Merriweather
Member
That's just what I was thinking.
It looks pretty slick, but the hyperbolic buzz words have me rolling my eyes.
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Ready Player One - SDCC Teaser
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
That's just what I was thinking.
It looks pretty slick, but the hyperbolic buzz words have me rolling my eyes.
The book is legitimately the worst written book I've ever seen published. And I've read plenty of trashy, poorly written books.
The concept is fun, and I enjoyed much of what I read. Parts were occasionally cringe-inducing, but whatever, I'm a nerd with a high tolerance for cringing.
The actual writing, though? Absolutely unbearable. I honestly can't believe it got published, much less became popular. The prose and dialogue is worse than the worst fan fiction you can imagine.
I had to stop halfway through because it was so bad. I'd never given up on a book for its writing before. I've grown bored with books for many reasons, but never before has the actual writing itself been so offensively bad that I had to walk away.
The concept is fun, and I enjoyed much of what I read. Parts were occasionally cringe-inducing, but whatever, I'm a nerd with a high tolerance for cringing.
The actual writing, though? Absolutely unbearable. I honestly can't believe it got published, much less became popular. The prose and dialogue is worse than the worst fan fiction you can imagine.
I had to stop halfway through because it was so bad. I'd never given up on a book for its writing before. I've grown bored with books for many reasons, but never before has the actual writing itself been so offensively bad that I had to walk away.
HORRORSHØW
Member
habithipster
Member
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.
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.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
It was in a virtual chatroom focused on the 80s. Of course that's what they talk about. I see similar talk in any nerdy chatroom like that in real life, especially if there isn't new stuff to talk about.
And eventually it became known that you could basically become the most powerful person in the world if you have enough 80s knowledge, so I can see how 80s trivia becomes a pretty big deal in that fiction.
The mixed reception in this thread amuses me.
I thought it looked great! I love this kind of forward-looking sci-fi where they explore the crazier stuff that's possible in a highly developed VR future. I've had enough doom-and-gloom dystopian outlooks to last me a lifetime - something that's just plain fun is right up my alley!
We're going to be doing some crazy shit in a full-immersion VR future, and I damn well hope they at least scratch the surface of that.
I thought it looked great! I love this kind of forward-looking sci-fi where they explore the crazier stuff that's possible in a highly developed VR future. I've had enough doom-and-gloom dystopian outlooks to last me a lifetime - something that's just plain fun is right up my alley!
We're going to be doing some crazy shit in a full-immersion VR future, and I damn well hope they at least scratch the surface of that.
JeTmAn81
Member
It's also dystopian. The real world is very messed up in Ready Player One. Most of the story is cool VR stuff though.
timetokill
Banned
It just dawned on me that this could be the very first, and maybe only time, we see Evangelions in a live action film.
Luckily our main character has encyclopedic knowledge of every exact 80s thing presented to him in the challenges. Reenact War Games word for word? Not a problem. Song reference? That is fine. Atari adventure game? Best player ever at it.
Good stuff.
Well...
The world of RPO
is in a state of constant cultural, environmental and social decay, and the VR world of OASIS is supposed to be the opiate of the masses.
CalamityPixel
Member
Noticed the Halo AR.
I reckon its probably instead of the space stuff that they had in the book which there was a lot of but none in that trailer.
Crossfader
Banned
Here's some Bono to offset all the Edge in this thread:
GARlockSpiral
Member
As a fan of Japanese Spiderman, the lack of Leopardon kinda stings...but i'm not too surprised either.
And i liked the book, but it might be for the above reason.
KeyBladerXIII
Member
Shit, I'm in. This looks great. I have no idea what's the plot will be, but I don't think I'll care.
Yeah, this is more like making one NES game today that includes random stuff from like the top 20 NES games and plays like none of them.
A realistic outlook, if you ask me.
But yes, I'm just in it for the cool VR stuff. If the outside world is fucked then that's less cool, but we'll see how it's handled.
Except most people don't treat random 80's chat room banter as something worth writing a book about.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
None of it seemed all that impossible for a guy with an above average memory being quizzed on the stuff he's absolutely obsessed with.
Hardest part was probably the Pac Man Kill screen, but considering the prize, I can imagine you can practice your ass off until you get it.
Fancy Clown
Member
Definitely not sold on this thing but I'm always there for at least more of Spielberg's GOAT chase scenes.
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?
spiderman123
Member
Anybody notice nightmare of elm street, world of warcraft and duke nukem.
Which is why the plot has a reason for that to happen.
Rockin' Ranger
Member
Because he wasn't just an expert at Pac Man, he'd mastered every video game from the 80's when he wasn't busy memorizing every book, movie, and song from the decade.
Wait that's not an orc.
Heh, the intro of the teaser was showing a completely fucked hellscape of repurposed cars and trailers being used as homes. I'm pretty sure that's the reason VR is so popular in this world, with barely any space for actually living and all.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
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.
Kadin
Member
Wow, you really hated it. Funny how so many felt completely opposite. I turned 2 friends onto the book and they turned another few on and none of us have had any real criticisms about it. It's not perfect but I guess we just haven't looked at it very in-depth and just enjoyed the ride.
ryutaro's mama
Member
This works for any thread.
StrangeRoboMemory
Member
I googled this, and Jesus Christ, this is straight out of the book. I heard that it was pandering garbage, but damn.
Exactly why I couldn't stand the book.
"See? I just referenced some 80s stuff. You like me now, right?"
ryutaro's mama
Member
Read the thread.
Here's some Bono to offset all the Edge in this thread:
ahah!
Its ok. This movie exists. DeLorean is back on the silver screen. We already won. <3
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 isnt well written and is mostly just nostalgia bait through very explicit references.
This podcast did a great job in outlining why this book isnt well written and is mostly just nostalgia bait through very explicit references.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
If it's like the book at the end of the movie you're probably going to see
That's more than a reference I would say. That's seeing characters and designs you already like doing cool stuff you haven't seen them do before.
I hate how overly reductionist everyone has become about saying this is just mindless pop culture references and nothing else.
Iron Giant and other pop culture icons fighting against the evil dystopia corporation's virtual space armada that will decide the fate of the internet and flow of information.
That's more than a reference I would say. That's seeing characters and designs you already like doing cool stuff you haven't seen them do before.
I hate how overly reductionist everyone has become about saying this is just mindless pop culture references and nothing else.
Select passage from Armada, by Ernest Cline.
RPO isn't this bad, this is more of a concentrated dose of Cline's writing style, if dropping pop culture can be considered stylistic. I remember reading a pre-edited variant of this where he mentions Dark Souls as well but I think that was excised in editing.
RPO isn't this bad, this is more of a concentrated dose of Cline's writing style, if dropping pop culture can be considered stylistic. I remember reading a pre-edited variant of this where he mentions Dark Souls as well but I think that was excised in editing.
voodoopanda
Member
I didn't know anything about the book but some of the shots in the trailer made it feel like a movie version of that Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny song/flash music video from years ago. They should stick that song into this movie.
Psychoward
Banned
i thought ready player one was an entirely different book that was something non-fiction about games or something
the camera work looks good but the pop culture references and stuff, blegh
the camera work looks good but the pop culture references and stuff, blegh
habithipster
Member
Japan? Did I cover Japan? Yes. Yes indeed.
Except the whole damn book is written in the same exact manner.
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.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
Haha looks cool. The car stuff was neat. The shot of him suiting up was cool. The first time I turned on my Vive felt like that.