The film opens in 2001 with a middle-aged Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) introducing the iPod at an Apple Town Hall meeting.[6]
The story flashes back to Reed College in 1974. The high tuition forces Jobs to drop out, but Dean Jack Dudman (James Woods) allows him to sit in on classes. Jobs is particularly interested in a calligraphy course. Jobs meets up with his friend Daniel Kottke (Lukas Haas), who is excited to see Jobs with a copy of Be Here Now by Baba Ram Dass. Influenced by this book and their experiences with LSD, Jobs and Kottke spend time in India. His philosophical ideas also lead Jobs to the decision not to wear any footwear.
Later, Jobs discovers that Wozniak has built a prototype for a "personalhomecomputer" (the Apple I), which he expresses interest in commercialising. They name their new company Apple Computer, though there is another company called Apple Records that is owned by The Beatles (Wozniak teases Jobs that this symbolizes his preference for Bob Dylan). After a failed sale at his employer company HP, Wozniak reluctantly demonstrates the Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club to a bored audience. Jobs is later approached by store owner Paul Terrell (Brad William Henke) who shows interest in the Apple I. Jobs persuades his father Paul to let them set up their new company in the family's garage workshop. Jobs also recruits Kottke, fellow engineer Bill Fernandez (Victor Rasuk), and young neighbour Chris Espinosa (Eddie Hassell) to the Apple team.[7]
Terrell's disappointment in the Apple I (in his opinion, being only a motherboard and not a full computer as promised), inspires Jobs to restart with a second model. He hires Rod Holt (Ron Eldard) to re-conceptualize the power supply for what will be called the Apple II. Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney), a venture capitalist, notices Jobs and Wozniak's work, and also joins Apple. The Apple II is released at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire where it is a remarkable success.
Apple's success eventually causes Jobs to distance himself from his friends. Upon learning his high-school girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Ahna O'Reilly) is pregnant, Jobs ends their relationship. Brennan gives birth to Lisa Brennan whom Jobs denies is his child. Kottke (now an Apple II Plus repairer) meanwhile leaves the company after acknowledging that his friend Jobs (who hardly even has any time to talk to him) is not rewarding the Apple I team with any Apple stock. John Sculley (Matthew Modine) is recruited as CEO of the company. As Jobs' behavior grows more erratic, Jobs is moved from the Apple Lisa development team to the Macintosh Group where he works with Bill Atkinson, Burrell Smith (Lenny Jacobson), Chris Espinosa, and Andy Hertzfeld (Elden Henson). Despite the change, his behavior does not change: he forces out Jef Raskin, the original Macintosh group leader, and then takes his place. Later, he phones Microsoft founder Bill Gates, legally threatening him because their Word software is, in his opinion, a plagiarism of his team's word processor. Wozniak, still part of the Apple IIe team, decides to leave the company, feeling it has lost its way.
The film jumps to 1996. Jobs is married to Laurene Powell Jobs (Abby Brammell) and he has accepted Lisa (Annika Bertea) as his daughter (she now lives with them). He has a son, Reed (Paul Baretto) and is also running NeXT. When Apple buys NeXT, then-CEO Gil Amelio asks Jobs to return to Apple as a consultant. Jobs is soon named the new CEO, then fires Amelio and relieves the Board of Directors. Jobs becomes interested in the work of Jony Ive (Giles Matthey), particularly during the design of the iMac and strives to reinvent Apple. The film ends with Jobs recording the dialogue for the Think Different commercial in 1997. Before the credits, there is a photo montage of the main characters paired with film clips of the actor playing the part, plus a dedication to Steve Jobs.
Screenwriter Matt Whiteley began work on the screenplay around the time Steve Jobs took medical leave from Apple to battle pancreatic cancer.[8] Director Joshua Michael Stern stated in an interview that all material for the screenplay was collected via research and interviews:
Mark Hulme, our producer, had an expert team of researchers to comb through all public records and interviews that had anything to do with Steve Jobs. Mark, the screenwriter and the research team, also took it upon themselves to interview quite a large pool of people who either worked at Apple or worked with Steve to make sure we portrayed as accurate a portrait and telling of the events possible within the constraints of the film's length.[9]
Filming
Production began in June 2012 at Jobs' childhood home in Los Altos, California, with the help of Jobs' stepmother, Marilyn Jobs (who still lives there).[citation needed] It was also observed by his sister Patricia.[10] The majority of the film was shot in the Los Angeles region.[8][11]Russell Carpenter was the cinematographer.[12]
In August 2012, production moved to New Delhi and Vrindavan in order to provide the setting for Jobs' 1974 trek to India. Locations include "Delhi's Jama Masjid, the Hauz Khas Complex, Safdarjung Tomb and Humayun's Tomb."[11][13] Aseem Bajaj (Bandit Queen, Chameli, and Khoya Khoya Chand) served as cinematographer for scenes shot in India, though cinematographer Russell Carpenter went to India as well. Bajaj notes that they "shot guerrilla style in the crazy and mad by-lanes of Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi. We shot near the Red Fort and the famous Jama Masjid for two full days with multiple cameras spread across everywhere. Ashton stood frozen with the chaos staring right in his face which helped us capture what Steve Jobs must have felt on his visit to India."[12][14]
Release
The Business Insider described the film's opening as a box-office bomb, earning $6.7million in its first weekend and placing seventh overall.[15]
It had a worldwide gross of $42.1million against its $12million budget,[16] making the film a modest box office success.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 28% of 135 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "An ambitious but skin-deep portrait of an influential, complex figure, Jobs often has the feel of an over-sentimentalized made-for-TV biopic."[17]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 44 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[18] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.[19]
E! Online said, "Critics have taken the film to task for a reach that falls far short of its ambition, marred by its superficial and unsatisfying portrait of an icon who deserved better."[20]Forbes reported that the consensus among critics was "mixed positives for Kutcher's performance" and a "thumbs down for Joshua Michael Stern's film."[21]
Robert X. Cringely, author of Accidental Empires and creator of the documentaries Triumph of the Nerds and Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, argues that "the film is beautifully shot and Kutcher's portrayal of Jobs, while not spot-on, is pretty darned good. He certainly has the look down and the walk. But Ashton Kutcher also produced this film and he's definitely a better actor than producer. There are a lot of historical inaccuracies that just don't have to be there. ... The great failing of this film is the same failing as with Walter Isaacson's book: something happened during Steve's NeXT years (which occupy less than 60 seconds of this 122-minute film) that turned Jobs from a brat into a leader, but they don't bother to cover that."[22]Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle states that "at its best, it's a good picture, and at its worst, it's almost good."[23]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone suggests that "Kutcher nails the genius and narcissism. It's a quietly dazzling performance" but also notes that "Jobs is a one-man show that needed to go for broke and doesn't. My guess is that Jobs would give it a swat."[24] Contributor for rogerebert.com, Susan Wloszczyna, gave the movie 2/4 stars, saying that, "Rather than attempting a deeper plunge behind the whys and wherefores of the elite business-model gospel according to Apple Inc. guru Steve Jobs and – more importantly – what it says about our culture, the filmmakers follow the easy rise-fall-rise-again blueprint familiar to anyone who has seen an episode of VH1's Behind the Music."[25] She further discusses how Kutcher's performance and the overall movie failed to portray Jobs in the iconic manner that current pop culture suggests even after Jobs' passing. In a movie review for The New York Times, writer Manohla Dargis writes that Jobs was "inevitably unsatisfying"[26] and a result of a poor performance of the filmmakers rather than the actors themselves.
Historical accuracy
In a January 2013 interview with The Verge, Steve Wozniak notes that he was approached by the crew of Jobs and given an early script to read. He read it as far as he "could stomach it and felt it was crap. The Sony people got in contact with me too and in the end I went with them. You can't do both [films] and be paid."[27] At around the same time, he responded to the first promotional clip for the film on Gizmodo by stating that the "personalities are very wrong, although mine is closer ... our relationship was so different than what was portrayed."[27]
In August 2013, before the wide release of the film, Kutcher responded to these critiques in a few interviews. In an interview with the Associated Press, Kutcher stated:
Steve Wozniak is being paid by another company to support their Steve Jobs film. It's personal for him, but it's also business. We have to keep that in mind. He was also extremely unavailable to us when producing this film. He's a brilliant man and I respect his work, but he wasn't available to us as a resource, so his account isn't going to be our account because we don't know exactly what it was. We did the best job we could. Nobody really knows what happened in the rooms.[28]
He reiterated this point in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter by stating that Wozniak "is being paid by another movie studio to help support their Steve Jobs film, so he's gonna have an opinion that is connected to that, somewhat."[29] Wozniak responded to Kutcher's comments as well as to the film itself on Gizmodo by stating that "either film would have paid me to consult, but the Jobs one already had a script written. I can't take that creative leadership from someone else. And I was turned off by the Jobs script. But I still hoped for a great movie." He also believed several individuals portrayed in the film were inaccurately and/or unfairly portrayed including himself and Steve Jobs.[30] Wozniak reiterated these points in an interview with Bloomberg Television adding that he is "really easy to get a hold of, [Kutcher] could have called me and consulted over the phone any time."[31]The Verge noted that "Wozniak was in fact invited to consult on the film, but declined after reading the script, saying he and his wife were 'abhorred' by it. Wozniak was a consultant on Aaron Sorkin's 2015 Steve Jobs film. When asked why he did not at least correct the inaccuracies he saw, Wozniak said, 'I have a very busy life, and it came at a very busy time in my life.'"[31]
In an interview with Slashdot, Daniel Kottke states that he consulted on early versions of the screenplay and notes that "Ashton's very good. I have no complaints with him at all, no complaints with his portrayal of Jobs. The complaint that people would rightly have about the film is that it portrays Woz as not having the same vision as Steve Jobs, which is really unfair." He also said that the early versions of the screenplay "were painful. Really painful. I forwarded the first draft to Mike Markkula because they wanted his feedback, and Mike took such a bad reaction to it, he wouldn't have anything more to do with the project. By the time it got to the fourth draft, it was okay. It wasn't making me cringe."[7] Kottke also outlines various areas that were both accurate and inaccurate in the film. Bill Fernandez was part of the same interview but states that he didn't see the film because "the whole thing is a work of fiction, and I don't want to be upset by all the things that the screenwriter has invented and don't represent the truth." Kottke responded that he didn't think of the film as fiction because "I was involved early on in the film, and they really, sincerely tried to make it as accurate as they could."[7]
In the same interview, Fernandez and Kottke commented on the characterization of Rod Holt (portrayed by actor Ron Eldard). Kottke disputed the characterization, noting that: "What completely cracked us all up is the scene where Rod arrives for the first time. Rod comes up wearing leathers, riding up on a motorcycle with long hair ... he's like this motorcycle dude. It just cracked us all up."[7] Fernandez, who had not seen the film at the time of the interview, was also surprised by this portrayal. Holt, however, (according to Kottke), "thought it was hilarious."[7] As for why he may have been characterized this way, Kottke states that, "Rod was really into dirt bikes. And I never saw him riding one, but he talked about it all the time. So the author just had him riding up on a motorcycle. I liked that guy. I met him on the set. I had no idea who he was when I met him because he doesn't look at all like Rod, he has long straight hair and he's wearing leathers."[7] Fernandez, who was equally amused by this vision of Holt responded by asking, "Who could this possibly be in the Apple universe? ... It seems to me that there's a lot of fan fiction about Apple Computer and about Steve Jobs, and I think that this is the biggest, flashiest piece of fan fiction that there's been to date." [7]
Chris Espinosa stated on Twitter, "FYI My position at Apple precludes my commenting on the #JobsMovie with the press or public. But I can say that I enjoyed watching the film."[32]
The TV show John Wants Answers took Wozniak, Kottke, and Andy Hertzfeld through the film scene by scene and discussed how the events actually occurred.[33]
Original soundtrack
A number of classic rock, classical music, and contemporary works appeared in the film.[34] The commercial film soundtrack focuses on an original score by John Debney and includes some but not all of the classical and classic rock works.[35]
Stephen Gary Wozniak, also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer scientist, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his early business partner Steve Jobs. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
Christopher Ashton Kutcher is an American actor, producer and entrepreneur. Kutcher began his acting career portraying Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006). He made his film debut in the romantic comedy Coming Soon (1999), followed by the comedy film Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), which was a box office success. In 2003, Kutcher starred in the romantic comedies Just Married and My Boss's Daughter. That year, he created and produced the television series Punk'd, also serving as host for the first eight of its ten seasons. Kutcher starred in the science fiction film The Butterfly Effect (2004) and had a voice role in Open Season (2006).
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 American biographical drama television film directed by Martyn Burke and starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. Spanning the years 1971–1997 and based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's 1984 book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, it explores the impact that the rivalry between Jobs and Gates (Microsoft) had on the development of the personal computer. The film premiered on TNT on June 20, 1999.
Andrew Jay Hertzfeld is an American software engineer who was a member of Apple Computer's original Macintosh development team during the 1980s. After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984, where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software. Since leaving Apple, he has co-founded three companies: Radius in 1986, General Magic in 1990, and Eazel in 1999. In 2002, he helped Mitch Kapor promote open source software with the Open Source Applications Foundation. Hertzfeld worked at Google from 2005 to 2013, where in 2011, he was the key designer of the Circles user interface in Google+.
Triumph of the Nerds is a 1996 British/American television documentary, produced by John Gau Productions and Oregon Public Broadcasting for Channel 4 and PBS. It explores the development of the personal computer in the United States from World War II to 1995. It was first screened as three episodes between 14 and 28 April 1996 on Channel 4, and as a single programme on 16 December 1996 on PBS.
Robert X. Cringely is the pen name of both technology journalist Mark Stephens and a string of writers for a column in InfoWorld, the one-time weekly computer trade newspaper published by IDG.
Michael "Scotty" Scott is an American entrepreneur, who was the first CEO of Apple Computer from February 1977 to March 1981. Formerly director of manufacturing at National Semiconductor, Scott was persuaded by Mike Markkula to take the CEO position at Apple, as the co-founders — Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak — were both seen as insufficiently experienced for the job at the time.
Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr. is an American electrical engineer, businessman and investor. He was the original angel investor, first chairman, and second CEO for Apple Computer, Inc., providing critical early funding and managerial support. At the company's incorporation, Markkula owned 26% of Apple, equivalent to each of the shares owned by cofounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
Randy Wigginton was Apple Computer's sixth employee, creator of MacWrite, Full Impact, and numerous other Mac applications. He used to work in development at eBay, Quigo, Inc and Move.com. In November 2010, he left his position as a "site reliability engineer" at Google Inc., purportedly after leaking news of a $1,000 holiday cash bonus to employees.
Chris Espinosa is a senior employee of Apple Inc., officially employee number 8. Having joined the company at the age of fourteen in 1976 when it was still housed in Steve Jobs's parents' garage, writing software manuals and coding after school, he is the company's current and all-time longest-serving employee.
Bill Fernandez is a user-interface architect and innovator who was Apple Computer's first full time employee when they incorporated in 1977 and was issued badge number 4. He is the son of Jeryy Fernandez and Bambi Fernandez. He is credited with introducing fellow Homestead High School student Steve Jobs to his friend Steve Wozniak and developing schematics for the Apple II so the computer could be mass produced.
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology giant Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs is an American writer. She is the daughter of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Chrisann Brennan. Jobs initially denied paternity for several years, which led to a legal case and various media reports in the early days of Apple. Lisa and Steve Jobs eventually reconciled, and he accepted his paternity. Brennan-Jobs later worked as a journalist and magazine writer. An early Apple business computer, the Apple Lisa, is named after her, and she has been depicted in a number of biographies and films, including the biopics Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999), Jobs (2013), and Steve Jobs (2015). A fictionalized version of Brennan-Jobs is a major character in her aunt Mona Simpson's novel A Regular Guy.
Daniel Kottke is an American businessman known for being a college friend of Steve Jobs and one of the first employees of Apple Inc.
iSteve is a 2013 parody film released on April 17, 2013 by producer Funny or Die, marking their first full-length movie. It claims to be the first biopic on the life of Steve Jobs after his death. The film stars Justin Long, who had previously starred in Apple's Get a Mac ad campaign, as Jobs and Jorge Garcia as Steve Wozniak. The film was written in three days and shot in five by Ryan Perez, a former Saturday Night Live writer.
Steve Jobs is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin. A British-American co-production, it was adapted from the 2011 biography by Walter Isaacson and interviews conducted by Sorkin. The film covers fourteen years in the life of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, specifically ahead of three press conferences he gave during that time - the formal unveiling of the Macintosh 128K on January 24th, 1984; the unveiling of the NeXT Computer on October 12th, 1988; and the unveiling of the iMac G3 on May 6th, 1998. Jobs is portrayed by Michael Fassbender, with Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman and Seth Rogen, Katherine Waterston, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Jeff Daniels in supporting roles.
Chrisann Brennan is an American memoirist and painter. She is the author of The Bite in the Apple, an autobiography about her relationship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. They had one child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
Frederick Rodney Holt is an American computer engineer and political activist. He is Apple employee #5, and developed the unique power supply for the 1977 Apple II. Actor Ron Eldard portrayed him in the 2013 film, Jobs.
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine is a 2015 documentary film about Steve Jobs directed and produced by Alex Gibney. After its world premiere in the Headliners section of the South by Southwest film festival on March 14, 2015, the film was released in limited release to theaters and on VOD on September 4, 2015.
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