Ready Player One

[Deledrius]

I haven't read the book so I can't speak with certainty, but everything I have read about the book and heard about the movie makes me cringe. It appears to be an embodiment of everything wrong with geek culture presented completely uncritically.

This is precisely my experience with it as well. I've also read a few selected excerpts, and they do nothing to contradict that assessment.

[CharlesPhipps]

Like I said, I recommend everyone try the Rifftrax. It justifies the book x2000 over.

http://372pages.com/

[GloatingSwine]

I'm about halfway through the book at the moment, and it's OK I guess.

Like it's not the best version of this plot I've read, it's not as good as For The Win or Halting State, but I've seen the depths of shit that the "all in an MMO" genre can plumb as well with terrible anime like Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, and it's still better than them.

I don't think the specific '80s references meaning anything actually matters all that much though. The '80s was about the last decade before people really started becoming widely aware of the incoming problems of ecological collapse and overpopulation that the world of the books is living through, so it makes sense as a time that their society would look back on fondly even aside from the plot reason.

It doesn't, ultimately, say anything with the nostalgia driven society because it doesn't seem to have time to look at that society much from what I've read (too busy explaining things that its target audience absolutely does not need explaining, and probably not going to have a heavy theme about not running away from your problems which the virtual world + pervasive nostalgia would be good to tell), but it does at least make thematic sense.

[CharlesPhipps]

I actually liked the insanity that everyone is 80s obsessed because Halliday created the OASIS and laid the groundwork for nostalgia in everything he designed while also making his contest to celebrate 80s nostalgia. As such, he financially choked the world of anything past the time he liked.

Also, I don't think it's a great book but I found it an entertaining book.

[Lizuka]

I haven't read the book, but everything I have seen and know of the book and movie comes off like the book would be completely insufferable and the movie would also largely be other than about a combined ten minutes worth of cool crossover stuff.

[CharlesPhipps]

I haven't read the book, but everything I have seen and know of the book and movie comes off like the book would be completely insufferable and the movie would also largely be other than about a combined ten minutes worth of cool crossover stuff.

I don't get the irrational nerd rage. It's just Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in an enormous version of Second Life instead of a chocolate factory.

[GloatingSwine]

I've finished the book now.

It remains OK. Picked up a little in the last third, but it remained baggy with Lists Of Stuff.

The Lists Of Stuff kinda make sense from the perspective of it being a first person narration by a character who has largely defined his self worth by accumulating knowledge about the Stuff. The lists are just him showing off this thing that he's put value on.

That said, by explaining everything Cline leaves very little for the reader to play with. It would be better to describe many of the references and let the reader figure out what they were so that they can be in on the game (because the central mystery is sufficiently abstruse that the reader can't really guess the clues ahead of time they can't play the big game along with the characters), and in a novel set in a game, about a metagame, the fact that the reader isn't given a lot to play with is a huge missed opportunity.

That said, the trailer for the movie centres around a big action setpiece which is brand new, and Spielberg pretty much knows how to story, so I suspect the movie may be stronger.

[Deledrius]

I haven't read the book, but everything I have seen and know of the book and movie comes off like the book would be completely insufferable and the movie would also largely be other than about a combined ten minutes worth of cool crossover stuff.

I don't get the irrational nerd rage. It's just Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in an enormous version of Second Life instead of a chocolate factory.

Just because you don't agree doesn't make it irrational, and being critical of a work is not rage. It sounds like you were precisely the audience for this novel. Many people, even other "nerds", are not.

[GloatingSwine]

To be fair, most criticism of media these days is indistinguishable from nerd rage. Most criticism, especially on the internet, confuses inventive hyperbole for insightful critique and is really bad at expressing why things work or don't work.

That plus the general conflation of subjective personal taste with objective technical qualities even to the extent of denying that media like films can even have objective technical qualities (like how well they're edited, framing, internal consistency of the characters' arcs, etc). Most internet criticism has a long ass way to go.

[SlackerinDeNile]

To be fair, most criticism of media these days is indistinguishable from nerd rage. Most criticism, especially on the internet, confuses inventive hyperbole for insightful critique and is really bad at expressing why things work or don't work.

That plus the general conflation of subjective personal taste with objective technical qualities even to the extent of denying that media like films can even have objective technical qualities (like how well they're edited, framing, internal consistency of the characters' arcs, etc). Most internet criticism has a long ass way to go.

Some of it is, I suspect you are angry at people for not enjoying The Last Jedi the way you did.
I strongly disagree that 'Most internet criticism has a long ass way to go.' No offense but I think that you need to stop being salty.
People are entitled to like or love things and people are entitled to hate them as well, as long as they aren't forcing others to feel the same way.

For example Noah Antwiles (better known as The Spoony One) is a critic with unconventional, and arguably unbalanced, tastes and whilst he has liked some good films such as X-men first class, he also utterly loathes some enjoyable films such as Pacific Rim just because he thought it was 'dumb', which it is but that's part of the fun, he also thought people were dumb for liking it. For some reason I can't quite figure out he also worships the Paranormal Activity series.

I don't have an issue with his tastes or critique except for when he gets salty about people liking things that he doesn't. He's entitled to like the things that he does and dislike the things he doesn't, so are you and everybody else.