Atari: Game Over

If the word "documentary" is to be taken at face value, the purpose of a documentary is to document historical events as they occurred and nothing more. Editorializing changes the recipe from an objective, fact-based movie to something with an agenda. Falsely representing the facts achieves much the same result from a different angle. Atari: Game Over does something different: it MAKES the story. Ostensibly, the documentary exists to chart the ignominious downfall of Atari as a result of the 1983 Video Game Crash, an industry-specific recession brought on by an over-saturation of consoles, lack of quality control over video games, and renewed interest in PC's. Atari's hubris at the time is the stuff of legend, the captain declaring his ship unsinkable even as the deck disappears below the waterline. And nothing exemplifies Atari's arrogance at the time than the figure on the poster: E.T., the beloved movie character turned into one of the most maligned, vilified video games in history. The movie shows how the game was ordered in quantities exceeding that of the console's install base; so blinded by their own success was Atari, they believed the game would be a console seller and renew interest in the aging 2600 console. But their tactical error was the development of the game itself, and in this, the movie weaves in its second storyline; the story of Howard Scott Warshaw, the all-star developer behind legit hits Yars' Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark, was tasked with programming E.T. in a scant five weeks, months shy of the normal development time. He succeeds, but the result is so toxic, so abysmal, it corrupts his legacy. He is the legend behind Yars' Revenge, and the punchline behind E.T. It'd be like if Orson Welles followed up Citizen Kane with Dude Where's My Car?. But then, the movie weaves in the THIRD storyline that ties all this together, and becomes the news-making portion of the documentary. An urban legend sprung up in the years after the Crash that Atari, unable to move thousands upon thousands of unsold or returned E,T. cartridges, decided to take a loss on them and dump them in a New Mexico landfill. Occasional friend-of-a-friend "eyewitnesses" and second-hand "I knew a guy who ..." testimonials sprung up in the years, but nobody knew for certain, and if there was anybody in Atari who knew, they weren't talking. So, documentarian Zak Penn makes it his mission, once and for all, to either dispel the myth or find the truth. As the dig proceeds in Alamogordo, Howard Scott Warshaw arrives, bringing everything together. For Atari, the dig represents the possible gravesite of their final, ultimate failure. For video gamers everywhere, history is written, one way or the other. And for Howard, there is, oddly, something of a redemption tale; the video game fans that show up to witness do not regard him as the butt of a joke, but as the unfortunate man tasked to be Atari's Sisyphus. All of this unfolds in just over an hour, and it breezes by effortlessly. Penn has crafted an easy watch for video game fans interested in history. It is genuinely heart-warming to see Warshaw find closure in the welcoming arms of fans, and it is equally neat to see the tale of the Atari Video Game Dump Site story explored. If there is any fault to be found, it's that he's crafted it for EXACTLY those people; the Crash, the legacy of HSW, the history of Atari, all of those are given only enough to set the stage for the Alamogordo dig. This movie is more about that then it is about history, so newcomers might be put off. But then again, unless you're a GAMER, you likely have never heard of the Crash or E.T.'s role in it, and nor would you care. If you are a fan of video games, you owe it to yourself to seek this out. If not, maybe do some reading first.