Ready Player One

[serra2]

The trailer shows that Halliday has not made any plans to break up the OASIS monopoly.

Imagine if he said "half a trillion dollars and an SDK to create a new OASIS". The SDK is vital to breaking the global monopoly, and half a trillion dollars can buy plenty of servers, optical fibre and access points. The bad guy will absolutely have to win no matter what to achieve corporate monetisation goals, whereas a lot of people would join the hunt, simply to have a chance to create another virtual universe.

The resulting chase will be no less intense, (you might even have rival corporations willing to help Watts and Co.) whereas the main characters have a chance to do something other than "let's shut OASIS down twice a week for maintenance".

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This runs into what I would like to call the "Wow 2" problem, namely why would people jump from the already established OASIS, where they and all of their friends play and have all of their stuff, into your new game which has none of the community, lore, memes, and other things that made the OASIS what it is?

 

[Sarissa]

This runs into what I would like to call the "Wow 2" problem, namely why would people jump from the already established OASIS, where they and all of their friends play and have all of their stuff, into your new game which has none of the community, lore, memes, and other things that made the OASIS what it is?

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I actually imagine that someone could create an alternative to OASIS quite easily if they just made the same game but removed the idiotic permadeath concept where one death makes you lose all your progress ever. Kind of amazed no one tried doing it much sooner.

 

[serra2]

I actually imagine that someone could create an alternative to OASIS quite easily if they just made the same game but removed the idiotic permadeath concept where one death makes you lose all your progress ever. Kind of amazed no one tried doing it much sooner.

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Because, historically, games that made major mechanics changes like that to themselves suffered badly.

 

[Sarissa]

Because, historically, games that made major mechanics changes like that to themselves suffered badly.

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It's a major mechanic that's not only really fucking dumb and uniquely frustrating, but also has the capability to easily wreck your finances, as the movie shows us.

 

[Somebody]

The big problem with OASIS is that it's not just the only MMO around. It seems to be the browser interface and the DNS as well. It even seems to be its own ISP worldwide!

When all these get monopolised... getting a replacement available seems quite important. Especially if the current system gets run into the ground, or turns unpopular for whatever reason.

 

[Asuryan]

This runs into what I would like to call the "Wow 2" problem, namely why would people jump from the already established OASIS, where they and all of their friends play and have all of their stuff, into your new game which has none of the community, lore, memes, and other things that made the OASIS what it is?

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Because in this scenario, after Halliday's death the ownership of OASIS will be transferred to a corporation that won't even bother pretending it gives a shit. If WoW ever went really downhill, people would jump ship like there's no tomorrow.

 

[TURBODERP]

On the plus side, the Mechagodzilla theme is solid. That's something I can respect.

 

[Madou Sutegobana]

This runs into what I would like to call the "Wow 2" problem, namely why would people jump from the already established OASIS, where they and all of their friends play and have all of their stuff, into your new game which has none of the community, lore, memes, and other things that made the OASIS what it is?

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My experience with MMO's is that veteran players stick to where they invested all their time building up a powerful character in a powerful guild, even if that MMO happens to be something like Ultima Online, however New Players avoid those games for the very same reason that no one likes to be overshadowed/PK'd by someone whose only advantage is having played a game since before you were born.

 

[Fandom Lord]

My experience with MMO's is that veteran players stick to where they invested all their time building up a powerful character in a powerful guild, even if that MMO happens to be something like Ultima Online, however New Players avoid those games for the very same reason that no one likes to be overshadowed/PK'd by someone whose only advantage is having played a game since before you were born.

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Wouldn't that result in OASIS dying to the new one when the generations that used it stopped using it? With the resources available to the new company and the fact they were starting fresh it would be like Netflix taking on a VHS company.

On the plus side, the Mechagodzilla theme is solid. That's something I can respect.

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Theme as in song or theme as in "evil robot destroyer counterpart of the protagonist?" In the latter case I'd disagree since Wade wasn't wearing a giant rubber Godzilla costume.

Also I found a really interesting review of ET (it's a podcast) that includes a lot of insight into how Spielberg makes a movie, including forcing emotional reactions in the audience using music, ripping off/referencing older movies he likes, and making up for deficiencies in sound or scenery with scenery or sound. Also he pretty much owes his career to John Williams. I think it's the missing piece of the puzzle explaining why he agreed to do RPO.

 

[Destynova1]

Watched and enjoyed for the spectacle of things blowing up. Good popcorn flick for a day off.

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

What nonsense.

Ready Player One perverts works of fiction to make them fit their nostalgia craze. To do that, screenwriters of RPO make up a world where using Iron Giant in the most ignorant and disrespectful way possible is considered cool and awesome - and they want you to think it's cool and awesome too. There is little subjective about this; it's why movie was made, after all.

If you don't share the value of "people should think about their fiction", that's your problem, and you better solve it as quickly as you can.

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Are you saying I'm objectively wrong for not sharing your outrage?

That's not what you said.

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You asked me to clarify my intent. I tried. If you want to believe I mean something that's more convenient for you to dismiss, then there's nothing else I can do.

 

[Fandom Lord]

Are you saying I'm objectively wrong for not sharing your outrage?

You asked me to clarify my intent. I tried. If you want to believe I mean something that's more convenient for you to dismiss, then there's nothing else I can do.

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You know what The Iron Giant and Rambo really mean. Surely that's all that really matters. And I'll continue not to care what they mean because it doesn't matter to me at all.

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If you mean nothing else, then you're just stating you don't care.
And saying that this is subjective isn't an argument because nobody is saying otherwise. Which exit people prefer leaving a building out of is also subjective, but most people will choose the door as opposed to the 1st story window. "Subjective" doesn't mean that it's "just an opinion" and this somehow invalid. Some opinions are better justified than others after all.

Like the opinion that the Iron Giant being used as a weapon goes against the Iron Giant's depiction in his film to a degree most of us agree is bad. If a fighting robot were used instead that would be preferable, but the general opinion on the quality of the movie would not change.

 

[Cambion]

Gundam vs MechaGodzilla was a nice fight but I would've liked it if the Millennium Falcon had swooped in to help

The romance didn't work for me at all

Are extra lives a rare thing

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

Gundam vs MechaGodzilla was a nice fight but I would've liked it if the Millennium Falcon had swooped in to help

The romance didn't work for me at all

Are extra lives a rare thing

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Yeah trying to fit a romance plot into a film very light on characterization was a mistake.
Extra lives aren't a thing at all besides the one that Wade got. So, super mythic rare.

If you mean nothing else, then you're just stating you don't care.
And saying that this is subjective isn't an argument because nobody is saying otherwise. Which exit people prefer leaving a building out of is also subjective, but most people will choose the door as opposed to the 1st story window. "Subjective" doesn't mean that it's "just an opinion" and this somehow invalid. Some opinions are better justified than others after all.

Like the opinion that the Iron Giant being used as a weapon goes against the Iron Giant's depiction in his film to a degree most of us agree is bad. If a fighting robot were used instead that would be preferable, but the general opinion on the quality of the movie would not change.

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This all started when I replied to Arizona. Arizona was talking about not being disposed charitably towards Aech for using The Iron Giant for combat. My response was to say (in a sarcastic way) that it doesn't matter so much that a young person living in 2045 is the one to do that. What I hoped to imply was that I felt that someone getting it wrong 46 years later isn't such a big deal. Like, we shouldn't be all that surprised that a generation yet to be born will be getting 90s stuff wrong. The movie depicting people 'getting nostalgia wrong' seems pretty realistic to me.

Then you jumped in with your 'bad overshadows good' post, saying that it's a problem that RPO misleads people about the character of The Iron Giant. I felt and still feel that in that post you were not paying attention to what I was saying to Arizona. I was specifically addressing the topic of Aech misusing The Iron Giant. Your discussion of the portrayal of The Iron Giant in RPO was taking it separately from my point about the portrayal of Aech as a character misusing The Iron Giant. So I felt annoyed at you for butting into a discussion I wanted to have about the character and making it about RPO ruining The Iron Giant as a film by existing.

Look, I get that you're upset or disappointed that RPO wrongly portrays The Iron Giant fighting. And I think you're concerned that people who have seen RPO but not TIG could get the wrong idea. That's what I took from your Rambo example. Like, maybe by 2045 in reality, more people will remember The Iron Giant from the fight in RPO than will remember the TIG movie. (Or alternatively more people might choose to see the TIG movie because they learn that the character exists from RPO and want to know the real character.) Personally, I'm not so concerned by this. So what I'm saying is that your "the bad overshadows the good" argument doesn't affect what I said to Arizona.

You said '"Subjective" doesn't mean that it's "just an opinion" and this somehow invalid'. Why? I thought I was pretty clear in validating your opinion as one that exists different to my own. All I mean when I say that it's subjective is that it does not stand alone as the sole valid opinion. Or more specifically, that RPO causing millions of impressionable children to think that The Iron Giant is a gun can be a significant issue to you and others in this thread, without that causing me to be wrong for just sort of shrugging at that. I expect there's plenty of other characters and films that I'd be more upset at getting 'defaced' than you would be.

I'm sorry I'm not a big fan and defender of The Iron Giant as you are, but that's just how it is.

 

[Sucal]

Umm isn't that just the weekend?

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Try turning the entire internet off for a weekend.

You'd destroy a large chunk of the developed world, simply because everything is so completely interconnected.

The internet also isn't a massive factory of wonders where people have been shown to make a living. So your not just turning the internet off, your forcing people out of work for two days a week, and theres nothing they can do about it.

And why are they doing so? Some completely Luddite dream that the virtual world isn't 'real'.

Ignoring the fact that the Five all met and developed their friendships online long before they ever met each other, and that the main character would have been forced to interact with a detoxing abusive 'uncle' two days a week in his own life, with no where to escape to.

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

Try turning the entire internet off for a weekend.

You'd destroy a large chunk of the developed world, simply because everything is so completely interconnected.

The internet also isn't a massive factory of wonders where people have been shown to make a living. So your not just turning the internet off, your forcing people out of work for two days a week, and theres nothing they can do about it.

And why are they doing so? Some completely Luddite dream that the virtual world isn't 'real'.

Ignoring the fact that the Five all met and developed their friendships online long before they ever met each other, and that the main character would have been forced to interact with a detoxing abusive 'uncle' two days a week in his own life, with no where to escape to.

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Yeah, that's so true, so either none of the writers thought it through, or they didn't see the need to explain all the details of the shutdown since there wasn't really a place for all the exposition needed to explain how they achieved their goal without accidentally all of civilisation in the process. I hope the sequel goes into that rather than just brushing over it. If it does ignore this major problem, I'll be disappointed but not really surprised

----
Anyhow I came here to share this new video:

I can generally get behind this sentiment and attitude, and particularly like the look into how the character of Halliday changed and how that affected the story in general a whole lot.

 

[The Laurent]

I mean, if it's so, then the people we have to pity are the ones who went, "The movie is alright, why don't I read the book?"

 

[Fandom Lord]

You said '"Subjective" doesn't mean that it's "just an opinion" and this somehow invalid'. Why? I thought I was pretty clear in validating your opinion as one that exists different to my own. All I mean when I say that it's subjective is that it does not stand alone as the sole valid opinion. Or more specifically, that RPO causing millions of impressionable children to think that The Iron Giant is a gun can be a significant issue to you and others in this thread, without that causing me to be wrong for just sort of shrugging at that. I expect there's plenty of other characters and films that I'd be more upset at getting 'defaced' than you would be.

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That's not what I said. People have already laid out why we didn't like the movie, but you're acting like it was just the one soulless reference.
Address the actual arguments please.

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

That's not what I said. People have already laid out why we didn't like the movie, but you're acting like it was just the one soulless reference.
Address the actual arguments please.

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What are you even talking about? Why are you changing the topic? What do our other reasons for not liking the movie have to do with this specific discussion about The Iron Giant? You keep broadening the scope from what I'm trying to talk about. I shouldn't have to address every other post in the thread just to respond to one which wasn't even yours. I'm allowed to quibble on a single point without having to consider every unrelated problem with the film. Just because I disagree with someone on one point, that doesn't mean I think the film is flawless or even great. So please just stop trying to argue with me about things I wasn't addressing.

I supposed I've been making the mistake of guessing what your point actually is, since it wasn't clear to me. So before I waste more time with this perhaps you could clarify what you intended when you said 'You're sarcastic but you do realize how a better film can get overshadowed by a worse one, right?' Because I think there has been a fundamental misunderstanding that has caused both of us to take everything the other has said completely wrong.

Here's events as I understand them:
1. Arcman mentioned that Iron Giant fought in RPO
2. The Laurent questioned this
3. You responded to the Laurent, pointing out the incongruity of The Iron Giant fighting, given what that movie is about. (You did so using clearly marked sarcasm.)
4. I responded to The Laurent, pointing out that The Iron Giant was not the actual agent doing the fighting in RPO.
5. Arizona responded to me, expressing disfavour towards the character using The Iron Giant in this way.
6. I responded to Arizona, pointing out that the character misusing The Iron Giant in 2045 is someone who wouldn't even be born yet, meaning that I can forgive the character for getting The Iron Giant wrong under these circumstances. (I did so using sarcasm, which you noticed.)
7. You responded to me, mentioning how 'a better film can get overshadowed by a worse one'.
8. I figured you meant that unlike me, you could not overlook this misuse of The Iron Giant, because it could misinform other people about The Iron Giant. So I responded that it's your own understanding of The Iron Giant (and Rambo) that should matter to you, not that of other people or me. Basically, you already dislike the movie on your own behalf, you don't have to dislike it on behalf of everyone who doesn't understand The Iron Giant too. While I'll continue to overlook this particular flaw in RPO because it doesn't matter to me personally, I'm not concerned about whether or not other people understand The Iron Giant or Rambo, and as I said to Arizona we're talking about a (fictional) young person in 2045 misusing The Iron Giant, that's not outside my personal comfort zone.
9. You said I was telling people not to criticize something? And that I was preventing people from discussing something?
10. I tried to explain and it all went downhill from there.
11. Now you're talking about all the other reasons we don't like the movie. Huh?

 

[Fandom Lord]

What are you even talking about?

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I haven't changed the subject, you've just only been replying to part of what I'm saying. I can understand the mistake, since I wasn't replying to you on all of them.
The Iron Giant was an example pointing to a larger problem, which my references to Spielberg and the attempts at trying to claim it was just about references by the movie's toxic fandom was pointing at. It's not about Death of the Author, it's about a bad movie (as people have been spelling out in this thread) referencing better ones to try to make itself look better. As I pointed out above, Spielberg is really good at covering up weak movies with references, music, and visuals, RPO is a not a good movie movie, and missing the point of the references is one of the criticisms of it.

 

[ZerbanDaGreat]

Well I just saw it myself - Mum had a pair of tickets to [Insert Your Desired Movie Here] with a time limit and wanted to see A Movie so, y'know, chance to catch up and all that.

It was Okay.

Spoiler

Shockingly it wasn't the final battle that made me just want to fully dissociate from my body and drift off into oblivion, but that fucking race scene near the start. Long, swooping, unbroken shots of sixteen-dick-million CGI cars all flipping and slipping and sliding and crashing and blowing up and smashing into each other and getting stepped on by T-Rexes and hit by trains it was just a nightmare. As an addendum to that, while the race having a solid concrete barrier behind it rather than being an unbroken circuit makes it slightly more believable that nobody thought to just drive backwards in five years (slightly) the movie seemed to think you and Parzival are fucking idiots because not only does Halliday say "I wish I could just go backwards" like three times in a row as if he was secretly performing for the cameras about 20 years ago or whatever it was, but then he makes it even worse by further elaborating on it with overly specific spelling-it-out phrasing like "aw yea pedal to the medal lol" and it's just... god. End the scene with him saying "I wish I could go backwards". Have Parzival stop, register it, then sprint the fuck off.

The narration was ball-grindingly annoying because every single piece of information it gave out could've been conveyed more organically so clearly Spielburg was on Cruise Control and a half for those segments, and for the most part the references didn't annoy me until Aech-as-the-Iron-Giant did the fucking Terminator 2 thumbs-up as she sank into the lava and it's like come on you're fighting for your lives right now now is not the time to meme for your friend.

Flipside, a lot of stuff genuinely made me chuckle. Like Nolan Serranto, he's a lot of fun. He has such naked, breathless antipathy for all this nerd bullshit that it's honestly really funny to just watch him play the straight man to all this YA novel horseshit happening around him. The way he spits out "is this another videogame thing" in a tone that implies he wants to be muttering '(fucking nerds)' under his breath if not for the M-rating is just wonderful. And oftentimes it seemed to be willingly leaning into the inherent absurdity of the premise for the sake of comedy, like repeatedly cutting away from the climax to show that one IOI guy still super fucking absorbed in Adventure. Or the entire geeksquad (after their other great scene of INTENSELY feeding Serranto nerd bullshit over his earpiece) all biting their knuckles watching Parzival try to put the third key in and of course the truck keeps bouncing around and making him miss the keyhole and this one lady just blurts out "WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?!?!?" and I just had to chuckle at that.

And to follow on from that, I don't know how it worked in the book beyond I think Daito and Sho both got fucking iced IRL in the middle of the climax? But the way the movie interwove the virtual battle and real-world stuff like the aforementioned truck problems or even having the kids death-battle Miss Enforcer Woman with their sick VR kung fu skills including Wade's finishing manbaby-suspenders-assisted spinning roundhouse kick. It was a way to convey the importance of both the virtual and real-world struggle by weaving it into the text itself, which is... y'know, how stories are meant to work. And honestly there was a brief stab of "oh yeah the Japanese kid knows kung fu because he's Asian" that quickly, if not cut out but at least guttered, when Samantha and Wade both contributed in ways that are familiar to them after no doubt spending shitloads of time fistfighting in the OASIS so it makes its own kind of sense, at least to me.

The one decision that genuinely baffles me is why Serranto makes it all the way to the van and has Wade right where he wants him, and yet because he can see the Easter Egg's glow via the feedback suit and visor, he doesn't shoot? I mean I was genuinely shocked that the actual police showed up in the end, I assumed IOI just had flat-out immunity at that point after all the other shit they pulled like the full-blown raid on Samantha's safehouse (and wow nice job assholes send the guy with the very distinctive tattoo to buy groceries and lead everyone right back to you). I feel like if Spielburg had been able to resist the pull of a 110% cheesy Spielburg schmultzy ending it would've been better of Serranto had just fuckin' shot Wade anyway. What else to lose, right? And yeah the whole 'turn off the OASIS a couple days a week' thing is exactly as dumb and tacked on as it already sounded since it could lead to people just like Wade being stuck with their abusive family members or whatever. Surely it would've been way better to like, institute some kind of soft playtime limits like Any Other MMO Ever like rested XP bonuses and shit? This is a solved problem my lads.

And on the token of OASIS' game design, I also agree that the hard-coded permadeath thing is really fuckin' dumb. I feel like it would've been better if permadeath was some kind of like, part and parcel of 'Gunter Mode' where you toggle on Now There Are Stakes which lets you participate in the challenges. That would've added a little more weight to everyone showing up after Parzival's speech because it means they voluntarily put everything on the line in a way that isn't like... standard to the entire OASIS experience.

What else, what else. Oh it was kind of adorable the movie seemed to think someone had to physically be in the same room as Wade ingame in order to overhear his name and cross-reference it against their purchase records or whatever when like... in this hypercapitalist dystopian future there is no way in Hell that IOI wouldn't have just like, been monitoring the data of anyone who buys and uses their products in order to sell to the highest bidder and Wade you bought an IOI product with your race winnings and had it sent to your home address you dumbshit why are you surprised that they found you.

Halliday was kinda neat. I mean conceptually it's super fucking weird and creepy that he arranged to establish that hall of records place where literally every single thing he ever said, did, ate, watched, read or played is exhaustively catalogued for fucking creepo nerds to pick over like jackals. But that aside and being used as a vehicle to diagetically show us flashbacks to the man's life and unravel how he felt in his dying days, it painted a nice enough picture of a really weird, socially awkward, probably mental-illness-having man who deeply regretted basically every life choice he ever made and wanted to ensure that someone with the character to do better than him stepped up to take his place.

So it was like. Okay. It was pretty average. I'm not particularly upset I spent some of my evening watching it. All the worst shit from the book is gone so now it's pretty much a by-the-numbers Western SAO made by someone with a smidge of talent. It's probably not the death of Western culture as we know it.

 

[Hotdog Vendor]

I haven't changed the subject, you've just only been replying to part of what I'm saying. I can understand the mistake, since I wasn't replying to you on all of them.
The Iron Giant was an example pointing to a larger problem, which my references to Spielberg and the attempts at trying to claim it was just about references by the movie's toxic fandom was pointing at. It's not about Death of the Author, it's about a bad movie (as people have been spelling out in this thread) referencing better ones to try to make itself look better. As I pointed out above, Spielberg is really good at covering up weak movies with references, music, and visuals, RPO is a not a good movie movie, and missing the point of the references is one of the criticisms of it.

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Sure. That has nothing to do with me, but yeah that has been a good point well made.

 

[Synthesis]

I enjoyed it, though it probably helped having seen it with a friend who was very big fan of the book and highly anticipating it (a younger friend of mine who currently works in a computer science capacity). The "real world" sections were somewhat lackluster by comparison (as with Artemis and her horrible deformity flattering port-wine stain), and I'm left wondering if certain very "Spielbergy" aspects of it, like the romantic subplot and the youth heroism, are things I'm not a huge fan of in his films (they reminded me of the last few Spielberg films I've seen). Still, a fun movie that I'll probably watch again when it comes to UHD.

Noticed the conspicuous lack of Star Wars cameos. I was kind of relieved by it, in retrospect. You don't need stormtroopers or the Millennium Falcon, there was plenty of other nostalgia trips to be had.

Had a laugh at the RX-78 Gundam cameo (complete with the ZZ Gundam pose). For much of the battle I was consistently wondering, "Why doesn't he just shoot Mecha-Godzilla in the face repeatedly with the beam rifle?" only to remember "Oh, right, Samurai guy Daito is controlling it." I am disappointed by the missed opportunity for an interior cockpit shot, but it was a pretty gratuitous Gundam cameo as it was. A lot of negotiating with Bandai and Sunrise, I'm sure.

Some of the other artifacts of "proud nerd culture" "geek chic", etc., were lost on me, but that's not surprising. I did enjoy what cameos I did recognize, like the multiple uses of Halo small arms, the appearance of the Spartans, the half-dozen appearances of Tracer, etc.

Good, fun film. Much better than I would have expected. No intention of reading the book, especially given my lack of affinity towards Dungeons and Dragons in general.

 

[ZerbanDaGreat]

Oh but I must also mention Wade's abusive uncle that spends family-critical cash on microtransactions gets physical with him over dying in a game of OASIS-COD and Wade honestly thinks calling him a "noob" to his face is the coolest and most edgy defiant kid thing he can do and it's both kind of adorable and earns him the smack in the mouth that he very much deserved in that moment.

 

[Suzu]

Can someone explain the dramatic necessity of the Asian guy meditating before the big battle other than to establish that he is, in fact, Asian?