Ready Player One

[Veho]

Ready Player One is a novel that gained wide success riding the wave of 80s nostalgia and the modern nerd culture. You've either heard of it or you haven't, and the less I talk about it the better. It's pretty popular so they made a movie based on it.

Trailer is out. Let's play "spot the reference":

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Anyway, it's directed by Steven Spielberg, and it is conceivable that it might not suck.

Thoughts?

 

[sarkwalvein]

I am betting my 2018 it will be gooood.
Even if they didn't go with this weird idea to use magic leap.

I expect it to be very entertaining, a pleasure to watch.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That looks pretty good, I'll have to watch it.
I've heard of the book, but beyond being game related I had no idea what it was about.

 

[DeoNaught]

Yeah, Im kind of hyped for this one, plan to read the book.


Also the Iron Giant is in the trailer

 

[tetrabrik]

verrry excited about this one. I read the book and it was 75% good and the ending kinda sucked. but I have a feeling senor spielbergo will fix that.

 

[Veho]

Alright, time to play "Spot The Reference 2: Electric Bugaloo"

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Winner gets NOTHING.

 

[T-hug]

 

[Issac]

First I thought that Ready Player One felt like a rip-off of one of my favourite book series: Otherland by Tad Williams. Many similar themes. But I realise that's just the fanboy in me talking.
But then came Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother and much more) and wrote a novel called Otherworld.... and that IS a fuqin rip-off!

On to the topic, I will watch this whenever I can rent it, it looks like it can be a lot of fun

 

[sarkwalvein]

Which reference? I am too bad at this, so I will point out the obvious ones only.
In order, Spiderman, Hulk. /s
Not Anime Grill. /s
The video on the screen behind the window in the washing machines bed looks familiar, but you got me, no idea.
Many cool cars I don't recognize, well there's the Mach 5 and the DeLorean I guess.
There's something that looks like the A-Team van afar, but perhaps it is just my imagination.
Also, is that the old crap batmobile perhaps?
Some KITT lights on that DeLorean.
Harley Queen and Deathstroke.
I lost a couple hundreds of references around here.
Kaneda's bike.
etc, etc.
King Kong
a war scene with probably 9999 references, too much.
Overwatch - the ass girl (sorry, I am not an Overwatch fan, so no idea what's the name) / Street Fighter - Chun Li.
Gundam RX-78-2.
Chucky?
Iron Giant.

Missed 99% of the references for sure…

 

[Chary]

I'm interested in the movie, but I can't get over how odd the guy's leg looks in the poster!

 

[sarkwalvein]

I'm interested in the movie, but I can't get over how odd the guy's leg looks in the poster!

He's Mr. Fantastic.

 

[FAST6191]

Second one is all I have seen thus far and was odd. Probably the ultimate form of reference bait trailer*, and at the same time seemed like it might have kept the spoilers somewhat light. If we must have two minute trailers though then that is a decent way to do it. If it is the next stage of the internet though I can see it.

*though I dare say I missed most of them other than the iron giant, king kong and the delorean.

I have my fears that it will be like much most futurism film/tv stuff where they underestimate the tinkerer/hacker set. It was one of my major misgivings with that surrogates film a few years back

That said I hope someone takes the resulting film and creates a mash up with Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder fronted one from the 70s, Tim Burton can keep his efforts).

He's Mr. Fantastic.

?

 

[Veho]

I have my fears that it will be like much most futurism film/tv stuff where they underestimate the tinkerer/hacker set. It was one of my major misgivings with that surrogates film a few years back

Well...

On one hand there's the Oasis, the internet/Second Life/MMO hybrid virtual world thing that everything revolves around and where the majority of the story takes place, and that place is described as (magically) completely and entirely hack-proof and tinker-proof. There are some loopholes in the rules and some items are imbalanced and so on but as far as actually hacking the system at any level, nope.

Spoiler

On the other hand there's the Evil Corporation™ trying to gain control of Oasis, and the main character runs a standard hack (uses social engineering to get inside the company and get to an access point where he can run a security exploit) to steal some critical info and incriminating evidence from them, so you could count this as a nod to the hacking crowd; narratively it's a giant ass-pull but that's beside the point.


But basically since the main story more or less takes place inside Oasis, and Oasis is magically hack-proof, hacking and tinkering plays no part in advancing the main quest.

We don't know how it will play out in the movie because the trailer and promo pics suggest they made some changes to the source material (thankfully).

 

[dpad_5678]

Looks awesome, but it won't reach the popularity of the Infinity War trailer.

 

[MaverickWellington]

Replace the star wars stuff with random nerd culture and you have every review of the movie.

 

[ov3rkill]

Anyone read the book? Is it any good?

 

[Veho]

Anyone read the book?

I did.

Is it any good?

It's... popular.

 

[MaverickWellington]

Anyone read the book? Is it any good?

This should answer your question. If this kind of writing doesn't bother you then you might enjoy the book and it's premise.

 

[Veho]

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This is looking less and less like the book. I just hope that's true and not just a misleading trailer.

 

[GhostLatte]

Haven't read the book, but the movie still looks really good.