Full Trailer For Facebook Movie ‘The Social Network’ Hits The Web | Hacker News Reader

Full Trailer For Facebook Movie ‘The Social Network’ Hits The Web

techcrunch.com

113 pointsssclafani78 comments

What amazes me about the coverage of this film is that David Fincher is getting totally overshadowed by his subject. Case in point, Techcrunch doesn't even mention that Fincher is the director, even crediting the film to Aaron Sorkin who just worked on the script.

Why is this an oversight? Fincher is one of the smartest directors in contemporary American film. Seven was a brilliant critique of how visual media feeds social violence. Fight Club turned a stylish but shallow nihilist novella into a meta-recursive critique of nihilism itself. Zodiac was a narrative masterpiece created out of nothing. The Game was an ambitious attempt to turn The Magus into a film that succeeded so well no-one seemed to notice. And even his lesser works, Panic Room and Benjamin Button, were still films that tried for something and are worth watching.

Yet not a single mention. Amazing.

I agree with you, I should have mentioned him. Added to the post.

That was fast.... I wasn't singling out Techcrunch incidentally. I've noticed this in most of the articles about the film I've stumbled on, that's all. I suppose it's the power of Facebook.

AND Trent Reznor is working on the score.

Here's a link: http://www.theninhotline.net/news/permalink/1278030873

Trent Reznor with Atticus Ross are working on the score.

Keep in mind this is Techcrunch not Roger Ebert.

You see. This is a producer's movie, not directorial. Screenwriter is important here, more so than director which is here to do technical stuff, and do it good. Producer calls the shots anyways in this case, screenwriter executes them and director makes it into a product. Sorkin is a wizard though, especially in dialog construction.

However, I've read through this blag post http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/07/social-network-face... and it really seems good enough. That blog is truly great for screenwriters btw, lots of great tips and stuff.

Wikipedia doesn't mention The Magus in it's description of The Game. Was it an influence? It is a fantastic novel.

It is a fantastic book! And the setting of the film is different, but the story is surely the same: an emotionally immature protagonist gets swept up in an ever-expanding and quasi-supernatural game. The emotional crimes he plays out on others are played back on himself through this game, causing him to eventually achieve self-realization through a sort of emotional catharsis and resurrection (metaphorically in the book, quite visually in the film with the white suit and the graveyard and all).

Replace Greece with San Francisco and the sexual crimes in the novel with the film's emphasis on corporate greed. Still not convinced? The icing on the cake for me is the fact that both film and book end identically, hanging on a moment of choice in a situation which leaves it ambiguous if "the Game" is still ongoing.

I don't think Fincher really nailed the movie the way he did with Seven and Fight Club, but the connection to the Magus seems obvious for another reason as well: the weak points of the film start making sense if you think about it as an adaptation. The major point of the Fowles novel is in its Eliot quote that, "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." I don't think the film is as convincing as the book in part because the romantic relationship it uses to do this is incidental to its preoccupation with corporate greed and is not very believable. But the intended structure helps explain some of its weaker dramatic moments, the biggest of which for me was seeing Michael Douglas running around a corporate cafeteria with a gun shouting about the need to protect his employees and their pensions.

The fact that it was not credited as an adaptation pretty much ruined the movie for me-- as I was watching it, I kept thinking "This is just a rip-off of The Magus".

As an adaptation, the film was quite good. As an (alleged) original work, it was a total failure.

Coverage from mainstream film sites are quick to mention the involvement of Fincher and Sorkin. I wouldn't really expect TechCrunch to mention it.

Who would have though all those great movies came from the same guy responsibly for Alien 3?

From wikipedia - David Fincher was brought into the project very late in its development, after a proposed version written by Vincent Ward (What Dreams May Come) at the helm fell through. Fincher had little time to prepare, and the experience making the film proved agonizing for him, as he had to endure incessant creative interference from the studio. The film was Fincher's debut in big budget film making, and at the relatively young age of 27 he had to shoot the film without having a definite script. The added weight was also to create a film worthy of the work of the two revered directors that had gone before him, James Cameron and Ridley Scott.

Benjamin Button tried for something, but is definately not worth watching.

I enjoyed Benjamin Button, but even if you didn't, most would agree that Se7en and Fight Club more than make up for it: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/

Did they really include a shot of him writing formulas on a window at Harvard? That cliched "genius" shot is getting worn out. Of all the smart people I've ever met, I've never seen one write forumlas on a window.

Better yet, what mathematics did he specifically use when developing Facebook? It's my understanding that most of the "innovation" that went on involved stealing someone's code and marketing the end result to a niche community (Ivy Leaguers), and using the reputation gained from that to appeal to the masses. It took people out of the ghetto of MySpace and put them into a pristine, controlled environment.

Tortured genius, or lucky asshole with a lot of money? You decide.

(Having seen the script: the equations determine, based on past user votes, the probability that each of two Harvard girls will be voted "better looking" in a head-to-head match-up.)

Huh. A brooding genius that does not make, but at least they didn't throw random math in there for no good reason.

Sounds like puppywar.com could use that equation to pre-determine who the winningest is.

I remember in the earlyish days of Facebook (after the Ivy League exclusivity ended but before it went outside of colleges) their FAQ page had a snarky response to the question "what graph theory algorithms do you use?" or somesuch.

Exactly! My impression was that starting Facebook just took some PHP and HTML skills not differential equations and quantum mechanics.

Massively over-cliched, yes. But I feel I must point out: glass cleans better than those always-cheap dry/wet erase boards. i.e., perfectly, instead of leaving shadows / requiring alcohol.

My wife leaves me messages on our mirror every morning:)

Glass also fits into proper decor a lot more than that awful white shiny material whiteboards are made of.

A Window is perfect when you don't have a large enough white board. I did it many times for college programming assignments.

What writing implement works best? Dry-erase markers like you'd use on a whiteboard?

Yeah those work good.

I can't afford a whiteboard so I use the glass coffee table for visualization instead.

Nonetheless it does have the tortured genius cliché attached to it. As shallow as this sounds it actually makes it cooler. I like messing with people by writing poetry (Keats, Byron, Frost...) on it. I would recommend it to anyone who is sick of pretentious people who judge others.

Does Steve Jobs cameo and say "How do you like them Apples?", pointing to a line of G5s? </awfuljoke>

The Santa Fe Institute has absolutely enormous windows researchers can write on, complete with markers and erasers. It's surprisingly useful, because they're far larger than any blackboard or whiteboard.

I feel like this is becoming standard in lots of places, or at least vogue. I worked in a chem lab at the University of Washington that had indoor windows expressly for notes and presentations, and the science library at my school has rooms with glass walls and markers for group studying.

It's not "genius", just convenient.

I keep a few whiteboard markers lying around the house for when ideas strike. The shower and bathroom mirror are also good places.

I used to work in a modern office building with floor-to-ceiling windows and had a window desk. Suffice to say the windows were always covered with algorithms, scribbles, diagrams and all sorts of shit.

Same here. My former boss would draw diagrams and algorithms on the office windows all the time.

Yes, which one do we have? I only know the shot of 21.

A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting, offhand. Well, Will was writing on a mirror not a window, but it still fits the "tortured genius doodles in grease pen" cliche.

Not a window, by the bathroom in my old house had a freaking ENOURMOUS mirror in it that I would use as a whiteboard all the time.

As a PHP developer, I can confirm that this is what my life is like. EVERY. DAY.

That cover of Radiohead's Creep by Scala & Kolacny is awesome.. listen to full song if you want http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Creep/2sx1OB

Scala & The Kolacny Brothers are awesome. Some of their other songs are amazingly well done, my favourites being their versions of Schrei nach Liebe[1], The bitter end[2], Engel[3], and I touch myself[4].

Though I especially like Regi Penxten feat. Scala - I fail[5] an awesome mix between Scala's choir singing and Regi Penxtens dance/trance.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZJcP5EDIQ

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpsroKKLapw

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsGy-A5SOPU

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ5VNXIiv1c

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mRwX7PGi9E (EDIT: the live version is more awesome)

No accounting for taste I guess. Maybe it's just because I'm such a fan of the original but I find this cover awful.

I preferred the 'OK Computer' cover by Clojure and 'Kid A' cover by Haskell.

I dunno, all Haskell's song are really self-referential.

Here's a direct link to the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUuPPC9YaVo

Thank you!

Yahoo Video is awful. It doesn't show you how much of it has actually loaded, and once it's done it has to load all over again to play a second time.

Does anyone think this will have a negative impact on Facebook's reputation or slow the rampant user growth?

I'm inclined to believe this is going to have a huge impact on the masses and their perception of Facebook.

Unfortunately, it won't.

I remember listening to an interview with Michael Douglas one night(I have insomnia), where he remarked that people actually came up to him and said that they wanted to be Gordon Gekko. This will in fact add to Zuckerberg's appeal and people will use Facebook to tell other people on Facebook how cool the guy who made Facebook actually is.

Other than them the others simply won't care and will go right back to playing one of those Zynga games.

The only thing that will kill Facebook is another fad, which gets embraced by the "cool" brigade.

Probably about the same impact Pirates of Silicon Valley had on Bill Gates. Pretty much nil.

Economics overrides everything else.

I always thought Pirates was much more of an indictment of Steve Jobs... among folks that I know who actually saw the movie, they certainly walked away with a lower opinion of the man.

Even I did. However, later I realized that it is quite easy to judge him but so hard to understand him.

You really need to know bottomless despair to see where he came from. Think of this you are a teenager with no contact with your bio parents, struggling to make sense of who you are, and you cannot get rid of the nagging feeling that you have no future and then you hit the big time. No The Big Time.

Would that not go to your head and exaggerate your flaws? He is just human being with limited resources to cope with what life thrust upon him. I don't worship him anymore, but I won't judge him either.

Is Facebook funding this film at all?

Facebook is not funding this film. Furthermore, it is against Facebook's Usage Terms for this film to be promoted through paid advertisements on Facebook.

There is a quote from the studio somewhere talking about it. He basically says that any advertisements that are about Facebook the company have to be approved by Facebook. He said once the studio found that out they didn't even bother submitting advertisements.

I'd bet it will accelerate it, if it's even possible to accelerate it further.

Jesse Eisenberg sounds more like Jesse Eisenberg than Zuck.

True, but I think he appears to do a pretty good job in the little snippets we see. I can't think of a better actor for the role, can you?

Andy Samberg might have been a more hilarious choice, but Jesse Eisenberg is already damned funny.

No, they should have used Michael Cera.

I actually like this actor in Adventureland and Zombieland (should this movie be Socialland then?). It's a pity, because I suspect this role is going to be not that good.

I'm completely torn.

I'd watch the film because it's David Fincher but I'm put off because I know a number of the people in real life who are portrayed in the film.

Rightly or wrongly, no one (as I understand it) involved with Facebook chose to take part in the writing of this so I have no idea if this is going to be an accurate portrayal or somewhat off-from-fact but will go down in everyone's mind as how it happened.

Mind you, Parker's head has probably exploded with the knowledge Timberlake is playing him.

Reminds me of that more of that show Gossip Girl than Harvard.

Haha, yes! When that guy with the black hair said "I can't wait to stand over your shoulder and watch you write us a check.", I thought for a second they had cast Ed Sedgwick (Chuck on Gossip Girl) for the role.

...uhh... was that Justin Timberlake...? This is going to be _hilarious_

He hasn't been into too many movies, but he's actually a decent actor. His character in Alpha Dog was well done.

I also think it's funny he's playing Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster.

His scene lip-syncing to the Killers in Southland Tales is one of my favourite cinematic moments from the past few years.

Which is saying a lot because that movie is awful in such a unique and special way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7aS01JpK0

This movie looks terrible, and I don't think the supporting players are going to be able to save it.

Actually I agree. As much as I think Zuck is a tool, this appears to me to be an old-media smearjob on social networks and the Internet in general. Not so much an indictment of Zuck. Who the hell outside of SV cares about Zuck? But to use him as a lightning rod to try and make the whole Internet look creepy and evil -- ingenious. I don't think it will work, but it's smart.

Just wondering - what if this new facebook movie is really just a marketing ploy by facebook, designed to LOOK like it's attacking Zuckerberg, yet not REALLY attacking him ??

It would make perfect Machiavellian sense to do this, since it's now being advertised as an attack on Zuckerberg pre-release ... this could be just a distraction tactic from his real crimes such as, oh I don't know... that of selling every piece of you that he possibly can to advertising and slowly chipping away at your privacy bit by bit...

</conspiracy theory>

that, by the way, is a conspiracy theory, not necessarily something I believe, just something I believe is possible ...

This movie is not about attacking Zuckerberg, not even a little. I'd be very surprised if funding came from him or Facebook, but I wouldn't be surprised if the creators talked to Zuck about it quite a bit.

It doesn't look like they're capturing the awkwardness of Mark Zuckerberg speaking.

Wow, it even has the Winklevoss rower guys who sued Zuck in it.

The narrative is based on the book "Accidental Billionaires" so the major conflicts will be with the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin.

I think the book fills in a lot of gaps with fiction and the movie will probably do the same. The author, Ben Mezrich, tends to incorporate a lot of fiction into his "non-fiction" books and embellishes quite a bit in order to create a more compelling story.

Check out the book if you have the chance. A very quick read. A bit sensational, but a nice distraction.

I'm thinking this is going to be a decade-defining movie like Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off was for the 80's.

Went to see Inception tonight and this played during the previews.

looks awesome, can't wait.

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