Hold on guys, I think I found the root of our generation of geeks' arrested development...
The jingle. It worked.
I remember a very fucked up version of this jingle that would probably get me banned if I posted it here lol
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Ready Player One - SDCC Teaser
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
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I remember a very fucked up version of this jingle that would probably get me banned if I posted it here lol
Digital0Reality
Neo Member
The subject matter alone is enough for me to buy in. I enjoyed the book and don't really understand the vitrol aimed at this movie.
The playground had fucked-up versions of everything when we were kids.
Oh god, I forgot about the Holy Grail part. The overall premise of the book was cool to me, but so much of it comes off as the author just wanting to assert how much 80s nerd culture he knows, and that all his favorite 80s things (which seems to be basically anything and everything that happened or was released in the 80s) are utterly amazing. I think there's even a line where Wade says in a very serious manner that Holy Grail is "the absolute best movie of all time" or something like that. And I like that movie a lot, but come on.
I am interested in seeing how the movie turns out though. If it doesn't have all that ridiculous masturbatory narration and manages to get 1/4 of the licenses it would need, it could turn out pretty good.
Since when is throwing up bad?
Laieon
Member
Everyone lives in a depressing world. A man makes a video game that becomes really popular, pretty much everything from business to entertainment is now done in that video game. He dies and hides his fortune in the game requiring the treasure seekers to track it down by solving puzzles. Years go by (iirc) and nobody finds even the first clue. Main character is the first to, then shit hits the fan. It's basically Willy Wonka meets National Treasure. Pretty fun and quick read overall.
Yeah the Princess Bride is the best movie of all time. Cline couldn't even get that right
He finds the first clue RIGHT BEFORE his female love interest can. She's so close though!
Not today, sweetie!
I don't like this book
Conkersbadfurday
Member
Yes. There's actually a scene in chapter one or two where the main character makes fun of someone else for not knowing as much 80's pop culture as him and then everyone high fives him because he's king nerd around these parts.
Wade is an insufferable douche.
theCalamity
Member
It's a pub quiz
catapult37
Member
The book is very bad fanfic for the m'lady crowd without a hint of irony.
There's also the part where the author attempts to describe a game of Joust as if it's an action scene, and it goes on for pages.
The characters are constantly referring to a literal leaderboard that is printed regularly.
The author foreshadows a heel turn by a major character that never happens.
And that's just off the top of my head.
There's also the part where the author attempts to describe a game of Joust as if it's an action scene, and it goes on for pages.
The characters are constantly referring to a literal leaderboard that is printed regularly.
The author foreshadows a heel turn by a major character that never happens.
And that's just off the top of my head.
PaulExcellent
Member
It's a really obnoxious book with a perfect cardboard cutout as a character. Nothing is innovative, and it's made to barely cross the lowest possible bar needed for it to go from a Family Guy parody to a "novel".
Hell, Twilight is being mentioned here and that WAS better than this absolute garbage fire, especially when nerds argue about how this is a memorable story with a developed character line while they scream about how Twilight's dumb protags are Mary Sues and what not. Literal idiocy.
Fuck this book. Not because it's bad, but because of the garbage people that read it and idolize it.
Hell, Twilight is being mentioned here and that WAS better than this absolute garbage fire, especially when nerds argue about how this is a memorable story with a developed character line while they scream about how Twilight's dumb protags are Mary Sues and what not. Literal idiocy.
Fuck this book. Not because it's bad, but because of the garbage people that read it and idolize it.
How would you equate that?
Messofanego
Banned
Bahaha
deadscreensky
Member
(Other thread got closed before I posted this, so it might seem slightly out of context. Sorry about that, but right now I want to go watch a film that isn't from the 80s.)
"It's the Funko Pop aisle come to life" is the perfect description for the book. Any bit of self-awareness -- even the tiniest amount! -- really could have made that novel into something interesting. But it's all played almost entirely straight.
I didn't actively hate the novel, but it's poorly written and I found its celebration of nostalgia to be boring, retrograde, and more than a little gross. I don't read fiction (or experience any art) to get little endorphin handjobs for recognizing pop culture references, and for any novel to elevate that shameless, empty flattery into some kind of virtue is twisted.
I'm sure somebody already mentioned this, but it's half a step away from the radio stations in Demolition Man that play nothing but old commercials.
That all said, it is possible that the film could turn things around a bit. The Scott Pilgrim movie was slightly more self-aware than the comic it was based on it, making it slightly less obnoxious, and I could see the same kind of thing happening here. Spielberg could take this to a deeper, more relevant place if he wants to, and as others have mentioned just the (probable) removal of a narrator constantly listing references might help a fair bit.
"It's the Funko Pop aisle come to life" is the perfect description for the book. Any bit of self-awareness -- even the tiniest amount! -- really could have made that novel into something interesting. But it's all played almost entirely straight.
I didn't actively hate the novel, but it's poorly written and I found its celebration of nostalgia to be boring, retrograde, and more than a little gross. I don't read fiction (or experience any art) to get little endorphin handjobs for recognizing pop culture references, and for any novel to elevate that shameless, empty flattery into some kind of virtue is twisted.
I'm sure somebody already mentioned this, but it's half a step away from the radio stations in Demolition Man that play nothing but old commercials.
That all said, it is possible that the film could turn things around a bit. The Scott Pilgrim movie was slightly more self-aware than the comic it was based on it, making it slightly less obnoxious, and I could see the same kind of thing happening here. Spielberg could take this to a deeper, more relevant place if he wants to, and as others have mentioned just the (probable) removal of a narrator constantly listing references might help a fair bit.
Tinfoilhatsron
Banned
You know the funniest thing? I read this in a high school book club and there was one girl who loved it. I had the same opinion of it as I do now. Kinda lame execution but I like the concept.
There was one really meta funny part where the author talks about how healthy masturbation is. Oh, man. Maybe not wrong but...
SAO the book basically.
ClayKavalier
Banned
That was a general, vague "anyone," not calling out anyone specific in this thread. Like if I said "Flat-earthers are pretentious imbeciles" in a thread on that population, I doubt there's many, if any, people no GAF that actually belong to that group, but the statement remains true.
Because I think lazy writing is bad? Would proudly wasting money on blatantly commercial, poorly produced books indistinguishable from a shitty ad campaign reverse my karma, or am I damned? This RadioShack commercial was obviously inspired by RPO, and has about as much thought put into it's plot and writing.
pages of describing joust? i barely got through the paragraph of describing robotron at the start
Frozenprince
Banned
It's like what someone who has a passing remembrance of the 80's thinks the entirety of the 80's was like and ejaculating that all over a big screen.
The term grandpa implies that the guy is has been ?
As for your question, Bridge of Spies was great. Since 2010, he made WarHorse, Tintin, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies and one "bad" movie (BFG).
Not bad for a "grandpa".
Frozenprince
Banned
I feel like in 20 years this book and this entire movie is going to be something you need to stop every 3 seconds or have annotations lining the borders on every single shot and page to explain every reference.
Because it's so anchored in "DO YOU GET IT" that well... when people don't get it I can't imagine it holds up.
Because it's so anchored in "DO YOU GET IT" that well... when people don't get it I can't imagine it holds up.
In 20 years no one will be watching or reading either of them
I really don't want to take SAO's side on anything, but at least Kirito got laid and didn't go on for two pages about how he bought a machine so he could feel VR porn.
see, you get it
my litmus test for friendship is that if you buy funko pop figurines or wear any nerd mashup shirt other than Han and Chewie as Calvin and Hobbes, I shoot you
"Holy Grail of pop culture"???
More like "Holy Shit is that trailer full of itself."
heh
Laieon
Member
Calvin and Hobbes is nerdy now?
The book probably. I did not even knew it was a thing.
A spielberg movie, are you kidding ?
So uh apparently a script for the movie leaked about a year ago and now that the trailer is out it appears to be legit (it mentions the Iron Giant and the race, which weren't in the book).
Not sure if discussion about leaks is frowned upon on GAF but I read the script and I'm more interested in watching the movie now. Wade isn't a total Mary Sue anymore and the references are toned down, so if that were your major complaints about the book (it was for me) then you might want to give the movie a chance.
Not sure if discussion about leaks is frowned upon on GAF but I read the script and I'm more interested in watching the movie now. Wade isn't a total Mary Sue anymore and the references are toned down, so if that were your major complaints about the book (it was for me) then you might want to give the movie a chance.
in 20 years we'll see this sentence in a new book
"In that moment, I felt like Ernest Cline surveying his bookshelf full of 80's movies before sitting down to write Armada. Or Ernest Cline, climbing into the driver's seat of his Delorean from the classic trilogy Back to the future. Ernest Cline arriving at the first screening of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Or Ernest Cline, clutching his varsity jacket patched with the Alliance Star bird, also known as the Phoenix, the insignia of the Rebel Fighters from the Star Wars universe, staring wide-eyed at a hangar full of Firefly-class transport vessels, modeled after the Serenity in the classic Firefly TV series."
Wait, you mean Spielberg took the concept and spine, got a real writer, left out the ridiculous bullshit, and possibly made a good movie out of it? That never happens. Shenanigans.
Now it's a giant ad masquerading as a movie that WB and co. can use to test the waters for what to drag kicking and screaming out of the 80s for a reboot.
when was the last time you watched kingdom of the crystal skull?
Messofanego
Banned
Spielberg is also a movie nerd.
I feel like the book is being misrepresented a bit in this thread:
-The characters in the story are obsessed with 80s pop culture because mega-nerd James Halliday has died and coded an 80s themed easter egg hunt with a gazillion dollar prize. There is an obvious incentive for the mass obsession, it's not an organic event.
-Halliday's taste in 80s pop culture is adopted by those who want to win the contest. The real world is getting worse and worse, so people are more and more drawn to his escapist quest.
-Wade Watts (the protagonist) is a friendless, orphaned, isolated weirdo. It is established that he is completely obsessed, beyond the norm. He has nothing else in his life. We see the world through the eyes of someone who has wrapped all of his hopes and dreams around the quest.
-At a few points it is even acknowledged that Halliday's taste (and by extensions, Wade's) is not particularly quality driven. When Wade declares Python's Holy Grail to be perhaps the greatest movie of all time, that's not a statement the reader is to take seriously, it's just evidence of how completely Wade is obsessed with the pop culture relevant to his goal. This is not a thoroughly rational, mature, or unbiased narrator. OBVIOUSLY. He's a kid!
It's a fun story, seen through the perspective of an immature lead that a lot of nerds were able to relate to (hence the considerable success of the book).
-The characters in the story are obsessed with 80s pop culture because mega-nerd James Halliday has died and coded an 80s themed easter egg hunt with a gazillion dollar prize. There is an obvious incentive for the mass obsession, it's not an organic event.
-Halliday's taste in 80s pop culture is adopted by those who want to win the contest. The real world is getting worse and worse, so people are more and more drawn to his escapist quest.
-Wade Watts (the protagonist) is a friendless, orphaned, isolated weirdo. It is established that he is completely obsessed, beyond the norm. He has nothing else in his life. We see the world through the eyes of someone who has wrapped all of his hopes and dreams around the quest.
-At a few points it is even acknowledged that Halliday's taste (and by extensions, Wade's) is not particularly quality driven. When Wade declares Python's Holy Grail to be perhaps the greatest movie of all time, that's not a statement the reader is to take seriously, it's just evidence of how completely Wade is obsessed with the pop culture relevant to his goal. This is not a thoroughly rational, mature, or unbiased narrator. OBVIOUSLY. He's a kid!
It's a fun story, seen through the perspective of an immature lead that a lot of nerds were able to relate to (hence the considerable success of the book).
This is the sequel to Schindler's List
ronaldthump
Member
Trailer was VERY awesome.
Day 1 on the biggest movie screen I can find.
Day 1 on the biggest movie screen I can find.
Merriweather
Member
I think you've won the thread.
schwabdizzle
Banned
I am really excited to see it.
The book was okay.
The first two acts are really good and legitimately exciting, making it feel like a very high stakes, pop culture infused, race.
The third act is awful and completely falls apart with so many Deus ex machina moments, I thought Warren Specter might appear at any moment.
Was prepared to hate the movie and the trailer...but then they put the Delorean on the screen...
Fuck it, day one.
The first two acts are really good and legitimately exciting, making it feel like a very high stakes, pop culture infused, race.
The third act is awful and completely falls apart with so many Deus ex machina moments, I thought Warren Specter might appear at any moment.
Was prepared to hate the movie and the trailer...but then they put the Delorean on the screen...
Fuck it, day one.
Anyone who thinks that this film is going to include the stuff from the book that was executed poorly is crazy. There's no way that they'll include a challenge where you have to recite a movie character's lines perfectly, or have all the other awful "are you a human woman" bullshit that's unconnected to references to the 80s. This will just be a way of celebrating that sort of stuff and a fun adventure. The concept behind the book is fine, it's the execution that people hate, and this will have been through a filter to make it way more palatable.
Moose Biscuits
It would be extreamly painful...
From this thread I'm pretty sure people hate the concept as well.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I went to a midnight showing of Clerks the other day, which I hadn't seen in like a decade, and now must annoyingly admit that Kevin Smith has directed at least one good movie
Actually the premise works fine, its actually not all that original either. Snowcrash and other stories did the idea decades ago. I'd say the general premise of the story is its strongest part and why I think if Spielberg does his own thing with it and ignores a lot of the bull shit from the novel it could turn out much better than its source material. Its already looking that way from the trailer.
pirateluigi
Member
Nah, it's a cool concept. The writing is just ridiculously poor. Reading Armada is what really made it stand out for me. Armada is pretty much exactly the same book, but with a lesser concept. Seeing the same style of prose and the same gimmicks in his writing made me reflect on just how bad the writing and story structure of RPO is.
That said, I'm interested to see if Spielberg can elevate the concept beyond what Cline is capable.