Ready Player One, the film of the book

Never read this book. Probably should though. Heard it's good.

Regardless, the movie adaptation from Warner Bros.?

It's happening.

And they've got a director.

Who is it? Oh, it's just a small average Joe filmmaker who goes by the name of Steven. Spielberg.

Rejoice.

In a world with a Virtual Reality Super MMO called OASIS that basically dominates most of humanity's waking hours, one guy tries to find a secret Easter Egg left by OASIS's dead creator. The creator left a bunch of pop culture clues for those to get the prize, which is to inherit his entire estate, including management and control of the OASIS itself.

It's a bit amusing that Spielberg of all people is directing, considering him and his movies are frequently referenced, along with a shit load of other references.

I wonder how they'll handle all the pop culture references, since they actually used the actual games/shows/music in the book, and not just expies.

Companies have become more cameo-friendly. Just look at Wreck It Ralph. They've realised that it's less like a sacrifice of their intellectual property, and more a free advertisement.

So, to anyone who's read the book, you know how it apparently had references to Steven Spielberg's movies?

Don't expect too many of those to show up in the movie.

Um...darn?

(Actually, I don't know if this is a bad thing or what.)

Ready Player One.

First page courtesy link to the book.

OP, you may want to add it to your initial message just in case. I find it's useful for people who don't know the original work but are intrigued.

First trailer:

I only recognized the Iron Giant, Freddy, and the De Lorean. Aside from the Thug Notes episode on the book, I don't know much about the thing. Looks like it'll be a blast in 3-D.

edited 22nd Jul '17 12:12:59 PM by GethKnight

...Is that Deadpool I saw?

edited 22nd Jul '17 12:08:38 PM by LordVatek

Well i guess I got another thing to toss on my reading list if I ever get done with Ana karenina

...and he's with Harley Quinn?

Ready Player One is super cool to hate (I guess not everyone likes shameless masturbatory nerdsploitation), but it's one of my favorite books and I love that Steven Spielberg himself is directing it. That actor looks a little too buff/handsome to be playing Wade, but that's what you call a serious nitpick.

Oh man, the Iron Giant! That wasn't in the book. I hope I'll see a Who Framed Roger Rabbit reference somewhere in there, if only so I can delude myself into thinking (yet again) that the long-rumored sequel is finally coming.

Brilliant choice of using 'Pure Imagination' as the theme. I can't wait to see this movie.

Does this book have a hatedom?

I guess its sort of expected because of the SAO comparison but I thought ti was a pretty decent book when I read it.

Some of the references were a bit much, but I think the in universe reason was more than enough to cover why there were so many.

edited 26th Jul '17 12:08:25 AM by 32ndfreeze

I think one of the principal criticism of the book it is that it realies heavily on the references (which, I admit, got pretty old eventually). It's still a good book though.

new trailer:

The definitive critique of the book is the podcast ‘’372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back’’ which points out just how absurd the plot is, how poor the characters are, and how much it tries to use references to disguise these issues.

Still VERY apt.

I didn't like the book very much. The whole thing basically just screams "I LOVE THE EIGHTIES!" (with a slightly too broad definition of the 80s, there's some 70s and early 90s stuff in the mix) complete with at least one very long list of eighties things. It's also really self-congratulatory about that. Since I have absolutely no nostalgia about the 80s (born in 91 and didn't see most of the "classic" 80s movies until a few years ago. A lot of them aren't as great as they're made out to be) I didn't really get anything out of it.

I also found that some of the 'reveals' were a bit trite. I remember one character, I think it was the main love interest (?), gets revealed as to what her big defining 'No one loves me because I'm hidious' trait is and... its kind of just a small facial birth mark or something. Considering A LOT of people in real life experience video games and make friends out of fear or shame about their disabilities that are significantly more... life-impacting or life-threatening, I feel like a facial birth mark is a bit underwhelming and "Well, of course its something "ugly" that the protagonist can totally just get over to show how great he is".

And, yeah, the "I'm so great because I get pop-culture references that everyone gets" was a bit off too...

Yeah but it seems like the movie is adding more from the 2000s and probably the 90s. Someone was flat out using the iconic rifle from Halo Combat Evolved in the first trailer.

Several 60s and 70s shoutouts were in there too as well.

edited 10th Dec '17 4:02:54 PM by Memers

Let's not forget that both Tracer and the Granddaddy were in there, Granddaddy very prominently so.

edited 10th Dec '17 3:58:38 PM by Cganale

...I don't remember anything from Gundam 0079 called Granddaddy.

And Chun-Li, who is more a 90's icon.

They also seemingly replaced Ultraman a 60s icon from the books with The Iron Giant which is a 1999 thing.

Odd that they did that and not go with the actual granddaddy of mecha Gigantor/Tetsujin 28 Go.

edited 10th Dec '17 4:06:07 PM by Memers

Among Gundam circles, the RX-78 is fondly referred to as "Grandpa Gundam" because it is the progenitor of 30 years of high-quality mecha action.

To be fair, Ultraman was a rights issue. Tsubyara won the lawsuit for international distribution last week.