Bought Viva Amiga this week end, and gotta admit I was a bit disappointed, even if it did scratch that nostalgia itch.
It is very short (1h04min), and relies extensively on lengthy "Amiga-style" bad 3D for transitions, ending up feeling a lot like filler.
The interviews are great, but somehow participants feel like either they were pressed by time and were rushing, or the questions weren't that great to begin with maybe.
Participants repeated themselves a lot, stayed very surface, and didn't deliver a lot of anecdotes (there are a few). Jay Miner being (mostly) absent was a miss, in spite of RJ Mical's entertaining delivery.
The structure itself left me pondering though: We go from the design and initial start which was mostly great (would have liked more about the atmosphere and anecdotes), to the shenanigans with Tramiel and Comodore's Acquisition, to the lavish launch in 1985... To suddenly jump to 1993 and the fall, after just a very short middle segment propping up Newtek (admitedly a big part of Amiga's history) and Deluxe Paint.
In spite of RJ clearly describing the Amiga as a game machine that could do a lot more, games are barely mentionned at all (prefering to position the Amiga as the "cool MacIntosh" for creatives before Macs were cool).
Things that imo should have been included, even at a higher cost (the video is "only" $9.99):
-Interviews with EA managers from the time. EA and the Amiga early years were very, very entwined (and showcasing not only Deluxe Paint, but also F/A 18, Westwood titles like Lands of Lore or Eye of the Beholder, and of course Bard's Tales).
-Interview from Kiki Stockhammer, whose image (she is back at Newtek) was so strongly associated with the Amiga at trade shows
- Interview with CG producers for Babylon5 (Lightwave, yes it's another Newtek product, but it was huge on Amiga).
- From Lightwave, go into the 3D scene which really started on Amiga (Autodesk/ 3D Studio on PC was born out of CAD). Imagine, Cinema4D, Aladdin, etc.
- The demo scene got practically no mention
- Cinemaware was not mentionned, in spite of its titles probably having sold a ton of Amigas (Defender of the Crown, Rocket Ranger, It Came from the Desert...)
- No mention of Rainbow Arts for German devs, which was huge then. On the music side, Chris Huelsbeck should have been interviewed to talk music (which was barely touched on to show the Amiga had great sound, but never went in depth on the actual chipset, or the graphic one for that matter).
Showing screaming DJs using the Amiga still was... interesting. But in no way representing the larger possibilities or history.
Same for AV... there was so much more...
Including the DPS PVR which was revolutionary for its time in features and price point.
In the end, I think the most frustrating aspect is that this documentary is trying to walk on two lines at the same time: the fans and their nostalgia, and also the general public (can't go in depth then) in case this is ever shown on The History Channel or something.
You can only repeat "the Amiga was revolutionary" so much, while showing Deb Harris' bad video scan being filled with a yellow fill bucket by Warhol, or the Video Toaster with Penn and Teller doing terrible 80s video effects... but all the while not explaining really why it was so great to the larger audience.
It probably makes little sense to them, and the fans, while appreciating to see that part of Amiga history, would also like a more in depth look.
Edit: weirdly missing, a retrospective of the Actual Amiga models reviewed, and explanation as per the existence of 2 separate lines of Amigas (the 500 line and the 2000 line, the 1000 having been the "prototype" of sorts). Otoh they extensively went on about the X1000/ X5000 (current machine for OS 4.1), which is I guess probably a condition given for some interviews...