Too Dramatic for a Dramatization?
April 28, 2012 9:27 AM Subscribe
Another question about a TV memory, but this time more definite. In Pirates of Silicon Valley, was part of the Woz at HP scene edited out of releases after the original TNT debut?
I saw Pirates of Silicon Valley when it first aired on TNT in 1999. I distinctly recall that in the scene where Woz is demoing the Apple prototype to an HP executive, there is a musicless montage (really just a series of shots in the same room, mostly from the same camera angle, strung together with quick cuts) of Woz totally blowing the demonstration, seemingly on purpose. He struggles to hold the computer up to use it. Things don't work right. At one point the screen falls out of the frame.
Every time I've seen it since then, it's a shorter scene: Woz and the exec stare awkwardly at each other with the prototype between them, the exec says, "What on Earth would ordinary people want with computers?", Woz is silent but his expression says, "Yeah... dumb idea."
My memory of the original scene is so clear that I can't accept that I've imagined it. So, why have I been unable to find that scene? Did they erase it entirely because it implied some things some people would like not to be implied? Did it just... not make it into the VHS or DVD cuts?
I saw Pirates of Silicon Valley when it first aired on TNT in 1999. I distinctly recall that in the scene where Woz is demoing the Apple prototype to an HP executive, there is a musicless montage (really just a series of shots in the same room, mostly from the same camera angle, strung together with quick cuts) of Woz totally blowing the demonstration, seemingly on purpose. He struggles to hold the computer up to use it. Things don't work right. At one point the screen falls out of the frame.
Every time I've seen it since then, it's a shorter scene: Woz and the exec stare awkwardly at each other with the prototype between them, the exec says, "What on Earth would ordinary people want with computers?", Woz is silent but his expression says, "Yeah... dumb idea."
My memory of the original scene is so clear that I can't accept that I've imagined it. So, why have I been unable to find that scene? Did they erase it entirely because it implied some things some people would like not to be implied? Did it just... not make it into the VHS or DVD cuts?
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The notion of Woz intentionally "blowing the demonstration" makes sense as far as the story goes, but without a copy of the script or some other specific reference, I guess there's no way really to be sure of your memory of that scene. (I've only seen the DVD version, which simply has the shortened scene of the two of them staring at each other, as you describe)
posted by ShutterBun at 4:34 AM on April 29, 2012