Yesterday, I watched “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” with my non-crypto friends...

Yesterday, I watched @EthereumFilm's “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” with my non-crypto friends. Here are some of their unfiltered comments: "It was interesting, but after watching it, I still don't understand what Ethereum is." "They were working on this upgrade [the Merge], but I didn't understand why it was so hard, and it took a big part of the movie." "This guy [Vitalik] is very interesting. It’s surprising I've never heard about him. The only people I heard about from crypto are Satoshi Nakamoto and this SBF guy. And the billionaire idealist genius who lives a nomadic lifestyle and has all his belongings in his backpack - seems like a great story for the media.” "Vitalik said one of his biggest regrets is meeting with Putin, but they don't explain what this meeting was about; they just show that he's sitting in the same room with Putin and 20 other people." “If Ethereum is so important, do you think it has been infiltrated by the CIA?” “He’s like this ancient philosopher who writes his thoughts and then goes from city to city to discuss them with his students.” “They say he did six speeches in one day. That’s a lot for a very extraverted person, it must be really hard for Vitalik, given he’s so introverted.” “It felt intellectually honest, and it didn’t sell anything. Even the last scene was more an open-ended question if it’s going to work.” "The production quality was really good, felt like a Netflix documentary." "I didn't understand why they had to build Ethereum and couldn’t just use Bitcoin." *** Before the screening, I told my friends: “This movie will explain to you the most important crypto ideas. If you watch it, you will understand why I’m so excited about it.” Seems like I misunderstood the idea behind it. It’s an interesting movie if you’re a crypto nerd and want to better understand Vitalik, but it’s hard to follow without any prior understanding of crypto. And I think it’s a pity because movies can be powerful. Many of my friends got excited about startups after watching “Social Network” and “Jobs.” Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” made us care more about climate change, and “Big Short” made us angry about the bankers causing the financial crisis. It hurts me to admit that “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” is not this kind of movie. It can be a decent starting point for discussing crypto with your friends, where you do a short intro about Ethereum and are available for Q&A after the movie. This is what I did, and it worked well. But it’s not a standalone movie that will open the minds of non-crypto Netflix watchers on some idle Tuesday evening. What could've been improved? Here are two cents from my ELI5 & storytelling nerd POV: First of all, the question of “Why build Ethereum?” could've been explored more. There’s a good bit about Ethereum being a reaction to Big Tech having too much control, and we could've doubled down on that. We could've drawn from the 2014 @gavofyork essay "What Web 3.0 looks like" or countless Vitalik's talks. It would also be useful to have pre-screening with non-crypto people to check if they followed. At the moment explanations were not clear, and some felt cut in the middle (the Merge, how is Ethereum decentralized, what is this decentralized social). I found it surprising because there are many good ELI5 threads, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes that explain Ethereum. We could have just recycled what was already being said 100s of times. It also felt like the movie wanted to kill two birds with one stone - explain Ethereum and tell Vitalik’s story. But I think the TV Series or a longer movie could’ve been a better format because the story would be more complete. In the current 90-minute format, there are big gaps. Ethereum’s story feels rushed. There's no mention of the smart contracts, the DAO hack, or the ICOs. It would also be great to expand on the tension between Ethereum being an idealistic project and some community members who are ready to compromise on its values. Or show how Ethereum thrives in an open and decentralized manner and how it resisted the temptation to become a centralized project. Or explore the conflict between those who build projects that make a real change vs. grifters and maybe feature some high-impact projects a bit more than a 2-second clip with Uniswap. On Vitalik’s side, it's much better. I particularly liked the arc where he doesn't want to lead the project but becomes forced to do it, and learns on the way how to do it well. But there are some gaps as well. We see him as a kid making bunny encyclopedias, and then we see him as a young man excited about Bitcoin and liberty. What happened in between? If it’s Vitalik’s story, I’d love to know! There are also some smaller things that we could improve, like e.g., English subtitles that hide the translations from Russian and Spanish. That being said, I am happy that this movie exists. And I’m not saying that only because I know people who have been involved in production :) I think it’s been the first-of-a-kind, ambitious project with high production quality (liked the animations and editing a lot!). And it can serve as an educational tool, if it’s being screened by crypto natives. And although the movie is imperfect, everyone who works in innovation knows it's hard to hit the bull's eye with the first throw. We just need to keep throwing the darts. So I hope the ambition of this production will inspire others to tell and re-tell Ethereum's story until one day, we will find the format that will make an average Netflix watcher care.