Atari: Game Over (2014)

A crew digs up all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.

Director:

Zak Penn

Stars:

Zak Penn, Joe Lewandowski, Robert Rentschler

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Zak Penn	...	Himself - Narrator
Joe Lewandowski	...	Himself - Waste Disposal Expert & Historian
Robert Rentschler	...	Himself - Former Mayor, Alamogordo
Paul Sanchez	...	Himself - Mayoral Candidate, Alamogordo
Manny Gerard	...	Himself - Co-Chief Operating Officer, Warner Communications Inc.
Nolan Bushnell	...	Himself - Co-Founder, Atari
Seamus Blackley	...	Himself - Co-Creator, Xbox
Howard Scott Warshaw	...	Himself - Game Engineer, Atari Inc.
Son Huffmon	...	Himself - Construction Division Manager, Mese Verde Enterprises
Pat Magill	...	Himself - Director of Engineering, Mese Verde Enterprises
Mike Mika	...	Himself - Game Designer & Preservationist
Susie Galea	...	Herself - Mayor, Alamogordo
Andrew Reinhard	...	Himself - Archaeologist, American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Raiford Guins	...	Himself - Associate Professor of Culture & Technology, Stony Brook University
Ernest Cline	...	Himself - Screenwriter & Novelist

Storyline

A crew digs up all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.

---

Plot Keywords:

atari | 1980s | atari 2600 | reference to call of duty | bankruptcy | 

---

Taglines:

32.886668 N, 105.967336 W

---

Genres:

Documentary

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish German French Italian

Release Date:

20 November 2014 (USA)

Also Known As:

Atari: Game Over

Filming Locations:

Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fuel Entertainment USA, GRAiNEY Pictures, Lightbox

Technical Specs

Runtime:

66 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This documentary can be downloaded for free through Xbox Live.

---

Quotes

Himself - Narrator: [Discussing the chances that the digging of the dump being successful] You're saying that there's a possibility that this could turn out to be a giant waste of time?
Himself - Waste Disposal Expert & Historian: I think I've said it before: I'll bet the car, I won't bet the house.

---

Connections

Features Yars' Revenge (1981)

User Reviews

Awesome

A crew digs up all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s.

There seem to have been a growing amount of video game documentaries over the last few years (roughly 2012-2015), and many of them understandably focus on Atari and bring up the E.T. story. Most of these are pretty good documentaries. And this is one of them.

This was the first I heard that Atari was filled with drugs and had a party atmosphere. However, knowing what I do of computer geeks in the 1980s and 1990s, this hardly surprises me. Even Steve Jobs had his share of experiments with drugs. (Did Bill Gates?) We also get a cool back story on Yars' Revenge (Atari's best-selling original title for the 2600), but E.T. is really the central focus of this story and it pays off. The truth finally comes out about its promotion, failure, alleged burial and the rumors that the game's notoriety "killed" Atari in 1984. Of course, the brand still exists, but that is a whole other story.