So I just got done watching Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball.

Great documentary. I learned so much.

So Sega became Stern and they are the last ones standing... Were there any famous designers or good designers at Sega, before they started buying Pat Lawler/Steve Richie etc. designs for their machines post Williams? Because I have played Star Ship Troopers and found it enjoyable. Also I think South Park is popular with collectors.

I remember Revenge from Mars. I was only 15 when it came out, but I remember I thought the technology on it was great. But I do remember not putting much play on it in favor of some other DMD machine they had at the arcade.

7,000 units sold, that's a pretty big number, making it a sizable hit for a pinball, no? Star Wars would have been a 10,000 seller on the license alone, but they mistimed it and it's a shame. The team had such little room for error.

This documentary reminds me why I hate business. It's so heartless to basically take a group of guys who has for years made you MILLIONS of dollars, and to treat them the way they did and just brush it all under the rug in favor of slot machines when things turned sour. And even from a business perspective, they missed out on the emergence of the collectors market that Stern now enjoys. Probably small potatoes to WMS, but profit is profit and Stern get's by, clearly Williams made the wrong move both from a business perspective and especially from a people-perspective.

And the failure of Star Wars was a direct result of incompetent management and marketing people. They shipped the game well after the movie had lost popularity, despite the fact that they had the game ready to go, over some strange thing where "Europe has to have the machines first"? Yeah, the games quality itself wasn't all that, and the designers admit it, but that's not why it failed. And it even managed to ship 5k despite all that.

Good Movie. Bought it a while back. (lots of cool extras on it also) Wondering if the star wars movie had been any good and as popular as it could have been, the pinball machine would have sold twice as much and we could have 20 different pinball 2000 machines today? Or maybe not since the star wars machine was a bit so so from what I have heard. (Never tried it myself) But it looked like Williams probably had made their mind up before it was even released. Shame! The P 2000 had potential for sure.

Yeah, It's a great movie for sure. I bought it from the website a couple years ago. I love all of the extras too. The only thing that could have made it even better would have been a
bunch of pin vids where you could use the (under-used) DVD Angle button to switch camera angles. In fact I would buy a Blu-Ray of something like that in a Gorgar heartbeat!

I wish Farsight could emulate the Pinball 2000 stuff (even if only on the more advanced consoles and PC. I would love to get a chance to play what could have been
pinball's savior.

BTW: Has anyone seen "Pinball 101" or "the pinball collector"? Wondering if they are worth a purchase? http://www.pinballvideo.com/

TILT ist the best Pinball movie / documentary in my opinion because it works as a "true film" with a good story and emotional impact. It really gets to you in the scenes where George Gomez is choked up about the fate of Williams... And to think the film was more or less a one-man-show by first time director Greg Maletic is pretty awesome! The film made my buy a REVENGE FROM MARS pin and I've been loving it ever since... =)

i will never put a single nickle into a williams slot machine. what they did, hurt me so much. for years i was depressed. i don't think i could ever forgive them.

karl said:

Good Movie. Bought it a while back. (lots of cool extras on it also) Wondering if the star wars movie had been any good and as popular as it could have been, the pinball machine would have sold twice as much and we could have 20 different pinball 2000 machines today? Or maybe not since the star wars machine was a bit so so from what I have heard. (Never tried it myself) But it looked like Williams probably had made their mind up before it was even released. Shame! The P 2000 had potential for sure.

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While The Phantom Menace was a pretty bad movie and got a lot of critical backlash, it still hauled in a lot of money, and toy companies are still selling tie-in merchandise for it to this day. I'm not sure this can really be blamed on the media license itself.

The timing was probably bad. And while the table is not bad, having played both this and Revenge from Mars, I'm really not sure the whole Pinball 2000 concept was quite doing the work they hoped it would. Making the video display the focus of attention actually makes the tasks you perform seem kind of samey: there's a display with a line of targets along the bottom, and you shoot the targets. It's kind of like just having a series of scoops in a horizontal line, even if that's not physically what you're doing.

Yeah, I can see that. The vid took away from what we usually do when hitting ramps and bumpers; watching the ball do its' neat bouncing around setting off toys and traveling through wire tubes and whatnot. That stuff just got replaced with prerendered video. I get more out of watching the MM castle getting destroyed than the video of the saucer blowing up in RfM.

I just watched the main film on the DVD I recently bought. Good stuff for sure. Personally,I'd like to think that if WMS had something else ready to go after Star Wars,then maybe Pinball 2000 would have had more of a chance to succeed. To me,that production lull was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

Looking forward to seeing the bonus disc today!

I think the most interesting thing about TILT is the picture it draws of how easily a succesful company can become its own worst competitor by making too good products, that their clients do not want to replace.

karl said:

BTW: Has anyone seen "Pinball 101" or "the pinball collector"? Wondering if they are worth a purchase? http://www.pinballvideo.com/

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Pinball 101 is a good enough video, with some humor and nicely put together. I think it wastes too much time with filler material though (mainly the "music video" clips, stuff like the pinball etiquette section is entertaining), when it could be elaborating on the techniques it teaches. I think the majority of the stuff being taught in P101 are the same tricks you'll see mentioned all over the internet, and I feel that they miss out on the chance to go into details about good ways to train each skill - a good example would be at the bounce pass where they recommend forcing yourself to play a bunch of games using only one flipper, in order to gain understanding of it.

I'd recommend it as a curiosity for pinball enthusiasts.

I think pinball101 is superb, I was very happy with it and have returned to watch it several times. I ripped a copy for myself and have it on my laptop in a file of pinball and arcade videos along with Tilt and Special When Lit and King of Kong and The Making of Pinball and a few others, plus all the PAPA pin tutorials by Bowen. Oh, and a few of the This Old Pinball episodes.

To return to the OP's topic, yes I agree that Tilt is an awesome video/film/documentary, certainly one that I recommend to all newcomers. I don't mind that it showcases the oddballs, there to to be plenty of us in the hobby with 'special' personalities and interests. I love that fat Sam Harvey character, he seems a really fun fella, and one I'd definitely like to meet. I even use that great screenshot of him now as my what's app photo.

DanBradford said:

I think pinball101 is superb, I was very happy with it and have returned to watch it several times. I ripped a copy for myself and have it on my laptop in a file of pinball and arcade videos along with Tilt and Special When Lit and King of Kong and The Making of Pinball and a few others, plus all the PAPA pin tutorials by Bowen. Oh, and a few of the This Old Pinball episodes.

To return to the OP's topic, yes I agree that Tilt is an awesome video/film/documentary, certainly one that I recommend to all newcomers. I don't mind that it showcases the oddballs, there to to be plenty of us in the hobby with 'special' personalities and interests. I love that fat Sam Harvey character, he seems a really fun fella, and one I'd definitely like to meet. I even use that great screenshot of him now as my what's app photo.

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I think you got your docs mixed up. Special When Lit is the one that showcases the "special" pin enthusiasts. Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball is a professionally done film about the making of the Pinball 2000 platform and the subsequent closing of Williams Pinball.

Pinball division of WMS was dragging the share prices down, shareholders basically dictated the companies future...

I actually felt that Tilt is clearly the less professional production of the two. It is, however, based on a genuine interest for the subject, which shows. And once the people it features start talking (and those people are indeed obvious professionals), that's all that matters. Its choice of subjects, and which statements to put together to tell the story, is excellent - it's only the editing and narration that's lacking.

Special When Lit is a great watch, simply because it's such a professional production with a taste for keeping the audience entertained.

I also think both movies should be interesting and entertaining even if you don't have an interest for pinball. Tilt because of the business perspective, SWL because of the colorful people.

I've always thought it would be cool if Williams would spin off a boutique pinball business as its own company but with all the Williams licenses at their disposal. I think the home market for pinball machines is much larger now than when they dumped pinball. There's a ton of baby boomers who have made it through the recession, children's college tuition, and have now paid off the mortgage. The early X gen is also starting to advance into the higher income brackets of empty nesters.

Sumez said:

I actually felt that Tilt is clearly the less professional production of the two. It is, however, based on a genuine interest for the subject, which shows. And once the people it features start talking (and those people are indeed obvious professionals), that's all that matters. Its choice of subjects, and which statements to put together to tell the story, is excellent - it's only the editing and narration that's lacking.

Special When Lit is a great watch, simply because it's such a professional production with a taste for keeping the audience entertained.

I also think both movies should be interesting and entertaining even if you don't have an interest for pinball. Tilt because of the business perspective, SWL because of the colorful people.

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The fat guy with his gut hanging out being interviewed was not professional. The director should have told him to put a shirt on that fits. This is what makes the hobby enthusiasts look like a bunch of dorks. I've watched Special When Lit once and never again. Don't get me wrong. Anything about pinball can be, at least ok, but Tilt was a far better documentary to those that are interested in the people whose lives and career were to create the things that pinball lovers have been praising and b!tching about for the last couple decades. And probably for many more to come.