If you’ve ever stayed up until 3:00 AM trying to get a prototype to work or wondered why some tech founders become icons while others just... fade away, you need to watch the Print the Legend movie. Honestly, it's one of the few documentaries that actually gets what it's like to be inside a startup. No gloss. No fake "hustle culture" vibes. Just the messy, ego-driven, and often heartbreaking reality of the 3D printing revolution.
The film, which hit Netflix back in 2014, follows the early, chaotic days of companies like MakerBot and Formlabs. It’s not just a history lesson about extruders and resin. It’s a character study. You see Bre Pettis, the face of MakerBot, go from a "cool teacher" vibe to a corporate lightning rod. You see the Formlabs team, led by Maxim Lobovsky, nearly crumble under the weight of a massive Kickstarter success and a terrifying lawsuit from 3D Systems. It’s a wild ride.
The Brutal Truth Inside the Print the Legend Movie
Most tech documentaries try to make the founders look like geniuses. Print the Legend movie does something different. It shows them as people who are often way over their heads.
Think about MakerBot. In the beginning, they were the darlings of the "Open Source" movement. They wanted to put a 3D printer in every home. They were the hackers. The rebels. But then, things got real. Money got involved. Stratasys, the industry giant, came knocking with a $400 million offer. Suddenly, the "open" philosophy started to feel like a liability.
The movie captures that specific moment when a company loses its soul to save its skin. It’s uncomfortable to watch. Seeing the original co-founders like Zach Smith get pushed out or leave because the vision shifted so radically is a gut punch. It’s a reminder that "disruption" usually leaves a trail of broken friendships.
The Kickstarter Trap and the Formlabs Struggle
While MakerBot was dealing with the perils of becoming a "big" company, Formlabs was dealing with the perils of being a popular one. Their Kickstarter campaign was legendary—they raised nearly $3 million.
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But then the reality of manufacturing set in.
The Print the Legend movie tracks their struggle to actually ship a working product. Maxim Lobovsky comes across as incredibly intense, perhaps even difficult, but he’s focused on the engineering in a way that contrasts sharply with Bre Pettis’s showmanship. Watching the Formlabs team navigate a patent infringement lawsuit from 3D Systems—at the exact same time they are trying to fix hardware bugs—is basically a horror movie for entrepreneurs.
It highlights a major theme in the 3D printing industry: patents. For decades, 3D printing was stuck in industrial labs because a few big companies held all the keys. When those patents expired, the floodgates opened. But as Formlabs found out, the big players weren't going down without a fight.
The Dark Side: Cody Wilson and the Liberator
You can't talk about this film without mentioning Cody Wilson. He’s the wildcard. While everyone else was trying to print Yoda heads and replacement knobs for dishwashers, Wilson was printing guns.
The "Liberator" was the world’s first fully 3D-printed firearm. Wilson’s inclusion in the Print the Legend movie creates this friction that the rest of the industry hated. He wasn't interested in "making things." He was interested in the Second Amendment and anarchy.
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The filmmakers, Luis Lopez and J. Clay Tweel, do a great job of showing how the 3D printing community tried to distance itself from Wilson. They wanted to be seen as the next Industrial Revolution, not a tool for DIY weapons. But Wilson’s presence forces a question: If you give everyone the power to manufacture anything, do you also give them the power to manufacture harm?
It’s a heavy topic. It’s also why the movie still feels relevant in 2026. We’re still arguing about decentralized tech and regulation. Whether it's AI or 3D printing, the "Cody Wilson problem" never really goes away.
Why the "Legend" is Often a Lie
The title comes from the famous line in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
It’s a cynical take on the American Dream. The Print the Legend movie suggests that the stories we tell about tech founders—the "garage to billionaire" narrative—are usually edited versions of the truth. We edit out the lawsuits. We edit out the fired friends. We edit out the moments where the "revolutionary" hardware actually caught fire in the testing lab.
Bre Pettis eventually left MakerBot. The company moved production to China. They went closed-source. The "desktop revolution" didn't happen exactly how they promised. Most people don't have a 3D printer next to their microwave today.
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But 3D printing did change the world. It changed prototyping. It changed medicine. It changed how Boeing builds planes. It just didn't happen in the "Star Trek Replicator" way the marketing teams sold us.
Key Players and Where They Are Now
- Bre Pettis: After MakerBot, he moved on to other ventures, including Bantam Tools. He's still a figurehead in the maker world, but his legacy is complicated.
- Maxim Lobovsky: Formlabs actually survived. They became a "unicorn" (a billion-dollar startup) and are one of the most successful desktop SLA printer companies in the world.
- Cody Wilson: He’s still active in the "Defcad" space, constantly embroiled in legal battles over the right to share digital gun files.
- Stratasys and 3D Systems: They remain the "old guard," though they've had to adapt significantly as the desktop market matured and then consolidated.
Lessons You Should Actually Take Away
If you're watching the Print the Legend movie for business advice, don't look at the successes. Look at the mistakes.
- Open Source is a Business Strategy, Not Just a Philosophy. If you start open-source, your community will feel betrayed if you close it later. MakerBot never really recovered its "street cred" after that pivot.
- Hardware is Hard. Seriously. Software guys have it easy. When your product is physical, a single bad part can bankrupt you. Formlabs’ stress levels in the film are a testament to this.
- The CEO's Personality is the Brand. For better or worse, Bre Pettis was MakerBot. When his public image shifted from "maker" to "corporate suit," the brand's identity fractured.
- IP is a Weapon. 3D Systems didn't sue Formlabs necessarily to stop them—they sued to slow them down and assert dominance. In tech, the courtroom is as much a battlefield as the R&D lab.
How to Watch and What to Look For
The movie is still available on Netflix in many regions. When you watch it, pay attention to the background characters. Look at the engineers in the back of the room during the Formlabs meetings. Their faces tell the real story of startup burnout.
Also, watch the footage of the early MakerBot "Cupcake" printers. They were janky. They were loud. But the excitement people had for them was real. It’s a reminder that even if the "legend" is a bit of a myth, the spark of innovation that starts these things is genuine.
Actionable Steps for Today's Founders
Don't just watch the movie and move on. Use it as a diagnostic tool for your own projects.
- Audit your "Open" promises. If you're building on a community-driven platform, decide now where the line is. Will you stay open when a VC offers you $50 million to go proprietary?
- Diversify your manufacturing knowledge early. Don't wait for a Kickstarter to explode before you figure out how to scale. Formlabs’ near-collapse was due to the gap between "prototype" and "mass production."
- Manage the Ego. The Print the Legend movie is a warning about how quickly a founder can lose touch with the people who helped them build the company. If you’re a founder, schedule regular "reality check" meetings with your original team.
- Watch for Patent Expirations. The desktop 3D printing boom happened because of FDM patents expiring. What patents are expiring in your industry in the next 24 months? That’s where the next "Legend" will be printed.