We Ride: The Story of Snowboarding (2013)

We Ride: The Story of Snowboarding: Directed by Jon Drever, Orlando von Einsiedel. With Danny Davis, Terje Håkonsen, Jason Lee. Grain Media and Burn Energy Drink tell the story of snowboarding through the eyes of the people who made it happen. From its origins in the culturally shifting 1960s, to its boom in the 90s, to its acceptance as a mainstream sport, snowboarding has had a roller coaster history. A fully immersive archive film narrated by Jason Lee and a cast of dozens of snowboarders, We Ride: The Story of Snowboarding is the first feature film to tell the story of how this outsiders’ sport became huge.

“Itu0026#39;s a difficult one – the history of snowboarding! A lot has happened over the past 30, actually 40 years, and itu0026#39;s an ambitious task to pack it all into a full feature film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt becomes very clear very soon that the makers didnu0026#39;t have much information on their side. Thatu0026#39;s why they chose to rather focus on key people than the actual story. Unfortunately this is the moment when it becomes quite distorted – I assume the 1980u0026#39;s had more innovators than just Burton and Sims and I also believe that there have been more influential riders than Terry Kidwell, Shaun Palmer and Craig Kelly. In the first segment though there are some very interesting elements regarding things like halfpipe or early contests.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFrom the 1990u0026#39;s part on the storyline becomes pretty chaotic, switching focus very often without a visible connection. Iu0026#39;m missing a lot of key events and explanations about certain topics – instead the film assumes that the viewer already knows it. It also spends a lot of time just talking about how awesome snowboarding is but canu0026#39;t support the heavy statements with vital background information.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOn top the production standards are pretty low which doesnu0026#39;t give it that big picture feeling and makes it hard to watch at some points.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf it had been called u0026quot;The history of snowboardersu0026quot; then it would have gotten 7 stars as it is more a collection of mini biographies than an actual history documentary. But with this premise it rather misses the point. Too bad!”