Everyone knows what a flop Ashton Kutcher‘s ‘Jobs’ was back in 2013. This Friday, October 23, 2015, director Aaron Sorkin will release the movie Steve Jobs. Already, a tech journalist criticizes this movie. And it’s not positive criticism.
A technology journalist named Walt Mossburg was there during Apple’s boom of the 2000s and right up to Steve Jobs‘ death in 2011. Mossburg says Sorkin got the Steve Jobs character all wrong. In one quote, Mossburg takes a jab at Sorkin, claiming he’s the one who’s known the real Steve Jobs for years, not Sorkin. Walt Mossburg didn’t appreciate how Sorkin focused on the negative aspects of Jobs’ life. This is true of the coverage of Apple’s turbulent start, when he was young and naive. But the movie goes really hard on Steve Jobs as a family man, or lack thereof. Much of the film is about Jobs’ long denial of his own daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Mossburg claims some of the movie was totally made up. The end credits back Mossburg’s claims. There are two ironies here. The first is Mossburg was a big Sorkin fan…up to this point. The other irony is the movie ends in 1998, right before Apple entered it’s golden age that continues today. Oh, there’s a third irony here. The movie ended before Mossburg and Jobs’ camaraderie had begun.
I’m partially siding with Aaron Sorkin on this one. We all know of Jobs’ amazing, wonderful contributions to the computer technology world. That should be honored and praised. If there’s one point Mossburg has, it’s that Sorkin could have covered Jobs’ accomplishments better. But keep in mind Steve Jobs was a human being. He had flaws and challenges. He made bad choices, just like we all have. In order to tell the whole story about the whole man, you have to tell about his failures as well as his accomplishments. Denying his own daughter just happened to be one of Jobs’ failures as a family man. And about lacking wisdom: Who doesn’t lack wisdom when they’re in their twenties, especially early-mid 20s? Your twenties is a time when you’re just figuring the world out. Of course you’re going to lack wisdom. Nobody bats 1.000 in the game of life. Do Mossburg’s complaints deter you from watching this upcoming movie?