Jack Black with a beard would have been a better choice for Woz."
 
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I never doubted his acting chops, but that's not the same as being right for the particular role.

But of course we won't know until we see it.
 
Yeah, what David Jimerson said. But if Steve Wozniak said that he felt like he was watching the real person in this upcoming version, then that's very encouraging. Wozniak wasn't afraid to criticize the Ashton Kutcher version, saying that although the acting was good the characters and scenes were different from what happened in real life.
 
Steve's wife has come against this film calling it "fiction". And Tim Cook has also expressed his displeasure with the film stating it was sad to see people being opportunistic of Steve's legacy.

I still want to see the film.
 
I thought this was an excellent film. Well written, well shot and incredibly well acted. Fassbender is so good he makes you forget about the real Steve Jobs in the first five minutes. And Kate Winslet and Jeff Daniels were every bit his match. I even thought Rogen did an admirable job. Now, this is NOT the Apple story. This is called Steve Jobs, and what it aims to do is draw a portrait of the man. Sort of like a 'what makes Stevie run' approach instead of a straightforward biopic, so that you come away understanding the essence of who he was. But it is not a comprehensive retelling of how Apple became the company it is. We've seen two versions of that story already, one good (Pirates of Silicon Valley), one thoroughly mediocre (Jobs). This is a more conceptual film, and I found its approach pretty interesting. Seeing the progression of capture formats through the eras was cool to look at too. Seeing the Alexa back to back with film 16mm and 35mm, I was able to see that it was slightly lacking in color detail compared to celluloid. Colours had a more pastel quality than the fuller range film has, although the sharpness of the Alexa footage was clearly superior. If you wanted a straightforward narrative approach to this subject, this movie may not be for you. But if you're a fan of good writing, interesting cinematography and amazing acting, it's certainly worth watching. And I found it surprisingly emotional, although I'm an easy target for father/daughter stories these days. Taken on its own terms, as a character portrait, I found this movie fascinating, and felt I came away with a grasp of who Steve Jobs was as a man and what made him tick. I expect it do very well at the Academy Awards because it's an acting tour de force and actors make up the biggest voting block of the Academy.
 
I just saw this film, having missed it when it came out. I was going to do a review here, but I did a search and saw that a thread had already been created... and better yet, Batutta said pretty much what I was going to say!

It’s not a documentary. And Fassbender and Rogen weren’t trying to be Jobs and Wozniak clones, just trying to capture some kind of essence of those people. I am not in a position to say how accurate they were, as I don’t know enough about the people involved, so how can I judge? My approach therefore was to see how convincing these actors were in the characters they created, how “real” it felt. And I think they did an outstanding job, particularly Fassbender. I think the acting overall from everywone was quite good.

What I admired most about this film is the approach, and the way the story was structured and the angle chosen. I guess that’s Sorkin’s doing. It’s not easy at all. Steve Jobs was a huge character and there was a huge complicated story of Apple and the computer industry. How do you do it all justice? You must have an approach. Something that will tell let you get the essence without being either false, shallow or overwhelming and inaccessible. Well, my hat is off to Sorkin. Amazing, achievement, IMHO.

It’s well shot too, and competently directed, which is a nice. All in all, I quite enjoyed this movie. My apologies for resurrecting a six year old thread, but I thought any time a movie can be recommended, it’s a win. YMMV.
 
What I admired most about this film is the approach, and the way the story was structured and the angle chosen. I guess that’s Sorkin’s doing.
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Yeah, I remember reading about the preproduction. Sorkin was taking a very long time to turn in anything. Then he said he finally found the right structure (behind the curtain at three presentations).

The biography was full of great stories, but you could not turn it into a movie. For one thing it would be too long. For another, I think it was Sorkin who said, you can't just do a movie as a mere chronology, because as exciting as some people's lives were, they usually lack the classic dramatic structure needed for a one-time, sit-down story. It would just be too episodic. So yeah, you have to have an angle, which likely won't be an exhaustive treatment of a person's whole life.

Sorkin's approach was far more minimalistic than I would have ever come up with, but it works really well. Very taut.
 
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