“It’s poetry. Art and math all working in magical synchronicity, it’s…it’s the perfect game.” So says Taron Egerton as Henk Rodgers, the man who unraveled the complicated web of Tetris licensing issues to bring the game to Game Boy, in the the premier trailer for Tetris, the upcoming Apple+ movie detailing how the game made it out of Soviet Russia to other nations:
Official Trailer — Tetris@TaronEgerton stars in #Tetris — the game you couldn’t put down, the story you couldn’t make up.
Streaming March 31 on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/yKWXX6ciEZ
— Apple TV+ (@AppleTVPlus) February 16, 2023
This appears to be a rather dramatic affair tying Rogers and game creator Alexey Pajitnov to the imminent fall of the USSR, with car chase scenes, Cold War politics, and stylized pixel graphics. We even get a glimpse of legendary Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi playing the game on the Famicom, stoically exclaiming that it’s “Not too bad.” The actual story of Tetris’ licensing is plenty messy and does involve the Soviet government, but was more an issue of several non-Russian companies squabbling over legal rights than it was of “lone businessman negotiator takes on big scary Communist government.” Oh well. Wouldn’t be the first time “Based on a true story” was applied in a loose sense of the phrase. And the assessment of Tetris as a perfect game is a universal truth.
Tetris releases on Apple+ March 31st.
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Written by Amelia Fruzzetti
A writer and Nintendo fan based in Seattle, Washington. When not working for NinWire, she can be found eating pasta, writing stories, and wondering about when Mother 3 is finally going to get an official localization.
