Risking it all on an idea

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, July 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio.

I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The movies.

The WWII drama Oppenheimer is a big hit at the box office, but lots of families are probably going to have to stay away, because it drops some content-bombs—both in language and sexual content.

BROWN: If you’re frustrated by the growing number of interesting movies that are rated R for gratuitous language, you’re not alone. WORLD Program Producer Harrison Watters has a recommendation for three older movies about innovation …along with a suggestion for families who want to watch well-made movies without the objectionable content

HARRISON WATTERS, PRODUCER: Back in April, I read an article about a handful of movies coming out about video games, shoes, and obsolete phones. I wasn’t impressed. That is, until I watched the trailers. And then, much like the early adopters, I was hooked.

MUSIC: [Benevolence]

In March, Apple TV+ released the movie Tetris, based on the true story behind one of the most successful video games in the world.

Henk Rogers is the genius behind the digital board game Go. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because it didn’t sell. But at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Henk discovers a game he can’t stop thinking about.

BANKER: Tetris? I don't get it.

ROGERS: It's a combination of Tetra Greek for four—all the game's pieces are variants of four—and tennis.

BANKER: Tennis?

ROGERS: Tennis is supposedly the Russian inventor. He, he likes tennis.

Henk knows a great idea when he sees one, and he immediately makes a plan to license the game—even if it means mortgaging his house.

There’s just one problem.

Tetris was created by a programmer in the Soviet Union.

ROGERS: It all began with a guy named Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov four years ago.

And there’s no intellectual property in Communist Russia.

So buying the rights to develop a handheld version of Tetris is going to be harder than Henk thought.

STEIN: Mr Rogers, have you ever negotiated with the Soviets? Do you know what it feels like to be in a country where everyone is watching you?

ROGERS: No.

STEIN: So don't tell me what is and what is not complicated.

The rest of the film unfolds like a spy movie, with Henk navigating politics and intrigue to land a licensing agreement.

ROGERS: I’m not going home without a deal.

Where Communist Russians and corrupt British capitalists fail, Henk’s integrity and genuine respect for Alexey Pajitnov, the Russian software designer, make all the difference.

Next in this trio of engaging stories, Amazon Studios released its movie Air in March.

Sonny Vaccaro, played by Matt Damon, is a talent scout responsible for signing athletes for Nike’s struggling basketball division. This is back when Adidas and Converse were the biggest names in basketball shoes. But Sonny aims to change that by signing one player.

VACCARO: I'm willing to bet my career on Michael Jordan.

KNIGHT: Come on, man,

VACCARO: you ask me what I do here. This is what I do.

Sonny’s boss, Phil Knight, thinks the idea goes against all conventional wisdom, especially at a time when budgets are shrinking. Why risk it all on a rookie?

Sonny also faces opposition from Michael Jordan’s agent, who tells Sonny that Michael wants to go with Adidas.

But Sonny won’t take no for an answer and so he does the unexpected. He visits Michael Jordan’s parents. Michael Jordan’s mom calls the shots and she wants more for her son than just a fat check.

DELORIS: Now I'm gonna put it to you plain once again: Michael will get $250,000 and a Mercedes Benz that will be forgotten in a year. But he gets a piece of the revenue of the shoe and all future Air Jordan shoes.

The rest of the film is focused on Nike’s quest to build the perfect shoe that will inspire Michael Jordan—and his parents—to sign a deal with Nike.

Unlike Tetris, the protagonist of Air doesn’t seem to have much to fight for apart from his crazy idea. He’s not married, and his outlook on life doesn’t change much by the end of the story.

There’s also some hindsight bias throughout the movie. We all know that Michael Jordan ends up becoming one of the greatest basketball players in history, but the characters couldn’t have known that at the time. The cult of personality here is pretty strong. But so is the business savvy of a mom orchestrating her son’s financial future…and that isn’t just hot air.

Finally, BlackBerry, released in May. This movie tells a very different kind of innovation story—the tragedy of a brilliant idea that ends up in the dustbin of history.

EXEC: Well it’s definitely the world’s largest pager.

LAZARIDIS: Uh, no. It’s actually the world’s smallest email terminal.

The story begins with computer geeks Doug Fregin and Mike Lazaridis racing to a meeting to sell their newest idea to businessman Jim Basillie.

FREGIN: Picture a cell phone and an email machine. All in one thing. There is a free wireless internet signal all across North America and nobody has figured out how to use it.

Doug and Mike do know how to use it. And their innovation…combined with Jim’s ruthless business savvy…leads to the massive success of one of the first mass appeal smartphones. But that success doesn’t last.

JOBS: We’re calling it iPhone [Applause]

Behind BlackBerry’s demise at the hands of Apple is a debate about integrity as an inventor.

LAZIRIDIS: I'll do it perfectly or I don't do it,

BALSILLIE: Mike, are you familiar with the saying, perfect is the enemy of good?

LAZIRIDIS: Well, good enough is the enemy of humanity.

Tetris, Air, and BlackBerry each raise questions about what is worth sacrificing for success. Jim tells Mike that the more painful the sacrifice, the greater you’ll be. Only in his case, he’s talking about putting friends on the altar of financial success. In Air, Sonny doesn’t have much to lose, but his colleagues do.

STRASSNER: The judge in the divorce, she just gave me Sundays. You get to be a dad for four hours every Sunday at the park. It’s the only time I see Avery. I just want Avery to love me and I want my job. And I think that you may have been a little bit cavalier about the risks and about taking us all with you.

And the goal here, as in BlackBerry, is ultimately to make money. In Tetris, however, Henk is willing to put himself on the line and take risks on behalf of his wife and kids and friends. And he does so with integrity.

Now a quick caveat before you go stream one of these movies. All three films earned an R rating for excessive foul language. And that’s unfortunate, because the content is fairly clean otherwise. So I would recommend using a content filtering service like VidAngel or ClearPlay so that you can enjoy the lightbulb moments without getting burned.

I’m Harrison Watters.

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