Current Events > Watching Ready Player One I guess

(+) Yeah! (+)

My friend has been wanting to watch it for ages, but I've never been super hype for it. I'm expecting lots of product placement, hollow nostalgia and lip-service pop culture references.
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what is that one line? "that's just life in the oasis"? is that it?
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It's alright so far. Obv. a bit memey, very reference heavy, but it's passable so far.

..."Gunters". Egg hunters. Fuck off.
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And there's the Iron Giant.

And Sega/Atari sponsorships.

And a mediocre pretty girl crush subplot.

And a meaningless stream of references, with the pretty girl finishing the last reference. Granted her heart rate was pretty low, with main dude being the main instigator, but still.

And a generic dead parents sob story.

And an alliterative name that's explicitly stated to be reminiscent of a superhero.
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Gundam part was the best
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SDBZ posted...

Gundam part was the best

I saw a Gundam bit in the trailer, it does look neato.

Any Evangelion references tho?
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I'm down with the whole club part though, I feel like the subversion has been done before but was pretty good. I'm liking the movie well enough.
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MrMallard posted...

Any Evangelion references tho?

No unfortunately
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Okay, I'm enjoying this more than I thought I would. The Shining part was dope.
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When I think about the keys and the puzzles to unlock them, I realize that real life gamers would have solved all of them in the first couple of hours, if even that. You can't really overstate how hardcore dedicated and creative a lot of nerds are about solving puzzles.

Solving the first puzzle where you have to drive backwards, for example? Dudes would be doing that on their first attempt just for shits and giggles or to simply eliminate the possibility of it being the solution. It wouldn't take five years.
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Alright, that was dope. I liked it.
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The movie definitely has style and is presented well.

And I like the fact that, unlike the book, it doesn't stop every ten minutes to explain a reference. Instead a reference can slip in and slip out without having too much attention drawn to it. Except for the few parts where they DO draw too much attention to references. Iron Giant was a big one.
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So, I have some stuff to say about that Nolan guy and Wade.

Nolan's avatar is depicted as this hulking business man. Initially I thought it was because this guy was such an unimaginative turd that he extended his corporate shit into the game world - because all he cares about is business - but then it struck me that he looked like a buff meat-headed Superman. The occasionally blue eyes and hair curl were what tipped me off.

Earlier in the movie, Wade is given a Clark Kent disguise by Artemis after he wins the first key. This frames Wade as a god among men, who's idolised by humanity but who has to hide among them. That's just a visual cue, but over the course of the movie, he essentially becomes Superman's best image of the human race, and essentially embodies the character himself. Someone with an indomitable spirit, who keeps the world in mind with the actions he takes. Meanwhile, Nolan's Superman is powerful and sweeping, using his power and resources to try and gain control of the system - he has to have Oasis, or he'll use the power he has to make sure no-one else can have it. He uses Superman's strengths and conflates the character to his own selfish greed and petty anger.

Nolan's Superman is a misinterpretation. He sees Superman as an unstoppable force, a being so super that he can gain whatever he wants by flaunting his power. And with Nolan's own wealth and scummy, unethical business practices, he's more like Lex Luthor than Superman. I'd imagine that the Superman movie quote from the start of the movie factors into this, but frankly I've forgotten it.

Wade Watts embodies the ideals of Superman, while Nolan embodies human greed in a grossly misinterpreted mask of his own choosing. After all, Nolan has a whole private army of flunkies to carry out his dirty work - Wade has the Iron Giant backing him up. We all know whose ideals The Iron Giant sided with in the end.
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