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Ready Player One - SDCC Teaser

Kadin

Kadin

Member
Aiii said:
http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/2014/06/19/010-ready-player-one-w-mike-sacco/

This podcast did a great job in outlining why this book isn’t well written and is mostly just nostalgia bait through very explicit references.
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Have you read the book? I'm curious how many people here actually read it versus found reasons to not like it by podcasts like these. I doubt any book is loved by all but it's funny how people have to go to such lengths to prove their opinion to others.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Aiii said:
You did not find it at all convenient he happened to be an expert at all the specific challenges, despite not knowing in advance exactly which of the billion 80s things would be a challenge?
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Someone's going to be lucky enough to complete that challenge. You want the story to follow the person that's not the lucky one?

It's not like any of the references were that obscure and I'm sure plenty of the people reading the book have at least watched or listened to or played everything referenced there once. The details was sometimes very specific, but some people have some incredibly good memories.
 
A

Aiii

So not worth it
Kadin said:
Have you read the book? I'm curious how many people here actually read it versus found reasons to not like it by podcasts like these. I doubt any book is loved by all but it's funny how people have to go to such lengths to prove their opinion to others.
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=174996975#post174996975

thepotatoman said:
Someone's going to be lucky enough to complete that challenge. You want the story to follow the person that's not the lucky one?
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I want my protagonists to earn their victories and not deus ex machina their way through every part of the story.
 
M

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
thepotatoman said:
Except the book became super popular and got a big budget movie made out of it, so I guess it was something worth writing about.

It's not just a reference factory. It's basically a power fantasy for people who like 80's culture. Not only does it basically say your useless pop culture knowledge is now the most important thing in the world, but you get to experience all of your nostalgic dreams in a crazy Virtual world with some pretty crazy moments along the way. As far as power fantasies go, it's really good.

I won't argue that some of the references went too far, but you guys are so damn harsh on it. There's more to book than references and it's a lot of fun. Power fantasies will probably never be high art, but they can very good, and this one is.
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No, it's terrible. It's one of the most poorly written books I've ever read, both from a structural/narrative point of view and just a "how you use a sentence to create an image/impart information/portray dialogue" angle. When I first read it I half-wondered if someone had accidentally published a 12 year old's self-insert fanfiction. It really is that bad. There is no scenario in which RPO is anything but trash tier. It's a brainless slog through a predetermined plot packed with deus ex machina, unearned character behavior, and contextless usage of "hey remember this" elements that add nothing of value. It has nothing to say, it has nothing to offer, it's just a list of references plugged into a synopsis of Snow Crash by someone who has never read Snow Crash. Yes, it was successful, but I don't need to be the one to remind people on this forum that success is not a reliable measure of quality.

The nicest thing I can say about RPO is that Cline's second book was somehow worse than it.
 
T

The Atticus

Member
Crossfader said:
Here's some Bono to offset all the Edge in this thread:

th
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you're ridiculously clever
 
F

forgeforsaken

Member
Kadin said:
Have you read the book? I'm curious how many people here actually read it versus found reasons to not like it by podcasts like these. I doubt any book is loved by all but it's funny how people have to go to such lengths to prove their opinion to others.
Click to expand...

This is one of the few instances where I feel compelled to get out there and shout "I don't like thing!" because I feel like I got suckered into reading that piece of trash, and only finished it to see if somehow it turned around at some point since so many people were talking about how amazing it was. It was a learning experience to find out certain people were so susceptible to pandering.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Kadin said:
Yeah you clearly dissected it a lot more than I do with the books. I guess when I read I'm able to just enjoy more of the stuff you found such a fault with. Do a lot of people really read books and analyze them so closely and get pulled out so easily? That sucks if so.
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I analyze books all the time like I do movies and videogames and most pieces of fiction. I love delving into a great piece of writing or a mesmerizing cinematic experience or even a wonderful song that really hooks me and gets stuck in my head. Good pieces of fiction hold up and even flourish under scrutiny as it can often reveal a more nuanced look at themes, characters, events and so on that take place in the story. Shitty works fall apart under scrutiny. Thing is Ready Player 1 didn't need much scrutiny at all to fall apart. It was like me sticking my hand into a fire and going,"Fuck that's hot and hurts!".
 
A

Aiii

So not worth it
Kadin said:
Yeah you clearly dissected it a lot more than I do with the books. I guess when I read I'm able to just enjoy more of the stuff you found such a fault with. Do a lot of people really read books and analyze them so closely and get pulled out so easily? That sucks if so.
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Just wait until you realize that there are complete university courses devoted to this, it will blow your mind.
 
G

Gorillaz

Member
Spielberg most likely going to have to clean up the screenplay for it since the book from what I remember is pretty much trash just from a literature standpoint and is nothing but an "I love the 80s" fest
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Kadin said:
Do a lot of people really read books and analyze them so closely and get pulled out so easily? That sucks if so.
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I know this is a low-key "stop being a tryhard" post but do remember that literature is an academic field of study, along with film and music, and there are people who are literally paid to analyze works of art "objectively", aka, critics.
 
T

timetokill

Banned
Good shit, Aiii.


Kadin said:
Yeah you clearly dissected it a lot more than I do with the books. I guess when I read I'm able to just enjoy more of the stuff you found such a fault with. Do a lot of people really read books and analyze them so closely and get pulled out so easily? That sucks if so.
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I guess for some of us it's just ingrained. I can't imagine consuming media without being critical of it. And criticism doesn't mean you can't like something. Though in this case I absolutely do not like this book.
 
A

Adaren

Member
habithipster said:
Ok guys I see a lot of criticism over this book, so here is my take.

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. I read every novel by every single one of Halliday's favorite authors.
And I didn't stop there.
I also watched every single film he referenced in the Almanac. If it was one of Halliday's favorites, like WarGames, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, Better Off Dead, or Revenge of the Nerds, I rewatched it until I knew every scene by heart.
I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Star Wars (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Mad Max, Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones. (Halliday once said that he preferred to pretend the other Indiana Jones films, from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull onward, didn't exist. I tended to agree.)
I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.
I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue.
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
You could say I covered all the bases.
I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC series. (Including those two "lost" episodes they did for German television.)
I wasn't going to cut any corners.
I wasn't going to miss something obvious.
Somewhere along the way, I started to go overboard.
I may, in fact, have started to go a little insane.
I watched every episode of The Greatest American Hero, Airwolf, The A-Team, Knight Rider, Misfits of Science, and The Muppet Show.
What about The Simpsons, you ask?
I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city.
Star Trek? Oh, I did my homework. TOS, TNG, DS9. Even Voyager and Enterprise. I watched them all in chronological order. The movies, too. Phasers locked on target.
I gave myself a crash course in '80s Saturday-morning cartoons.
I learned the name of every last goddamn Gobot and Transformer.
Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, Schoolhouse Rock!, G.I. Joe - I knew them all. Because knowing is half the battle.
Who was my friend, when things got rough? H.R. Pufnstuf.
Japan? Did I cover Japan?
Yes. Yes indeed. Anime and live-action. Godzilla, Gamera, Star Blazers, The Space Giants, and G-Force. Go, Speed Racer, Go.
I wasn't some dilettante.
I wasn't screwing around.
I memorized every last Bill Hicks stand-up routine.
Music? Well, covering all the music wasn't easy.
It took some time.
The '80s was a long decade (ten whole years), and Halliday didn't seem to have had very discerning taste. He listened to everything. So I did too. Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal. From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.
I burned through the entire They Might Be Giants discography in under two weeks. Devo took a little longer.
I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.
I memorized lyrics. Silly lyrics, by bands with names like Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Pink Floyd.
I kept at it.
I burned the midnight oil.
Did you know that Midnight Oil was an Australian band, with a 1987 hit titled "Beds Are Burning"?
I was obsessed. I wouldn't quit. My grades suffered. I didn't care.
I read every issue of every comic book title Halliday had ever collected.
I wasn't going to have anyone questioning my commitment.
Especially when it came to the videogames.
Videogames were my area of expertise.
My double-weapon specialization.
My dream Jeopardy! category.
I downloaded every game mentioned or referenced in the Almanac, from Akalabeth to Zaxxon. I played each title until I had mastered it, then moved on to the next one.
You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week, is a lot of study time.
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omg
 
S

Shoeless

Member
forgeforsaken said:
This is one of the few instances where I feel compelled to get out there and shout "I don't like thing!" because I feel like I got suckered into reading that piece of trash, and only finished it to see if somehow it turned around at some point since so many people were talking about how amazing it was. It was a learning experience to find out certain people were so susceptible to pandering.
Click to expand...

I think the American election results in November have already given us ample proof.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Aiii said:
I want my protagonists to earn their victories and not deus ex machina their way through every part of the story.
Click to expand...

Which leads to the second part of my post. I don't remember anything super obscure that a someone dedicating himself to remembering 80s trivia wouldn't know about, particularly if he has a good memory. I mean, I'm no 80s trivia expert, but I was still able to decipher a few of those clues myself, and that was really fun to do. The guy does get stumped from time to time and has to research like crazy to find the answer, like with that D&D clue which was super obscure.

At that point, every detective mystery is deus ex machina because they happened to have the knowledge to decipher the clues and they didn't really earn solving the case.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
To be honest, part of the reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that there's so many nerds online that needlessly crap on young adult books aimed at women (Twilight, Divergent, etc) that those nerds haven't even read, and then they bend over backwards to defend this piece of trash. But, the main reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that it's a bad book and deserves it.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Kadin said:
Yeah you clearly dissected it a lot more than I do with the books. I guess when I read I'm able to just enjoy more of the stuff you found such a fault with. Do a lot of people really read books and analyze them so closely and get pulled out so easily? That sucks if so.
Click to expand...

I guess it's like the sword art online of sci fi books. Sure it sucks if you go in with a lot of knowledge of literature and looking to critique everything, but it's pretty good if you happen to be one of the masses that can just enjoy it for what it is.

I can't argue too much with people saying it's bad because their critiques are largely true, but I think it can be good despite those critiques, depending on what you're looking for in a book, or now a dumb fun popcorn blockbuster.
 
D

DizzyCaffeine

Member
Will there ever be a RPO film thread where people don't feel the need to yell about how much they hate the book?

It's not the worst book ever written. Just stop.

And the trailer is great. I think Spielberg is gonna knock this out of the park.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
brianmcdoogle said:
To be honest, part of the reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that there's so many nerds online that needlessly crap on young adult books aimed at women (Twilight, Divergent, etc) that those nerds haven't even read, and then they bend over backwards to defend this piece of trash. But, the main reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that it's a bad book and deserves it.
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What makes you think the people defending Ready Player One is the type to attack those things? I like Divergent and hate the way people treat Twilight.

I feel like the snobs that attack that stuff would be the same ones attacking Ready Player One.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
thepotatoman said:
I guess it's like the sword art online of sci fi books. Sure it sucks if you go in with a lot of knowledge of literature and looking to critique everything, but it's pretty good if you happen to be one of the masses that can just enjoy it for what it is.

I can't argue too much with people saying it's bad because their critiques are largely true, but I think it can be good despite those critiques, depending on what you're looking for in a book, or now a dumb fun popcorn blockbuster.
Click to expand...

Sword Art Online is a really poor example as that has its own set of problems and some of them are far more gross than the ones found in Cline's drivel.
 
Kadin

Kadin

Member
Haly said:
I know this is a low-key "stop being a tryhard" post but do remember that literature is an academic field of study, along with film and music, and there are people who are literally paid to analyze works of art "objectively", aka, critics.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, no I get that. But I'm referring more to the typical reader who simply buys a book to read a story. Clearly a good portion here seem to fall into this category of analyzing them closely, but I'm curious if the larger reader population go in reading this way.

I will say though that when I have read a book, one of the more recent Star Wars books (Aftermath) comes to mind, as soon as I notice something off that really sticks out, I then continue to read looking for more stuff like this. It's like I'm trying to prove to myself that I don't like what I'm reading and need to continue validating it. I completely talk myself out of reading it and can't ignore the one or two slight issues I had with it and just stop.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
HStallion said:
Sword Art Online is a really poor example as that has its own set of problems and some of them are far more gross than the ones found in Cline's drivel.
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Yeah, the problems are different, but I think anything that's so popular does have to by definition have some sort of merits, even if critics have a hard time seeing those merits behind the glaring problems that the masses don't see so easily.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
thepotatoman said:
What makes you think the people defending Ready Player One is the type to attack those things? I like Divergent and hate the way people treat Twilight.

I feel like the snobs that attack that stuff would be the same ones attacking Ready Player One.
Click to expand...

I should clarify and say not all people who hate Twilight and Divergent love or defend Ready Player One, but there is a large contingent for online communities, including our own, to needlessly shit on media aimed primarily at women and then defend mediocre to garbage stuff aimed primarily at men. It's just a double standard that seems to repeatedly pop up.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Kadin said:
Oh yeah, no I get that. But I'm referring more to the typical reader who simply buys a book to read a story. Clearly a good portion here seem to fall into this category of analyzing them closely, but I'm curious if the larger reader population go in reading this way.

I will say though that when I have read a book, one of the more recent Star Wars books (Aftermath) comes to mind, as soon as I notice something off that really sticks out, I then continue to read looking for more stuff like this. It's like I'm trying to prove to myself that I don't like what I'm reading and need to continue validating it. I completely talk myself out of reading it and can't ignore the one or two slight issues I had with it and just stop.
Click to expand...

I mean dude we're nerds on a hardcore videogame forum. Dissecting shit we love is basically our bread and butter. Go into any OT and you'll see people going into the minutiae of every aspect of properties they love and those the hate as well. This isn't anything knew either, nerds were driving the writers and creators of original Star Trek series up the wall with their insanely specific questions about tiny details the writers had never even really put much thought on.
 
J

Joeku

Member
brianmcdoogle said:
To be honest, part of the reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that there's so many nerds online that needlessly crap on young adult books aimed at women (Twilight, Divergent, etc) that those nerds haven't even read, and then they bend over backwards to defend this piece of trash. But, the main reason I love seeing this book shit upon is that it's a bad book and deserves it.
Click to expand...

Yep, that part is certainly entertaining; my problem with the book is that it's a YA novel for Gen-Xers that was written 20 years too late and so became an 80's nostalgiafest.

Frankly getting Spielberg to expand that out and hopefully broaden it some into some more general dystopian escapism stuff could make it more palatable. Seeing pop culture nods from several decades alongside stuff from the 80s would definitely make it, I dunno, less specifically pandering?
ie. One of those vehicles in that big race should be a post-apocalyptic car with War Boys leaning out of it throwing thundersticks or some shit.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
HStallion said:
It being popular and getting an adaptation means about jack shit in terms of its actual quality. As I said before shit like 50 Shades of Gray gets a movie adaptation and is super popular. Doesn't save it from any of the legitimate criticisms. Its like the shitty version of Snowcrash but several decades late.
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I'm not saying popularity shields it from critique, but the popularity does defend it from the assertion that we didn't need a book like this to exist.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
DizzyCaffeine said:
Will there ever be a RPO film thread where people don't feel the need to yell about how much they hate the book?
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Not as long as I'm here.

I'm ready to crap on Rothfuss as well once the Kingkiller adaptation gets off the ground.

I have enough crap for both of them!
 
Kadin

Kadin

Member
HStallion said:
I mean dude we're nerds on a hardcore videogame forum. Dissecting shit we love is basically our bread and butter. Go into any OT and you'll see people going into the minutiae of every aspect of properties they love and those the hate as well. This isn't anything knew either, nerds were driving the writers and creators of original Star Trek series up the wall with their insanely specific questions about tiny details the writers had never even really put much thought on.
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Valid point. And it's one of the things that I really enjoy about GAF. If I ever speak to something that I'm not 100% sure of, I know very well that I'll be corrected. I both love and hate this. Hate it when I'm proven to look like an idiot but love it because I really do learn a lot.

I try to come at opinions like we have here from an objective alternate viewpoint but I'm often faced with factual info which I agree with, but don't necessarily feel myself.. if that makes sense.

I guess you could say I'm "wrong" sometimes... ;)
 
G

Gnome

Member
Seeing PacMan in GOTG2 was enough to make me groan in distaste. This movie looks like nothing but that moment made into an entire movie. No thx.
 
X

xam3l

Member
Rewatching the trailer searching for more "references".
Just noticed the Mad Max Interceptor and, what I think it is, Dizzy from Gears of War 2 talking to a girl next to the A-Team truck.

This will be 2 hours of Where's Waldo.
 
D

Discotheque

Banned
Looks like a mess but I love that it seems like Spielberg is channelling some of his tintin action in here.

In for the director more than anything else here really. I didn't notice the interceptor or even duke nukem :(

But obviously Iron Giant was right there front and center to see
 
A

Auto-Reply

Member
Have not read the book, didn't even know what it was about... I first heard Abrash talking about it in some early VR video a few years back.

I just read the wikipedia summarization.

I'm torn, don't know if I like the idea or not, maybe the reason is that I don't know the intention of the author and somehow I feel like it's important to my decisionmaking on wether I like it or not. What came first? The idea of portraying a broken civilization, where a perfect virtual reality world co-exists for the people as a "replacement".

Or the idea of finding a way of using a storyhook to incorporate 80's nostalgia into a book/movie and covering all bases, maximum effectiveness.

For the movie I guess that execution is key... could make or break it.
From the trailer I'm not sure I'm convinced that I like it yet.
 
H

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Auto-Reply said:
The idea of portraying a broken civilization, where a perfect virtual reality world co-exists for the people as a "replacement".
Click to expand...

This is literally a cornerstone of cyberpunk so I'd say this came first.
 
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