Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

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colinr0380
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Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#1 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:37 pm

I've been reading Ernest Cline's Ready Player One in preparation for Spielberg's film of it due out in 2017 (EDIT: Now 2018!), and while I'm only about halfway through so far it is a great read. I can see why Spielberg might have been taken with the material, as it seems to be hitting all of his key themes of a working class childhood starting to slip away battered and bruised by dead parents and abusive step-families, yet still for the moment retaining a sense of naivety and innocence as the characters slip into their virtual worlds (you could look at A.I. or even Catch Me If You Can for main character parallels to Wade here); wider world events impacting on the individual; environmental havoc; threatening interchangeable corporate figures (the 'Sixers' here could stand in for anything from the Nazis to the scientists at the end of E.T.); and groups of people racing each other to find an artifact (the Indiana Jones films, and I do hope that Spielberg lets the cheeky comment about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull slightly ruining one of the key 'holy trilogies' make it into the final film!)

It is also so reliant on being steeped in 1980s pop culture artifacts getting smashed together (music, film, TV, videogames, D&D) due to its absent creator being a child of that decade that it seems both wonderfully apt (though could Spielberg be potentially too 'inside' this world as one of the touchstone creators of it to be able to approach it from the main character's perspective of being just an audience member? That seems like it would be the key test of the film) and would perhaps take someone of Spielberg's clout to be able to do this film. To create something as ambitious as a re-enacting scenes from various movies, or to be able to potentially call in favours to request the, kind of narratively required, Matthew Broderick cameo! Or do the 'heroic' mixtape of tracks from the scores of Conan The Barbarian and Ladyhawke! Or all of the various scenes that revolve around actualisations of existing videogames! (Yes, there is a passing reference to the notorious Atari E.T. game!)

But in addition to the pop culture aspects, now that I've gotten to the point at which the actual contest (part Willy Wonka and part Hunger Games. Yes, there is likely going to be a love triangle) is starting, I'm finding the story has some fascinating things to say about what it might feel like to be in a generation that 'missed out' on the fun times. In this case it is living in the 1980s in the online Oasis-world and in the offline world getting born into a 'post-peak oil' generation. But this could just as easily be about any generation being left with the cultural products of a previous generation's preoccupations and trying to imperfectly find a way of fitting that into their contemporary, lived reality (I mean Spielberg was doing this as early in his career as that scene in E.T. where the characters re-enact The Quiet Man in their science class!) Or of trying out secondhand-love for culture in order to understand another person better, or until you begin to create your own culture and millieu from all that synthesising of information.

There are also interesting thoughts about God (after all doesn’t it literalise the concept of 'God' when everyone is inhabiting a virtual world that actually has been entirely created?) into a Steve Jobs-like figure of James Halliday (although according to Wikipedia this character is "a mix of Howard Hughes and Richard Garriott"). Even atheists suddenly have a 'creator' that they can point towards (with his own Bible), who has had a hand in every aspect of the online environment and shaped it in a way that there actually is a goal to search for. A true meaning, if just a controlling share in Halliday's company, to the winner. Of course I'm sure it will have been all about the race than the outcome, especially if the trials keep mirroring Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

It does also feel as if it has some insightful notions about ‘spoiler’ culture too, given that beating the game, working out the riddle, seeing the story and getting on the scoreboard is something that has to be kept secret so as not to alert other players to a winner. And to not spoil the surprise for the other players (though a few helpful hints can be dropped!), as well as a test of an individual's 'devotion to the cause' in actually witnessing something for themselves rather than just by proxy through the accounts of others. It becomes a strange mix of not wanting to rob someone of their personal experience of an event (which solving the tests does, as Willy Wonka-style the solutions of the riddles and contents of the gates quickly becomes public knowledge, and exploited. These three clues seem not just ways of testing players to see who gets Halliday’s legacy, but also ways of posthumously ‘playtesting’ new products that get given a grand unveiling as each gate is unlocked) or to unfairly advantage someone in facing the same challenges you yourself faced in trying to understand and beat a cultural product.

But after beating the game, or witnessing the event, people want to talk to each other about it and dissect every bit of the experience or new riddle to in a way prolong the experience as long as possible. To discuss (or fight!) over who got what reference, who got it first, or just generally put their knowledge to use in a way that keeps the debate alive. Whilst a little way behind the vanguard of explorers the mass media, and by extension the rest of the world, slowly approaches to begin assimilating the new and exciting into the mass of popular culture. To neutralise the power and uniqueness of the idea or of the particular subcultural group, or to spread the idea all around the world for everyone to access and understand equally? (it is kind of as much about the corporate takeover of the commons as anything by Naomi Klein! Even if that commons is a virtual world! Which itself could have real-world parallels with something like the clan-vs-corporation battles going on in Eve Online)

There is also an interesting geopolitical dimension to the bird's eye drone strikes on real world targets, or virtual battles destroying virtual temples of learning. Any of these elements could create a really fascinating film adaptation.

I've also been thinking a lot about that Mamoru Oshii live action film Avalon whilst reading, which sort of dealt with the same idea of a virtual wargame world that people use as a source of income and survivial, that contains a deeper mystery within it. Also of course the lead character in Ready Player One has named his avatar character Parzival, so there is a throughline of Arthurian legends in there too!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Wed Apr 13, 2016 4:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Steven Spielberg

#2 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Jan 21, 2016 10:52 am

I'm just going to add in my thoughts on the final two thirds of Ready Player One to the above post. I'll spoiler tag most of it, but its perhaps enough to say that it is a very fun book that is well worth reading. I was also glad that the potential love triangle I imagined above came to nothing!:
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The book does take a very impressive turn into a dark dystopian future in its mid-section. A future of wage slavery, dead end jobs and boxy anonymous apartments in ravaged and overcrowded cities. This is perhaps the section that will define any adaptation, as it really pushes a sense of all pervasive despair to show just how much a retreat into the OASIS and the silly quest for Halliday’s easter egg is an escape from the grind (Or the exchange of one kind of grind for another! It also shows how difficult it is to commit to the requirements of the quest as well as keep up with a monotonous yet energy sapping day job to pay the bills!), which makes Wade’s actions near the end of ‘diving deeper’ into an experience of true indenturement an extremely brave, if reckless act (one of Wade’s key traits!)

In this section there is also the lull in the quest too, as everyone is stymied by the riddle and/or distracted by personal matters too much to concentrate. It is as much a creative lull (or a lull in personal interest in a hobby that previously consumed you) as dealing with the darkness of the surrounding outside world. It makes this section almost intentionally inert and treading water (even resting on one’s laurels as a famous celebrity) for the longest time until the panic sets in as the race starts up again and suddenly positions and reputations are at stake, and the fear of being entirely abandoned returns, especially the notion of having researched and read up on the wrong pop culture, running the risk of having been left out of the loop somehow on an experience that every ‘true fan’ should have had (although what the story seems to be emphasising is that everyone has their obsessions as well as their blind spots, and that sharing the fun of culture is the point of the game in itself, helping to define your individual character by your personal and shared interests. Rather than just consuming as a means to an end, as the Sixers seem to suggest, with the interchangeable avatar having different ‘experts’ in various fields swapped in behind the scenes).

It’s a surprisingly dark section, but really adds a lot of weight to the lighter bookends (the 80s pop culture items getting referenced here are “Sam Lowry” and “Harry Tuttle” along with the Voigt-Kampf machine), as well as fleshing in the wider world in a way reminiscent of the Minority Report film (though at least here Wade doesn’t have to surgically swap out his eyeballs to change his identity! It is a bit more technologically than biologically based!), in which it can feel that even friends cannot be trusted.

And then the final third of the story gets into a wonderful battle climax that touches on issues of online collective action and even deals well with issues of simple spectatorship of someone else playing a game, and the way that this can foster engagement amongst an audience wishing the player they are watching luck and investing their hopes in them. (Which of course has a lot of religious connotations even before we get to noble sacrifices and ideas of the hopes of the community being funnelled down into ‘the trinity’ at the last gate)

I can even cope with the happy ending and the message from the end of the story to seemingly placate non-nerdy readers that, yes, it is perhaps better to leave the house some time, smell the fresh air and live your own life rather than staying inside playing video games and nerding out about movies – escaping in pieces of art that are circumscribed by rules and dialogue written by others. Partly because the book beautifully earns its jump to “Class Real” (as Avalon put it in its film), but also because it does this without undercutting all of the previous experiences that the characters have had. It could even be seen to (lightly) critique this idea that people shouldn’t run and hide out from their problems in a virtual world simply because living in a virtual world and playing a nerdy contest literally was the only way that Wade, living in a stacked trailer park with abusive extended family members, could find a place where he actually could make a name for himself and grow into a ‘self actualised’ hero figure. (I think the most telling part of the ending is that Halliday gifts Wade the big ‘OFF’ button that will completely wipe the whole OASIS, but despite Wade talking about not needing to go back at the end anymore he doesn't seem to be presumptious enough to wipe the online world away for those who still need to escape to it, not to mention live and work in it. Wade doesn’t take it upon himself to impose the horrors of reality on everyone even though for him the game is over. Perhaps as a compensation for removing the reason for being that all the other gunters had, he might spend his time creating a new inheritance contest of his own?)

Plus of course living in the real world might not be quite so bad when you are a newly minted multi-billionaire (another reason for the dystopian mid-section to show what normal, anonymous people are facing), even if the new issue that the book beautifully raises at the end has parallels to Bill Gates-style philanthropy in a perhaps already fatally devastated world!

The big issues with adapting this to film, as far as I can see it, would be not just clearing rights to using lots of recognisable licenced properties (this feels like something that wouldn’t work without having nods to actual products that people have pre-existing relationships with. But could even Spielberg have the ability to licence Mechagodzilla or Ultraman? Or Pac-Man for that matter? Or the Johnny 5 robot from Short Circuit? This is quite important as the cultural cache brought by all of these 'real world' references getting smashed together in unorthodox and irreverent ways are the true currency of the online space of the OASIS. Having for example a legally authorised "Donny-6" knock off robot in here instead just wouldn't create the same frisson that this material really needs its audience to constantly be having in order for the rest of the story to work properly. And that cross-brand licencing of multiple disparate products is something that I'll be pleasantly surprised if any film adaptation could manage to pull off. Just doing that would be an impressive a feat as creating the futuristic world!), but also it needs to handle those deus ex machina moments deftly too. Just running across the Pac-Man machine by chance, or buying up the IOI Intranet codes on a whim needs to have the air of being nothing in the moment (or just a game to play that clears the mind) but also stand as a tribute to a collector or researcher scouring the entire game world for potential exploits, some of which pay off and many of which do not (the plot itself plays with this, with various characters having studied in, or being proficient in different aspects of pop culture). Those serendipitous moments should arise naturally and almost effortlessly rather than feeling forced, and that is a difficult thing to pull off.

But above all thoughts of any potential film, I found this a damn good read in itself and often a surprisingly emotional one too. It is not often that I find myself in the midst of a book just going back and re-reading certain previous passages over purely for the pleasure of experiencing them again! I don’t know if it was because I don’t often do that nostalgic look back in the midst of reading books but flicking back to significant passages really added a kind of cross-referencing back and forth sense to the material too, almost as if the story were full of hypertext links back to, say, the Sorrento conversation and trailer detonation or the first meeting in Aech’s chatroom between the ‘High Five’!

I especially liked that in the final section that Parzival really does grow into a heroic character through his actions, only lifted higher by having known the deep lulls of the mid-section of the story (of feeling abandoned, useless and on the run, before literally taking on the role of an indentured servant to a large corporation). But in some ways that heroism goes beyond just beating the bad guys, winning the contest and getting the girl. Throughout that final section it is the little extra moments that he doesn’t have to have done in addition to just playing Halliday’s game that turn Wade/Parzival into a truly admirable hero. The moments such as splitting the share, returning to confront Sorrento (and thereby elevating Sorrento in some ways with the, perhaps undeserved, honour of being the ‘named villain’ of the story) and all of his discussions with his companions in which he shows that he understands and cares for them more than he is simply required to out of courtesy. And those are also the moments that reverberate beyond the OASIS world or what is simply required of him to win the game, but become about decency, friendship, co-operation and fair play in general. And that humility (“only the penitent man may pass” as Indiana Jones might have read in his own Grail Diary!) is perhaps why he does win, as he does still seem to be the only one of the group of heroes to have come to that larger awareness of the responsibilities of teamwork, friendship and sacrifice by the end (and interestingly so in that it leaves the relationship with Art3mis hopeful yet ambivalent in the end).

By the way, I also noted that due to the way that the book ends we never see Shoto ‘for real’ outside of his avatar and his still photograph! I wonder if it was intentional that we get a couple of ‘big reveals’ of the real world versions of OASIS avatars, yet Shoto does not get any real world interaction with the other characters, or at least any interaction that Wade and the readers are privy to.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#3 Post by Jeff » Thu Apr 14, 2016 12:03 am

The last major piece of the casting puzzle has fallen into place with Mark Rylance taking on the role of James Donovan Halliday. While that shouldn't be remotely surprising, I was really hoping that the rumors of Spielberg coaxing Gene Wilder out of retirement were true. Tye Sheridan will be playing Wade, with Olivia Cooke as Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento, and Simon Pegg as Ogden Morrow. Filming starts in June.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#4 Post by AK » Thu Apr 14, 2016 8:44 am

Thanks for bringing the book to my attention! I was just browsing Audible looking for an audiobook that would be completely new to me, and this fits the bill perfectly. Will definitely start this week.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#5 Post by D50 » Thu Apr 14, 2016 8:58 am

After reading a couple lines in the Goodreads synopsis, checked out our library and they have it in Kindle. I've got a hold on it - with 3 ahead of me.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#6 Post by colinr0380 » Thu Apr 14, 2016 2:14 pm

I'm trying not to spoil things too much but I'm interested in how they'll handle the whole casting and promotional aspect of the film, as
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they'll probably need to keep the identity of who is playing one of the supporting characters a quite closely guarded secret if they want to retain a certain final act surprise reveal! :wink:

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#7 Post by AK » Fri Apr 22, 2016 1:46 pm

Finished the book yesterday, and although it does become a bit too predictable to my taste as the contest continues, I think it's safe to say it's a very entertaining piece of work that has all the ingredients for a thrilling film. This was one of those works which was equally fun to listen to (Wheaton does a great job with the audiobook) and then switch to the Kindle version, since it's written in such a fast-moving style. I started with Armada just today, and while it seems it's going to recycle much of the core of the previous novel, the author certainly has a nice, easily readable style, and this is not a slight by any means, since I really respect people with the ability to take their story and move it forward without their language or any other aspect being in the way. Perhaps this means there are going to be a bit too many easy narrative solutions along the way, but so be it. It's still all very enjoyable.

In short, I really hope this film, which is going to be very complex to produce, actually comes through! Now some spoilers:
SpoilerShow
As Colin mentioned above, it'll be quite something to secure rights to use all that stuff they refer to in the books: Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner, all the possible video games in the world, it seems, etc. It's most likely going to be scaled back quite a bit. Having Spielberg on board probably helps, but it'll be interesting how they'll tackle it, and if/when they have to change something, I'm curious to see how they might dance around those issues. It was also a funny moment when, while listening to Wheaton narrating, he's actually mentioned in the book, and not too far away, knowing Spielberg is involved with the film production, hearing him involved as well. One tiny detail I'm looking forward to seeing onscreen, if he wants to have his name there. (The nature of the story should encourage it, certainly)

As for Aech, I think it'll be similar to what's been going on with Game of Thrones until now. Those in the know keep a tight lip, and the rest won't realize what's coming. For sure there are many easy distractions with this project and the cast so that it'll easily slip by.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#8 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Apr 22, 2016 2:19 pm

If you want to know my thoughts on Armada AK (though as usual they're probably best saved until after you've read the book) I did a post about it here. I think Ready Player One is better overall but Armada is still an entertaining read (I'm impressed by the way that Cline seems interested in creating relatively abrasive and unsympathetic lead characters, as if he is seeing whether he can make them heroic again after some of the flaws they show!), and I agree that they read incredibly fast!

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#9 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Jun 08, 2016 11:55 am

Apparently people can send in an avatar for potential inclusion in the film!

If you see a 50ft sad-laser-eyed robot Norman Wisdom forlornly bellowing out "Mr Grimsdale!!" as he strides through Fallout-inspired apocalyptic wastelands, then you'll know my idea got through the screening process!

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#10 Post by wattsup32 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:31 pm

I'm sort of excited for this. While it is easily the worst book I've read in the last 15 years, I can also readily see how/why someone would translate it to screen. I love when Spielberg makes movies that have nothing to say. Those are always his best. Judging by the source material, this should be outstanding.


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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#12 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:10 pm

Wait, is this just going to be two hours of watching people play video games?

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#13 Post by Big Ben » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:54 pm

I can't believe I saw Freddy Krueger and Duke Nukem in the same trailer.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#14 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Jul 22, 2017 5:43 pm

domino harvey wrote:Wait, is this just going to be two hours of watching people play video games?
Feels like the core of the movie, which I now have absolutely no interest in seeing.

And the trailer is obnoxious as hell = "cinematic game changer," really?

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#15 Post by Bumstead » Sat Jul 22, 2017 6:07 pm

"Cinematic game changer" = the guy Hollywood believes will help
make VR mainstream. Good luck with that.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#16 Post by Big Ben » Sat Jul 22, 2017 6:24 pm

The VR scene suffers from several problems not least the legal controversies. Firstly it's not as advertised. Yes it's three dimensional but it's not the Holodeck from Star Trek. You also look like a dumbass while wearing it. Furthermore you need serious hardware to make it function at an acceptable level. It's just not affordable for everyone right now.

Why individuals like Spielberg believe that VR at this current stage is worth advertising is beyond me. I've tried VR. It's years and years away from being anything resembling anything truly groundbreaking.

But it is Science Fiction after all.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#17 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Jul 22, 2017 6:55 pm

I thought that was pretty good, especially bearing in mind that this really is a 'teaser' trailer being unveiled at ComicCon. Only a few story elements are appearing at the moment: the trailerpark set up, the brief view of how the 'Sixers' are going to get portrayed, the floaty dance club and the key in the final image. Probably because the emphasis here (perfect for the audience its being shown to) is on the pop culture elements being brought together for people to unpick - there are already people in the comments of that trailer namechecking all of the various vehicles in the race scene (the DeLorean from Back To The Future, Kaneda's bike from Akira, the Mad Max Interceptor, etc), that seem to make an interesting contrast to the more homogenous shared police cars of the IOI corporation. More than anything else this trailer seems to be intended to be an early suggestion that they've attempted to pull off that aspect of cross-brand icons clashing together that was so important inside the world of the OASIS.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#18 Post by wattsup32 » Sun Jul 23, 2017 1:45 pm

This looks worse than I could have imagined, especially with Spielberg at the helm. I wish I could adequately impress upon people how poorly conceived, developed, and executed the source material is. Easily the worst read of my adult life and I'd be hard pressed to think of something worse I read as a kid.

And, yes, Dom, the entire book and, it appears, the movie will be watching people play video games for two hours. Except, unlike watching an e-sports tournament, the outcome is predetermined.
Last edited by wattsup32 on Mon Jan 22, 2018 9:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#19 Post by John Cope » Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:12 pm

wattsup32 wrote:I wish I could adequately impress upon people how poorly conceived, developed, and executed the source material is. Easily the worst read of my adult life and I'd be hard pressed to thinking of something worse I read as a kid.
Yes, but isn't it "the Holy Grail of pop culture"? LOL. If so, what does that say about the culture?

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#20 Post by carmilla mircalla » Sun Jul 23, 2017 2:52 pm

John Cope wrote:Yes, but isn't it "the Holy Grail of pop culture"? LOL. If so, what does that say about the culture?
I read this book a few years ago per a random suggestion/gifting of it to me. How anyone could actually like the battle scene that takes place towards the end of the book is beyond me. It is the most juvenile descriptions of things happening akin to watching a much younger sibling playing with an assortment of action figures while commentating on the action out loud. Something like: "I shoot a laser than he does and she does too at the same time. BOOM! we all hit it with super power!"

It's so cringey to say the least.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#21 Post by John Shade » Sun Jul 23, 2017 3:09 pm

domino harvey wrote:Wait, is this just going to be two hours of watching people play video games?
Most of the CGI dominant movies of this era, and I remember feeling this most especially with the Hobbit film and BFG (Spielberg's worst since Hook), are basically like 2 to 2 1/2 hour video games but they don't give you a controller.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#22 Post by dx23 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 9:39 am

I agree with what everyone has said about the source material. I got the book in one of those Loot Crate boxes around 2-3 years ago and couldn't understand the praise or appeal off it. I'm a gamer, love pop culture but the book (and now the trailer) came off to me as a "hey look, the Delorean from Back to the Future! And there's the Iron Giant! and Freddy Krueger!" and nothing beyond that. I felt that Wreck-it-Ralph did a great job mixing gaming with good story without only depending on pop-culture video game characters appearing in the film.

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#23 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:29 am

I haven't read the book but this passage is down there with the worst prose I've ever seen. It's like Cormac McCarthy with a full frontal lobotomy and a job at Birth Movies Death

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#24 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:32 am

Real talk: what the fuck is this shit

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Re: Ready Player One (Steven Spielberg, 2018)

#25 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:33 am

It's Epic Bacon Exploding Kittens Smol Doggo literature

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