Tetris: Docudrama Reveals Unknown History about Ubiquitous, Fan-Favourite Game
By John Kirk
Rating: A
In the early days of our courtship, she-who-was-to-be-my-wife presented me with a Nintendo Game Boy … and an already-installed Tetris game card. That was over 30 years ago and that was how I knew she was the one for me.
It became my favourite game, and it was not very often that I was apart from it. In fact, I saw the rapidly careening shapes in my mind and the music was a constant earworm in my memory. However, the title page that heralded the start of the game was always a distraction that I should have paid closer attention to.
Tetris on AppleTV+ and starring Taron Egerton, has now set that right for me.
I teach history, English and I’m a librarian. I love video games, pop culture and this film speaks to me not just on a pop culture historical level but on personal one as well. It answers so many questions that I did not know I had until I watched this film.
More than anything, it also ignites so many nostalgic fires that I had to immediately find my aged Game Boy and yes, I played Tetris for about 20 minutes until my wife came downstairs to tell me to go to bed. Of course, at this point, she had also realized that I had seen the film without her.
The fact that I played the very first gift she ever gave me might have cushioned some of the anger. Well, that’s the story I’m telling myself. But I don’t think I’m alone in all these feelings, which I’m sure will be shared by others who I hope will rush to watch it as well.
Tetris is the relatively unknown history of one of the most well-known video games in the world. This game is such an icon in pop culture that even my 17- and 11-year-old daughters know it — and envy my venerable but functioning Game Boy. I’m embarrassed I didn’t know more of this story before.
Henk Rogers (Egerton) — a Dutch-born American programmer, gamer and salesman and owner of the struggling company, Bullet-Proof Software — is pushing a digital version of a lackluster game (Go) at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show when he encounters Tetris for the very first time.
Named for a combination of the four quadrilateral shapes in the game and because the creator, Alexey Pazhitnov liked tennis, we get the name Tetra – Is: Tetris. A damn clever combination of an adopted Greek prefix and an English language term if you ask me. We learn later that Alexey’s wife is an English teacher in Russia. Nice touch.
From this point, Henk is hooked. He sees the game not just for its addictive playable properties (as my wife can attest to) but he also discovers that the worldwide arcade and personal computer rights for this game are up for grabs.
This is a fascinating historical aspect to this film in that we are talking 1988 here and software licensing for electronic games is in its infancy. It’s essentially the Wild West and Henk is eventually going to have to go to the Soviet Union in 1988 to find out who has the rights to this game. Then the film cultivates an atmosphere of fear and a political dimension that gives it an aspect of a Cold War espionage thriller.
Added the fact that there’s also the competition from international games dealer, Robert Stein (Toby Jones) who routinely travels to Eastern Europe looking for what games he can purchase for pennies and license for dollars in the West that adds another layer of competition presented via 8-bit videogame terms which is an entertaining artistic framework for enjoying the film.
There’s also the father and son team of Robert and Kevin Maxwell (Roger Allam and Anthony Boyle) of the Mirrorsoft Media Empire in Britain who are also mounting their considerable financial muscle against the underdog Rogers.
When you think that all of these players are set against the background of the inept and crumbling Soviet economic infrastructure, dismantled by Mikhail Gorbechev, is influenced by both capitalist corruption and Communist ideology, this story becomes a mesmerizing ballet of these forces at war.
There’s even hints of blackmail and the spectre of the dreaded KGB looming in the background with the rights to Tetris lobbied back and forth. It’s a captivating story that demands an audience’s full attention just to keep track of everything.
More than just some pedestrian round-up of videogaming history, it’s a thrilling exploit of a foundational piece of our computing pop culture that we never really knew and have now set the record straight.
With this story, Tetris (the game) seizes its rightful place next to the Apple IIE or Commodore 64 Home Computers. After all, the Game Boy and the dominant place that Tetris assured it paved the way for the Nintendo Switch that my kids can play Tetris on today. It changed the shape of home videogaming.
Tetris is dynamic combination of thriller and historical drama. When the disclaimer states that this was based on a true story, it’s difficult to ascertain what was embellished or removed. I guess that’s the rub and it comes down to what we choose to believe.
Still, I know that my game was one of those first legitimate original copies that made it into the West, and even though it took 30+ years, now I understand and fully appreciate the struggle that it took to make that happen.
It's an important and fascinating piece of our cultural history. I might even owe my marriage to it.
Tetris. Directed by John S. Baird. Written by Noah Pink. Starring Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Toby Jones, and Robert Allam. Streams on AppleTV+ March 31.