The Making of the “Atari: Game Over” Documentary with Zak Penn

(dramatic music)

[Man] When this project was first pitched to me

I said yes quicker than anything

I've ever been presented before.

That's just because I have this intense nostalgia.

I grew up on Atari.

The moment that the first cartridge

appeared in the bucket, the first time

that I saw a mound of dirt that had just been pulled out,

and there was an ET game sitting at the top of it,

it was kinda surreal.

We found an intact ET, the video game.

(cheering)

ET is definitely here.

Here we are, I'm actually holding

one of the ET cartridges that was

pulled out of the landfill.

It was a legend in the video game industry

for three decades, and now, finally,

we can say with absolute certainty,

that it is true.

Atari was really buried out here

in the New Mexico dessert.

(video game sound effect)

[Player] The worst video game ever.

ET for Atari.

It was bad, brutal, unfair, didn't make a lot of sense.

[Narrator] How did a company that was so innovative

fail so miserably.

The zenith of Atari, the point in

the late 70s and early 80s

when this kind of group

of some creative genius engineers

came together to create this amazing company.

And I think it was a kind of

completely unique company at the time.

It was doing something that no one else did.

Over there's where the hot tub was,

inside on the first floor

there's some great stuff that went on in that room.

Over here, here's the hill that, ya know

one day I was wearing a dashiki shirt

which I was very into back then

and I would do somersaults down the hill.

I might have had some cocktails

that afternoon at that point.

Did you know that you were entering

this crazy party atmosphere that you'd be

No, even though I was told I was,

I had no expectation that it could really exist.

[Nolan] The best recruiting tool we could have

for an engineer was to bring him over

to one of our parties.

Hey, what's happening people?

Hey, how's it goin'?

[Nolan] They thought, Hey, I'm a nerd

there are girls here, they're talking to me.

It's good.

That was the culture.

These guys are the lifeblood of the biz

and they do what they wanna do.

And that's fine.

That's what made them the fastest

rising company in American business history

and also made them the fastest

falling company in American business history.

[Jonathan] And the mystery itself was really

the thing that drew me to it.

Is that, why, after 30 years, do so many people,

care so much about a bunch of garbage.

We needed to find a director who

first and foremost,

was a part of the gaming community,

understood the gaming community,

and there weren't a lot of people

who fit that description

and it sort of was a little bit of a no-brainer.

He's got a kind of enduring fascination with

the evolution of myths and legends.

He made a film called Incident at Loch Ness,

which dealt with mythology

and the mythology of Loch Ness.

[Zac] I think the reasons why Atari

buried these games in the desert,

they're actually a little bit more complicated

and mundane than people would like them to be.

What we found out was that they used to crush the games.

And crushing the games is more expensive than burying them.

So, Joe Lewandowski is the guy

who actually figured out where the games were.

He's the historian, if you will.

About four years ago, all of a sudden

a bunch of people started calling

and it was like what's next, what's the interest?

So, it's kinda entertaining to read all that

when you actually were there

and knowing what had happened.

And then we went through the process

of locating and doing all this stuff

and gathering information and witnesses

and it's like, eh, maybe there is a story.

There was also this guy, Jim Heller,

who appeared really just weeks before

the movie went into production

and Jim was actually the guy who buried the games.

He was the individual at Atari

who was responsible for getting those games

and putting them in this landfill.

I worked in Atari from 1976 to 1983.

I do not know exactly what was sent up here.

I just know it was by the truckload.

Once Jim materialized, it really,

I think it helped narrow down the search

to the point where we were able to be successful.

We took up about 1500, I would say,

that they thought were representative of the whole.

They estimated 750,000 cartridges had been buried.

But it wasn't just bad games.

There were lots of really good games there.

The question of what happens to the cartridges,

is a little bit unanswered,

at least from my point-of-view.

I think they're gonna put some on display.

I don't know if they're gonna sell some of them.

I've heard rumors that they will.

There was this funny moment at the end of shooting

where I thought, oh good, our cartridges.

And they were like, no, not your cartridges.

You're just making a documentary.

I was like, oh yeah, you're right.

Yeah, I'm gonna give you one of the games

that we pulled from the ground.

Are you serious?

I am, and I should tell you,

this is illegal because, technically,

the city owns it, so you could go to jail.

Put it in your pants before you walk out.

(heavy pulsing music)

Hello there.

I'm Howard Scott Warshaw,

designer of Yars' Revenge,

Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET.

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