SADDO: THE MOVIE (aka READY PLAYER ONE)

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

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

when the movie trailer was released, the guy who created "the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny" did this

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

— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) July 22, 2017

I feel torn here, because I hate this kind of nerd-pandering stuff but I was also delighted by 'Big Daddy meets Dan Dare' on that Eagle cover above and I don't know if I could say hand on heart that it's all that different

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55d9a2ebe4b090d1642480e9/1464364474580-GMSRHQNMRFXGFCOJNDJ6/image-asset.jpeg?format=2500w

The weird thing about this movie is that I watched this with my son some time last year and while I had the same kind of reaction as most people in this thread, my son enjoyed it quite a bit despite hardly getting any of the references, which has made me wonder if this movie is actually better if you don't know the references. Was my constant eye rolling distracting me from a decent action movie that was hidden underneath the pop references? Could this have been good if it referred to completely made up pop references? Maybe that would make it weird and interesting?

Oh dear at the Free Guy clip. I actually encouraged my 16yo to go and see this because, like any out of touch parent, I thought it might be her kind of thing. She gave it 1.5 stars on Letterboxd :) "It was random stuff crammed in for no reason". B-but I thought that's what you liked?

I mean if we're going to be comparing the two, Free Guy was much, much worse than Ready Player One and I regret suggesting that my son and I watch this while his younger sisters and mother watch the Paw Patrol movie, which was also probably better than Free Guy.

Ugh, my son really really wants to see Free Guy and my wife loves Ryan Reynolds so I better brace myself for having to sit through it.

Could this have been good if it referred to completely made up pop references? Maybe that would make it weird and interesting?

― silverfish, Wednesday, September 29, 2021 10:29 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Imagine the level of creativity this would require!

I guess alternatively, you could make it all pop culture references from another culture, like make it all Eastern European pop references or something

Is Ryan Reynolds meant to look like a fucking waxwork?

quite possibly?

He acts as well as one, after all.