105: Tetris (2023)

Continuing along our path of video game related movies, we come to last year's Apple TV retelling of the story of Tetris and its makers. Join us as we dig through the true history of the game, pick apart the extremely Hollywood-ized additions to the story, and muse about our own histories with Tetris. CHAPTERS: (00:00:00) - The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 105: Tetris (2023) (00:00:13) - Intro. (00:03:48) - A second Robert Maxwell reference has hit the Watchcast. (00:07:50) - Let's talk about our histories with Tetris, and dive into some licensing history. (00:12:40) - A certain ongoing lawsuit, and a little bit on the folks involved in this production. (00:17:44) - Getting into the extremely hasty intro to this story. (00:28:20) - Running down some of the real world figures and their portrayals here. (00:40:40) - Break! (00:41:12) - We're back, and it's time to start picking apart licensing rights. (00:51:22) - The cheesy (but delightful) Game Boy unveiling. (01:06:37) - Henk's Moscow adventure begins. (01:18:01) - The real negotiations begin. (01:29:14) - Henk and Alexei bond. (01:34:45) - Is Henk about to lose everything? No, because there'd be no movie otherwise. (01:40:41) - Donald Kaufman's Tetris. (01:47:56) - The aftermath (and some loose talk about the Tetris movie we ALMOST got). (01:55:24) - Final thoughts. (01:58:22) - Talking about our film for next week: Cloak & Dagger! (02:02:32) - Outro.