'Tenet' and other films have been squeezed into the Playdate
Christopher Nolan’s 2020 time-distorting film Tenet has been scaled down and made viewable on the little yellow Playdate console.
- READ MORE: Playdate review: a handheld hero for indie makers
The movie was brought down a few sizes by jae on Twitter, who shared their achievement yesterday (May 2).
“Finally getting around to watching Tenet the way Christopher Nolan intended. What an incredible film.” they wrote.
finally getting around to watching Tenet the way chris nolan intended. what an incredible film. pic.twitter.com/WOj8erl5WS
— jae (@jkap) May 1, 2022
Whilst the picture quality and sound don’t quite rival the in-cinema experience, Tenet certainly does run on the Playdate. The indie console’s unique crank even appears to work like the fast-forward button on a TV remote, with one of the buttons pausing and playing the film too.
“Also, unsure if I’m the first (couldn’t find anyone else at least) but I also got Bad Apple running and this is absolutely the perfect display for it,” said jae in a follow up tweet.
The crossover doesn’t end there – in 2020, Christopher Nolan talked about turning his films into video games:
“I think my time and energy, I’ve wound up devoting it all to film and seeing how difficult that is, [games are] not something you’d ever take on lightly but it’s definitely something I’m interested in, it’s an amazing world,” said Nolan.
Nolan also noted that games are often more complicated than films and take a long time, saying that he wouldn’t want it to just be a licensed game, but “something great in its own right”.
In NME’s four-star Playdate review Jordan Oloman said: “My favourite thing about the Playdate is how it pierces through the cynical fog that tends to coat the modern games industry […] Some of its parts and some of its games could have been better realised, but here’s a console that feels like an exciting movement rather than a cash grab.”
NME has reached out to jae to find out exactly how they got Tenet working on the Playdate, and will update this article if we receive a response.
In other news, three new games have been added to PlayStation Now today (May 3), ahead of the services merger with PlayStation Plus next month.