8 Bit Generation: The Commodore Wars (2016) User Reviews

Pure Historic Brilliance!

[trnjamesbond · 9/10 · 9 November 2016]

This film is just wonderful, although it is geared towards the 1970's and early 1980's generation I think it could be one of the best films about early computers out there.

Let me tell you, I grew up using a VIC-20 and also a C-64 and I can't believe the information I didn't know about this company until I watched this film. I type this review on a PC using Linux, which was created by Linus Torvalds. Mr. Torvalds grew up just like me, using a VIC-20. I imagined to myself what if he had not of been introduced to a VIC-20? I would not be sitting here today writing this review.

With all this being said, I have a lot of fond memories using my Commodore PC and I remember programming bouncing balls, and flashing hearts on the screen as a child in the early 80's. Commodore brought so much joy into my life, and I still remember some of the code. The term Poke seems to come to mind.

Regardless this film informs the viewer of what Commodore was and wasn't, while still giving fond memories of the people that actually used these beautiful machines. I owe all my computing experience and interest about computers to the Commodore team. Thank you for all the great memories. Also hat's off to the directors of this fantastic film.

Great subject but extremely rushed delivery makes it hard to digest

[rikki-10 · 2/10 · 18 September 2017]

I've seen a ton of retro gaming and computing films in the past and grew up in the 8 bit era but this one was the hardest to watch.

The content is great, as are the cast of people involved. The trouble is the way it's been edited and crunched down to a train moving at full pelt and never slowing down.

The viewer doesn't get a chance to think or reflect and all of the interviews with industry legends have been edited so much as to remove even the slightest hint of a pause or draw of breath, leaving the viewer amp-ed up from start to finish and feeling exhausted by the end.

Bil Herd does a fantastic job of narration and his own videos on Youtube are a wealth of information so that is something.

The producers are working on a second film on Atari so I really hope they don't use the same jump cut style of editing to cram more words into less time as it really does make for a difficult watching experience.