SADDO: THE MOVIE (aka READY PLAYER ONE)

The book was shit. The movie version looks to be even worse. Here's the first trailer, fresh from Comic-Con:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE71JOvLPvE

Rubbish and then some. Fuck Cline.

Someone pointed out on another thread that Spielberg has spun bad source material into gold before, but this trailer looks really awful.

Iron giants and f-zero racing look better than 99% of the ultra mainstream movie stuff out there for my money, shame about the Rush song tho

I read the synopsis of the book on Wikipedia and thought that it was probably a terrible book that would likely be a terrible movie.

iron giants and f-zero racing look exactly the same as 99% of the ultra mainstream movie stuff out there

Yeah, in what universe is this not "ultra mainstream," and can I move there instead?

somebody signed off on using "cinematic game changer" and "holy grail of pop culture" in the trailer titles. huh.

the racing shit just looks like a reznor grimdark take on the Wachowski's Speed Racer but with even more adolescent angst than that already implies

wow, the entire constellation around this novel is just pathetic con pander bullshit. Hey guys, did you know Wil Wheaton narrated the audiobook?

Cline used the personalities of Howard Hughes and Richard Garriott, and placed Halliday's birth year around the same as his own so that his pop culture interests would coincide with Cline's "and the other middle-aged uber geeks I know"

oh my god this fucking clown

There's a reason I said what I did!

Fanboy the Movie. This is going to be another one of those movies saturated with pop culture references, but only the pop culture references they can license. Like the second Lego movie, where the much-touted evilest villains of all time just all happen to be Warner Brothers properties.

Rush, though, I want to say makes a few appearances in the book. I haven't read the book, and none of you make me want to read the book.

tbf Lego Batman is a pretty fun film that knows what it is

ugh i read this book based on rave reviews elsewhere and hated it so much. it's world of warcraft: the novelization.

m'lady: th'movie

quite apart from all the 80s-kid jerkin every time i read about this book it seems to be like, what if the matrix was good, and instead of destroying its creators and freeing yrself you just competed for money in an obstacle course installed by its designer? okay

i can do that anyway, is the thing

Willy Wonka and the Content Farm

Oh cool, the ultimate apex of our pathetic arrested development manchild nostalgia barf culture.

Like if you're a grown adult who is thrilled by the idea of Freddy Krueger getting blown away by a Halo gun...

I don't get why this gets shit on but guardians etc get fellated but whatevs yr call homies

Yeah idk I didn't like that either. Also do you have a minute to talk about Stranger Things?

I don't get why this gets shit on but guardians etc get fellated but whatevs yr call homies

― sleepingbag, Sunday, July 23, 2017 12:24 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whatever one thinks of Guardians of the Galaxy it isn't really comparable to this.

I would say read the book to get a taste of just how bad it is but that would be inhumane. Trust me, it's worse than any other nerd baity thing out there

I am not sure where to start explaining the salient differences between Guardians of the Galaxy and this desaturated pablum

one has the name of the best American filmmaker of the last 40 years on it?

Haha yes good job

tbh i do have to withhold judgment on this movie seeing as this is a guy whose most profoundly felt masterpiece is a michael crichton adaptation

but this particular book rly does feel like the concrete wall at the end of the world

So I guess most of you will go see this anyway?

What would make you think that

I hope it flops like Ishtar

I hope it gets beaten at the box office by the Lego Ninjago movie

I hope it crashes and burns like Pan Am Flight 103

I hope it dies peacefully in bed, surrounded by loved ones and family. At the funeral they play a Rush song. After hovering in a bardo state for a few seconds the soul enters a young baby.

JK I hope it tanks

a guy whose most profoundly felt masterpiece is a michael crichton adaptation

yeah right

if you were 12 perrrrhaps

:)

I think all of us were 12 at some point

comes after 11 iirc

Representative excerpt from the book

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

look, tl;dr, but jfc

obv it's a life choice, peace be with you and all that, but maybe y'all could get your own island or something

He listened to everything ... Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal.

that excerpt makes him seem like an evil neil cicierega haha

And, of course, Kevin Smith.

It's pretty impressive how nothing in that entire list is actually obscure or weird

"I memorized every last Bill Hicks stand-up routine."

That one I didn't see coming, true.

I couldn't get to the end of that passage but I'm sure the punchline was hilarious

is it possible this book is a satire of the cultural death of the west?

no one interested in the Spielberg film who hasn't heard of the book (eg, me) gives a damn about it.

Is it too late for them to pull a Disney, fire Spielberg and get Verhoeven on the job?

is it possible this book is a satire of the cultural death of the west?

i mean yeah, but it'd have to be an entirely accidental satire, which i guess would make it even more successful

tombot massively otm, verhoeven would have been perfect for giving this the evisceration it deserves

The most surprising response, from apparently intelligent people, was that this film was in fact very good. I find it hard to accept that anyone intelligent can think this. Indeed, if an intelligent person does think it, it suggests to me that civilisation is further down the slimy slope of post-literacy than even I had suspected.

Hitchens take on RP1, nah not really he is actually talking about Dunkirk here!

lol that excerpt above explains why one of my besties loves this so much. he's obsessed w/ pop culture references

t/s: hitchens vs frederik b xp

So this book is about an amazing future where culture has not advanced beyond the geek obsessions of the 80s and 90s?

i'd say since the film is in post (and Verhoeven can't make a good film w/out Isabelle Huppert) yes it's too late

Verhoeven can't make a good film w/out Isabelle Huppert

lies

checks to see if Huppert was in Flesh and Blood

yep, nonsense

I only know of this book in passing from people who told me it was "sub-Snowcrash". no opinions on it from me and I haven't watched the trailer yet but this line makes me want to stab my eyes out: "I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend."

From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.

From the Police to Journey to R.E.M. to the Clash. I tackled it all.

New ILM board description.

The '80s was a long decade (ten whole years)

omg ive seen horrible excerpts from this book before but that is next-level. "from popular works by geeky men to geeky works by popular men, I consumed it all"

best part of the book iirc is when the main character, heretofore a tubby lump of shit, gets hardcore into exercise so he can win the affections of the female lead, cuz of course girls prefer their lumps of shit to be lean-n-ripped

Per that idiot list

This is the part in Ready Player One where I knew if I didn't stop reading this Bazinga-ass shit I was going to jail for murder. pic.twitter.com/vpWNCGAQec

— donnie (@donniemnemonic) July 23, 2017

Compared to Cline's other book, which is basically "The Last Starfighter starring a character who is definitely NOT me, author Ernest Cline," Ready Player One is Tolstoy.

Also the scene in the trailer with all the racers putting on their virtual gear and getting into their virtual cars (can't remember if it was in the book or not) was almost literally just done in Guardians of the Galaxy, Pt. 2. The Sovereign used drone spacecraft piloted remotely by people in little video-game pods.

Not enough middle fingers in the world here

At SDCC Spielberg said he wants ppl to shout "I know that!" in the theatre every time they spot a reference while watching Ready Player One.

— Bruce Levenstein (@BruceLevenstein) July 24, 2017

just in case you weren't sure whether you wanted to see this thing

the more i hear about this the more i think that isis might be on to something

the Family Guy-sation of popular culture

That's not what I normally shout when I see a Spielberg movie in the theatre

i've never once shouted in a theatre tbh, am i missing out

how much do you want to be punched in the dark?

btw Spielberg's Pentagon Papers film will be out before this, so let's concentrate on what's important.

tbf if somebody wants to go on a shooting spree in a movie theatre this summer you'd probably get off with justifiable homicide if you choose this one

or next spring, when it's actually out?

you geeks (OOOOH, VALERIAN!) sure are intolerant of the next cave over

I do wonder why the Suicide Squad thread wasn't like this.

I like how the geeky girls playing ukeleles are the only women he acknowledges in that endless list.

It's also a good idea to shout "I don't know that!" when not currently spotting a reference.

Wonder what Spielberg made of that mention of Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

For an accurate summary of the book(and response) that's like less than an hour long, check here:

http://ideotvpod.libsyn.com/ready-player-one-w-mike-sacco

Also

Here's the official trailer for READY PLAYER ONE: pic.twitter.com/0rQnUE5LdK

— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) July 22, 2017

He already threw Lucas under a bus on that, I'm sure it rolled off his back.

"I've been cyber-stalking you for years." - our main character to love interest

I think he thinks this kind of shit is charming..? pic.twitter.com/AsxuD8hfPJ

— Hector Wang (@heronimous) July 24, 2017

It's hilarious/worrying that Morbz actually seems to be planning to watch this

Glad everyone itt has agreed to definitely never see this film.

Morbs, I think our intolerance of the next cave over is directly proportionate to the frequency with which we are visited by their most obstreperous resident

I don't watch trailers, including this one. It's photographed by Janusz Kaminski and edited by Michael Kahn, so possibly good.

I might skip it if SS made this for his teenage kids, but the last film of his I missed was The Lost World.

I meant the next geek cave, dude.

(btw scratch that, all his kids are over 20)

Spielberg quote above suggests he understands the audience for this very, very well. But I'll be surprised if it does any better with the wider market than Scott Pilgrim or Pixels, or for that matter Tintin or The BFG.

The main thing that mystifies me is why he would find this an interesting story to work on... it's just a nostalgia rush for stuff that came out when he was in his late 30s, some of which he was involved in creating, and he's not normally even that particular kind of nostalgic. Melange of rerun serials made before he was born, yes, affection for childhood and family, sure, but the only things he's made that are really set during his youthful years are Crystal Skull, Catch Me If You Can and Tintin, and none of those strike me as "you know what really makes me happy is just seeing tons of movies I've never stopped rewatching since I was 11 get *mentioned* in something else."

I learned today that Ernest Cline has "spoken word" poetry posted on his website. The first one is an ode to the tv show Airwolf.

😭🔫

so this thread is really about a YA book huh

Itt ppl who make lists of things they like mad at someone else's list of things they mostly like

lol my 'evil cicierega' comment has borne actual fruit :D

call me when ilxors start getting book deals for novels that are just straight republications of their EOY ballots. i don't see anything shameful in calling out embarrassingly awful prose as being unworthy of millions of dollars and screen adaptation by a good filmmaker who should know better.

Ready Play One Pt 2: The Baconing

I wonder how Randall Munroe feels about this

how much do you want to be punched in the dark?

hawt

"game changer" is an awful phrase

ive heard about the book before. i agree w all it seems like a bottom of the barrel superficially pomo circle jerk. maybe not the end of culture but definitely a giving up of intellectually engaging with culture.

the idea of consumption as a virtue. not even deep consumption, just surface level ticking-off-the-correct-boxes consumption. you can "absorb the filmographies" of the important directors but without a working knowledge of film history and theory you have no accurate historical context to place it in no understanding of the development of the form itself, the socio-cultural situations that gave it form, nothing outside of yeah some references they can make on Family Guy. lol the thought that you consumed all of Kubrick's films you must be a film genius.

i would much rather watch Pixels, which sounds like the exact same premise as this book.

fwiw i am in my 30s and love video games and still have not seen Pixels even though it came out 2 years ago.

It's a book for people who collect mp3s (or ROMs) instead of listening to them.

lol the thought that you consumed all of Kubrick's films you must be a film genius.

You're giving it too much credit -- you don't even get to be a film genius, you just get to decipher clues to win another game!

I've listened to the audiobook a couple years ago. Yes, it treads the Denis Leary/Seth MacFarlane path of "I know that pop culture reference, ha ha." But its not as incoherently Transformers like as the trailer, really aiming for more Joss Whedon wordplay territory (and not always making it). I'd expect a more Guardians of the Galaxy type critical response ("On principle, I hate this genre, but this isn't terrible").

GotG is every bit as repellent to me tbh

For those curious about why a sane middle-aged person would read RPO, its a post-climate catastrophe world, mentioned in the eco-fiction.com database, and I'd been methodically making my way through this from Ballard to Atwood to Bacigalupi to more recent titles.

Here's the official trailer for READY PLAYER ONE: pic.twitter.com/0rQnUE5LdK
— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) July 22, 2017

loooooooooooooooool

You're right about the book not being as action-based as the film seems to be. It's more stuff like this

https://i.imgur.com/nfBSqiP_d.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wNDDtCM_d.jpg

"Joss Whedon wordplay territory" is being pretty generous though

Oh I guess that didn't work. Anyway it's a scene where he literally plays out the plot of WarGames word for word

for pages

Wow, fascinating.

There's something about the film(moreso than the book) that indicates the absolute barest distillation of mindless franchise consumption as the core aspect of modern geek identity. When describing why this kinda thing makes money, Rich Evans of all people said it best, "People like their logos."

It's not just using long-standing genre elements to tell stories, it's using signposts to long-standing stories. It's the feature-length version of that Big Bang Theory clip where they just barf up a list of names in place of a joke. Or we have a movie version of LootCrate, a regularly shipment of dollarstore gimcracks & gewgaws that just gave brand names stamped on them.

My thoughts are still sorta jumbled on this, naturally, but there's a certain ne plus ultra twinning of both postmodern entertainment and hyper capitalistic blockbuster franchise production. Media megacorps realized like 10+ years ago that people really into consuming nerdshit had the most predictably monetizable consumption habits possible, and re-tools their business to start squirting out everything they can at that audience segment.

Yeah, churning out product for a market has been the standard forever, but it's next-level when you primarily target the segment who form their identity thru genre consumption(rather than previous identifiers of nationality/trade/creed/ethnicity/locale/etc)

And what's worst is that they're just so fucking lazy about it.

I burned through the entire They Might Be Giants discography in under two weeks. Devo took a little longer.

this bothers me, the TMBG discography is like 3x the size of Devo's, how do this guy not know that

It's 2044, maybe Devo will have had a late comeback.

I would have been on board had this been the nerd pastiche novel that took off and got optioned for a film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon_I_Will_Be_Invincible

by 2044 TMBG will have 20 more albums

I've been all 'yeah, yeah, it's probably bad based on how many people I've heard say it's bad' about the book without actually looking into the book at all, so I was not really prepared for how bad that passage upthread was. 'Meritless' is the first word that springs to mind.

I have the read the book. There really a chapter(or most of one, I think) were the dude goes on and on about having to play Rush songs flawlessly in order to unlock some dungeon

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFfA8o3UAAAMg7l.jpg

The one non-80s ref he throws in is talking about how one of the other players rides around in a Firefly-type ship named "Kaylee"

Since this thread has turned into this discussion I'll say I don't have much issue with any specific cultural artefact and I broadly agree with Morbs about Spielberg's merits as a director, my revulsion is about something else, a gross, incurious spirit of the age or something I'm not able to articulate right now that this shit rolls itself in, a glorification of infantilism maybe

call it Tarantinoism

the song Spirit Of The Age would make for a better sci-fi movie adaptation than this amirite

As always the critique of this collection of references regurgitated as art isn't that this is a shit idea it's that it's the wrong references for the wrong people

Which is lol

pretty sure most people think its a shit idea and not that this would be a great movie if you swapped The Beatles for Neu or something

the critique is that it's a shitty idea, shittily done, with no seeming purpose beyond exactly what the idea would suggest. since this has not stopped it from being really popular with some people, then yeah, I wonder wtf is wrong with those people.

It's possible to do something interesting with a slew of pop culture references and it's also possible to just list them and ask 'remember that? how about that? and what about this?' and watch your audience's souls evaporate.

guys, it's deems, he just likes to pounce on whatever post he half-understood

nah he just can't see a button without pushing it :D

It can be both and if I know myself which it is I'm not letting on

Not saying this would necessarily be a good film with a better list (but c'mon, it would be at least interesting if it was an a-z of Caribbean culture) but I think the choices (some of which are good, I wouldn't expect your average 80s-90s geek to be into some of those writers) and the way he's bragging about it do smack of a particularly annoying identity a lot of people have bought into that seems to put limits on itself and prioritizes familiarity and large fan communities.

as much as i hated the book and silently judged everyone who had insisted I read it, i hate the trailer even more, for inserting an Iron Giant visualization that i would have thought would be safe by virtue of not having existed until 1999. PHUCKING PHILISTINES.

this property is a honeytrap for idiots

pixels was very enjoyable for a braindead movie.

i have now watched the promo for this film a few times and yet to figure out what the story is.

"story"

i've read the book and have yet to figure out what the story is

afaik it's about a guy consumed with regret for the 3.5 hours of his life that he'll never get back

ummmmmm okay lmao

http://www.ernestcline.com/spokenword/npa.htm

nsfw

All the porn I've come across
was targeted at beer-swilling sports bar dwelling alpha-males

This man doesn't look very far and wide for anything.

ding ding ding

In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked.
They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and
beat them repeatedly at chess
and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies.

okay he's now officially on the "if you could fight anyone" list, right behind hannity

hey nerd white knight, some people *like* to get naked

Feel like this movie is what would happen if you gave a YouTube gamer a couple hundred million dollars to spruce up their channel.

Airwolf.

Airwolf is the adjective we should use to describe anything
of majesty, beauty, and intensity.
Something that is simply fucking bad ass . . . is Airwolf.
James Brown's music is Airwolf.
Shakespeare is Airwolf.
Sex so good it makes your spine ache and your knees buckle. . .
That's Airwolf.

And nothing is more Airwolf than Airwolf.

Airwolf is the Holy Grail. The Golden Fleece.
The thing you want that you cannot have.
When you go sprinting through the Mall
desperate to fill the emptiness in your life
through the purchase of name brand clothing and electronics-
You will never achieve satisfaction.
Because the one brand name you really want
is the one you can never have.
Airwolf?
Oh, I'm sorry, we're all sold out.
That item was only available for a very limited time
and in very limited supply.
One.

prickly pear vibes imo

I honestly can't tell which are actual quotes and which are just people fucking around. Speaks highly of the source material.

i'm sorry to have to inform you that nobody is fucking around

Best thing about that nerd porn poem is that there's an mp3 of him doing the actual spoken word version, like he read it aloud, heard it back, felt zero shame or embarrassment, and uploaded this thing, it's just...

less surprising that he uploaded it when u hear the crowd reaction!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rBVP0s7umDY/hqdefault.jpg

L-R nu aspire nerd culture, ilx

*aspie

oh my god i glossed over 'guys need porn' jfc

who are these psychos who showed up to this reading holy shit

You know the source material is bad when even Reddit has largely turned on it. Every time a post was made about this book (well, before the trailer that is), I just saw people in the comments pointing out what a lousy book it was

otm, i read the book due to circumstances not really worth explaining here, the core idea isn't for me but it isn't the worst thing in the world, the worst thing in the world is that the author is a dumb idiot.

I feel like sleepingbag has been pulling his punches in this thread

step up and defend the fucking material or don't, nobody is "punching down" a goddamn Spielberg movie

Lmao I haven't read the book and probably won't see the movie, just think it's hilarious that a site for semi-pro listers of things they like is so aggro/jealous of this thing

I see like 3 movies every 5 years lol

did you not read the stuff people quoted

I downloaded every game mentioned or referenced in the Almanac, from Akalabeth to Zaxxon

no Zynaps? what a fucking loser.

no Zork? no cred. fuck this thing.

this idea was intriguing to me b/c I honestly thought this was supposed to be a satire of people who spend their whole life trying to become a pop culture know-it-all and then find themselves incapable of forming a single original thought, like a parody of Bill Simmons type people who see everything in terms of "what Teen Wolf character is this guy". but this is....not that. at all

it'd be cool if the movie pulled a fast one and actually was a cutting sendup of the nostalgiafest it's being sold on, but this is also the director who looked at the creepy story of a society where parents would choose fake robot affection over real grief and said "got it, a heartwarming pinocchio story, let's get to work!"

head scratching read of AI there

Based on what I've been able to piece together, this is like a dude who buys all of the 1000 albums to hear before you die but instead of actually listening to them he just Instagrams a picture of them, is that about right?

head scratching read of AI there

yeah i've given up on the "Spielberg sentimentalist" brainwashed when it comes to his films that do the opposite

and Kubrick wrote the fucking adap, period

i recognize i am probably in the minority on A.I. man I hated that movie.

the sentimentality and implication that we should find something sweet/noble/human/inspiring in this piece of machinery doing what it's built to do is all in the direction (and score) tho. iirc anyway.

Doc:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.I._Artificial_Intelligence#Development

At our first meeting Stanley skated briefly over some of my stories which he had read. Since I hadn’t seen Full Metal Jacket... he gave me a videotape. Also, a copy of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, about the puppet who yearned to be a real boy but who gets into such naughty scrapes...The movie was to be a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio, spinning off from the Aldiss story, but the plot-line had bogged down. ...

In 1994 too, Scottish-born Sara Maitland, whose stories give a sharp dark slant to such fables as “Hansel and Gretel,” was brought in until the second half of 1995 to provide a feminist fairy-tale focus. Although she asked Stanley who else had worked on the saga, he refused to tell her, and she only found out after his death. With her, he always referred to the project as “Pinocchio."

https://web.archive.org/web/20080703134444/http://www.ianwatson.info/kubrick.htm

and of course, the robot boy in AI doesn't REPRESENT a robot anymore than Karloff represents a reanimated corpse in Frankenstein. They emotionally signify human beings, or we wouldn't give a shit.

xpost The sentimentality of AI is the point. The kid is walking, talking sentimentality, but no one left in the world gives a fuck, beginning with his asshole mom. The robot is the last human. That's what makes it heartbreaking.

no Zork? no cred. fuck this thing.

― akm,

oh there's a Zork part in the book, don't worry

"I would speculate that Stanley would have made and told much the same story I told because I based my screenplay on a 90-page treatment Stanley had prepared from all of his own ideas," the 53-year-old filmmaker said when asked what he thought Kubrick would have done differently.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=104124&page=1

AI is about as sentimental as Dr Strangelove.

My big issue with A.I. is that I hated Haley Joel Osment in it, which made it something of a trial to sit through.

We know from on-set footage from The Shining, and other anecdotal evidence, that Kubrick revised his scripts all the way through shooting, so I'm sure there would've been many differences between any 'treatment' written prior to filming and the finished Kubrick movie.

Sure, but he was saying 'Pinocchio' to multiple writers throughout, so that concept was his. And yet like windup toys ppl drone on "Spielberg Pinocchio sentimental blahblahblah" in perpetuity.

I don't care if Kubrick or Spielberg is to blame, it's a crappy movie and Dr. C's interpretation mirrors my own

funhouse mirrors

i'm done

the original Pinocchio is absolutely not a sentimental story btw

The heartwarming tale of a far future where everyone except for sentient robots is dead, partly because people built machines that could love them unconditionally and couldn't be bothered to do the same back. **wipes away tear like Robert Stack in 1941**

haha

Yall should read Cline's "Dance Monkeys Dance" easily the most try hard sheeple rant ever written

all that bleak stuff is there in the manifest content of the movie, but spielberg still directs, edits, scores, and ends it like we're supposed to relate to the cusinart that just keeps on cuisinartin'. aww, what a trooper! i don't know whose party line im supposed to be parroting (I like both directors as you probably know) but in the end spielberg's name is on the film, the film is sentimental, and the sentiment is moronic. it's one of my least favorite of his that i've seen. if the plot/world was at least interesting along the way I probably would have rewatched it by now and maybe id be more sympathetic than I was at age 19/20 but all I remember is a bunch of postapocalyptic cliches and an embarrassing robin williams cameo, so it's kind of low in the queue.

anyway tho my main point was just that in general he's not a director drawn to subversive undercurrents or twisty readings - I actually can't think of a film of his that plays against type, or against what the trailer/elevator pitch would lead you to think. that's not a fault - I'd be pissed off to get halfway through Jurassic Park and discover Hammond is really right and the pursuit of genetic miracles is worth any risk because it's our destiny as a species to kill god and take mastery of all nature. but it's an indicator that there's no reason to expect Ready Player One to challenge or complicate the consumer franchise nostalgia fest that the book puts forward.

Yall should read Cline's...

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/nope.gif

I have to rewatch AI. I was so looking forward to it that I was disappointed in it when it finally came out; but when i think back on it, my feelings about it have softened.

An exclusive look at my upcoming book: Ready Player One Except With Girl Culture. Hmu, Spielberg pic.twitter.com/DMDW0PBoUW

— Nat (@Hatalie) July 24, 2017

AI has its problems for sure, but I think nailing it for being overly sentimental is a shallow read. It's more uncomfortable and thornier than that.

yeah it's been forever but iirc it was deeply sad

Cline's song he wrote: http://songmeanings.com/m/songs/view/3530822107859495656/

I think it's about Planet of the Apes.

That Tim Burton movie?

this fucking guy

I'd pay to see a Tim Burton musical of this. Still holding out for the Verhoeven libretto.

By Robert Ludlum.

IT'S SLAM POETRY TIME Y'ALL

Nerd Porn Auteur
by Ernest Cline

(Click to play or download the mp3)
I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies
that are made for guys like me.

All the porn I've come across
was targeted at beer-swilling sports bar dwelling alpha-males
Men who like their women stupid and submissive
Men who can only get it up for monosyllabic cock-hungry nymphos
with gargantuan breasts and a three-word vocabulary

Adult films are populated with these collagen-injected
liposuctioned women
Many of whom have resorted to surgery and self-mutilation
in an attempt to look the way they have been told to look.

These aren't real women. They're objects.
And these movies aren't erotic. They're pathetic.
These vacuum-headed fuck bunnies don't turn me on.
They disgust me.
And it's not that I'm against pornography.
I mean, I'm a guy. And guys need porn.
Fact.
"Like a preacher needs pain, like a needle needs a vein,"
Guys need porn.

But I don't wanna watch this misogynist he-man woman-hater porn.
I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind:
Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world
is a woman who is smarter than you are.

You can have the whole cheerleading squad,
I want the girl in the tweed skirt and the horn-rimmed glasses:
Betty Finnebowski, the valedictorian.
Oh yes.
First I want to copy her Trig homework,
and then I want to make mad, passionate love to her
for hours and hours
until she reluctantly asks if we can stop
because she doesn't want to miss Battlestar Galactica.
Summa cum laude, baby!
That is what I call erotic.

But do you ever see that kind of a woman in a contemporary adult film?
No.
Which is why I'm going to start writing and directing Geek Porno.
I shall be the quintessential Nerd Porn Auteur.
And the women in my porno movies will be the kind
that drive nerds like me mad with desire.

I'm talking about the girls that used to fuck up the grading curve.
The girls in the Latin Club and the National Honor Society.
Chicks with weird clothes, braces, four eyes, and 4.0 GPAs.
Brainy articulate bookworms, with MENSA cards in their purses
and chips on their shoulders.

My porn starlets will come in all shapes and sizes.
My porn starlets will be too busy working on their PhD to go to the gym.

In my kind of porno movies the girls wouldn't even have to get naked.
They'd just take the guys down to the rec room and
beat them repeatedly at chess
and then talk to them for hours about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
or the underlying social metaphors in the Aliens movies.

Buy stock in some hand cream companies
because there is about to be a major shortage.

And I'm not just talking about straight porn. Oh no.
There should be fuck films for my nerd brethren
of all sexual orientations.
Gay nerd porn flicks with titles like "Dungeons and Drag-queens."

This idea is a fucking gold mine.
I am gonna make millions,
because this country is full of database programmers
and electronics engineers
and they aren't getting the loving they so desperately need.
And you can help . . .

If you're an intelligent woman is interested in breaking into the adult film industry,
and if you can tell me the name of Luke Skywalker's home planet,
then you are hired.

It doesn't matter if you think you're overweight or unattractive.
It doesn't matter if you don't think you're beautiful.
You are beautiful. . .
And I will make you a star.

shit didn't see that had been posted already

(Click to play or download the mp3) <-- I tapped out here

saw the trailer for this in the theatre and now I see what you all are on about

Thanks, bizarro, I've always wondered what John Doe wrote in all those notebooks.

David Bowie's "Jump, They Say" - C or D?

jesus tap dancing christ at that poem. bro, the internet does not need new kinds of porn. it already has all the kinds, especially something as basic as "geek girls."

i'm just kinda boggled that someone could write that, read it back, and not see that 'objectification of women is bad! ps - here's how women should be objectified!' is dumb as fuck

Or, "I am a male ally, also porn actresses are not real women."

Dude's a regular Jack Handey.

I know that my dramatic reading could never do justice to Ernest Cline's ravenous hunger for nerd porn, but a copyright strike seems extreme pic.twitter.com/CkXsLctjgl

— supergreatfriend (@supergreatfrien) August 4, 2017

Justin Trudeau, 23rd Prime Minister of Canada • 23e premier ministre du Canada
Answered Apr 3

I am a massive reader, have been all my life. I read anything, and everything, in huge quantities. These days most of what I read are scholarly policy works and briefing papers, so listing my favourite fiction is really tough. I guess starting with a few authors for whom I’ve read just about everything they’ve ever written: Stephen King, Neal Stephenson, and Tad Williams. Other recently-read novels I’ve loved: La part de l’autre by Eric-Emmanuel Schmidt, and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

and with that, America's love affair with the boy prince of Canada came to a crashing end.

I always had a hunch that Cat's Cradle was the weakest Vonnegut but now I am confident

http://m.theweek.com/articles/481262/ernest-clines-6-favorite-books

Who reads Snow Crash after the age of 16 or so and thinks "oh the guy's name is Hiro Protagonist this is GREAT"

It must be a helluva feeling to receive a copyright violation notice from someone who seems to have built his career around exploiting other people's IP.

I hate nerd culture. When is the next star wars coming out

no wait u see it's funny because the japanese name 'hiro' sounds like the english word 'hero' and 'protagonist' is like another way to say 'hero' so

TBF, 'Hiro Protagonist' is just a stone's throw from a name you'd read in Pynchon.

I hate nerd culture. When is the next star wars coming out

France 13 December 2017
Italy 13 December 2017
Netherlands 13 December 2017
Norway 13 December 2017
Sweden 13 December 2017
Armenia 14 December 2017
Argentina 14 December 2017
Australia 14 December 2017
Brazil 14 December 2017
Chile 14 December 2017
Czech Republic 14 December 2017
Germany 14 December 2017
Denmark 14 December 2017
UK 14 December 2017
Greece 14 December 2017
Hong Kong 14 December 2017
Croatia 14 December 2017
Hungary 14 December 2017
Israel 14 December 2017
Malaysia 14 December 2017
New Zealand 14 December 2017
Poland 14 December 2017
Portugal 14 December 2017
Serbia 14 December 2017
Russia 14 December 2017
Singapore 14 December 2017
Bulgaria 15 December 2017
Canada 15 December 2017
Estonia 15 December 2017
Spain 15 December 2017
Finland 15 December 2017
Ireland 15 December 2017
Japan 15 December 2017
Lithuania 15 December 2017
Philippines 15 December 2017
Romania 15 December 2017
Turkey 15 December 2017
USA 15 December 2017
Vietnam 15 December 2017
China 5 January 2018

i'm not sure reading a lot is something to brag about anyway but if all you read is shit then definitely not

There are many accomplishments which one may find personally impressive but which are likely to prompt a very different reaction when shared with others.

yeah i kinda regret putting "wanking" on the skills section of my CV

there's more of that trudeau response btw

Webcomic: xkcd.com (I have a signed Randall Monroe print of “Centrifugal Force” on my office wall.)

america = 4chan / canada = reddit

yeah i kinda regret putting "wanking" on the skills section of my CV

nothing worse than starting a new job and then failing at a task you claimed to be familar with

Let Ernest Cline show u how it is done.

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy. White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy. I read every novel by every single one of Halliday's favorite authors.
And I didn't stop there.
I also watched every single film he referenced in the Almanac. If it was one of Halliday's favorites, like Movie Starring White People, Movie Starring White People (and one Black Guy At The End), Movie Starring White People, Movie Starring White People, or Movie Starring White People, I rewatched it until I knew every scene by heart.
I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Movie Trilogy Starring White People (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Movie Trilogy Starring White Men, Movie Trilogy Starring White People and One Holy Black Guy, Movie Trilogy Starring White People, and Movie Trilogy Starring White People Fighting Brown People. (Halliday once said that he preferred to pretend the other Movies Starring White People Fighting Brown People, from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull onward, didn't exist. I tended to agree.)
I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, White Guy, Hispanic Guy, White Guy. And, of course, White Guy.
I spent three months studying every White Guy teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue.
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
You could say I covered all the bases.
I studied White Guys. And not just Movie Made By White Guys, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC series. (Including those two "lost" episodes they did for German television.)
I wasn't going to cut any corners.
I wasn't going to miss something obvious.
Somewhere along the way, I started to go overboard.
I may, in fact, have started to go a little insane.
I watched every episode of TV Show About White Guys, TV Show About White Guys, TV Show About White Guys and one Black Guy, TV Show About A White Guy and His Car, and TV Show Made By White Guys.
I memorized every last White Guy stand-up routine.
Music? Well, covering all the music wasn't easy.
It took some time.
The '80s was a long decade (ten whole years), and Halliday didn't seem to have had very discerning taste. He listened to everything. So I did too. Pop, rock, new wave, punk, heavy metal. From White Guys Group to White Guys Group to White Guys Group to White Guys Group. I tackled it all.
I burned through the entire White Group discography in under two weeks. White Group took a little longer.
I memorized lyrics. Silly lyrics, by bands with names like White Guys Group, White Guys Group, White Guys Group, and White Guys Group.

Mega mega white thing

Jeb Lund gives this thing the thorough vivisection it deserves.

I'm curious why the cognoscenti feels the need to give this more scrutiny than any other summer escapist blockbuster.

Yes, Gen X feels nostalgia for a period (arguably ending around 1987) when we were young, and popular culture seemed less homogenized in the corporate blender. We're not the first, nor will we be the last, generation to have those sorts of affective hot buttons. RPO's protagonist seems a stand-in for millenials, who in many ways have been encouraged to share their parents' nostalgia (cue pictures of children at Star Wars prequel premieres), but for whom it remains second hand. Pull the zoom back, and RPO is a paper-thin story of trans-generational culture appreciation, and evils wrought when real world interests intrude on emergent cultures of social media.

Is that a useful story to tell now? Yes. Was this the best way it could be told? No. Is it any worse than other summer fare? I doubt it.

https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.74660018.4835/raf,750x1000,075,t,fafafa:ca443f4786.u1.jpg

I'm curious why the cognoscenti feels the need to give this more scrutiny than any other summer escapist blockbuster.

The film is scheduled to be released on March 30, 2018.

Probably because even something as stupid as Transformers isn't just two kids in striped tube socks and 'Where's the Beef?' shirts slamming their action figures together while making 'pew pew' noises and occasionally looking up at the camera and asking, 'Remember this?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmkXBupMJ8

great quote from the Jeb Lund article:

This book is an orgy of the cardinal writer’s sin of telling, not showing, filtered through IMDB and delivered so relentlessly literally that it’s amazing Cline doesn’t just include a cartoon of himself dressed like Peter Griffin from Family Guy saying, “Holy crap, Lois, this is just like the time the author addressed his creations at the end of Breakfast of Champions.”

Good god that review is such a jerk off session. The most interesting part is the plot synopsis, and apparently there's only one really objectionable part of the book as there's that same list passage I keep seeing over and over again. Could writers be any more jealous of this guy's success?

Based on the synopsis the entire enterprise seems pretty objectionable tbh

Ah, the "y'all just jealous haters" defense. Always welcome in any discussion of art, never says anything depressing about the person offering it.

Could writers be any more jealous of this guy's success?

it's an unearned success. there is nothing there. it may as well be a webpage full of links.

it doesn't even do references artfully. like he finds the Firefly spaceship and has to mention that, oh yeah, it's from Firefly the movie. this is shit writing.

also apparently the plot involves characters re-enacting two entire films in this? as if endless lists of references wasn't hollow enough they pause to do the writing equivalent of Lip Sync battle.

how does he do this, does the book just stop and you are reading the Wargames script for 20 pages?

more or less

with occasional interjections from the narrator about how cool it all is

it's an unearned success. there is nothing there.

The same could be said for most writing for the mass market. Does J. K. Rowling "deserve" to be a billionaire? Hell do most billionaires?

Transformers isn't just two kids in striped tube socks and 'Where's the Beef?' shirts slamming their action figures together

Nor is RPO. It not a work for the ages, but there's is a little more going on than the oft-quoted Bret Easton Ellis-esque listmania. The 80s nostalgia is the lure, but there's some pungency in the environment of environmental/governmental collapse, the implied critique of escapism into virtual worlds, and the pervasive anti-corporatism.

The same could be said for most writing for the mass market. Does J. K. Rowling "deserve" to be a billionaire?

J.K. Rowling single-handedly created a multibook franchise based on original characters that was massively successful for all age groups and resulted in a series of 7(!!!) highly successful films all critically acclaimed, a feat not even matched by Lord of the Rings

also Harry Potter wasn't named Merlin and he didn't have to re-enact the entirety of The Hobbit because the writer couldn't think of anything else.

there's some pungency in the environment of environmental/governmental collapse

this feels like the same mindset marketing Batman V Superman that mistakes "dark" for meaning. get over it people have been doing apocalyptic fiction since the dawn of time.

this is totally the right thread to point out that there were 8 films

lol

an all of them fucking awesome. damn right she deserves to be a billionare

J.K. having no plagiarism in her game is stretching the point a little

there have been 9 films now fwiw.

rowling accomplished a synthesis of some kind that amounts to an original creation that has clearly resonated with a whole fuckton of people. there are some hacky elements and some parts that wear the influences a little too blatantly, sure, but come on.

not having read RPO i just have to say that the escapism and anti-corporatism stuff is also just recycled from genre tropes right? i started that podcast someone linked above and one of the first things they point out is that the landscape of stacked-up RVs or whatever is ripped off of a specific sci-fi story, i forget by whom. it kinda seems like saying "okay so the combat stuff in equlibrium is all just a matrix ripoff, sure, but there are some really original themes in its depiction of a dystopia run by emotion-suppressing censors who destroy cultural artifacts until they discover an underground resistance but even this discovery is all part of the evil plan!!"

I really hope someone screams "YOU ARE A BATTERY BRO" in the film

Most genre fiction, including the Potter series, is recycled from genre tropes. Lots of people were similarly querulous when the second HP book, "surely" just another YA fantasy, was being read by our peers in 1998-9. Was it "better" than say Philip Pullman's contemporaneous His Dark Materials series? IMO at the time, Pullman was tackling far more interesting issues.

Rowling benefited from network effects; Pullman did too, to a lesser extent; now another genre publishing phenomenon is. From a far enough removed (read: old) perspective, it just seems fairly absurd to care deeply one way or another.

what genre is this? science fiction? sci fi usually has something to say about the world it creates and how our world is different/same. what critique of capitalism does it have in it? how the whole thing of the text i have read has been about fetishizing corporate IPs.

rowling is fun to read, and everything i've seen quoted from cline is like nails on a chalkboard. i dunno if she was "tackling interesting issues" but it was very solid kids' fiction, especially in the first few books when the plot carpentry is tighter. the characters are likeable. the world is intriguing and full of charming detail. the plots are compelling page-turners. the themes were appropriate for books that were to be read by parents and kids together - loyalty, friendship getting you through tough times, doing what's right, not fitting in, the everyday evils of selfishness and vanity and prejudice, etc. etc.

merge this and the Emoji movie thread

delete the rest of ilx

omg flappy bird is a sanpaku sock

Emoji sounds far more interesting to me compared to this. they are kind of ambiguous and less over-analyzed cultural symbols, abstract/more and tied to the collective unconscious.

RPO is like, fuck, a Transformer and a Minecraft guy, together, and look, it's Iron Man. its a Target commercial.

I barely remember RPO from long walks with the dog 2 years ago, but there are those sorts of themes. They're common to all YA fiction. What distinguishes them is largely the environment they posit. Harry Potter being a largely benign environment where evil is real and has a personality, His Dark Materials one of oppressive religious institutions, Ready Player One a post-apocalytic world were escapism predominates, Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker/Drowned Cities denying even escapism. They all address loyalty, friendship getting you through tough times, doing what's right, not fitting in....

Perhaps someone else will confirm that the usual YA themes are also present in Hunger Games and Divergent. Lifes too short for me to have bothered with those franchises.

I don't believe RPO was explicitly marketed as a YA book. I believe it was aimed at people who consider themselves adults.

The protagonist is a teen/twenty something. That's enough.

just want to completely ILX this thread up by saying nobody deserves to be a billionaire no matter what. Billionaires are bad for the world.

From what I can tell based on the trailer and reading nothing beyond passages posted itt, RPO feels kinda like the sequel to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hz1UaEVyoo

with a dash of

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/nintenshows/images/2/2f/VGM-CN_Title_Card.jpeg

and as with cartoon all-stars to the rescue, there's a million wild and wonderful ways to say "no"

teen/twenty something. That's enough

(Having returned from the dogs' walk), well, that and avoiding moral grey areas, politics, explicit sexuality, excess profanity, aging and concerns of older readers. YA literature could be defined by what it doesn't include. Often I suspect the antagonist's motivations would be grist for more adult fiction (for example, there could be sympathetic diary/apologia for Voldemort where more his complex motivations were clarified, but it wouldn't be YA).

Look at RPO as a cartoon for adolescents, that happens to include some cultural signifiers from our own adolescence, and a lot of the disdain evaporates.

Nah it's shit

Adolescents who want this flavor of escapism are better off with Ender's Game or, you know, anything with girls in it, even if they are named Hermione

RPO was never YA if anyone's being honest - this drivel was published on the gamble that a certain 19+ demo wanted to read this kind of drivel, and somebody at the print shop got a big promotion, because humans love shit whenever someone shovels it with both hands and a performative facial expression that they feel connected to

p much everybody I know who's cumming over it is 30-40 years old and seem to be daily depressed that it's not still 1987

the only reason i had heard of rpo before the spielberg attachment was a supernerd acquaintance of mine loaned it to me on spec and claimed it would change my life. he is ~33. the only words of it i read were on the back cover.

RPO was never YA if anyone's being honest...

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, August 8, 2017

does manbaby count?

the only reason i had heard of rpo before the spielberg attachment was a supernerd acquaintance of mine loaned it to me on spec and claimed it would change my life...

― Clay, Tuesday, August 8, 2017

he's right about that. since reading it i now harshly judge anyone who has a kind word for the book or its author, and seek revenge on those who recommended it to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moNHfeBJ81I

it just fails on so many levels. nobody wants to read pages of lists, it's not an enjoyable experience, it's an error as close to being Objectively Bad as you can get to in writing. it has two Japanese characters in it and they both happen to be samurai there to teach the protagonist about honor.

it also fails to juxtapose things in an interesting way. juxtaposition is a technique just like any other and it can be used artfully or it can be clumsily weilded at the reader. hearing that this guy got a Delorean and installed the Knight Rider AI and put the talking mouth from Knight Rider on the front and put Ghostbusters stickers on the doors and got a custom license plate that makes another reference to Ghostbusters is not interesting. visually it sounds like a fucking dumb looking car. it doesn't remind me of Ghostbusters, a snobs-vs-snobs comedy film. it doesn't make me think of the Hasselhoff's suave tech spy. i do not know what this juxtaposition is supposed to do, what kind of reaction he wants from the audience, beyond superficial recognition, the gratification that the audience is a like-minded consumer is all i can get from this. like everything else this book offers, it is interesting on the intellectual level of a 6 yo dumping out a bucket of toys.

some reviewer said something about how ridiculous the number of times watched listed is and i agree, as if watching Raider of the Lost Ark 101 times will reveal anything that the 100th viewing failed to. it's a Consumerist dick measuring contest just like much of the internet. "How best can i demonstrate my superiority as a consumer?"

as for OG material, Captain N and the crew of IP brands also went on fairly interesting adventures but (often to its detriment) it strayed too much from the video games it was supposedly based on. they weren't mindlessly re-creating game sequences they were doing cheesey tropey storylines. Zelda was also about dumb stupid attempts at corny sitcom humor as much as it was about these games. i think there may be something interesting to say about 80s pop culture and the way it turned into sort of weird mutant version of its more traditional sitcom forebears (introducing sitcoms about aliens and robot girls, weird uber-macho-USA videogames emerging from the post-nuke generation of Japan) but yeah not here and not this guy. he is a shitty writer with shitty ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists

Seth MacFarlane is to blame for all of this

Arguably, we've seen depictions of virtual reality "games" based on historical pop-culture since ST:TNG. In RPO's case, the IPs are named.

No fan of MacFarlane, but his success is a symptom of a larger malaise.

talking more about the whole "here's a thing you might remember. there's no joke here and it doesn't affect the plot, but here's a thing."

Dennis Miller was doing that for a couple decades before Family Guy debuted.

ok so I read this book and it wasn't nearly as terrible as I was expecting. obv that guy's poem is dumb but I think there is something to the book re: the endless recapitulation of references, etc; it doesn't make as big a deal about it as maybe it should, but the implication by the end is definitely that there's something hollow, and sad about this world where new culture has stopped and all we have is an obsessive compulsive relationship with the past. I think the movie could shed an interesting light on this aspect, if it wants.

"what critique of capitalism does it have in it? how the whole thing of the text i have read has been about fetishizing corporate IPs."

the bad guys of the book are a corporation and the entire point of the quest is to defeat the capitalist enterprise and keep the virtual world in the hands of the people.

the virtual world which is... full of corporate creations

ok so I read this book and it wasn't nearly as terrible as I was expecting. obv that guy's poem is dumb but I think there is something to the book re: the endless recapitulation of references, etc; it doesn't make as big a deal about it as maybe it should, but the implication by the end is definitely that there's something hollow, and sad about this world where new culture has stopped and all we have is an obsessive compulsive relationship with the past. I think the movie could shed an interesting light on this aspect, if it wants.

― akm, Saturday, November 18, 2017

nope nope nope

just bc you're smart doesn't mean this book is

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--HcFzXgEX--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/ob7pz9ekwo0djwo14ggz.png

I think there is something to the book re: the endless recapitulation of references, etc; it doesn't make as big a deal about it as maybe it should, but the implication by the end is definitely that there's something hollow, and sad about this world where new culture has stopped and all we have is an obsessive compulsive relationship with the past. I think the movie could shed an interesting light on this aspect, if it wants.

wouldn't have subjected myself to the book but glad for this report and yeah what was a technical possibility upthread on grounds of the holy jurassic park is now what i'm actually hoping the movie is about. chapo guys were loling about patton oswalt having said "it's like jaws but the shark is nostalgia" like it was the perfect burn, but like wouldn't that be... good

plus the mere presence of spielberg totally changes the thing's scope (b/c personally responsible for the originals of so many of the reprocessed images), automatically on a metatextual level but i hope on a textual one too (as in JP when spielberg's POV hijacks the hammond char)

on the other hand, that the book was presumably all fair-use yet could not legally be adapted without further enriching "ernie cline" is enough to make u wish for direct corporate rule

READY PLAYER ONE (2018)

DP: Janusz Kaminski
Director: Steven Spielberg pic.twitter.com/CXXTTxoGY2

— Christmas Duckman (@bobservo) December 10, 2017

What....what the fuck?!

https://i.imgur.com/gQQlUfD.png

this appears to be some blurry CGI, hth

That’s not helping!

Also, it’s the inclusion of a particular character or two I’m questioning

Is Overwatch timeless enough for the prominence of that character's inclusion to not be hilariously dated in 5 years? I honestly don't know.

Venerable IPs worth protecting were probably beyond the budget. IIRC, there really isn't much in the book extending into the 1990s, much less our present decade.

Alas, 40somethings aren't a great target demographic (cf Blade Runner 2049's box office). Compromises were made.

Venerable IPs worth protecting were probably beyond the budget.

― Sanpaku, Thursday, December 14, 2017

if only

How much post 80s shit shows up in the original book? There are Firefly refs in there, for example

https://nerdist.com/ready-player-one-trailer-25-easter-eggs-nerdist-news/

Four (!) "Street Fighter" characters, Joker and Harley Quinn, Overwatch (why didn't they use lol Roadhog), Akira, tons more.

https://i.redd.it/59ktxnd5vkbz.jpg

good luck to Speilberg working w this genius

I for one am excited that Stephen Spielberg is adapting Kingdom Hearts for the silver screen.

Sorry, 'Stephen Spielberb'

this seems to resemble the Keillor/Altman divide of years ago

btw i don't know who any of these 'characters' you guys mentioned are, so i will be able to watch this OBJECTIVELY (if at all)

lol

sorry AB I gotta FP you for that

This is a pretty thorough tear-down of the book, from the point of view of "reference-heavy culture can be good": https://www.heypoorplayer.com/2017/07/28/second-opinion-ready-player-one-worst-thing-nerd-culture-ever-produced/

The thread of excerpts is enough to give me hives though:

Thankfully goodreads kept all my choice RPO notes handy so anything that annoyed the fuck out of me is right here. pic.twitter.com/E6G9uEigVJ

— N. Cat (@naricat) July 24, 2017

man that is brutal. kinda thought "this could not possibly be as bad as everyone's saying it is" and holy shit it's actually a lot worse

You guys should check out my upcoming novel which is literally just a list of pop cultural ephemera accented with occasional punctuation and indentations to make it look like a story rather than something I c+p-ed from Wikipedia. You should also check out all of the zeroes in the dollar figure on my advance check.

Just wanted to post that I’ve really been enjoying Mike Nelson & his Rifftrax producer’s podcast on this book. They have like 8 eps as a book club where they just excoriate this shit. It’s fun.

We’ve probly mentioned this before but it’s called “372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back”.

372pages.com

Also, they just started a second where they tear into “Armada,” the follow up

CLINE'S A SHITTY PROSE WRITER
AND HE RIPPED "LAST STARFIGHTER"
ARMADA

I almost hate you for that but

Anyway somehow this news story seems appropriate for the revive

https://kotaku.com/infamous-atari-player-gets-world-record-removed-after-3-1822511777

lmao neanderthal!!!!

372pages.com

pretty fun so far. thanks for the rec

yeah this is gold! mst3k riffing on this? sign me up...

still hopeful

Ned yr article sent me down a rabbit hole. fascinating videos made about the dude who claims to have gotten 15 million on donkey kong (lol)

i'm starting this mst3k-guys' podcast and will prolly enjoy it for the reasons it was created to be enjoyed but i find it neverendingly amusing how threatened sub-culture obsessed ppl seem to be by this pop-culture obsessed guy.

actually lol why would i listen to this, good god these dudes are boring

probably not the first time "neverendingly amusing" turned out to be 20 minutes for you

i dunno, you think that podcast is good? it reminds me of middle schoolers trying to target and ostracize someone and rally a group against them.

Gotta say it is really funny to sic the dudes who peaked in like 1995 after the nostalgia movie

i like episode 0 where they are reading all the press reviews at the front of the book. one of them uses the word "geek" 3 times in as many sentences. Mike says "Imagine being in the 60's when the word 'groovy' had just gotten old. Have a groovy time on a groovalicious adventure." something like that. he is correct, the commodification of nerd culture has reached a Flower Child-like zenith, "geek" and "nerd" are the "groovy" and "far out" of today, used to shill the same old mindless crap as something new and hip.

in one of the press reviews the word "Nerdgasm" is used by the New York Times. Mike bemoans the Old Gray Lady

So I listened to the first two episodes of this, but was put off a bit by it being yet another "two bros talking about a thing" podcast, and turned against it basically when they started showing off about how little literature they had read at the end of episode 0, I have never seen MST3K so maybe that's why I don't get it, but still, I don't get it.

i enjoyed the part where they took 30 seconds to come up with ideas for 80's club costume descriptors. the book had gone with "People were dressed like they were at an 80's club". it was they ended up with 6 or so unique looks like "Madonna-style fishnets and gloves" "Multiple leotards aerobics style w headbands" "punked up 50's pompadour", etc. the writer of this book seems incredibly lazy.

Yeah, after listening to the intro episode I have my doubts: like mfktz, their total lack of knowledge and interest in books in general, and pathetically unfuuny jokes about same, makes me think these might be the least qualified guys to comment on anything in this sphere.

I'll try at least once more, because I loathe Cline that much, but it better improve.

why are you trying again? just don't listen to it sheesh

Unlike most Rifftrax, listening to this would take longer than reading RP1.

If there's interesting discussion to be had about RP1, I think it would be less on its obvious flaws, than on why it attracted a readership by word-of-mouth. There can't be that many nostalgic Gen Xers or cyberpunk fans with low standards. There's no shortage of other post-collapse, anti-corporatist screeds. Does the teen/YA market care about Devo and *Wargames*?

It's been a while since I've followed cyberpunk, but I seem to recall other, better written, Willie Wonka in The Sprawl novels. Maybe Vurt could have sold millions had it been grounded in familiar IPs.

There can't be that many nostalgic Gen Xers or cyberpunk fans with low standards.

Pixels grossed $245m, just saying.

Also yeah, a lot of people don't really apply any critical thinking - I've had a lot of pretty 'normy' people say that this is an entertaining book that they really enjoyed.

why it attracted a readership by word-of-mouth

shd've been word-of-mouthbreather, surely?

If there's interesting discussion to be had about RP1, I think it would be less on its obvious flaws, than on why it attracted a readership by word-of-mouth

it didn't though. this is one of the main points of the podcast, that it got rave reviews in the New York Times and AV Club and tons of publications as "book of the year". it's a mass marketed book that got big because that's what mass market books do

If there's interesting discussion to be had about RP1, it seems it will be about the film.

that’s a big ‘if’

I agree with Morbious. I didn't hate this book nearly as much as the rest of you though I do think it is overpraised and has some obvious problems; but if anyone can make a good film out of this and make use of the nostalgia aspects, it is Spielberg.

as for making a good film out of a shit novel, see Jaws

or Die Hard

if anyone can make a good film out of this and make use of the nostalgia aspects, it is Spielberg

he hasn't exactly been on a golden run of late, though, is the thing

he's just made the best film ever according to a poster I saw on the side of a bus

I thought Lincoln and Bridge of Spies were great

I don't rate Crichton much either

Cmon tho everything about this is so unpromising - "killer shark" is a premise that inherently has more potential for an entertaining film than like "what if funko pops" or whatever the premise of this garbage is

I'm not going cos I don't own a blacklight and I will need assurances that the seats haven't been befouled with the loinjuices of Gen X nerds prior to sitting down.

Crichton created some of the greatest compulsively readable sci-fi/thriller nonsense ever imo, love him

he was definitely a grinder when it came to doing research prior to writing his novels

Lincoln was good but BoS was just passable and you couldn't pay me to watch the two that followed

Spielberg movies are like Van Morrison albums; there's one every fucking year and I forget it exists two minutes after I'm told about it.

I'm not even a hater but the guy makes a shitload of films so I usually feel ok skipping over the odd one that appears calculated to be as unappealing to me as possible

that's nice

he'll survive

xp

"what if funko pops" hahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtySt6Fg30

lol

will the movie be better than 2 hours of this

Here's the official trailer for READY PLAYER ONE: pic.twitter.com/0rQnUE5LdK

— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) July 22, 2017

Dr Morbius, it seems like a thing that would make this interesting would be if it includes some element of reflection or even just commentary, on Spielberg's part, on his movies' place in current culture. Do you think he's got that in him?

I think he did that (sort of) as far back as 1941 (spoofing himself w/ shark/submarine opening).

Yeah and as dlh said above Jurassic park is full of that kinda stuff

I don't think that would be enough for me personally in this case

i like Spielberg but I haven't been super enthusiastic about too many of his post-WOTW/Munich flicks. Lincoln was good but I don't remember much about it beyond DDL and a couple scenes w/Bruce McGill and Michael Stuhlbarg.

Spielberg's biggest contribution to Lincoln was arguably staying out of Tony Kushner and DDL's way. A higher mawkish sentimentality content could have ruined it.

at this stage spielberg is basically a menace

the post and this as a one-two punch of diametrically opposed utter garbage

i kinda judge him a bit harshly on what he chooses to executive produce. leaning real heavy on the Transformers pics there, Steven.

Crystal Skull/Tintin/War Horse/Lincoln/Bridge of Spies/BFG/Post/RPO is about as "inspired" a run as Ridley Scott's having, which is to say kinda boring projects executed w/enough skill to make the best written ones "good" but that's about it.

arguably staying out of Tony Kushner and DDL's way

oh, nuts

jurassic park is about chasing beauty and making art, things spielberg understands better than he does american history. potential themes of this movie: escapism, nostalgia, the artist as opium slinger enlisted by deadening oppressive regime, decadent kids playing in recombinated trash like they're... making indiana jones, i guess there's an absent father figure there too. could still very well be just totally hateful but this is certainly more promising material for this partic artist than the washington post.

pretty dismissive of Hillary Clinton's all-time leading donor

*kisses fingers*
perfection morbz

i kinda judge him a bit harshly on what he chooses to executive produce.

The fact that he seems to be responsible for putting Shia le Bouef in the public eye is pretty damning all by itself

Ah no, I don't mean signs and hints for the people watching these films that have seen Spielberg films, I mean it being (I understand) a feature of the story that the people in this film have seen Spielberg films.

But then, I can't think of any film-maker who's done that except maybe Kevin Smith? I don't watch a lot of Kevin Smith.

goddammit this poster is literally just "HEY REMEMBER THIS STUFF?"

it's too dumb to even get mad at, it's just the silliest and most obvious attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator of "nerd culture"

and it's gonna work, too. this bullshit is gonne make SO MUCH MONEY pic.twitter.com/oQWcRteDMz

— COOL BEANS (@RikiCreem) February 19, 2018

I don't think it will. The new (to me) trailer before BP got no response at all. Uncle Drew, on the other hand...

I can’t imagine anyone young enough to want to see this is gonna know what Bigfoot is

mainly i’m just annoyed that the poor blameless iron giant, star of one of the best animated movies of the last quarter-century, is getting dragged into this

and the 1978 Gundam. Don't they know these kids grew up on Gundam Wing, which is a totally separate continuity

I don't have my pulse on the finger of the dork community the way I used to but I have yet to encounter a single person who seems excited for this movie, if it totally flops I would not be surprised

lol the faces on that poster. nobody looks like they are having fun.

https://i.imgur.com/GHZLPJs.gif

that's not how VR works

in the future every kid still wears skinny jeans and sneakers

it’s retro!

now hoping this film is two hours of kids in scuba masks running around a city shooting imaginary guns, with the occasional subliminal flash of iconic nerd culture images

can't believe they got Simon Pegg to be in this btw

ah yes, the notably discerning nerd deity Simon Pegg

That’s the simplest thing in the world: “Hi Simon, you wanna be in this Spielberg flick?”

Easy

“you had me at ‘hello simon’”

I honestly couldn't tell if that was Simon Pegg or Michael Sheen on the poster.

i'm not seeing what's so objectionable about that poster

that it looks like a poster for the unfilmed sequel to The Last Starfighter

that was actually Cline's second book lol

lol yeah I think we talked about it ITT

unless the wireframe lines count as from tron the only things on that poster i recognize are the delorean and the iron giant

mainly i’m just annoyed that the poor blameless iron giant, star of one of the best animated movies of the last quarter-century, is getting dragged into this

― NEW CHIMP THREAT (bizarro gazzara), Monday, February 19, 2018

OTM this makes it personal you fux

The Iron Giant inclusion is weird - and regrettable. I presume they just picked whatever IP they could get their hands on and then retrofitted the script around it?

The book is an irredeemable pile of shit, but at least it's faithful to its '80s nostalgia fetish

unless the wireframe lines count as from tron the only things on that poster i recognize are the delorean and the iron giant

I thought exactly the same thing

if more companies had just withheld permissions, we could be looking at Ready Player One featuring Mac (Mac and Me), the Gobots, and Sam Francisco

I hope the irony having a personal reaction to an 18-year-old robot movie for children being used in the nostalgia movie isn’t lost on everyone

Close Encounters font

The descriptor of the random assortment of nerd IP from Cline’s adolescence as “80s!” is lazy enough to be consistent with his writing style, should be noted.

I just noticed the poster also doesn't name a single actor (none of the trailers have either I don't think)

goddammit this poster is literally just "HEY REMEMBER THIS STUFF?"

*meticulously bumps thread on 2000's internet pop culture forum for every single intellectual property mentioned in this movie*

(Once again, I’ll give a link to the particular episode done by the guy I linked to above that formed an early emblematic reaction to the book.)

lmao @ Whiney coming into this thread to make sure yall feel bad for liking Iron Giant

It’s cool to like Iron Giant, but wgaf if it’s in this dumb movie

Should be be (additionally) suspicious that this isn't coming out in the Summer, or doesn't that matter anymore?

^ Easter Weekend usually has some big movies opening

Jesus H.

http://www.slashfilm.com/fantastic-ready-player-one-posters/

God, all of the facial expressions are wrong.

http://d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net/wp/wp-content/images/readyplayerone-tributeposter-highres-rambo2-345x500.jpg

this flick looks like both a bore and a chore

I thought I'd passed through my "kill everyone involved with Cultural Product X" phase, but man, this movie is dragging me right back there.

I never actively rooted against Spielberg before but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Hopefully someone will culturally appropriate my Spielbergian chagrin in thirty years.

can’t even bring myself to look forward to hate-watching this one tbh

they should have just called it "Movie: The Movie"

It's like someone spent $900 million to remake That's Entertainment!

https://theofficela.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/calvin-and-hobbes-write-what-you-know.jpg

lol at that C&H strip.

very very otm

Ready Player One but every reference in the movie is replaced with a Steamed Hams reference.

— Rob Wesley (@eastwes) March 6, 2018

guys

Just got word that I can finally share my rejected theme song from @readyplayerone. They went with Alan Silvestri's theme, but I still want to thank Steven Spielberg & @WarnerBrosEnt for the wonderful opportunity. pic.twitter.com/aK32ZOUA16

— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) March 7, 2018

Amazing.

if this spawns a cottage industry in deadpan mockery it will all be worth it

loool

Tbh this embodies everything I hate in current pop culture (see me in Stranger Things threads), but Spielberg running it is making me not ready to totally toss it out. Maybe something good could be done with... this?

I had this weird glimmer when I finally was confronted with the trailer in a theater a while ago that I could sort of understand why this would be a thing Spielberg would want to do, inasmuch as it is (a) a spectacle, (b) about a capsule or constructed or isolated environment (cf The Terminal, Jurassic Park, others?)

But then the moment passed and I was back to being like “fuck this movie”

OK there READY PLAYER ONE just stop it pic.twitter.com/s1px8ESniC

— McGone [2 CD Remastered Deluxe Edition] (@the_mcgone) March 6, 2018

i can't imagine how warner bros approved of this ready player one poster pic.twitter.com/SzT4iyNpCd

— jared kushbomb (@tresgambas) March 7, 2018

too soon

Fittingly, the thread title is Saddo. Just noticed that.

Tbh this embodies everything I hate in current pop culture (see me in Stranger Things threads), but Spielberg running it is making me not ready to totally toss it out. Maybe something good could be done with... this?

― circa1916, Tuesday, March 6, 2018 10:32 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is pretty much the polar opposite of my feeling. I'm so much more ready (player one) to make time for a well-constructed show which is in part an oblique pastiche of old-timey entertainments than to give Spielberg of all people a pass on lazily dumping the contents of a mid-'80s eight-year-old's toybox in front of a movie camera.

still a truther on this

If Spielberg did this as a pop cultural gloss on The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch I'd be all in.

if i were the kind of person who held challenging opinions i might think that preemptive detractors of this movie otherwise happy with franchise decadence are sensing it comes to critique their nostalgia bluntly rather than service it elegantly

As one who openly indulges in franchise decadence, my preceding post should put paid to that notion wrt moi.

I want to believe this thing is a bummer which savages nostalgic escapism but I don't get that impression.

i should admit here i'm back into star wars all of a sudden

i don't rly get that impression either but all i've seen is marketing and it's funner to hope.

i mean it's def not gonna be a bummer, that's the impression i don't get. it seems a certainty that it will engage on some level w nostalgia as emotional+political trap. the bad version of this movie i (+ prob you) imagine isn't one where that angle isn't there, but where it's perfunctory and unconvincing and just tacked onto a giant tv commercial in order to absolve it: that does put it in a different category from stranger things even if it's a failure and the latter's a success.

i don't even care about the recycling of nostalgia- it just looks like the same chosen one story that every big scifi/fantasy actioner has. Just looks like a tedious "thrill ride".

it seems a certainty that it will engage on some level w nostalgia as emotional+political trap.

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, March 7, 2018

lmao oh you

It's a theme which Steven Spielberg (executive producer of Transformers Universe: Bumblebee, in theaters this December) seems very keen to shine a light on.

Also, the main actor looks as expressive as a pudding

I want to believe this thing is a bummer which savages nostalgic escapism but I don't get that impression.

the thing is, it rewards it. supposedly the world is a dystopian nightmare but that is just superficial flavoring, like so many of the references. it never interrupts the no-lag internet connection you need to play these games. it never interrupts the power cutting the heroes off from their one joy. it never interrupts the convenient hyper-Amazon delivery service. there is nothing at stake outside of the internal stakes of a videogame. the world is only "dystopian" in that it looks that way out the window, the characters are free to pursue their pleasure free of any real hardships. his precious video games are never in jeopardy. in fact the main character states his ultimate dream at one point and it is to take the VR and put it in a spaceship and leave the planet forever. it's entirely about selfish gratification.

you can write "Zorro and Tarzan met up with Buck Rodgers and they went to the Castle of Fu Manchu to fight Godzilla" but that sentence is not a fantasy simply because it contains fantasy-branded characters. nor does it make it interesting because it contains interesting characters. comparing RPO to other genre franchises seems to entirely miss the point of creativity.

i have the same issue w/Tye Sheridan as i do w/Ansel Elgort or Taron Egerton, they all come off onscreen like (vv serious) Poochies.

serious question how do you feel abt miles teller?

is that the li'l fox guy from Sonic The Hedgehog?

No, he’s Penn Jillette’s sidekick

https://www.twitter.com/ZeitchikWaPo/status/973052503498674181

Sound has gone out two-thirds of the way through Ready Player One and instead of getting mad the crowd is supplying its own sound effects and dialogue like it's The Room#sxsw

— Steven Zeitchik (@ZeitchikWaPo) March 12, 2018

That sounds like a slightly more hellish experience than watching this shit normally tbh

Man, imagine how many film critics are ex-drama kids and ex-gifted kids before thinking about the type of “humor” they’re shouting at the screen

or music critics

people who used to be kids are terrible at jokes it’s a fact

They could have just called in Michael Winslow to provide sound fx.

you guys like Luc Besson, right?

READY PLAYER ONE feels like Spielberg watched a ton of Luc Besson movies and decided to outdo them. In terms of pure spectacle, it’s the most astonishing thing he’s done. Never underestimate Steve. #SXSW

— erickohn (@erickohn) March 12, 2018

I'm hardly amped to see this, but I hope it earns $2 billion just to give unperson "conniptions."

i don't like Luc Besson tbf

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Intellectual Properties

what Kohn wrote

http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/ready-player-one-review-steven-spielberg-sxsw-2018-1201938295/

Also, like, its really something how everyone is lining up to shit to shit in the Salo bowl for this when everyone was practically going WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB about the Lego Movie

Besson is very good at completely hollow spectacle. I'm not sure it's a commendable thing to replicate.

Steve S to fill the hollow

I don't think most people gave a shit about the Lego Movie until it was actually released and revealed to be surprisingly good.

i think i'm nostalgic for an era when nostalgia wasn't defined by children's commodities

I remember trying to watch Lego Movie at home; might've lasted 10 minutes.

I would've been knocked for a loop if your reaction had been otherwise.

it was like an animated Moulin Rouge, and A.D.D. is not part of my aesthetic vibe

(referring to the Luhrmann travesty and not Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec)

From that IndieWire review:

It runs too long and drags a bunch in its final third

...

overwhelming CGI pileup

...

There’s nothing particularly unique about Wade, but the movie’s throwbacks extend to its live action scenes as well: He’s the typical white kid ready to rule the world, a Spielberg staple since “E.T.”

...

prolonged setup

...

trips over its exciting momentum

...

it lacks edginess, subtleties or the genuine dread to explore life in a complete technocracy

...

On paper, “Ready Player One” certainly looks like another ill-conceived Hollywood product

...

this is not a completely brainless blockbuster so much as an attempt to elevate the blockbuster form in its own language

...

The bulk of the live action scenes lack the same crisp energy of the Oasis, and Spielberg can’t match the forward momentum with character depth to spare. Wade and his pals have backstories, but they mostly just dangle in the background

...

retrograde gender politics

Translation: It's a piece of shit, but I'm afraid/forbidden to actually say so.

I did not like The Lego Movie at all. Lego Batman was worse tho, made the former look like Toy Story.

I agree, I hated the second Lego movie so much. Especially when they kept making a big deal about the world's most powerful villains being let loose, and they turn out to be the world's most powerful villains ... that Warner Brothers owns the rights to.

such a cherrypicker, unp.

A definition of Hell for me would be sitting for this in a theatre full of pop culture uber-nerds oohing and ahhhing and wooohooing loudly at every reference-come-to-life.

No, I don't hate fun. This would be the complete antithesis of fun.

wasn't there some Spielbro quote about how everyone is supposed to be shouting "I recognize that"?

wouldn't you just be... yelling that constantly the whole movie?

meh i'll just wait for the EVERY EASTER EGG listicles

there are zero easter eggs if every damn thing is a reference

lol

tbh they could have saved a lot of money and just released this direct-to-listicle

"Here Are The 100 Things You Probably Missed In "Ready Player One"!"

An irony is that (I assume) this will be free of superheroes and Star Wars and other iconic (now or previous) Disney properties that would otherwise be formative fuel for the nostalgia factory.

xpost oh, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob...

apparently among the licensed characters are "various characters from the DC Comics universe" according to wikipedia :/

might as well "spoil" (hah) it:

Among licensed characters in the film are the title character from The Iron Giant, the RX-78-2 Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam, various characters from the DC Comics universe and The Lord of the Rings film series, Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Duke Nukem, Tracer from Overwatch, Ryu, Blanka and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, and Chucky from Child's Play. A massive in-game car race includes vehicles such as the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future (outfitted with KITT from Knight Rider), the Mach 5 from Speed Racer, the possessed '58 Plymouth Fury car from Christine, the van from The A-Team, the modified Ford Falcon used in Mad Max, the monster truck Bigfoot, and Kaneda's motorcycle from Akira. Additional references to RoboCop, Jurassic Park, King Kong, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Halo have also been identified in promotion materials.

kill me now

you could just not go

I could just not post in the thread, too, but this is really fun to gripe about

the RX-78-2 Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam

aaaaaaaaaaagghhhh

you could just not go

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 12, 2018

nah i try to live and let live but fuck it...

*chugs gallon of haterade*
*belches luxuriously*

...i have never rooted so hard for a thing to fail

I haven't seen anything by Spielberg for years! I'll probably wait for this wreck to come out and then watch The Post instead.

what was the source of your nostalgia-hate for Lincoln?

the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future (outfitted with KITT from Knight Rider)

"you know what would be EPIC?"

after months of defending the post i'm not emotionally prepared to defend ready player one ... but i will

— Max Read (@max_read) March 12, 2018

that'd be fine if it's William Daniels as the voice (he's about 90) xp

xxpost LOL!

I have no opinion on the Spielberg movies I haven't seen! I just haven't been in the mood to watch one of his historical takes. He generally makes good films.

I think the last one I watched that was new to me was Duel, and chronologically I haven't seen anything since 2008

..which I shamefully must admit was the Indiana Jones one

The Ready Player One premiere featuring the Iron Giant and his gun that he famously loved so much pic.twitter.com/v8ofo4300R

— Dan Sheehan (@ItsDanSheehan) March 12, 2018