#Wade's knowledge on Halliday

[ostriches-because-i-said-so]

Wade Watts, from the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and also the movie based on the book, is a super nerd. And to prove it I'll make the bold claim that his knowledge on James Halliday is almost or maybe even equal to MatPat's knowledge of FNAF. Just throwing it out there.

[trrickytickle]

Two Can Play At That Game (gift for @toweroftickles)

Fandom: Ready Player One, lee!Art3mis, ler!Parzival

A/N:  (Reimagining of the scene where Art3mis scares Parzival with a Xenomorph arm)

2ND GIFT hope u enjoyyy. have we talked about ready player one BECAUSE WE NEED TO TALK ABT READY PLAYER ONE MY LOVE FOR THIS MOVIE WOULD HAVE EXPLODED OUR DMS I LOVE EVERYTHING ABT IT it may be a bad movie by others’ standards but i think with the themes of dystopia the product placement was done right. anyways enough of that, MEERRRRRRYYYYYYYY CRISIS i lov parzival x artemis. idk y but i think that both them and halliday r autistic lol i might elaborate but it isnt anything serious just something i notied in them behaviorially ANYWAYS hope u like im so grateful for u

The life of a Gunter was as hard as it looked. To find the keys, for one, would require the infinite knowledge of Halliday's inner workings- which were comparatively easy to find in the age of the OASIS.

Halliday Journals- OASIS' Library of Alexandria, the sole source of such information wasn't like any of the other mind-bending zones of this virtual metaverse, such as a replica of Pandora from that movie way back then, to stranger things such as an exact replica of the Tower of Babel chock full of people seemingly ...tickling each other. No matter how quaint, these locations were the brainchild of the very person Wade Watts-or as he was known here- Parzival- was most grateful for.

But he didn't expect.. all this. Even after his rise to fame when he found that first key.

"Hey, it's Parzival!" A Beetlejuice suit-clad man, as rotund as his inspiration pointed, causing a stampede of avatars, all inspired by his endeavors to crowd around him for some words of wisdom or a quick photo-op. The shutters blinded him while some avatars on the shorter side leaped up for a closer shot. That wasn't all. Using their set of four arms, a Goro lookalike rammed through the crowd and rudely pushed the others away with a mighty roar, jostling Parzival aggressively.

"You're famous now! You can't- just go- wherever- you want!" "Goro" yelled, pulling Parzival away with all the strength he could muster (which was a lot).

"No-no-no-no-no- I-" he tried to bargain to no avail as he was dragged into a secret opening planted in the wall. Green Tron lines provided atmosphere as the two stood face-to-face.

"Huh?"

"Goro" sneered and snarled, then look down to see something  moving in his chest, like a baby kicking its leg out. His stomach rumbled, and out came- an honest-to-goodness Xenomorph, screaming at Parzival's blue tinted face.

"GAH!" He jumped as it lunged straight at him with a snarl straight out of the movie. It retracted, noshing at "Goro's" skin by snipping it like a pair of scissors till there was no piece of Shokan in sight...

Well, maybe that Xenomorph wasn't so honest. Art3mis taunted him, playing with the once horrific alien parasite like a sock puppet., chomping its jaws together. With an uncharacteristic sternness, Parzival yanked the bloody puppet off her hand while she was already buckling down in sweet and melodious laughter.

"Haha- ha-haha-ha!"

"That is.. That is not funny!" Parzival attempted a rebuttal. Art3mis was predictably still in stitches, holding her stomach as she chuckled deeply. While the spunky streamer cooled down from her giggle-fit, he had an uncharacteristicly shit-eating grin smack-dab on his face like an anime character with a band-aid on their nose trying to look cool.

"But this is!" He swiped through his inventory, eager to find a fitting rebuttal and landing on a set of eight mechanical tentacles identical to the ones Doc Ock had worn in the 2004 movies, using one of four mechanical tendrils to grasp Art3mis by her jacket.

"Hello, Art3mis.." Parzival teased, poking at her already exposed sides to rub it in. To his suprise, she squeaked gingerly.

Like adding salt to a wound, he joked-

 "Oh, so you're a ticklish one, huh?"

"No- I'm- Fine. Have it your way."

Art3mis could only look away in embarrasment as he drummed his fingers against her sides continuously, then spidering them onto her tummy as he shook her around with the prehensile arms. That trip to Avatar Outfitters was pricey- but her reactions were worth just as much as the Zemekis cube.

"Ah-hehehehe-heeee! I-hi-hi'm ticklish, you got me!" She scissor-kicked the air to no avail, while she was a grasp from the mechanical arm away from falling.

"Oh, but I didn't get you good enough yet!" Parzival's grin was contagious- well, he was tickling her. Moving one of the tentacles down like Art3mis was a stuffed bear in a claw machine, he tazed his fingers into her armpits, causing her to squeal.

"EEEE-ahaha, yohohou should be glahad this is s-AAAAH!-soundproof!" she yelped, as Parzival played around in her worst spot.

"Soundproof, you say? So you don’t mind if I go heeere-” he smirked, poking around at Art3mis’ stomach, massaging it with prods of his fingers, even going up to poke each individual rib. 

“Yohohou’re mean! Ihihi- lihihisten! I have something to tell you!” With the notion of information, Parzival relinquished his grasp, and the item back into his inventory, and Artemis had a moment to catch her breath. 

“*huff* *huff* I-hehe- I deserved that.” She smiled,a glint in her heart that enjoyed Parzival’s playful flirting. “Well- You’re the Parzival now. You’re famous, you need to have a disguise.”

In that moment, Parzival realized two things- she was absolutely right, and that Art3mis was truly the most beautiful living thing within the walls of OASIS’ HD display. 

[pianotuna]

Characters: Wade Owen Watts / Parzival and Samantha Evelyn Cook / Art3mis

Media: Ready Player One (2018)

Played by: Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke

Setting: 2045, dystopian Columbus / OASIS

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wade Watts is a teenager who can’t bear to live in the dystopian world of 2045, preferring the mega-realistic interactive video game world of the OASIS, where he (as his avatar Parzival) can search for the legendary Halliday’s Easter egg in relative peace.

Samantha Cook goes by Art3mis in the OASIS, establishing herself as one of the most prolific gunters (or hunters of the Easter egg) and eventually being the first gunter to find the first clue - until Parzival beats her to the victory.

Parzival and Art3mis begin a tentative friendship as the quest for the Easter egg picks up, and they quickly realize that their lives both inside and outside the OASIS are in danger due to the billions of dollars at stake. Despite their intense competitiveness and knowledge that they are ultimately enemies, Parzival and Art3mis fall in love and must make decisions about how far they will let their rivalry drive them apart, especially when they realize that they will have to be Wade and Samantha if they are ever to escape the OASIS.

[upfrog]

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Since I’m now properly getting into my 2019 reading list, I thought I might stick some reviews of books I’m reading here. So we’ll see how this goes.

This review is spoiler free.

Ready Player One was an adequate piece of science fiction that felt like it's only real reason to exist was to let the author, Ernest Cline, write a copious number of 80′s references. It brushed against a couple of properly interesting topics, but then seemed to deliberately avoid actually using those topics to make the book itself interesting, or even memorable as an exploration of anything beyond how to write a collection of nerd buzzwords for only mildly nerdy people. I don't regret reading it at all, but I doubt I'll read it again unless someone makes a compelling argument that I missed something.

The year is 2045, and human civilization is well into it’s downward spiral. A massive energy crisis has left much of humanity impoverished, and corporate warlords (or to steal a phrase from Neal Stevenson, “equity lords”) appear to control most of the remaining enclaves of relative prosperity. Whatever is left of the national government, at least in the US, appears to be impotent to help the situation. Wade Watts, our protagonist, is like most people of his time in that he has given up all hope in reality, and instead immerses himself in the exciting and prosperous online land of OASIS,  a virtual reality massively multiplayer online role playing game that most people seem to consider to be the only world worth living in. 

In this digital realm, Wade is a Gunter, a player who has dedicated themselves to solving a massive puzzle posthumously left by the eccentric creator of the game, James Halliday. The first person to solve the puzzle (which consists of finding several keys, and using them to unlock various challenges) is set to receive the entirety of Halliday’s estate, including several hundred billion dollars, and complete control over OASIS. Solving this puzzle requires an obsessive knowledge of Halliday’s interests, which seem to almost exclusively revolve around nerdy 80′s pop culture: video games, cult classic movies, music, sitcoms, the whole nine yards. In their attempt to solve this puzzle, the Gunters become experts on Halliday, his personal life, and every piece of pop culture he ever hinted that he enjoyed. 

All good so far, right? Right! It’s an interesting enough premise, and if you’re into retro video games and trivia, you may really enjoy it’s execution. For my part, 8 years ago I bet I would have loved this book, but nowadays I’m less into all the 80′s culture, so the book didn’t have that crutch to help my opinion of it. This is a shame, because the book needed that crutch.

The first problem is that Wade rarely feels genuinely challenged. Much of his struggle takes place “off screen”, and once it’s brought back on screen, he starts succeeding at almost everything. Set backs are rare, and when they occur, the book never really treats them as having any weight behind them. Part of this can be blamed on the virtual setting; after all, part of the point of a video game is that if you die in the game, you don’t die in real life, which does make the consequences for failure less severe by default. However, I think that the setbacks could still have been meaningful if the author had wanted them to be, which I’m not sure he did. That is of course his prerogative, but the book was left weaker for it.

The second problem, which I consider more serious, is that the book seems to avoid it’s own most interesting parts. Virtual reality is an interesting and increasingly relevant theme, as is the idea of people abandoning reality in favor of a cleaner, happier, more prosperous virtual reality. The book establishes that many in it’s world live their real lives within OASIS, with the physical reality more of an unwelcome chore than anything else. It then fails to follow up on this theme in any meaningful way. The book also touches briefly on the social impacts of being able to decouple the real “you” and the virtual “you”, the latter of which is often more important in the book’s world, but it never goes anywhere with it. Heck, the Gunters are in many ways a budding religious order; had Cline chosen to focus on that idea, I think he could have written some interesting material around the idea of the construction of deities. But this too is not explored. Every theme that could have made the book interesting was briefly mentioned, if it was included at all, and then dropped.

Personally, I didn’t really find Cline’s writing very effective. It didn’t pull me in particularly, and I wasn’t left with any particularly good imagery. That said, I find David Weber’s writing style riveting, so maybe I’m just weird. But while it wasn’t exceptionally effective, I didn’t have any real problems with it, and had some fairly good foreshadowing. Not necessarily subtle, but well executed, and it does a lot to make the world feel real, like something vast that we are only seeing through a small window. So what do we see when we look through that window?

We see 80′s references of all sorts. If that’s your thing, this book will probably be bumped up several notches in your esteem. But once again, it didn’t do anything very conceptually interesting with all of it’s pop culture. The 80′s references could have been replaced with 90′s references, or 00′s references, and had little effect on the story. Just change the names around, and re-write the details of some of the puzzles. Even in-universe, it appears that the only reason that Halliday chose the 1980′s was his own nostalgia. For my part, the 80′s references started to feel pretty tired before I was a quarter of the way through the book, though they never got the point where I found them annoying. 

What was somewhat annoying was the way that Cline discussed his references. Many of the things he wrote into his world are relatively obscure; cult classics on the Atari 2600, box office flops, things that in the modern day have a presence in two main cultural groups: the people who were kids when the reference was first relevant, and nerds who have found themselves smitten with this piece of retro culture, and have adopted it as their own in the modern day. You will note that these two groups are by no means mutually exclusive. But Cline writes his references as if he is trying to put them in terms that people not in either of these groups can easily understand. This is an understandable decision, as he presumably wanted his book to be appealing to people other than nerds, but the result is that some of the book feels at times like it was written by an outsider trying to write about these in-jokes. One minor example is how every creative process that led to the world of OASIS is referred to as being programming. Technically accurate perhaps, but it feels like Cline is afraid that he’ll scare off the normies if he refers to, say, animation, or concept art. Another minor frustration is that OASIS has a fairly typical case of Fictional Video Game Syndrome, where everything in the game is named to make it sound gamer-y to non gamers, with the result that it sounds extremely fake to people who actually play video games. 

Admittedly, minor frustrations with how the book’s references are handled are, well, minor. But when a book feels like it raison dêtre is to have a bunch of pop culture references, it becomes harder to excuse failure in the delivery of these references. But aside from this relatively minor annoyance, the references were handled fairly well. While it is clear that the book mainly exists as a house for these references, they always stay in keeping with the rest of the world. Various classic video games are brought up and discussed in a story-appropriate manner, and they don’t feel shoehorned in.

I realize that I’ve just spent a silly number of words talking about all the things I didn’t like about the book, but at the end of the day I really don’t mind it. I read it, and I enjoyed it while I read it. I feel no need to read it again, or to watch the movie, or read any of Cline’s other works, but the book was certainly not bad. I’d recommend it to anyone who secretly wishes they could have been born in time to experience the 80′s in person, or to readers who are getting their feet wet with science fiction. It may also be good for readers who have trouble getting into most books, but connect readily to the digital world. For others, I wouldn’t steer you away from the book, but I wouldn’t recommend it either, unless you liked the sound of what you just read.

This is not exactly a popular blog, so I’m not really guessing that anyone will read this. In case someone does, feel free to leave any feedback you may have, and if you want to talk about the book, hit me up! 

[thetypedwriter]

Ready Player One Book Review

Ready Player One Book  Review by Ernest Cline

Ready Player One is never a book I would have bought for myself. For one, its adult fiction, which is just, well, gross and boring, and two it didn’t seem like my type of thing. I like romance and fantasy and witches and fairies, not…the eighties as an era and virtual realities.

However, when you are an English major in college and currently an English teacher by day, people get you books for Christmas. It is a thing ™. So my good-natured neighbor, who also makes the most delicious banana bread, got me Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Not going to lie, the cover looked lame and I had never heard of it and I stashed it away in the books-we-don’t-speak-of pile for almost a year until I picked it up and read it because frankly I didn’t have anything else to read and I figured it would be a waste to you know, throw it away or donate it.

So here we are. Almost a full year and a half after I first received it and after I’ve finally read it (and watched the terrible movie). I’ll try to keep this short and simple. The book was better than I thought it would be. It wasn’t too hard for me to vibe with the characters since when the novel starts, the main character, Wade Watts, is a senior in high school and not too far from the main characters that I tend to stray towards in YA. 

So, Wade Watts is a typical literature orphan who lives with his horribly negligent aunt and his whole life’s purpose and happiness derives from a virtual reality simulation called The Oasis. People’s lives inside the Oasis have become just as much real and valuable as people’s lives outside the Oasis and because the world is such a poverty-stricken, pollution ridden hell hole, people tend to spend more of their time stuck inside a virtual reality to escape from their actual reality since it sucks the big hairy meatball.

This of course, presents the age-old questions since Plato posed it in his fable of “The Myth of the Cave.” Are your choices and your life real if it is inside a virtual reality? Are emotions? Your thoughts? Feelings? It’s an interesting conundrum and Cline doesn’t so much as answer it as he does play out his novel and let you decide for yourself whether it counts or doesn’t, although it becomes clear in the end what his stance is on this particular issue.

The plot of the novel revolves largely around a competition that is currently ongoing and thought to be impossible before our main boy Wade makes the first moves and solves the first riddle. The creator of the Oasis, James Halliday, hid a gargantuan sum of money inside the game called an “Easter egg” as well as the power to control the whole of the simulation for whoever was able to find his three doors and complete his quest.

Wade Watts has dedicated his whole life to this quest and along the way finds virtual love, loss of friends and foes, and countless dangerous situations inside and outside the simulation. While I enjoyed the plot and Wade was a tolerable main protagonist, what really fascinated me was the author’s knowledge of 80’s pop music, retro video games, television shows, and general pop culture. 

Littered throughout the book are countless allusions to shows in real life, movies, books, video games, manga, anime, and especially arcade games. I loved learning these little facts and tidbits and it made the reading experience very enjoyable when I knew they existed in the real world-in my world.

I often found myself researching some game mentioned or some movie just to give myself a more accurate depiction of what Wade and the others were going through. Overall, I largely enjoyed the book except for the ending. I found the ending pedantic, trite, and downright hackneyed. Nothing happened. He won the game and that was that.

 It felt very much like an April Fool’s joke but it wasn’t. Either I’ve become very systematic in how I view endings from YA that often conclude with a sardonic twist or a shocking revelation, but the ending to Ready Player One was just too…easy. It was boring. Not that it was bad it was just very predictable, which I found to be a huge letdown.

Recommendation: If you love the 80’s and are a giant nerd of video game history and how games have evolved over the centuries this book will be an absolute delight for you. I recommend only reading the book knowing the ending will not blow your socks off, but at least deliver on a anticipated note and never, ever watch the movie under any circumstances as it was the most wretched thing I’ve seen since M. Night Shyamalan’s

production of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Score: 7/10

[xparzival]

wade watts, after figuring out any of the puzzles thanks to his extensive knowledge of nerd culture and lowkey creepy halliday obsession:

[baeomran-blog]

Hey bookworms! 👋🏼 how are we doing🐛 August 16, 2011 is my favorite date of all history. Look you guys! 📒 It has been a good 11 years🗓yes believe it or not till I discovered and got my hands on this novel and science fiction super excited to adapt this to my humble library and open the safe every day I wake up. In 2011, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One riveted readers to the page as unlikely hero Wade Watts used his gaming skills and his knowledge of 1980s pop-culture trivia to find clues left by billionaire James Halliday. Clues that would lead to control of the Oasis, the online virtual reality platform within which everyone in 21st-century Earth lives the better part of their lives 📰 Ready Player One is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story sets in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game, the discovery of which would lead him to inherit the game creator's 🔮 fortune Remember today we are readers & tomorrow we are leaders #book #bookworm #library #homelibrary #readyplayerone #kuwait #reading #read #readlead #القراءة (at Kuwait City) https://www.instagram.com/p/CdWWSYFsbkglJopcK_2Jzfi3xGLMpCBwZwcEWc0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[thebookvortex-blog]

Book Review: Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Released 2011, Sci-fi

Kindle - £3.99 Paperback - £6.47

“I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realised, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness, because reality is real,”

A blend of the era gone and the era to come.

with spoilers, duh

Dear Reader,

Ready Player One really impressed me; the concept, the dystopian world, the characters and their development. After reading this I’d say it’s one of my new favourites and I’ll explain why in this review. At first the story just seems fun, a bunch of adventures with a truck load of 80’s nostalgia, however the characters become a lot more fleshed out as the situations they find themselves in get a lot more real.

In dystopian future, circa 2045, the world is experiencing an energy crisis and has had to cut back on a lot of things. Humanity has wrecked the climate, famine and poverty are widespread. However, there is the OASIS. An MMORPG, an escape from the horrors of the real world. This is essentially a massive virtual reality utopia, with thousands of themed planets to explore, quests and adventures to take for hours on end. You can live wherever you want and be who you want to be. James Halliday, creator of the OASIS and a multi-billionaire has no heir to his possessions and ownership to the OASIS. When he died he created a quest full of riddles, the one who completes the quest inherits all his money and the OASIS. Wade is just like everyone else on the planet, poor and obsessed with the OASIS. Halliday was obsessed with 80’s pop culture, and the entire quest is based off knowledge from that time. Wade is what’s known as a gunter, one of those who are dedicated to the quest and desperate to win. When he finds the first key he is suddenly up against thousands of competitors. Soon, however, the game takes a deadly turn and he finds himself fighting for the future of the OASIS and his life.

Ready Player One takes place twenty years on from our current society. Inevitably we have run out of oil and although with advanced technology, the world is crippled. To give you an example of how bad things are, main character Wade Watts lives in a trailer… stacked on top of fifteen others… in a trailer park full of hundreds of these stacks. My favourite types of books are dystopia’s, so with this being mentioned at the beginning I was already really interested. You wouldn’t expect a world so corrupt to have something as magical as the OASIS, a place where you can create your own avatar and be whoever you want to be. The OASIS is a place away from the awful reality everyone faces, life sucks in the real world but there are never ending possibilities online. You can be anything and do anything. Although living in a futuristic world, the 80s is what almost everyone is obsessed with. After James Halliday’s death, the more knowledgeable you are about this time period, the better chance you have of winning. One of the things I liked most about this book is the constant switch between these two eras which are sixty years apart. For myself I’m just a bystander, in the middle of these times. If you’re a fan of movies and videogames form thirty years ago, you’ll probably like all the worlds and puzzles included in the story. Maybe you’ll marvel at how they’re constructed. I am glad that I did get some references, Atari games and the Rocky Horror Picture show that I’ve seen mentioned in other books I’ve read. It’s kind of funny how later in the book, Wade spends so much on technology, just to be fuller immersed in what’s essentially an 80s simulation. For most of the book he’s hiding away from the villain of the story, a company called IOI. This company is desperate to inherit to OASIS, to, you know, be evil with it. They bend the rules as much as possible to win. It’s not the type of story where the main character is ahead of the enemy, something bad happens and they fall, then pick themselves up again and win. It’s a constant back and forth between the two, it builds tensions until the end and even though you know what will happen (how often does the main character never win?) I still worried about the outcome. I mean, maybe the author will decide to make the journey of the last three hundred pages for nothing, just to flip off the reader. At first this corporation seems basic, not able to do much but make empty threats while still acting all professional and all. It’s not the best enemy I’ve seen but I wasn’t disappointed with them.

“As the three of us stepped forward, preparing to enter the gate, I heard an ear-splitting boom. It sounded like the entire universe was cracking in half. And then we all died.”

There’s a lot of foreshadowing, maybe I’m just good at picking up on it but personally I found it a bit easy to notice when something seemingly meaningless was said but would prove important later. If you can pick up on it, good for you, it’s satisfying in a way.

The main character, Wade Watts, is well written, at least in my opinion. He starts from humble beginnings, not having enough money to even travel to another planet in the OASIS. When he does earn riches, he becomes obsessed with fame and the new lavish lifestyle he leads, in and out of the OASIS. He becomes a celebrity for being the first person to complete the first gate and can finally have all the fun that he was missing out on, however it distracts him from continuing his quest. He has fun, doing what he’s always wanted.

“I looked like Plastic Man, if he were tripping on LSD. Then everyone else on the dance floor also began to shape-shift, melting into prismatic blobs of light,”

It’s almost depressing when you realise that all he’s experiencing isn’t real, he’s become one of the many who see the OASIS as their true reality. He even proclaims his love for who was a few months ago his enemy, they’ve both been side-tracked by all the fame and forgotten about the quest. When rejected he is hurt, he’s wasted all his time for nothing and takes his anger out on her, angry that she’d turn him down. They’re all just avatars, pretending to be these great people, Wade can no longer see the line between reality and the OASIS. He had become selfish, letting his aunt die and losing his best friend just to continue the fake world he was so unravelled in. I can’t pin losing his friends entirely on Wade, after the first gate and not being able to figure out the next clue they all kind of drifted apart. Instead of being the perfect hero throughout and brought down by other people’s mistakes, he was what held himself back, which doesn’t happen very often. Even in a computer-generated world, Wade is still human and behind his perfect avatar, is still subject to human feelings and thought processes. I was happy when he realised the errors of his ways, after acknowledging his selfishness after what was quite a depressing moment in the book. This realistic downfall, even though it hurt me to read through wishing everything would be normal again, was a good addition and necessary for the story to develop.

“The hour or so after I woke up was my least favourite part of each day, because I spent it in the real world (…) I hated this part of the day because everything about it contradicted my other life. My real life, inside the OASIS. The sight of my one-room apartment, my immersion rig, or my reflection in the mirror – they all served as a harsh reminder that the world I spent my days in was not, in fact, the real one,”

Yes, Ernest Cline did a good job in developing Wade’s character, but there were some things about him that irked me a bit. For one, how is he such a smartass? There’s nothing wrong with intelligence as personality trait, but the part of the book where he sneaks into IOI depending on information that he bought months ago, information that might not even be legitimate, and bases his whole plan and escape off is a bit thinly wound. Also, being able to hack into one of the largest corporations on Earth’s database and accessing highly classified files is a stretch. And the part where figuring out the riddle to the last gate, the one IOI have been stuck on for ages. Even with a team with a wide knowledge of about almost everything that happened in the 80s they couldn’t figure it out, but Wade just thought about it for a few minutes and got it. For such a big part in the journey, it seemed very rushed, I feel like there was potential for a good chapter, racing against IOI to figure it out, but it was just wasted.

Let’s talk about Art3mis (spelled Artemis now because it’s much easier for me), the female lead. She has a pretty cool name, but I’ll admit that I found her a bit annoying. I love a hardcore female character, but it feels like portraying her as badass was very forced and she came off stereotypical. You can awesome and skilled without being rude, constantly having snarky comments isn’t necessary. And of course, she has a hidden soft side, brought out by Wade because he’s so in love with her and wants to know the real her. There’s nothing wrong with this, even though she’s a bit unique I just feel like I’ve seen her before. Don’t get me wrong, I still like her. I do give her credit for being more level headed than Wade, she didn’t get as carried away as he did with all the fame. She didn’t fall in love with something she’s never met and got back onto the quest, her main priority, after leaving him. Artemis didn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself when stuck on what to do after the first gate.

As far as the writing style goes, I really liked it. I feel like this is important to talk about because the way the book flows and how the author tells the story greatly affects what you feel. It’s written in first person past tense, personally my favourite. It doesn’t feel like Wade is talking to me, more like he’s talking to himself, and I’m just witnessing it. It’s not so complex that I have a hard time keeping up and don’t understand some of what’s going on, but also not too basic that I must guess what everything looks like and there’s no emotion.

There are several things I liked about Ready Player One. I’ve already mentioned this, and I don’t really know why, but I loved the constant switch between the 80s and the future. I’ve never seen it before, this earns the book some brownie points. Another thing that was done well was foreshadowing. Even though I found it a bit obvious that some things would be used later, it still made the book seem more dimensional and thought out. One thing I wasn’t expecting was the use of the quarter that Wade got after playing the perfect game of Pacman. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, only until after the bomb went off at the final battle did I remember it when he was still alive. I don’t know why but that pleased me and made me smile. He didn’t spend all that time for nothing.

Another moment I liked is when I started to realise the immensity of Wade’s situation. It starts of as a reality innocent game, I mean yeah, billions of dollars are up for grabs but it’s not life threatening. That is until Wade’s home gets destroyed because he refuses to share information. It’s so absurd that he didn’t think it would happen, he was even mocking the head of IOI.

“I was pulling my gloves back on when I heard the explosion (…) The stack containing my aunt’s trailer had collapsed into a fiery, smoking ruin”

Wade wasn’t close with his aunt but it’s still a bit shocking. What hit me even more later was the death of Daito, the Sixers killing him directly. It’s not a game anymore at this point. The book started off light-hearted but took a dark turn, luring the reader into a false sense of safeness, into a net separating them from things like this. Then slowly cutting the net so you don’t realise you’re falling.

One of the really important things was how Wade was given weakness, a weakness that isn’t a good thing like being too hardworking, but something realistic that everyone can relate to and believe. The other characters also aren’t dependent on him. Sure, you can say that Artemis got the first key because Wade told her to play on the left and he gave away his position to Aech. But they proved they can think for themselves and can be independent later when they got the Jade key. Wade is smart, but so are they and he doesn’t have to carry them. He also isn’t constantly ahead of them on the scoreboard. Other characters are in front of him for large periods of time, even the villain gets ahead of him. It keeps things tense. Wade isn’t better than everyone, he has to fight to remain on top.

Something that did sort of annoy me was the final battle. I found it a bit anti-climactic and rushed. I’ve seen it several times now, where the main characters call on all the other citizens to help them fight and it doesn’t really add much for me. I feel like the author might have spent too long on other details of the book and didn’t leave enough time for what was supposed to be the main event. They charged, beat the boss, went inside. I can understand that it can be hard to write big scenes like these, but there could’ve been a bit more. I did laugh at the bit where it says

“And then we all died,”

That was NOT expected but didn’t ruin the moment. The aftermath of this where Wade survives and finds a way back up was more enjoyable for me than the actual battle. Going through the last gate was a good combination of all the previous challenges but even though Sorrento, leader of IOI, was behind him I didn’t find it that intense.

Every book has its faults, Ready Player One has its own but I still think it’s really entertaining and well written despite them. Of course, there’s a happy ending, I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest one I’ve ever read but it’s satisfying. You don’t have to be completely obsessed with the 80s, the future, or moral questions to enjoy this. It’s a good sci-fi adventure tale with a real and fleshed out protagonist.

This book had me hooked, I just wanted to power through it and get to the parts where everything was happy and dandy for the characters. I don’t want a story where everything is okay all the time. They need down points where there is a struggle, even though I don’t like these times because I’ve become invested in the story and want everything to be okay, they are necessary for a good story and it’s all worth it when everything is over. No matter what type of books you read, you should try this. Whether you want to take a deeper look and analyse what happens or you just want some action, this is a recommended read.

Yours Sincerely, theBookVortex

[genderfluidsodapopcurtis]

Ready Player One AU

(Because I finished the book last week and it was trash and then I saw the movie yesterday and it was amazing and I guess I’m obsessed with it now.)

Soda’s Wade/Parzival 

- Yes I realize that Ponyboy is the most obvious one to actually do for this but hear me out okay

- First of all, we’re going with cute/sweet/dorky/amazing Wade from the movie, not pretentious/dickbag/stalker/douchecanoe Wade from the book

- And him being so obsessed and knowledgeable about 80s pop culture and the Easter Egg Hunt could be played as him not being not-neurotypical (*cough* ADHD *cough*) and having a special interest and that just makes my heart sing

Soda still thinking he’s dumb because he’s not traditionally book smart and struggled in school his whole life but then he just knows all this shit about this thing he’s really really passionate about and just aaahh

Steve’s Art3mis/Samantha

- Because come on

- Badass

- Snarky

- Takes this shit seriously

- And he’s all “No you can’t meet me in real life I’m hideous” and then like he just has a fucking tooth gap

- Also see why Soda definitely has to be Wade now okay shut up

Cherry’s Aech/Helen

- Because fuck yeah black lesbian Cherry Valance

- Also fuck yeah Cherry and Sodapop best friendship

The Shepards are Daito and Sho

- We can split them up into three people it’s fine

- Tim and Angela are both Daito and then Curly is Sho

Curly isn’t eleven but everyone acts like he is

Curly: “Why haven’t we found the key yet?” Tim: “Shut the fuck up you’re eleven.”

He’s fifteen

I’m kind of torn on if I want to make S.E. Hinton Halliday or Sorrento so I guess we’ll come back to this

[lindburgsreviews]

Ready Player One Movie Review

Ready Player One was directed by Steven Spielberg and is an adaptation of Ernest Cline’s best-selling novel of the same name. It’s 2045 and with advances in technology and the decline of both the natural world and society, the majority of the planet’s population spends its time inside a massive virtual reality online world called the OASIS. In it, users create their own avatars and can do everything from finding a to play video games both classic and on the cutting-edge with people from across the world. The OASIS’s enormous success has made its creators played by Mark Rylance and Simon Pegg, the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of the future. After the the reclusive but brilliant of the two named James Halliday (Rylance) dies, it is announced that he has hidden an Easter egg within the OASIS, and whoever finds the egg will receive complete control of the program and a half trillion dollar fortune. The hunt inspires the players to search the program, filled with countless references to pop culture from the 1980′s as try compete against evil corporaion, also trying to find the egg and claim the prize. The story follows one of the hunters named Wade Watts, played by Tye Sheridan, and his quest for the egg which tests his knowledge of the most popular video games, movies, and music of yesteryear, encountering a wide range of friends and enemies. 

I first heard of this movie last summer when its first trailer released at San Diego Comic Con. Even though I hadn’t read the book, the trailer absolutely blew me away and the fact that Steven Spielberg was directing the project  made it even better. Spielberg is my all-time favorite director, and I could tell it would be a return to form for him. I appreciate the historical dramas he has been making more often in recent years, but I had been craving a new blockbuster from him for sometime. Something I hoped would bein the vein of the Indiana Jones trilogy, Jurassic Park, or even E.T was what I saw this movie as. Once I did get around to reading Ernie Cline’s book (which I highly recommend), I was even more on board with this movie. It’s an exciting and at times frightening glimpse in to the future with a ton of heart and memorable characters. In case you haven’t been able to tell from this paragraph, Ready Player One is among the movies I have been most excited to see this year, and I got my ticket as soon as possible. 

Almost as soon as the movie began, I could tell I would be satisfied with what I was wanting from Spielberg. His trademark of fluid camerawork and eye for stunning visual effects work really well for the world this movie takes place in. One scene in particular literally made my jaw drop with how well it combined modern effects with a classic movie environment. I won’t go in to much detail about it, but I will say it was my favorite action scene in the movie that was also a fitting tribute to the legendary director Stanley Kubrick. 

Acting was also a highlight for me. The core group of characters particularly Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, and Lena Waithe playing their real world characters and OASIS counterparts very well. I however, think the best performances came from Mark Rylance and Ben Mendolsohn as the main villain, Nolan Sorrento. Through subtle acting Mark Rylance makes it apparent that James Halliday has a very awkward but brilliant mind which makes his character admirable and sympathetic. Ben Mendolsohn on the other hand, makes Sorrento ruthless while also being charming, allowing a self-conscious side of his character to come out once in a while. 

Something I think Spielberg achieved with mostly positive results was knowing when to stay faithful to the book and knowing what to change for the movie. I think its unfair to judge a movie based on how faithful it is to the original source because film and text are such wildly different mediums. It’s almost like having two world-class chefs make the same dish and expecting them to make their unique versions of it taste exactly the same way. Spielberg definitely made the right choices in modifying key parts of the story and plot to better fit a two and a half hour run time while also complimenting this visually driven version of the story.  At the same time, he did cut some important character development  and subplots for the characters of Aech, Sho, and Daito. Again, I’ll avoid spoilers, but the book gave all three characters important character arcs which if included, possibly could have made the movie even better. 

Aside from some of the struggles of translating from page to screen, the biggest problem for me in this movie was the structure. At times it felt rushed and at others it felt slow. The rushed scenes made me want more character development and world building and the slower ones took me out of the movie and made me feel its length. Another problem I had was a missed opportunity to use narration to the story’s advantage. Yes, one of the golden rules of film-making is “show, don’t tell” but when done correctly, narration can add an extra layer to the narrative and make the story even more personal for the viewer. The first fifteen minutes or so of the movie has quite a bit of exposition through narration as it sets up this massive world and doesn’t return until the last few minutes. I feel like the narration should have been present throughout or cut completely. 

Though it’s not a perfect movie, Ready Player One is a fun and engaging ride told in a way only Spielberg can pull off. It had the same thrills as his classic blockbusters and if you’re a fan of his as much as I am or grew up in the 80′s, you should have a great time seeing it. The more video games, TV shows, and movies of the past you have seen, I also think the more you will enjoy it. For those of you who have read the book, don’t hold yourself against the differences between it and the movie and I think you will also leave the theater satisfied. As for you who haven’t read the book, read a little background information before you see it as it might help you understand the plot better. Finally, I really enjoyed this movie and may even try to see it again. The storytelling and effects put me squarely in to the imagination Ernest Cline in a film filled with high-stakes, excitement, and humor complete the magic that only Steven Spielberg can bring to the table. 

[booksaremyoxygenn]

Ready Player One: Book Review & Discussion

“We’d been born into an ugly world, and the OASIS was our one happy refuge.”

If you love video games and the 80s, you MUST read this book. USA Today’s comparison of Ready Player One to Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory couldn't have been more spot on, but instead of the inheritance of a man who owns a chocolate factory he is playing for the inheritance of a video game creator.

Overall Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars

My biggest argument is that because there was so much info and teaching about the 80s and video game references it felt choppy and it was hard to get lost in the book. However I absolutely loved learning all of those fascinating pieces of information. There were surprisingly many great life lessons in this book and I feel like I am walking away more knowledgeable. 

Age Recommendation: Well.... it depends on the child. It does curse a few times (but let’s be honest the kids already know the words, the aim isn’t for them not to learn it but to know not to use it.) However there is a bit of a lengthy section on things I would not even want my 13 year old sister reading on 193-194 so I recommend you take their book, rip that page out and then they are all ready to go. They will never even miss it. I think there are great life lessons in this book though for a young teen age group like the importance of logging off and living offline and not getting wrapped up in trying to constantly escape the real world. It talks about how people should be judged by their personality not their appearance. If we could simply choose out skin color, gender, and appearance like an avatar, life would be easier but life doesn’t work that way so accept people the way they are. You may surprise yourself with who your closest friends up being. 

Spoiler- Free Review: 

Wade just really doesn’t like his lot in life, whether that be in the real world when he’d rather be in a video game or that he is in the 2040s when he’d rather be born in the the 80s, or at the least before the Global Energy Crisis. Though he doesn’t mind living in OASIS soaking up the endless knowledge. The vast source of all books, movies, art, history, videogames, and, most importantly, information on James Halliday. OASIS is like the internet but with VR glasses only 10x more detailed, advanced, and infinite. Wade doesn’t even go to a real school he goes through the virtual reality of OASIS. “In OASIS, you could become whomever and whatever you wanted to be, without ever revealing your true identity, because your anonymity was guaranteed.” (pg 57) When James Halliday, inventor of OASIS, dies and leaves his fortune (240 billion dollars) to the first player to find the three keys hidden within his own video game, the world goes crazy in pursuit. Though after numerous years no one had found a single key, until Wade. That’s how the story begins. 

I loved that Cline’s writing encourages readers who know nothing about the 80s or video games to read this book. That has been a massive concern for people before they pick up this book, that they won’t understand the references. To be honest, there were many hidden “eggs” in the text that I saw that I knew were references that I just didn’t understand. (Which was still cool and I enjoyed looking them up and learning more.) However, all of the big, important references he explains in the book and he doesn’t make you feel stupid for not knowing but explains it clearly for those of us who aren’t experts. I genuinely feel more intelligent by reading this book and now know a lot more about pop culture in the 80s. Who knows this all may come in handy on Trivia Night? I highly recommend this book for a fun, nostalgic read. 

SPOILER Review / Book Discussion: 

Isn’t it scary how possible this all could be? With virtual reality continually advancing (in real life) how much longer will it take until people go to school in virtual reality like Wade or before the internet takes on this new form?

Though obviously in Wade’s world as technology has advanced his real world has been given up on. The stacks, while a great concept and super cool looking on the front cover, are atrocious living conditions. Though I must give Wade kutos on his battery powered heater and computer but really just his van in general. It makes me want to make my own Bat Cave inside a van. This was when I knew what his advantage would be in this game, he was a self-teacher, self-motivator, and dedicated his whole life to the hunt. 

One of my favorite parts about Cline’s writing was how it was constantly breaking stereotypes and speaking about important topics. I really appreciated the backstory that he gave Halliday. Especially how even though he wasn’t good at school he became a multi-billionaire. I am so tired of the assumption that being good at school has a direct correlation with future success. So many people who have changed the world never went to college, dropped out, or did poorly in high school. Another thing that I loved was the fact that this whole story wouldn’t have happened if Ogden Marrow (Og) wouldn’t have walked over to Halliday when he was sitting alone and invited him to play Dungeons and Dragons. It reminds me how much can change by a simple act of kindness and stepping out of your comfort zone to talk to new people. This whole story wouldn’t have happened, their world may have been drastically different if it wasn’t for Og’s invite. My favorite part though was how he had Asperger’s autism because my older brother has it as well and I could see the connections. Halliday’s lack of desire to express social skills, inability to step into other people’s shoes, and his few unhealthy obsessions were the most common traits. However I wish he wouldn’t have made the connections between Halliday’s crazy side and his Aspergers because that gives a bad name to this type of autism. (I mean you can’t win every battle right?)

One thing that really bothered my is how indifferent Wade was to risking everyone’s lives in the Stacks during his meeting with IOI. Once he realized he wasn’t actually gambling his own life because he wasn’t at home then it didn’t bother him anymore. He was willing to risk that. I understand that his aunt was cruel to him and that there were thieves and rapists roaming around the stacks but that’s not a good enough excuse as to why his conscious was clear about all those people he played a part in murdering. He said that there were no survivors. I understand that his other option was be enslaved to IOI but he is very smart, he could have figured out an alternative where hundreds of uninvolved people don’t die. (pg 146)

I personally love when authors put deep meaning into characters, places, animals and other things’ names. I loved that Art3mis was the greek god of the hunt and that Wade was Parzival. “On the day the Hunt began, the day I’d decided to become a gunter, I’d renamed my avatar Parzival, after the knight of Arthurian legend who had found the Holy Grail.” (pg 28) I love when author’s twist different stories together like that and give character’s deeply meaningful names. Like Alaska in John Green’s Looking for Alaska, or Katniss from The Hunger Games whose name is from a plant that is latin for archer. I prefer a bit more meaning than when Rainbow Rowell named the twins in Fangirl Cath and Wren because the mother didn’t know she was going to have twins so she split up the name Catherine. Though I do apprecaite it more than when authors just randomly name thier characters. (Also, Darth Vader’s name is literally Dark Father in Dutch so his name is a spoiler in itself.) I applaud Cline for his good choice in names. 

The first task was where players went into the Tomb of Horrors from Dungeons & Dragons to play Joust against Acereak. It was amusing to me but as someone who doesn’t know the first thing about Dungeons and Dragons the references were lost on me. However this line really stuck me as funny..... “It suddenly occurred to me just how absurd this scene was: a guy wearing a suit of armor, standing next to an undead king, both hunched over controls of a classic arcade game.” (pg 82) The whole time after he met Acererak I just imagined him going from his scary, glowing eyes to his best friend playing a video game and them fist bumping each other. Like I genuinely wanted them to become friends. Haha.

The first gate was where players played Dungeons of Daggorath to open the gate where they had to say and act all the lines of the character David Lightman in the film WarGames. This was my favorite task / gate he had to do and I wish I had my own version for The Hunger Games where I could be Katniss. Anyone else agree? They called them “Fliksyncs” (112) and I genuinely think if they make something like it in real life, it could be my favorite invention of all time. You would get to walk, talk, and live the life of your favorite character, your heroes, or be 1/2 of your favorite OTPs. ( I would gladly be Clary to play besides Jace from The Mortal Instruments... just putting it out there.)

A really important message that spread throughout the span of the book was that the internet (OASIS in RPO’s case) can take over our lives. ”It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,” he wrote, “A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.” (pg 120) How much truer does that get?? Than once Wade won the egg even Halliday admitted that that was one of his biggest regrets, not logging off and living life the way it was meant to be, truly using your senses and awakening your body instead of constantly trying to mute it and hide yourself.  “I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be. it is also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real. Do you understand?” (pg 364) I think that is something people across the globe can relate to. We could all use a lesson in learning when to turn off our screens and fully engage in the world around us. 

Another really important message was during that OH MY GOSH! AECH REVEAL!.... which at first I felt like it changed everything but that’s the whole point, it didn’t change anything. She was still the same person she had always been. We see what we want to see in a person when we make assumptions about them from what they look like. It’s just a genuine reminder of how the lines between gender are so fluid and it doesn’t matter what you are born but how you act. I’m not even referencing transgender specifically but just boys being free to like pink and girls feeling free to be obsessed with Star Wars and video games. Though there was another lesson in this which was how she chose to be a white, male avatar, because her mother told her it would help her get treated better, even in the virtual world.  “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320) Why is this so painfully true?? I really loved what Wade said after he found out,  “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.” (pg 321) Though I will admit I am glad that Cline made Ache a lesbian because I was worried she was going to confess her love to him and then Wade would have to choose.... and there just wasn’t enough pages left in the book for all that drama. Plus I really love when books allow guys and girls to just be friends without every liking each other romantically. 

The final thing, that I wouldn’t dream of ending this review/discussion without talking about is... Art3mis. Can we talk about how she started out such a strong character who was a fighter, independent blogger and full time badass who knows exactly how she plans on saving the world with the prize money from the egg. But then as time goes on she transforms more into a love interest than a fierce competitor. I think she sees this as well which is why she leaves him to focus on the competition. Though at the very end when she finally meets Wade in person she does that thing that Reese Witherspoon talks about in her Woman of the Year speech. Where Art3mis, the female,  turns to Wade, the male, and pretty much says, what do we do now? This is a phrase Reese says she hates reading the most and is usually written by scripts with no female involved in the writing.  She says “Now you do you know any woman in any crisis situation.. who has absolutely no idea what to do?” Reese made a good point in saying that it’s top woman stop playing the damsel in distress because we so rarely are. Art3mis went from this total badass who could carry her own to a self conscious, love interest. However, I am so glad that Art3mis gave up Wade for the hunt in some ways because if she would have given up her passions and her life long goal for a boy, I would have been more insulted. Personally, I just really like strong, female leads and am getting tired of women being accessories to males. I’m also tired of the never ending line of self conscious characters (both female and male) who find their self worth and beauty once their romantic interests informs them that it exists. So thank you to characters like Celaena Sardothien, Alaska Young, and Margo Roth Spiegelman for showing the world that it’s cool to love yourself and know you are amazing. Though I was still rooting for Art3metis because of her strong will and good intentions for the prize. 

In the end everything seemed to fall perfectly in place which made me so happy. No loose threads and a beautiful, sappy, happy ever after. The character development for Wade was so great and I felt happy walking away from this book knowing that things were going well for him. 

Favorite Quotes: 

1.) How the protagonist, Wade, feels about video games is how I feel about books...

"Playing old video games never failed to clear my mind and set me at ease. If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me. There, inside the game's two-dimensional universe, life was simple" (pg 14)

2.) Me when I get into a good book series....

“I was obsessed. I wouldn’t quit. My grades suffered. I didn’t care.”  (pg 63)

3.)  “Spending time with her was intoxicating. We seemed to have everything in common. We shared the same interests. We were driven by the same goal. She got all my jokes. She made me laugh. She made me think. She changed the way I saw the world. I’d never had such a powerful, immediate connection with another human being before. Not even with Aech.” (pg 174) 

4.) “I was watching a collection of vintage ‘80′s commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.” (pg 176)

5.)  “And then one night, like a complete idiot, I told her how I felt.” (pg 179)

6.) “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that’s beautiful.” (pg 199)  

7.) “I stood outside her palace gates for two solid hours, with a boombox over my head, blasting “In Your Eyes” by Peter gabriel at full volume.” (pg 203)

8.) “Art3mis had led me to believe that she was somehow hideous but now I saw that nothing could have been further from the truth. To my eyes, the birthmark did absolutely nothing to diminish her beauty. If anything, the face I saw in the photo seemed even more beautiful to me than that of her avatar, because I knew it was this one was real.” (pg 292)

9.)  “In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie has used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” (pg 320)

10.)  “We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation. (pg 321)

Discussion Questions: 

1.) Would you apply for the virtual OASIS education like Wade?

When Wade talks about his classes and how he is able to travel through a human heart, visit the Louvre, Jupiter’s moons and more it makes me think that our education system could be so much better with this technology. For one, he discusses how discipline isn’t a problem, how Wade can mute out bullies, and how even the teachers liked the system so much more. It gives students the ability to do things like Wade did and go to chat rooms with his friends in his free time and hang out with people he likes and avoid / mute the ones he doesn’t. I think there are major problems like affordability and the fact that you miss out on real human interaction that scientists have proven is needed for a healthy mind, body, and soul. 

2.) If you were a gunter, would you join a clan or stay solo? 

In the end I think that part of the lesson Holliday was trying to teach is that you need other people to succeed. You need help and can’t do everything on your own. Why else would he have made the door only open with three keys?

3.) If you were Wade would you sell out to sponsors, movie and book people, and the Suxors? or would you risk it all on the chance of being the first to find the egg?

4.)  What movie would you want to enter into like Wade did for the first gate for a “Syncflik”? Could you complete the dialogue for a whole movie?

5.) Did they fake drink at the bar at Og’s party because they hadn’t ever been able to eat or drink inside the OASIS before? 

6.) Has social media become obsolete in their world or is the avatar practically their form of social media? Or instead of trying to impress people with how they went to the beach or the expensive Louis Vuittons they just bought, do they put their energy into impressing through their OASIS accounts?

7.) Doesn’t IOI trying to capitalize on OASIS sound a lot like the government trying to end net neutrality? I think this whole story is a lot more realistic than most of us would like to admit to ourselves. (pg 33)

Movie Trailer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scj3wiIcSu0&t=115s

I really hope they keep the Rocky Horror Show scene (pg 179) in the movie because I want to see them have fun and be laid back together. Plus it would be really funny. It was super entertaining in Perks of Being A Wallflower when Charlie has to be in the show. Also, I saw the zero gravity dance floor and the revamped Delorean in the movie trailer and can’t wait to see more of that. (pg 182)

The only thing that would make me immediately hate this movie is if they don’t give Art3mis her birthmark and so far in the trailer I noticed that they have only distinctly shown one side of her face but in the clip where she is sitting in a chair across from Wade you can see most of her face and I didn’t see any scar. What a missed opportunity? Unless they are having her cover it in the first half of the movie with makeup or something. The greatest parts of this book were the lessons learned and I think him meaning that he would love her no matter what she looked like in person because he loved who she was is a crucial part of the story and the birthmark plays a large role in that. It was an opportunity to give people who had similar situations like birthmarks have someone that looked like them in a movie to relate to. I think it really could have been something special. 

The other thing that is a bit of a turn off is the body form they gave Ache in the movie because it means that she won’t be able to have that moment talking about how she chose a white, male avatar because of how she felt at a disadvantage as a African American woman and wanted her avatar to be able to escape that. Also the actress they cast is thin so it is another missed opportunity. 

Also the choice of the song from Willy Wonka “Pure Imagination” was genius for the trailer. It was beyond perfect!

Side Note:

Also, if you would like to watch part 2 of this book... it’s called WALL-E. There are different characters but it is definitely what Wade’s planet earth is going to look like very soon. They were all absorbed in the internet and forgot about real life and how to make connections, just like this book. I mean Wade even notices his weight gain from being overly absorbed into the game. (pg 196)

[rains-reviews]

Book Review: Ready Player One

By: Ernest Cline

Warning: Spoilers

Disclaimer: These are my Opinions

Overview:

(From Google) Ready Player One is a 2011 LitRPG science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopian 2040s, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game, the discovery of which will lead him to inherit the game creator's fortune.

Thoughts:

Right off the bat I knew this book would be a thrilling one and it did not disappoint. The last sentence of the Intro tells you that five years after the hunt started Wade would be first on the leaderboard before he goes into the story which starts before that and for me it was comforting to know as he was figuring out the first puzzle that he would get it and be the first to complete the test. I felt like I could relax but, the book never lost my attention. Since the revolves around the game and the game is completed with knowledge of its creator James Halliday who was obsessed with 80’s culture there were tons of references to old video games, movies, and music and they were amazing. Once Parzial has the key all bets are off and we no longer have any grantees about anything that happened next. Then IOI became a bigger part of the storyline as the main antagonist and they were a big game changer as they cheated, blackmailed, and even murdered to get what they wanted. Honestly, when they were offering the deal to Wade it sounded so tempting until he reminded us all the bad they will do. Once Wade started his final plan I was very confused as he had not explained it to the reader but, once he did the pieces started to click together. When Marrow got involved it was pleased although it did seem like  rushed writing. The Characters revealing their true selves was a good part but, while Aech turning out to be a female, African American, and lesbian didn’t really change how I thought about her and even made her more likable to me, I felt like Cline, in a attempt to create a plot twist instead made a predictable moment. Although the book was thrilling and overall enjoyable, definitely earning the “feeling factor” I felt like it followed the same outline as all other dystopian action story, outsiders completes first obstacle, outsider becomes famous, they meet girl and fall in love, lose best friend, lose girl, fall behind, catch up, reconnects with best friend and girl, has a master plan, completes master plan and wins the game and the girl. Although predictable it was still enjoyable with good writing, likable characters and still had an element of the unknown because while it’s predictable you don’t know that while you’re reading.

Grades:

Pace: A-

Ran a bit slow at times but not enough to lose interest.

Readability: A-

The references and gaming abbreviations tripped me up multiple times.

Character Development:A

Each Character grew and changed throughout the story, excellent.

Relatability: A-

Each Character and Avatar has there own personality with someone everyone can relate to.

Predictability: B-

Followed the basic outline but, had some minor unexpected deaths.

Feeling Factor: A

Made me feeling happy, sad, scared, worried and pissed. This book earned its grade here.

Overall: A-

[aion-rsa]

Ready Player Two Ending Explained: How the Sequel Jumps the Shark

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Ready Player Two. You can read our spoiler-free review of the sequel here.

At the end of Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel Ready Player One, Wade Watts a.k.a. Parzival inherits everything he set out to win in James Donovan Halliday’s Easter egg hunt: the OASIS creator’s massive fortune, as well as control over the digital world itself. So how could Cline, and Halliday, top that with Ready Player Two?

By helping humanity level up.

The sequel’s ending definitely goes in a very different direction than how Ready Player One ended, both relating to the book’s central quest and in how it opens up the world of Cline’s future-Earth. Read on as we trace the path from the Seven Shards for the Siren’s Soul to the posthumous gift that allows Wade to finally achieve some level of closure when it comes to his adventures in the OASIS.

What Are the Seven Shards for the Siren’s Soul?

Not even two weeks after winning control (along with the rest of the High Five) of the OASIS, Wade in his unique capacity as Halliday’s sole heir (via the Easter egg hunt, at least) receives another gift: the OASIS Neural Interface, or ONI. By interacting directly with OASIS users’ brains, the ONI allows for an all-senses experience of the digital world. It takes very little convincing for Wade, Aech, and Shoto to vote to share the ONI with all users, though Samantha votes against and Ogden Morrow abstains.

Once there were 7,777,777 OASIS users connecting via ONI technology, Halliday released another posthumous riddle:

Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul

On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role

For each fragment my heir must pay a toll

To once again make the Siren whole

But at first Wade is stymied by the quest, unsure who the Siren is or how he would go about finding seven shards with few clues to start with. The sequel’s action doesn’t truly pick up until the High Five are visited by a ghost in the machine: Anorak, Halliday’s NPC avatar in the OASIS. Except that Anorak is actually a self-aware AI that’s gone rogue, kidnapped Ogden, and forced him to begin finding the Shards. Once Og outsmarted the AI, he turned to the next best option: Wade/Parzival would have to find the Shards, but this time he would have a twelve-hour ticking clock before he and the half-billion people logged in via ONI would hit their time limit and be lobotomized.

Like the three keys to three gates in Ready Player One, each Shard is tied to a moment in Halliday’s life, particularly a moment set in the 1980s, particularly 1988-89: the year that foreign exchange student Kira Underwood spent in Middletown, Ohio, and where she met Halliday and Morrow.

While racing after the Shards, the High Five learn that when Kira had to go back to England after her year abroad, she left behind a D&D module that she had written for the rest of their group to play in her absence: The Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul, in which her character Leucosia was trapped in suspended animation, her soul split into seven pieces that her friends had to find.

Wade comes to realize that the Siren in the OASIS quest is Leucosia herself—that is, a digital copy of Kira’s consciousness, an AI like Anorak. But while the flesh-and-blood Kira died before the ONI was officially created, the final memory toll is the last seven seconds of Kira’s memory, as Halliday tricked her into trying an ONI prototype while she was still alive. It copied over her consciousness up until that moment, creating Leucosia.

Initially, Halliday had kept Leucosia in a private simulation, in the hopes that he could convince her to love him. But he soon realized that because he had copied over every aspect of Kira’s personality and experience, that included her love for Ogden. Further, witnessing Kira’s memories of Halliday at his most insecure and selfish moments made the man realize how wrong he had been to violate her trust.

While it was Halliday who created the Seven Shards quest, it was Anorak who wanted Leucosia as his prize. Anorak, the digital copy of Halliday who grew unstable when his creator tried to remove the worst parts of his own personality from the copy and instead just gave his monstrous alter ego more control over the OASIS. With that power, he is able to hold Parzival and millions of other OASIS users hostage until Z can restore the Siren’s Soul.

How Do the High Five Win the Quest?

Even though Parzival is the only person (aside from Ogden Morrow) able to physically collect the Shards, he relies heavily on members of the High Five and the L0w Five in order to complete the seven trials. Each puzzle draws from a different person’s own particular fandom or knowledge base: Z’s new ally L0hengrin figures out the first Shard years after it gets announced; Shoto is the one to crack the riddle of Sega Ninja, while Art3mis walks them through the John Hughes tribute planet that is Shermer, and Aech coaches Z through doing musical battle with the Seven Princes on the Afterworld. Of course, Wade is the one with the personal experience on education-is-fun planet Halcydonia, and the trip to Arda I is a Tolkienesque date for Parzival and Art3mis.

Finding the Seventh Shard is simply a matter of visiting the Shrine of Leucosia on the D&D planet Chthonia, site of the final battle in Ready Player One. Once all Seven Shards are collected, one need only combine them into one jewel in order to resurrect Leucosia.

But what Z hands over to Anorak is a counterfeit jewel, which he uses to surreptitiously trade the Robes of Anorak back into his inventory. This allows him to teleport into Castle Anorak and threaten to push the Big Red Button that will destroy the OASIS—even if that means it will kill the half a billion people forcibly logged into the OASIS.

Ultimately, Parzival convinces Anorak to duel Halliday’s heir to prove that he is the only one worthy of inheriting Halliday’s power. And while Anorak thinks he’s fighting Wade, who is starting to suffer the effects of Synaptic Overload Syndrome, instead he’s up against the other heir: Ogden Morrow (who had indeed inherited Halliday’s treasured collection of arcade machines), near death after captivity and torture but putting on an ONI headset for the first and last time in order to enter the OASIS as the Great and Powerful Og and duel Anorak the All-Knowing.

Who Dies in the Final Battle?

Whereas the Battle of Castle Anorak in Ready Player One caused an OASIS-wide massacre of all the users who came to Parzival’s aid—who he later brought back to life—the casualties in Ready Player Two’s final showdown are much smaller. Z is mostly a spectator to what he calls “the most epic player-versus-NPC battle in the history of the OASIS… It was like Yoda versus Palpatine, Gandalf versus Saruman, and Neo versus Agent Smith, all rolled into one epic clash of the titans.”

The two seem fairly evenly matched until L0hengrin appears, fresh off her own epic side quest, to deliver Og the sword Dorkslayer. The sword was a creation of Ogden’s, once he received Halliday’s posthumous email apologizing for creating Leucosia without either Kira or Og’s permission. Knowing that Anorak might go rogue, Og created the contingency of an in-world sword that only his avatar could wield. Once he receives the sword, it’s all over, requiring only a single blow to destroy Anorak.

In the real world, Sorrento has already died. When Wade and Samantha, acting via telebots, went to rescue Og from his and Kira’s mansion, Anorak (also via telebot) decides that Sorrento has served his purpose and shoots him. Unfortunately, Sorrento is able to get off a wild shot that strikes Og in the stomach, a wound to which he eventually succumbs after killing Anorak in the OASIS.

Who Lives (Again) After the Final Battle?

After Anorak is defeated and all of the OASIS hostages are released back into the real world, Wade wakes up after a few days’ recovery. Samantha passes on Og’s last words to Wade, telling him that he should bring Kira back so she can decide her own fate. At first Wade is confused, but he remembers teenage Kira’s D&D module: The party has to collect all seven shards and reassemble them into the Siren’s Soul. Only then can they free Leucosia from suspended animation. Once they do, she presents them with their reward. A powerful artifact with the power to resurrect the dead, and make them immortal in the process…

First Wade assembles the Seven Shards and resurrects Leucosia, who explains that she is technically the world’s first stable AI (though Anorak predated her, he was clearly unstable by the end). She also reveals that Halliday, when he realized how badly he had wronged Kira and her, offered to destroy the ONI technology. However, she told him not to, because she was glad to have been created, as she could carry on Kira’s memories rather than letting them get lost. She also didn’t want to be alone. “I don’t feel like some sort of unnatural abomination,” she explains to Wade and Samantha. “I feel fine. I feel alive.”

It’s similar to what Black Mirror has done with their “cookies,” or AI copies, especially in its episodes “White Christmas,” “San Junipero,” and “USS Callister.” Each explores these copies’ rights to be considered as independent entities, their fates separate from their human counterparts.

Leucosia gifts Parzival the Rod of Resurrection, which will allow him to bring back any OASIS user who has died in real life—but only if they had used the ONI to back up their consciousness. So Z is able to bring back Art3mis’ grandmother Ev3lyn, as well as the Great and Powerful Og, to be with Leucosia. Unfortunately, he can’t bring back his mother, who died long before the ONI technology existed, nor Daito.

But what he does realize is that everyone who did ever use an ONI headset automatically has the chance at immortality: “We might be part of the last generation ever to know the sting of human mortality. From this moment forth, death would have no dominion.” From beyond the grave, James Donovan Halliday had created the Singularity by way of simulacra.

What Happens to the OASIS and the ONI-net?

Although Wade spends the entire book agonizing over the possibility of pushing the Big Red Button, ultimately he decides against it. It’s not his call to take away an entire world that provides escapism for people suffering in poverty, or who feel uncomfortable in their physical bodies, people for whom the OASIS is the only realm in which to be their true selves.

So, humans get to keep the OASIS and the ONI-net; but they don’t get to learn about the Singularity created by the ONI technology and the Rod of Resurrection. The High Five decide that it will take some time for humans to get comfortable with the idea of living alongside digital ghosts of their loved ones in the OASIS; but that won’t stop them from making plans for generations from now.

What Happens to Wade?

Or perhaps the better question is, what happens to Wade… and what happens to Parzival.

Like Ready Player One, the sequel’s action was narrated by Wade after the fact, recounting a digital adventure that changed the real world forever. The twist here is that in the final chapter (appropriately titled “Continue…?”), readers learn that the first-person narrator is technically Parzival, a digital copy of Wade’s consciousness in the OASIS.

Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed that when Wade returns to the OASIS to resurrect Leucosia, he mentions that it is his final login to the OASIS. This makes sense in the final chapter, when the tenses shift to describe Wade in third-person but Parzival in first-person, revealing that the two shared memories of the entire story, until their experiences diverged at the creation of Parzival as a self-aware AI copy.

What is the Future of Humanity?

In his bleakest moments, Wade had worked with Aech and Shoto to build and prep the Vonnegut, a spaceship intended to leave Earth behind for a new home. Samantha was understandably upset at the idea of the OASIS’ co-owners abandoning an overpopulated Earth for their own gains, as this ark could only hold about two dozen bodies.

However, once the High Five begin resurrecting the AIs via the ONI technology, they come to a better plan: Move Parzival, a copy of Art3mis, Ev3lyn, Og, and Leucosia from the OASIS into ARC@DIA, the standalone simulation on the Vonnegut, and set a course for Proxima Centauri, where they hope to find a habitable, Earth-like planet. The voyage will take close to fifty years, but the AIs will have one another in their digital world and won’t need to take up any resources like human bodies would. Along with copies of all of the ONI users—in suspended animation—and frozen human embryos, the Vonnegut will have more than enough physical bodies and digital souls to populate a new world, should they find one.

There is, of course, a huge ethical dilemma in copying over a billion OASIS users without their knowledge. Wade leaves it up to Parzival, since he knows what reincarnation is like. They seem to be adopting an “ask for forgiveness, not for permission” attitude—assuming that the copies’ namesakes on Earth even ever find out about the AIs’ existence.

Parzival also distinguishes how he and Wade are different people despite their shared experiences. Wade and Samantha elect to stay on Earth, where they get married and get pregnant with a daughter they plan to name Kira. (Shoto and Kiki have their son, Daito, while Aech and Endira remain happily married.) Fatherhood gives Wade a renewed purpose, while Parzival both delights in his immortal, ageless relationship with Art3mis but also hints at the AIs possibly constructing bonds that may transcend human ways of relating to one another: “Our relationships with one another have also evolved, now that we’re immortal beings of pure intellect, freed from our physical forms and set adrift in the vastness of outer space, possibly for all eternity. Even though our perspectives may have changed, we still value those relationships above all else. Because out here, that’s all we have.”

The book ends on dual notes of hope: that the humans remaining on Earth will recommit themselves to figuring out how to fix their planet, while still thriving in the escapism of the OASIS; and that their digital counterparts will settle a new planet, or even make contact with another civilization who can help them continue to evolve.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Wade and Parzival both grow up playing video games, and spend their formative years inside one. Then their paths diverge: Wade finally realizes that there are enough people and experiences in the real world that matter enough to keep him grounded IRL, going so far as to claim that he will never put on an ONI headset again. Meanwhile, Parzival carries their gaming spirit further, to explore more digital worlds via ARC@DIA and what feels like a whole new level in the video game that is life. Sounds like Cline has left enough of an opening for the possibility of Ready Player Three…

The post Ready Player Two Ending Explained: How the Sequel Jumps the Shark appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[moontiara-action]

Ready, Player One?

So I started reading Ready Player One a few days ago, and as I was reading, an article description about the book being terrible because of its writing (I didn't read it because it didn't want the story spoiled for me) lingered in my mind. I would give it the benifit of the doubt.

It couldn't be that bad.

...

I'm only in the fifth chapter, but the book could be WAY shorter if it did more showing than telling. And the 80s references...Don't get me wrong, I like 80s culture! HOWEVER. I feel like the references are utilized more as a means to show off how much knowledge the author has about that period. (I know that Halliday was obsessed with 80s, and Wade learns about the 80s because of him, but it can be a little much sometimes.)

This probably won't be the last time I talk about this book.

P.S. I wish I had kept a tally of how many 80s references, but that would require me to start all over.

[dweemeister]

Ready Player One (2018)

On a recent episode of CBS Sunday Morning, author Ernest Cline attributed his debut novel’s success as, “a testament to what happens if you be free about what you love and why you love it.” That novel, filled with 1970s and 1980s pop culture, is Ready Player One, now directed by Steven Spielberg (who, arguably, defined cinema in those decades), co-adapted to the screen by Cline and Zak Penn, and retaining the ideas Cline sought to express. After a run of topical dramas, this is Spielberg’s first legitimately “fun movie” since 2011′s The Adventures of Tintin (as much as I liked 2016′s The BFG, it is tonally scattered). Jaws (1975) and Jurassic Park (1993) scared the pants off of sensitive viewers; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Hook (1991) reached into childhood fears amid the entertainment. But of all of Spielberg’s “fun movies”, Ready Player One is the only one that is pure spectacle. Its nostalgia there for show, almost never in service of whatever themes the film happens to stumble upon. This pure spectacle is a fleeting, flashy thrill and little else – take the jump, because despite its weaknesses, there is no film analogous to Ready Player One.

It is 2045 and humans are addicted to the virtual reality world of OASIS. OASIS was designed by co-creators James Halliday (Mark Rylance; whose eccentric character has been deceased for some time) and Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg; who left the developing company before OASIS became so widespread), who hid an Easter egg requiring three keys within his game. The Easter egg promises the winner ownership of OASIS. Living in a multi-tiered trailer park in Columbus, Ohio, is the orphaned Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), whose OASIS username is Parzival. He befriends one of the game’s best players, Art3mis (the avatar of Samantha Cook, played by Olivia Cooke) on his way to acquire Halliday’s three keys and unearth the game’s deepest secrets that millions have tried to solve. Faster than Wade can tell Samantha, “I wanna be your lover”, she rebuffs his requests to meet her in person because she fears that he will not like the real her.

Everybody wants to rule the world. One corporation, Innovative Online Industries (IOI), has essentially dedicated itself thousands of employees to find the Easter egg to gain full control of OASIS. The CEO of IOI is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), and he finds himself in conflict with Tye’s friends – who name themselves the “High Five”. The High Five will also include (actual name/username): Helen/Aech (Lena Waithe), Zhou/Sho (Philip Zhao), and Toshiro/Daito (Win Morisaki).

One could spend much longer explaining the world inhabited by the characters, but Ready Player One is up to the challenge of excessive exposition as Penn and Cline’s screenplay spend about twenty minutes with Wade explaining what has happened to 2045 Earth (or, at least, Columbus). The screenplay also refuses to grasp any of the implications of the dystopia it presents – having not read the book, my hope is that Cline does examine those social aspects more. How did the widespread disillusionment in real life that, apparently, the whole world (?) is connected to OASIS come to be? Aren’t humans, even those who believe they have no power, more resilient than that? How can an enormous conglomerate be able to have what basically is a paramilitary that engages in domestic terrorism (police forces exist, if the ending is any indication, so do cops work one day a week or something in 2045)? Given trends in gaming today, are there microtransactions or something similar in the OASIS that creates a class structure replicating itself in the real world and allowing for certain in-game or real-life advantages by class?

Maybe it is just my imagination running away with me, but why the hell are all the best players in the world living in Columbus, Ohio?

One way or another, enduring science-fiction asks questions of its characters’ humanity and dares the reader or viewer to understand, question, and improve their own being. In cinema, Metropolis (1927, Germany) comments on class power struggles and how society is impoverished with a permanent working class; Planet of the Apes (1968) is a sharp allegory of religious and scientific tensions; A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) asks if a synthetic being programmed to simulate love can feel love. Ready Player One’s stake in cinema’s science-fiction tradition is not as weighty as those films, but there are pressing thoughts to be gleamed from the film.

The movie presents fandom that is corporatized, excessive, or taken in moderation, as well as providing an environment of pandemic video game addiction (now a disorder recognized by the World Health Organization). On corporatized fandom, Ready Player One presents audiences with IOI – a combination of video gaming as sweatshop work and individuals whose job it is to know everything about twentieth-century cinematic (I might be a decent candidate in this department but turning it into soul-sucking work is too depressing to think about), comic book, and video gaming culture. Something like IOI is laughable now, but the film stands on it, so perhaps we will not be laughing if something resembling it emerges in the decades to come.

Regarding excessive fan culture, one could argue the whole conception of OASIS is a monument to one man’s uninhibited obsession with elements of pop culture. Ready Player One – at least in this adaptation – is unwilling to examine how damaging one’s fandom, when taken to extremes, can be (the throwaway epilogue in the film’s final frames is not enough). Outside of Halliday’s story, how does one’s fixation on video games or movies or other art forms make actual life easier or more difficult? The epilogue’s reveal that Wade and Samantha no longer log into the OASIS every day makes one wonder how prepared they are to go without a virtual reality where they have essentially lived their lives. Perhaps that latter point belongs to a different movie or the fan-fiction writing corners of the Internet, but the fact that Ready Player One only superficially touches upon these points adds little else to this reference-heavy movie.

What non-readers of Ready Player One may have noticed is the presence of so many popular movie and video game characters. One begins to wonder about how much money was spent on licensing. Many detractors of Ready Player One, who aren’t gonna take it, have commented on how some of the references in the film are shallow, disrespectful of the original source materials. These critiques are mostly beside the point. Take the Iron Giant. The Iron Giant appears as Helen’s avatar in the climactic battle as she/it proceeds to punch the stuffing out of IOI’s mechanized tanks and Mechagodzilla. This goes against the character’s essence: that it will only use violence in cases of self-defense. True, but this is an Internet avatar and the OASIS not necessarily a strict role-playing environment.

Nevertheless, one’s personal sense of fandom always has some degree of appropriation. Understanding a person’s passions and the origin of those passions make for incredible emotional connections that can barely be described. Where Cline’s passion for largely 1970s and ‘80s popular culture is apparent, what about his characters? Halliday is a human compendium of knowledge and trivia of that period – its movies, television, video games, anime, comics, and more. But why does he love those things implemented into OASIS? Why is Wade’s ride a DeLorean? Is it because he identifies with Marty McFly from the Back to the Future series? Artemis has the motorcycle from Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (1988)? Is she an enormous anime fan, and is Akira a personal favorite anime film? Spielberg, Penn, and Cline need not have crafted indulgent soliloquies for every reference, but the audience is bereft of understanding why these references from these past works appeal so much to Ready Player One’s characters. It does not help that the romantic kindling between Sheridan and Cooke (as Samantha, she is very much ashamed of a sizable birthmark… thankfully, not to Phantom of the Opera levels of shame) is iffy at best.

The BFG was the motion-capture dress rehearsal for Ready Player One. Almost everything that occurs in the OASIS was shot using motion capture – a process that is similar to regular film shooting for actors but is more demanding for visual effects teams. The results produced by these hundreds of visual effects artists for Ready Player One are commendable, but Spielberg regulars cinematographer Janusz Kamiński and editors Michael Kahn and Sarah Broshar (not a Spielberg regular, but co-editor of 2017′s The Post) are more at ease in the non-OASIS scenes in how they use lighting to evoke the decrepit nature of Wade’s neighborhood. Production designer Adam Stockhausen (Wes Anderson’s primary production designer since 2012′s Moonrise Kingdom) makes these towers of trailer homes feel lived in and not soundstage-bound or CGI’d into the film. Contrast that with the sleek, ultramodern headquarters of IOI – which somewhat recalls the aesthetic in the Tron series.

This is only the fourth Spielberg movie not to be scored by John Williams, who withdrew from the project after scheduling conflicts with his work for Dear Basketball (2017), The Post, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). So in comes Alan Silvestri (1994′s Forrest Gump, 2012′s The Avengers), who worked with Spielberg when the latter served as producer on Back to the Future. Outside of the musical quotations Silvestri uses from Back to the Future and other films, his score successfully recalls the orchestral adventurism of 1980s action movies. Several are interspersed throughout, with the most commonly-used motifs – for Wade and Halliday, respectively – incorporated into the main titles. Lushly orchestrated and allowing strings, woodwinds, and brass jumping into the action-packed or romantic frays of the plot, Silvestri’s score is weakest when the cameras are inside IOI’s headquarters and the electronic elements reminiscent of a Marvel movie do little even to increase suspense.

Separate from the score is a ‘70s/’80s soundtrack that many viewers will be familiar with. A dance sequence using the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” echoes John Travolta’s moves in Saturday Night Fever (1977). Many other songs are included in the soundtrack, but they have already been name-dropped in this review to prove a larger point (ahem).

Having already criticized Ready Player One for its insubstantial callbacks, I may be guilty of shameful hypocrisy because of this paragraph. One musical omission that defined Ready Player One’s marketing campaign should have been implemented into the film. “Pure Imagination”, composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), played an important part in setting the tone for Ready Player One’s trailers. Whether integrated into the score or soundtrack, “Pure Imagination” is a widely-known song even to audiences who consider older movies not worth their time. I see Willy Wonka and Ready Player One as distant cousins: a young character embarks on an exhilarating, occasionally dangerous, adventure and – through their actions – will become the loving custodian of another person’s fantastical dream. Such a decision would not be unprecedented in a Spielberg movie. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), John Williams used “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940) in his score to underline the interstellar optimism and childlike wonderment in both films. Ready Player One never has a moment like that – where the film can make sense and explore the emotions behind what pieces of popular culture enabled the creation of the OASIS.

If this review seems like poop in the punch bowl, that is not my intention. As a self-identified nerd who shuns nerd culture, I enjoyed Ready Player One and got a kick out of identifying the movie and video game characters my eyes could catch in time – I had fun, and that is important in watching movies. If Ready Player One is nothing more than a celebration of how our popular culture tastes makes us who we are, then that is fine. Yet it never asks where such love comes from because that is the most exciting thing we can ever learn about another person.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[warbus83]

Ready player one movie Vs book

This is my personal take on this, I don't know if anyone else see it this way but here we go. The book is an amazing novel a book I was instantly drawn too as it was referencing my childhood. The music, the movies the classic videogames all spoke to me and the best bit was the protagonist wade. When you read this book you felt like you were him, that you we're wade going threw the oasis desperately trying to decipher Hallidays clues he left behind. Trying to see and figure out why halliday was the way he was and what he left behind or never did with his life. And low and behold you do but along the way you find out your becoming him too. Hence the awkward love story in the middle with a clever and awesome girl who is exactly the same. And the view point as its wades biography of how he won, and his truthfully awkward rendition of how truly teenage boys are so inept at talking and expressing there feelings to girls at that age. And there unfortunately stalkerish attitude. But the cool bit was when I read this book probably after the 10th time I started going over the movies, the music and the games again in real life. Watching listening and playing and had a ball it made you feel something. And to bring your friends into this and relive the good times again and have a laugh, it's what made the book. Now also the book has a dark side too the world is shit we let it get that way by being to addicted to technology, we gave our life to the machine persay . Hence why I read this as go backwards enjoy the classic times before all this tech. The real world is real. (Read Orwell's 1984 it's today's world now )

Now the challenges in the book were challenges. They tested your nerd knowledge and skill. Most people I know can't last 20 seconds in games like contra before dying or get the coordination to beat levels in tempest or donkey Kong. Because today's games are to linear and straight forward. That's what I loved. "Skill to pass these straights".

The movie well it is a gorgeous movie full of pop references out the wazoo . But really do you know why there everywhere . And it's supposed to be pushing the games Halliday loved. I never read he loved a version of gta5 racing or rocket league esque games. I know it's impossible to get a licensesing for all those things in the book (I.e the ultraman drama) but it was about classics what Spielberg said he was a fan off and never really delivered . Instead we got overwatch, starcraft, halo etc. It seemed like an add for modern games not the core story of what Ernie portrayed. It's all well and good those will be the classics of the youth of tommorow but it was aimed at the 80s and 90s kids. Adam Sandler did a better job getting classic games to the screen In Pixels.

But the movie was cool seeing a visual representation of Z, arty & aech was cool and the Delorean hence that silly race so they could show it off. It was well done but the dark world wasn't that dark. Kill daito show the corporate machine was evil. Not gloss it over. The music was good even though no rush. And it was a rollercoaster of a movie trying to spot all the hidden eggs in it. Like parzivals 1970 battlestar galactic blaster he shoots arty with. It was fun I enjoy watching it. But the end credits should say loosely based on ready player one lol.

In the end they both have merit they are cool the movie is for the youth of today while the book is for us older ones who loved and lived its references. Get into them they are great