#WHO YOU SPECIFICALLY CHOSE BECAUSE ITS EASIER TO INTEGRATE HIM WITH THE OTHER STORYLINES

[supercalime]

I HATE BEING RIGHT!!!! WHY AM I ALWAYS RIGHT WHEN ITS FOR BAD STUFF? FUCK ME I GUESS

I really wanna be wrong but I have a feeling tommy won’t be on tonight’s episode or next week’s episode. It feels to me he will only be back once we get a buck focused storyline.

[rogueshipagogo]

ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune  d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE

[mysterious-prophetess]

Review: Ready Player One

as some of you might remember, I did a live blog of reading part of novel this movie is based on about five-six months ago. I had to read it for a Video Games in Literature class.

Suffice to say, I found parts of it a pain to read.

It got a bit better but really it’s mid-rank as a novel in quality over all. Not terrible. Not great. Certainly not movie-worthy but then again, as it was pointed out in the aforementioned class, Cline wrote in such a way that it all but said “Adapt me! Adapt me!” So, there is that.

Anyway I’m going to do both a review of the movie and a comparison to its source material. Where it succeeded, where is sucked, and where it just was “meh.”

Spoilers ahead, so I’m placing this under a read more.

Quick spoiler free coments:

The movie isn’t horrible, and is less painful than the book at times. It’s also a case where if you haven’t read the book prior to the movie, don’t. The movie is a bit more enjoyable if you haven’t read the book. The movie is evenly paced but predictable.

The Review

As usual I’m going to break this down overall story, pacing, characters, effects, enjoyability, and a special specific category to the film. In this case: Video Games. Which is to say, how they handle the various aspects of game play in this film.

Pacing

Speilberg knows how to pace a movie. The writing didn’t always match it but the pace was fairly even.

So. Point there

Plot.

Oh boy. Where to begin.

Even if I hadn’t read the book, the plot would have been a bit “meh” as I’ve seen the whole “unlikely hero ends up as part of a “resistance” and finds a selfless goal only after he meets a girl with a selfless goal and the underdog wins” story.

For the sake of an action piece, the first (and worst) parts of the story were thrown out, so fair that, but then again, they did a SAO where everyone knew where the first level of a challenge was but no one had passed it yet.

Also, the fact that NO ONE was live streaming the race is a bit suspect. I mean, social media age folks.

Chances are, there are those who go to these things with drones and shit to broadcast it to those who aren’t skilled enough to do it themselves. So, the fact only the High-5 and the 6-ers found out, is bullshit.

Then again, I will allow that maybe the game blocked it.

It’s also way too convenient that Aech, Sho, and Daito are all buddy-buddy.

The romantic subplot was clumsy in the book. It was even clumsier here with Wade/Parzival confessing his love to Art3mis like that like “boom.”

The resistance subplot was kind of stupid. I get that there should be people in the real world doing shit to resist but, these idiots kind of deserve to get caught.

Tip: if you’re going to be some sort of resistance person? Don’t have a very distinct tattoo anywhere on your body. It makes you easier to identify.

The fact they game Samantha/Art3mis a “damsel in distress” subplot was so fracking sexist. I’ll get more into it later with character.

The second key challenge, I appreciated a bit. Not sure why they had to use the shining whenever they had a plethora of other 80’s movies to go through, but then again that clue reminded me more of Frankenstein. That would take a leap of logic that fits with the whole “think like Halliday” thing.

Moving on to the “real world” meeting between Wade and Aech/Helen. That was actually pretty good. Gotta admit making Sho and Daito appear as well was ok. The “fixer” woman was a nice touch. The in game assassin was meh. Made sense, though.

Act 3. That was so-so. It was almost beat-per-beat the book’s climax plus or minus some extra things the movie added such as Art3mis’s whole “on the inside thing” because of the damsel in distress plot line they gave her and the corporate executive being gutsy enough to attempt to kill Wade himself, which made no sense to me. Guys like that usually use their professional killers like what’s-her-face who’s name sounded like “Finale.” Then there’s the fact that this ruthless asshole has a chance to take the shot, and for some reason doesn’t? With all his prior actions this doesn’t really mesh.

Also, I missed about five minutes of the climax because I really had to pee but I can gather that Wade/Parzival shot Samantha/Art3mis in the game to hide the fact she was there. That’s actually a smart move. Bravo movie.  The stupid action sequences in the final moments, well the adjective I chose says it all.

The moral is stupid.

“Reality is real.” Thanks Captain Obvious. Wouldn’t have known that without this movie telling me that.

That ghost in the machine mystery was tantalizing for all of a few second before they moved to the ending.

Overall enjoyability: Average.

Not terrible, but not great other. It’s trying so hard to be a Tron or a Star Wars but, it lacks any of the charm.

It’s a nostalgia blast that banks on that and that alone.

Effects: I get that the uncanny valley thing was on purpose to differentiate the real world and the oasis and all but that would really defeat the purpose of a Virtual Reality that’s supposed to be as groundbreaking as this Oasis was alleged to be. Beyond that, the effects were fine.

Video Games: They integrated a lot of the mechanics of a game fairly well into the movie. It wasn’t front and center but they at least attempted to keep the rules of their game consistent in presentation and function. Except once. That office scene with the hologram. How would that even work? Would they have a feed back into the Oasis relayed to the player? Wouldn’t that be, idk a HUGE security hazard if a hacker gained access? They could spy on the villain any time they pleased.

Characters:

Let’s start with the one whose character I’m actually pleased with: Aech/Helen

First the bad: I hate Aech’s avatar’s design. It was supposed to look realistic. Not some big old freaking cyborg.

The rest I liked, especially how Helen was a confident character in the real world. Whereas her book counterpart wasn’t exactly confident in herself during her reveal to Wade. I’d look for a page number but that would mean I actually care and I don’t. There are others who can if they wish.

Sho

He’s a kid in this version. Ok. Makes sense.

Daito

Is much younger too, but not a little kid. Also makes sense. A bit of a stereotype.

Samantha/Art3mis

Where to start. How about the obvious: They were too chicken to cast an actual curvy girl as the romantic lead. I’m surprised they were brave enough to keep her birthmark. Even more surprised they didn’t make her a blonde supermodel-ensue girl.

The “extra” tragic backstory and her being in a resistance was completely unnecessary.

Her getting a damsel in distress storyline was insulting and really sexist. They slightly “redeemed” that third act fuckery by having it vital to the plot that they have an inside man, but I still was disgusted by it.

Wade/Parzival

Honestly, they somehow made him blander. Wade/Parzival of the book isn’t going to end up on top ten sci-fi protagonists lists anytime soon. Maybe not even top 100. Wade/Parzival of the movie is a generic geeky male protagonist who starts of selfish but realizes through love that there’s more to life!

He’s not a terrible character, and at least his actions are consistent with his semi-predictable characterization.

Unlike the villain whose name escapes me at the moment. Let me google it…Nolan Sorrento.

Now let it sink in that he left next to no impression on me to the extent that I forgot his name and his inconsistent actions.

First, he hires a cyber-assassin to go after Wade/Parzival and then the idiot orders a strike giving his target a chance to flee.

Then, during the negotiations he just blatantly admits he wanted to subvert the company’s wishes on feed that the company likely has access to and if they were any sort of intelligent were listening in on as he offers the first player to get a key a job. So, shows he’s a bit too stupid to be in that position of power.

Then he waits to blow everyone up on Doom. He could have handed the Cataclyst off to a goon, offered them a wiping out of all their debt owed to IOI if they blew everyone up, then logged in an won if he was really that ruthless about the whole thing.

There’s the whole gun thing. He had Wade in his sights in the real world. He could have shot him and everyone in that car, but because Wade’s got the egg, he just can’t do it? This is a man who was able to order the strike earlier in the movie to kill Wade if he didn’t comply. I guess it’s a he’s too much of a wussy to actually sully his hands thing, but that’s not how the actor played it. If he was too much of a wuss to do his own dirty work, he’d have balked sooner. It just seemed really really silly for him to give up because the kid was so happy he was crying at having the egg in his hands.

Now onto the nitpick Comparison (well full tilt nitpicking section)

I understand why all the school stuff was cut. I really do. It was, as I already wrote the worst part of the first section of Ready Player One. Not a fan of how they glossed over how Wade’s parents died. Here they took his actual tragic backstory and stuffed it in the trash and tacked on an extra tragic background to Samantha/Art3mis.

But it also undermined the whole point of the first key’s dungeon. Which was, it was on the school planet because you learn there and Ludo comes from a word that means “play” so it was a very clever play on the planet’s name. The Ohio-planet’s exclusion and replacement with the archives was actually a good choice for a movie but also made moves by the High-5 too easy to track and the point was it was hard for the IOI 6-ers to patrol the whole of the Oasis.

The High-5’s cooperation in the movie was too convenient whereas in the book there was this “everyone man for himself” mentality that persisted up until the end practically.

Art3mis’s competency was reduced in the movie. In the book she’d found the first key on her own before Wade but she sucked at Joust.

Og’s deus ex machine appearance in the book was written out, and probably for the better but on the other hand I missed him a little. Plus the sentiment at the end was almost a bit too shoehorned in, but that’s at least better than the horribly worded “moral.”

The fact the movie had Wade acknowledge that there were people who didn’t play as their own sex/gender in the Oasis was a correction of a mistake in the book where Wade didn’t really even think about it aside from his anxieties that Art3mis might be a man. Something that, when he’s presented with Aech/Hellen later makes it seem that—to him—the idea wasn’t one he thought would actually happen.

As a female gamer who often plays as male avatars, I know this is not an uncommon phenomenon.

Making Sho(to) and Daito kids was a weird twist to me at first. And, unless I’m mistaken, they’re brothers for real in the movie whereas Shoto and Daito of the book never even knew eachother.

Daito of the book dies. IOI killed him and made it look like a suicide. Og rescued Shoto, whose book name was Akihide Karatsu. They did keep the “Tsu” bit and made it into it being changed to “Sho” as a nickname but that name change was weird to me.

The High-5 all made it to the end in the movie,  whereas Daito/Toshiro, died.

It was Wade not Samantha/Art3mis who ended up being arrested by the IOI, but he did it on purpose to steal codes and shit and it was like really easy to escape custody. That was a bit OP in the book, I’ll admit but that whole “man on the inside” plotline was negated by the fact Wade had Sorrento’s Password. Let’s forget, for a moment, how monumentally stupid it is that he even had it on a post-it note on his immersion rig in the first place and how, in the second, how stupid it was to have Parzival the hologram in his office and able to see shit. I already mentioned how bad it was up in the video game section.

Anyway, Wade has his password from the end of the first act of the movie. That means they could have just hacked the whole kit and caboodle anytime they pleased and maybe used it to figure out a way through firewalls to get inside the barrier. Idk it just was one of those things that both made sense but also could have easily been sidestepped.

The Van chase. In a world of recognition software, why oh why, wouldn’t you make sure your vehicle was as plain as possible if you were on the run or, if you had been spotted by a drone identifying your van, why wouldn’t you try to change the outside with some paint or dirt or SOMETHING. Book Helen was already on the move constantly for her own safety reasons. Movie Helen, while more sure of herself, didn’t seem to have as good survival instincts as her book counter part.

Everyone is too conveniently located near each other.

In the book the closest ones together were Helen and Wade. Samantha was Canadian. Shoto/Akihide and Daito/Toshiro were Japanese, and they all had to be brought together by their deus ex machina Og, who had located the survivors after Daito/Toshiro had been murdered and brought them to his place for the final assault.

Surprisingly, though, aside from changing the pop-culture references (obviously due to copyright issues), the climax was still similar enough that the changes here and there didn’t affect the whole thing. Though, the Art3mis being tapped out early because she was undercover shit wasn’t in the book. She just got plain wiped out by the Cataclyst like everyone else. Which, btw was done by a rando IOI person, not Sorrento.

Tl:Dr They’re both middling properties in the end.

However, I’d say the characters from the book make more sense than the movie characters, but the movie world makes more sense than the book world.

This is also a case where if you hadn’t read the book, the movie’s actually more enjoyable. Well, marginally.