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Thread: Ready Player One

  1. I'm certainly not trying to be part of any blowback. We listened to it while driving out here in December and I had my thoughts by the first third. It's just references to better fiction obscuring a plot we've seen a zillion times.
    Boo, Hiss.

  2. Quote Originally Posted by Mzo View Post
    I'm thinking about reading the book, but it sounds like the most awful jerkoff nerd fanfiction ever.
    That's what it is. I'm not clued into "nerd culture" outside of vidya so maybe the book wasn't for me. But I thought it was beyond awful. Like, the biggest piece of crap book. That said Steven Spielberg, unlike Ernest Cline, is a man of talent. I think he could deliver an entertaining movie for all that also has all the in-jokes and references for people who liked the book.

    Also: it's weird that the same people who criticize Big Bang Theory for shitty surface level pandering embraced this book.

  3. The references in the movie will be completely arbitrary to whatever rights they were able to pick up. Novels don't have to do that, they're free to just use anything. What it comes down to is that nothing in this movie can possibly matter.
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  4. To the book's credit, it probably has one of the most realistic and grounded depictions of VR and the metaverse, and it did it before the current VR wave. That alone is pretty cool.

    It is fan-fictiony in a lot of ways, more than it is pandering even. A lot of the references are dated and and obscure, to where they come off as self-indulgent rather than commercial. That also made them more forgivable to me, because it made it kind of personal rather than cynical.

  5. I know nothing about this book, and saw all the jizz reaction to the trailer. Guess I am not cool enough to get it.

  6. Quote Originally Posted by Diff-chan View Post
    Also: it's weird that the same people who criticize Big Bang Theory for shitty surface level pandering embraced this book.
    I don't think that's a fair comparison. Yes this book has a ton of surface level pandering but you can tell it actually comes from a love of references. Big Bang Theory is more focused on "oh look at those silly nerds doing nerd things, laugh at how funny their nerd things are: see this one likes the Saga comic because it has BOOBS on it... HA HA HA HA HA, nerds don't get to touch boobs so that's funny... oh and this one plays world of warcraft... HA HA HA HA HA NERDS"
    Last edited by bbobb; 29 Jul 2017 at 11:30 AM.
    You sir, are a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.

  7. #17
    Yeah, big bang is nerd face.

  8. #18
    It's the novelization of the MVS comic where he flies away at the end.

  9. Quote Originally Posted by bbobb View Post
    I enjoyed it, but before it was cool to hate it.
    yeesh. I guess I've felt like that before, but what a strange thing to say. haha. I think we've talked about the book more extensively in Printed Page, but I've always felt like the author was a bit of a fraud, and that he wasn't part of the initial culture, but just went back and researched it, and I think that's maybe who the book is for as well... people that are interested in what was going on back then but weren't really part of it. I didn't hate the book, and it kept me turning the pages pretty quickly the whole way through, I just felt like the author saw an opening to capitalize on a cultural pattern and took it.

    Anyway, I saw this with a pretty big group of people last night. Some really liked it. I just tried to zone out and enjoy it. It's really fucking long.. I think it was over two and a half hours. They changed a lot of stuff... I don't know if it made it any better. E.g. instead of them discovering the temple of elemental evil, they just have a big race the creator set up for the first key. It's action packed and pretty intense, but then, I start looking at Keneda's bike from Akira and how off it looks and I fall down some rabbit hole.

    In the midst of a blur of 50 thousand licenses battling I was captivated by the first scene between mechagodzilla and the Gundam.
    look here, upon a sig graveyard.

  10. Quote Originally Posted by sedition View Post
    yeesh. I guess I've felt like that before, but what a strange thing to say. haha. I think we've talked about the book more extensively in Printed Page, but I've always felt like the author was a bit of a fraud, and that he wasn't part of the initial culture, but just went back and researched it, and I think that's maybe who the book is for as well... people that are interested in what was going on back then but weren't really part of it.
    I disagree. I felt like Halliday was a Mary Sue, and that all his favorite things that were Very Important were just random shit from Cline's childhood, regardless of significance or merit. No one gives a fuck about Black Tiger or whatever, it's just something Cline played when he was 8 so in the book it goes.

    Anyway, I saw the movie last night. It didn't really resemble the book much, but a lot of that was for the better, at least in terms of making it work as a movie. The cultural references were a lot broader, but I think that was needed for the audience, and it did a better job of justifying their meaning to Halliday as a character beyond just "Shit Ernest Cline likes."

    A few changes I didn't like though. The fact that they all just happen to be in the same city in short driving distance from each other is both beyond a stretch to believe and goes against the spirit of the thing which about connecting with people all over the world. I also didn't like the weird hacker plot where they tricked Sorrento into thinking he was in the real world. This is future tech with good haptics and all but nothing about it ever suggests it could pass for reality. It's a game, it's just a very immersive one. The idea that they could somehow hack his environment because they had his login made no sense to me either. Hated that whole bit.

    Other than that, it was good fun and very entertaining to watch.

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