The part that really hit home for me was the whole Winkelvoss plot-line. I got sucked into web development because of a deep desire to create something that will take off and become a hit - it's the best place to be if you're a modern entrepreneur, and I wanted to be a part of it. It's become an addiction for me, one that I fund by doing contracting work on the side. I don't have the money to pay someone else to do it, and even if I did I'd still build it myself.<p>I've met and been approached by countless Winkelvosses since I've started doing this, and I've always had the same question in my mind: if you want to create something for the web, why the hell don't you figure out how to create it yourself? I started out with ZERO development experience and figured out how to do it - pretty quickly too, in fact. I don't understand how you could stand not being able to act on your ideas yourself if you were truly excited about the prospect of building them out - especially when the barrier of entry to entrepreneurialism has never been lower in the history of business.<p>That the twins believed they should be compensated for having supposedly given Mark the idea for Facebook cuts right at the heart of what bothers me. The Twins were busy training to be Olympic rowers, besides being gorgeous Harvard supermen and screwing God-only-knows-how-many gorgeous women in the process. Mark was busy coding Facebook. Every waking hour. Obsessively. It's true the Twins had great insight about Facebook's (or ConnectU's) potential. But so did I back in 2002. So did every internet generation college-aged computer geek who'd seen Friendster and MySpace and hotornot.com.<p>The point, that I know has (rightfully) been beaten to death on HN, is that it's not about the idea. It's about the blood, sweat, and execution of the idea. If you're only coming up with ideas, you're not throwing your hat into the ring as far as I'm concerned. You're playing with monopoly money.<p>By far the best line in the movie was "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you've had invented Facebook." It was a fist pumping moment for me.
I want to try to avoid hyperbole here, but I think this may have instantly jumped into my top 5 list of favorite movies. Its pacing and acting is unbelievably tight, and it happens to be about one of my favorite topics ever. I have a feeling it's going to give a lot of fellow HNers a queasy feeling in their stomachs like I got; like you need to get back to your computer and start coding right away, and everything is passing you by, that you could catch fire if you just found the right combination, and you should have and maybe did think of it first.. Ugh.. it's what this is all about, HN, startups, etc.
I went into it expecting to not like it. Actually, I didn't want to see it in the first place ("Psh, a movie about Facebook?") but got free tickets through StartupDigest and decided to go.<p>Really happy I did — the movie is one of my favorites now. Writing was awesome, soundtrack was fantastic (by Trent Reznor, and $8 to buy: <a href="http://www.nullco.com/TSN/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nullco.com/TSN/</a>), cinematography was enchanting (the tilt-shift part during the crew race was particularly great), and I thought that Jesse Eisenberg in particular did a great job creating both an arrogant but sympathetic character.<p>Additionally, the movie is pretty inspiring, as other commentators mentioned. Kind of disappointed in myself for being such a 'hater' in the beginning before actually seeing the movie.
Lawrence Lessig's thoughts on the movie, posted as a separate story on HN, but I felt I should add it here as well: <a href="http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/78081/sorkin-zuckerberg-the-social-network?page=0,1" rel="nofollow">http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/78081/sorkin-zucke...</a><p>I left the movie quite satisfied. It was such marvelous dialog paired with excellent directing. I love Fincher's style, though at times it felt like he was being held back, such as during the regatta segment, I felt like he couldn't go as crazy as he would like given the soundtrack.<p>Sorkin is a master of dialogue, and though the story is wildly inaccurate, I suspended disbelief and enjoyed the ride.
I thought the tech stuff was pretty realistic (although I refuse to believe Facebook was written inside of emacs).<p>Also I felt the whole "I scored 1600 on my SATs" and shooting down his professor with some technobabble about memory management was a little much. I understand there needs to be elements to add dramatic effect, but I can't help but feel there's a whole generation of assholes out there taking notes and thinking that being arrogant all the time = being right all the time
Very engaging and reflective of the current culture/generation.<p>As a geek, I liked how they didn't do a lot of fake flashy computer stuff (looked like he was using KDE3 and it was butt ugly). Though netbooks weren't around yet in 2003. ;)
I was definitely surprised by how good it was, I read the book last year (very good as well), but I was expecting the movie to be more cheesy. I would see it again with no problems when it will be on netflix.
My ratings: 5/5<p>When I read about this movie, I thought this is something to bring down the image of Mark Zuckerberg.<p>After watching the movie, it seems, # of sign ups on facebook will sky rocket.
Maybe Zuck did go to see the movie?<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38848471&fbid=707881996643&id=217560" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=38848471&fbid=7078...</a>
Lots of subcultures have their own movies. I'm just glad that ours is so damn awesome!<p>Also: I think the screenplay, the directing, and the score (Trent Reznor!) will be nominated for Oscars.
If you enjoy "startup" type movies, might I also suggest these (documentaries, not comedy-drama):<p>startup.com
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/</a><p>e-dreams
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/</a>
I enjoyed the mental thought process and geek speak of Zuckerberg when he tried to hack into harvard's network and hire the first intern. A lot of people in the theatre around me were visibly confused, while I was actually able to follow along and think to myself "hey, I know that term!." Pretty cool.
Anyone else notice they were writing PHP and said it was Perl?<p>Great movie, though. Amazing to see a popular film come out and do a decent job of portraying a software guy.
The best part for me was when Mark was hacking early in the movie and mentioned Emacs... I looked over at my wife who laughed, as she's used to me saying similar things.
Best line of the movie for me<p>"You're not an asshole ... but you're trying really hard to be"<p>Awesome movie ... I have no doubt any hackernews faithful will love it.
I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hoping it's better than <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/</a>
I thought it was a very well made movie, and Fincher has a way with these kind of scripts that lack a traditional story arc that leaves them compelling anyway.<p>It is kinda funny that Sean Fanning's name in the movie is Sean Parker. Or was that character supposed to be someone else and to protect the identity they claimed he made "napster" instead of whatever he really made? Certainly Timberlake looks nothing like Fanning.<p>I think the movie is a bit kind to Zuckerberg, but then, it is pretty hard to make a movie focused on a single individual and not have it come out sympathetic. Unless that individual is, say, hitler or idi amin.