Ready Player One
I went back and looked. I didn’t realize that it had been almost 5 years since I read the book. You can read my old review of the book here.
IF you’re interested in a synopsis of the book from a slightly different point of view (with spoilers), feel free to check this guy out (he’s really clever and I like his work) THUG NOTES.
The movie itself.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet – yes, there will be spoiler stuff in here. There has to be in order to cover my specific thoughts on the film. Before I get to that part, here’s the short, non-spoiler version:
It was a well done movie. There’s a lot of visual stuff that’s worth your dollars to see it on the big screen. I didn’t see it in 3D, but I bet that would actually help this movie. Go see it and support it, we want stuff that isn’t a sequel or a remake of TV shows from the 70s or 80s.
After this is the spoilery bits – you are warned.
I really did like the movie, but I went into the theater completely prepared to be disappointed. That might have helped my outlook by the end because it was better than I was afraid it was going to be when we got to the end. A number of my fears DID happen to come true and that made me more than a little sad.
There are a number of things that were different from the book. Yes, we know this and it happens to every film. The book ranged over worlds and games and took a really long time to cover certain ground. It wasn’t descriptive so much as pointed out pop culture from the past. There were going to have to be changes in order to make the movie work. The problem is changing or tweaking just the right thing and not losing the tone or message that made the book the success it is. There were three parts to that in my mind – the pop culture, the challenges and the characters. One at a time, in reverse order –
The characters. I know the story centers around Wade. The book has had some criticism about how his character plays out. The movie actually doesn’t do badly with him, and helps to get away from the stalker aspects of his character as he is shown in the book. The rest of the characters however have been ‘adjusted’ by Hollywierd. Wade gets taken to work for the sixers, not Art3mis. The movie takes her instead. Aech’s story is mostly background, but the part in the book where she’s playing as a white guy because she gets more respect didn’t need to be chopped out. Her avatar for the game should have still been a white guy. That bothers me. The movie hints at danger for the characters, but this is the movies – none of the main team actually dies. That’s not the case in the book. I don’t know if it was a ratings thing or if it was deemed to be bad for the story – I’m not sure. Whatever it was I think it weakened the movie when it didn’t need to. I loved that Simon Pegg was in there. I could have done without the changes to Og’s character, but it was less noticeable. His part was small but very good. The portrayal of Halliday was exceptionally well done. Much more than I had hoped for. That part of the characters was fantastic.
The challenges. I know there was some effort made to engage with people who don’t remember the 80s and don’t particularly care about any of the nostalgia related things in this story. I get it. You need to make the money back that you put into the product. WHY would the Dungeons and Dragons portion of the challenges have to be dumped? They only call outs – despite appearing to have the go ahead from WoTC (and I watched for that in the credits) – were a t-shirt, a couple of posters on a bedroom wall and the face on the back of the van. Yes, that face is from the original art in the module that is the challenge in the book. WHY? I fail to understand that. It can’t be some leftover garbage from the days of the satanic panic can it? Has the film maker in this case fallen back onto news from the 80s in the decision making process too? The Shining wasn’t even in the book! IF there was going to be a movie that would be referenced it should have been Ladyhawk. Cannon! IF the argument for removing the dungeons and dragons references is some attempt to connect with a modern (non-80s) audience The Shining sure isn’t the way. In fact, since Stranger Things hit there’s been a resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons. It would in fact make MORE sense to include it than not! That leads me into the last of the three portions.
The Pop culture. Fine, I’ll give you Iron Giant over Leopardon for a giant robot. Fine. We got Rush music in one trailer and then it wasn’t in the movie. Sure, there are scads of background things that you could pick out – but get them right. Atari 2600 plays a central role to all this AND THEY GOT THE DETAILS WRONG. The controllers on the one game console they show are for the Colecovision! IF you’re going to send people looking for Easter Eggs expect to be called out on that sort of thing. People are going to be pulling this apart for a long time. Again – a little bit of effort and it’s soooo much better. There were a lot of things that just dragged at my willingness to go on this ride and tried to pull me out of the story.
In the end, yes this is a good movie. It should be supported on the big screen so that we all continue to see many and varied offerings like it on the big screen. If you go in with low hopes, no nostalgia hooked into your brain nor any desire to see a particular portion of the book displayed ‘just so’ then you won’t be disappointed. I did like it, and I will own it at some point but maybe not until it falls into the discount bin or the clearance shelf with all the other nostalgic things that got put back in the closet.