Ready Player One

[Fixer]

You are right, everyone is allowed to have their own opinion. Except on whether or not Han shot first.
but a polite reminder guys. No mind reading others intentions or motivations. Madness lies that way! Please keep things civil

[GloatingSwine]

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.

There's a difference between having an opinion and being a critic. The difference isn't what you like or don't like, the difference is how you express your likes and dislikes, and how introspective you are about your personal opinions and how they've coloured your reaction to something to try and examine the thing in the way others might experience it and what it was attempting to convey.

On the Internet, because the earliest internet video critics in particular were guys like the AVGN, Linkara, Nostalgia Critic, and Yahtzee they set the tone of internet criticism as character based entertainment where comedic hyperbole about selected particularly disliked media is preferred over introspective critique where the reviewer consciously examines their own reactions and how they have made them react to the media.

Which whilst it's entertaining to watch doesn't actually tell you a lot about the thing being reviewed (usually because it's self selected to be negative because it's easier to be comedically hyberbolic about something you don't like, which is why eg. Moviebob tried as hard as he could to do a positive series with "Really That Good" rather than fall into the laziness of negativity.)

That's why there's half a dozen Nostalgia Critic or AVGN wannabes who are very often lazy and bad for every Noah Caldwell-Gervais or Dan Olson, and why Lindsay Ellis got far more interesting when she dropped the "Nostalgia Chick" persona and started getting to the heart of film and editing.

It's not just video criticism either though. Most professional videogame review sites are so up their own opinion that they don't really say much about the subject of the review (beyond what was in the press previews and some basic explanation of mechanics), they just express their opinion as if it is going to be the universal response to the media and they don't stop and examine the design of it.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Well I agree with you on 'professional video game' websites, most of them are corporate trash these days featuring payed actors rather than passionate video game journalists and whatnot.

[CharlesPhipps]

Honestly, the only problem I have with the book is Art3mis would have made a lot better protagonist.

[Lizuka]

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.

Yeah, that's my take on things. Like personally I didn't like Pacific Rim at all, but I can see why people did and if they're hyped for the sequel hey, good for them, don't let me hold anyone back.

Similarly if someone's hyped for Ready Player One, more power to 'em, I just really think I'd find it insufferable personally.

[CharlesPhipps]

Here's the trailers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp1dM2Vj48&t=60s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rqRWEv9YW8

[GloatingSwine]

Honestly, the only problem I have with the book is Art3mis would have made a lot better protagonist.

I'm not so sure.

As presented in the book, Art3mis doesn't really have a lot of challenges to overcome as a character. Wade starts out broke in a shitty trailer park, and many of the challenges he faces are due to a lack of resources other than the contents of his own head in and out of the OASIS.

Art3mis starts out successful in the OASIS even if we don't know anything about her outside of it, so we don't get to see her really challenged in the story.

[CharlesPhipps]

Here is a very pretentious article on the movie and internet culture.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/1725 ... t-dystopia

I work in academia and yet I found that reaching.

Apparently thinking the internet is awesome is awful.

[SlackerinDeNile]

Okay, so I decided to read this book out of morbid curiosity due to all the conflicting opinions on it I've been reading and hearing over the last few months and I finished it today. I'd never even heard of this book until I saw the trailer for the film brought up on this forum and in a facebook group for film nuts that I'm in.

This is not a good book, if you really like it or just plain enjoy it, that's fine, I'll still respect you because I do see its appeal. I personally did not hate it, I found it kind of fun, but there's a lot of stuff throughout it that just made me cringe or burst out laughing (when the author didn't intend it.) Ready Player One is undeniably poorly written, unoriginal, not very imaginative, cliche-ridden and I don't feel that the first person narrative fits the book all that well, it's hard to tell what tense Wade is talking in as he seems to start at some point in the future when recounting the story but there's no way to tell at what point in his life he is recounting the story from.

There are so many flaws in this story and Ernest Kline's writing that I'm not going to list or describe them all in this post, I'm going to save that for another thread where I'm going to discuss and compare RPO with Snow Crash, which I'm going to start reading tomorrow.

Some of the things I did genuinely like about the book were the reveal of Aech's real identity, some people feel that this is a bit hammy but I genuinely didn't see that one coming and it put forward a positive message, it's a good use of the 'Samus is a girl' trope, the first half of part 3 where Wade becomes indentured, that was pretty interesting although full of contrivances, much like the rest of the story, and it reminded me of 1984, in a good way. I felt that Wade was a decent character, I like how he is a flawed, realistic portrait of a lonely, impoverished young nerd, for most of the story anyway, I didn't mind the stuff about male masturbation because it fit both Wade's and Halliday's respective characters. Something I really don't like about Wade is how easily he pulls off a lot of the stuff he does throughout the story, I found it hard to believe that, given a great deal of the human race were participating in this contest, more people hadn't come to the same conclusions before him.
Wade is the kind of protagonist we see a lot in books for children or young people, like Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, he's smart, brave and self-reliant but he starts out with a rough lot in life and grows and develops from there, although in Wade's case he only really gets better near the end and that's a big problem I have with the book which I'll get to soon. Also, I must admit, this is one of the most realistic depictions of a cyberpunk future I've seen in fiction, most that I've seen, heard or read involve AI's, killer robots, nanotechnology, space travel and other ambitious technological developments, but here Kline really emphasises a world where the human race is dying, it feels, as the Deus Ex developers wonderfully called it, 'five minutes before the end.' I like that the OASIS and other enhanced computing and gaming technology is the only stuff that's made any real technological development, however this brings me to another one of my major problems with the book. RPO does not live up to its potential, the book raises so many interesting issues and questions: has the human race become dominated by its own nostalgia? Its own longing for a time and world that no longer exists? Have Halliday and Morrow trapped most of humanity in a pointless, infantile fantasy? What is being done about the economic and environmental crisis' facing mankind? What will Wade do if he actually wins? Will he just continue living in the OASIS letting his real body and the world around it die? It's actually a great set up for an interesting and realistic story that goes beyond the usual cyberpunk nonsense about spirituality and digital messiahs and whatnot, it's just a pity that these issues are not only barely explored, they don't factor into the ending or even the last act at all.

Most of RPO is quite grim, dark and gritty, we only see the story and world through the perception and experiences of Wade, which brings me back to the narrative. In 1984 we only saw the story and world through the perception and experiences of Winston, but it was not told in first person, yet we got a much more vivid and disturbing look at that world through Orwell's excellent and atmospheric description. This also brings me back to the ending and the last act, when Wade is forced to leave his apartment the world outside is apparently even worse than when he left it, what happened? I got the impression that a nuclear winter had started in America. Don't get me wrong, I like the mystery angle of RPO's world-building but real story-telling simply appeals to me more than Kline's over-reliance on references to 20th century media. As this act goes on things seem to get better and better for Wade, he successfully hacks into the IOI network and gets everything he needs, he warns his friends in time, Ogden comes out of nowhere (yeah I know it was foreshadowed and he did have good reason to help Wade and his friends) and sides with him, he finally gets to meet his friends and rivals in real life, he gets to fight in a cool battle, of which he is one of the only survivors, then he wins the contest becoming king of the OASIS and gets the girl of his dreams. In a story like this it doesn't really work, it's too cliche, I was led to believe from the tone and from Artemis's treatment of Wade earlier that this story would not have a happy ending, either Wade would win but Artemis would shut him out for good leaving him powerful but miserable and stuck in a dying civilisation which even he can't help save or he would lose, Artemis or Aech would win and take pity on him, giving him enough cash to set him up for life, leading him to finally abandon the OASIS to live an unpleasant but more real and unpredictable life outside. It's too neat and happy, we could have done with better twists about GSS and Morrow and Halliday too in my opinion, how about the revelation that either Halliday commited suicide due to his growing grief at what the OASIS and the world around him had become or that he was still alive, connected to a complex life support machine that would allow him to reign as God of OASIS for as long as it lasts, that last one is cheesy and its been done many times sure but it would have fit his character and the tone and nature of the story Kline had been writing up until this point. Plus, regarding Morrow, he comes across as a selfish hypocrite, it's become tiresome for fiction to refer to the Occupy movement or left-wing politics but I was surprised no-one called him out or even thought about how he lives in a secluded paradise away from the rest of the dying world. He disses IOI on a public broadcast but doesn't even bother trying to help fix the world on his own or with others, he's written as a hero in the end but all he's done is pass his own responsibility onto others, that would have been worth commenting on but I get the impression it might infringe on Kline's own political and social views.

Regarding the constant references, nostalgia and Kline's personal tastes and view of geek culture, this is where a great deal of the books appeal comes from. I don't know how many of the readers were geeks or nerds before they read the book, or even after, I get the impression that this book may have helped contribute to the rise in hipster culture or that a great deal of hipsters may have enjoyed it on its own because I know that's a movement that really loves nostalgia and stuff that has come back in style and whatnot. I get the impression that it's like Big Bang Theory as well, you don't have to be a geek or nerd to enjoy or get it so it appeals to people outside of that culture, I don't like that show myself but I understand what people like about it.

Now regarding the hatedom, I do feel it's kind of deserved and it was bound to happen given the books popularity in contrast with its quality. As I said, I don't hate it myself, nor do I have anything against Ernest Kline for now, other than his occasional fetishisation of geek women.

I haven't seen the film yet but I'll comment on that once I have.

I barely know anything about Snow Crash other than it's another cyberpunk novel that explores themes and issues similar to this story and is set in a similar world so I'm looking forward to whether or not it does a better job of it.

[CharlesPhipps]

Eh, isn't that his arc?

He's a selfish basement dwelling nerd who wants the money to live as a slobby bastard until suffering and meeting the others makes him want to help the world with Art3mis.