--- description: Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" reimagined as an 8-bit video game. title: Here's The Life Aquatic as a Classic Video Game image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14f9e45c94d9496b/698764f735ba6f20a9c04e64/screen-shot-2014-11-06-at-11-47-52-am.png?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Newsfeed](/tag/time-section-newsfeed/) ## Newsfeed Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Here's _The Life Aquatic_ as a Classic Video Game  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 6, 2014 5:22 PM CUT  YouTube  by [Eliza Berman](/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 6, 2014 5:22 PM CUT Mission: Find the jaguar shark. Step one: Smoke grass. This is how Wes Anderson’s 2004 film _The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou_ would begin if it were an 8-bit video game. David and Henry Dutton of Cinefix, a YouTube channel that bills itself “the ultimate destination for true movie buffs,” have rendered the movie as a Nintendo-esque short, complete with David Bowie soundtrack (only this time the songs are played on what sounds like a Casio keyboard rather than sung in Portuguese). In their 8-Bit Cinema [series](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1AXWu-gGX6LNsfQ-KkeGPxL76CFONTom "undefined"), they’ve retold nearly 40 popular movies — from _The Big Lebowski_ to _Fight Club_ to _Frozen_ — as 8-bit video games. The term 8-bit refers to the third generation in gaming, which began in 1983 with the release of what would come to be known as the Nintendo Entertainment System. For _The Life Aquatic_, the Duttons decided to use 16-bit to capture the film’s vivid colors and textures. Video games today are so realistic that the [_Call of Duty Kevin Spacey_](http://time.com/3273554/call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-kevin-spacey/ "undefined") is almost indiscernible from the real Kevin Spacey. But it’s always nice to take a trip back in time to our pixelated past. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3561303/the-life-aquatic-8bit-video-game/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3561303/the-life-aquatic-8bit-video-game/"},"headline":"Here's The Life Aquatic as a Classic Video Game","datePublished":"2014-11-06T17:22:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:14:25.102Z","description":"Complete with pixelated Bill Murray","url":"https://time.com/3561303/the-life-aquatic-8bit-video-game/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Video Games","Technology","Nintendo","Wes Anderson"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14f9e45c94d9496b/698764f735ba6f20a9c04e64/screen-shot-2014-11-06-at-11-47-52-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt14f9e45c94d9496b/698764f735ba6f20a9c04e64/screen-shot-2014-11-06-at-11-47-52-am.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Screen Shot 2014-11-06 at 11.47.52 AM","caption":"","creditText":"YouTube","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3561303/the-life-aquatic-8bit-video-game/","name":"Here's The Life Aquatic as a Classic Video Game"}}]}] ```