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So, Ready Player Two is coming out soon. I literally saw Ready Player One like last week and watched it two more times since then. Not because I love it, but because I don't know what the hell I feel towards it. So this is just going to be a thread where I type all my feelings.
I watched it and it wasn't anything special, it felt like a slightly rushed YA movie with kinda boring characters. Also Artemis probably should have been the main character? Anyways, I got the audio book. And ohh boy can I not pay attention. Wil Wheaton does fine but I just don't
think I'm an "audio book guy". My mind wanders. But I did catch some of it and the parts I caught all read like lists of nerd shit. It's like the parts of the Bible that just list who gave birth to who. "And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu" etc etc. But for nerd shit.
I'm on like chapter 7 and I don't think any has actually happened? Either way, I went ahead and got the physical book off Ebay for like 7 bucks just to give it a fair shot. We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, I've read a lot of opinions on Twitter and some of the excerpts seem...
...fucking awful. Like there's the whole "masturbation part" and more lists, and reciting entire movies, and gate keeping, and lists, and it just reads like the power fantasy of some kid that thinks being a dick about nerd shit makes him the alpha dog or something. But, those are
excerpts chosen specifically to point out flaws of the book, which is why I'm going to sit down and read it for myself with full context. But the book isn't the movie. I'm reading the book specifically because the movie confused my feeling parts so much. So how did it do that?
Well, like I said, it comes off as a YA movie about boring ass people doing YA shit. The only difference between it and the thousand other movies like it are the references. I will say, they set up their dystopia well, and I love the concept of the "Stacks" even if it doesn't
make sense on a construction level or like... physics level. I just think conceptually it's cool. And that's kinda how I feel about the movie as a whole. The idea of a plot based around nerd culture and video games and Easter egg sounds like it COULD be great. Or terrible. This
was a little of both. Personally, I liked The Shining bit, that segment was really fun, if a leaning a little too heavy towards the CGI in parts. But still, fun. It felt like more than a reference. It felt integrated. Which is probably why it stands out so much. Also, the
mechanics of the world. (The VR/haptic suits/treadmills) all kinda have real world counter parts, which is cool as hell and lends towards the feeling that this dystopia is closer than most. But really, I think some of the references, just kinda got me. It might be fanboying but
damn it, when I saw that RX-78 jump out of the fucking Serenity, I literally cheered. Not because I gave a shit about what was going on in the movie, but because those two properties mean so much to me, and to see them get love and representation on a massive film like this...
well, it made me really happy. Plus they were together, which was fucking awesome. But that brings me to the other thing I loved seeing, The Iron Giant. Another super under appreciated piece of geek culture (at least in the mainstream) and sadly this movie got it all wrong. The
Iron Giant is literally about a weapon NOT WANTING TO BE A WEAPON. And no matter how cool it is to see it shoot freakin laser beams out of its head at Mecha Godzilla, it feels like the writer saw the source material and said "fuck what you intended, this is cooler." Like a kid in
a sandbox with his toys. And he has the right to do that, absolutely. But it makes the message of the movie and the reverence it claims to hold for these properties ring somewhat hollow. So, I don't really know what the point of this thread is. Can you tell? I think it's just me
wanting this to have been better, because it could have been better. It could have been amazing. Like Scott Pilgrim amazing, but instead it feels... kinda lazy. I hope RPT is better, I really do. Maybe make Parzival the bad guy, maybe introduce a less gate-keepy main character.
I don't know, but what I do know is that I enjoyed aspects of it. And a lot of people seemed to be able to find joy in even the stuff I dislike. And that's cool. See, many people's problem with this property is the gate keeping, but isn't it kinda fucked up that when people
try to defend it by saying "I liked it" or "It made me super nostalgic" or "It's my favorite book!" or whatever, that the people who disliked it tell them they're wrong? Isn't that super hypocritical? Even though I agree that it's not great, and kinda not even... good, that
doesn't mean that I, or anyone else, gets to determine that for other people. Enjoy what you like, and let others do the same. Even if you think it sucks, even if you hate it. God knows I hate certain properties with a passion, but I'm not going to tell someone else that they're
wrong for enjoying it. That seems like some gate keeping bullshit.
Anyways, thanks for reading my thread.
Anyways, thanks for reading my thread.
