An interesting and (surprisingly) enjoyable movie documenting the attempt of a guy (Steve Wiebe) to achieve and officially prove the highest score on Donkey Kong.
If I hadn’t read all the great reviews for the film, I would have thought that this was some mockumentary in that all the people portrayed (except Wiebe and his family) were complete loons, as in over the top in the creepiness/weirdness category. In fact, I don’t even know that I can describe how odd the individuals were.
Wiebe was portrayed as a regular family man, though also obsessive/compulsive who was recently laid-off and so decided to master Donkey Kong with that new free time on his hands.
Everyone else were portrayed as overly fanatical about competition gaming, as well as extremely petty and overly devoted to the long time (and extremely skeevy) world champion, Billy Mitchell.
So, has anyone else seen the film? What were your thoughts? Can you believe people as portrayed really exist?
I saw it a few years ago, it’s an excellent documentary. I really wasn’t aware there was anything like competetive arcade gaming. Mitchell comes across as an absolute ass, still sporting his 80s haircut and not answering the phone by saying “hello” but “world champion”. It’s definitely worth watching.
I love it. Great film. There’s some, ah, artistic license taken with certain character and relationship portrayals, but everyone concedes that and IMO it was wisely done.
Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell are actually much friendlier IRL, according to both of them.
There was another person who actually held the record during the period covered by filming (Hank Chien).
When Wiebe’s videotaped score was rejected, the record reverted back to his previous score, which had been the record for 3 years.
The videotape Mitchell submitted during the event at Funspot was thrown away, and since there was no proof anymore, the record went to the score that Wiebe achieved at Funspot.
Even the director acknowledges there are inaccuracies, but he says the biggest one is that he didn’t accurately portray Billy Mitchell; he edited things to make Mitchell more of a comical figure than he really is. Seth Gordon says that if he hadn’t done that, Mitchell would have come across as a complete and utter asshole, and the tone of the film would have been much darker and more bizarre.
Also, the film was originally supposed to just be about competitive video gaming in general, but midway thru filming they finally grokked that there was some drama in the Donkey Kong story, so they switched things up to focus on that.
Just a side note … I grew up in southeast Iowa, near Ottumwa, and I spent quite a bit of time in Twin Galaxies. Usually playing Frogger. I remember the whole thing about making Ottumwa the world capital of video gaming back in the 80s … that really didn’t work out the way they were hoping.
GI Joel was quite the character in that. I saw an interview with him recently and he no longer has GI problems. He said he quit drinking all the antacids and so forth and his problem more or less went away.
I collect arcade games, and frequent the popular arcade forums, so I have been unwillingly exposed to a lot of people who feel slighted by the documentary and how Wiebe/Mitchell were made into the focus.
If you want to see some genuine craziness and butt-hurt, check out this vid on the YouTubes:
That’s exactly what I thought. And ok, editing enough can make anyone look bad but there were long uncut scenes of Billy that made me want to punch him.
Billy has his business to look after and King of Kong made he look bad, Wiebe seems like the kind of guy that would lie to help an asshole like Billy regain a little dignity.
I’m pretty sure it’s a birth defect, I think he was the one that had serious acid reflux among a host of other ailments.
That dude with the dreadlocks comes across as a huge asshole, “In the mean time and in between time, I’m going to be who I am, a pre-mecca Malcolm playing Scrabble.” Dude, you are a worthless bum with illusions of grandeur.
