The Social Network isn't the only story to follow this template. Pirates of Silicon Valley (as well as multiple other movies about Steve Jobs) gets drama out of Steve Jobs being forced out of Apple, but it portrays Apple itself as a superb creation because the computer, of course, is a superb invention. AMC's show Halt and Catch Fire has characters treacherously force each other out of companies for several seasons, but it's also a celebration of the early internet as a tool for unifying humanity. These are really good stories, every one of them. But damn, I do not see that sort of story working again anytime soon.Â
People are just too used to associating tech giants with evil to now marvel at a rags-to-riches story about them. Could you make a movie today about the founding of a coal mine, with one hero losing out on his share of the mine but coal itself being the solution to the world's problems? It might be a good story, but I don't think that idea would fly, and nor would a movie about the contributions of big tech.
Few will cheer the onscreen rise of Amazon, knowing it'll owe so much of its rise to the rest of the economy shutting down. Few will cheer the onscreen rise of Uber after all those stories about non-employees in their sixties driving 70 hours a week. Few will cheer the onscreen rise of Twitter, knowing just how thoroughly the service now forces each and every one of us to experience K-pop (also, the Trump and QAnon thing).Â
If we ever get another film about, say, people taking an internship at Google ...