Ready Player One - Spielberg takes on the king of MMOs.

Who cares.

Really. Because some guys who make a living crapping on other peoples work decide to tear into the novel, this is somehow justification of anything? forgeforsaken, we get that you dont like the book but defending your position with rifftrax? I think you’re trying too hard.

Oooh, ooh, I know this one!

I’m glad I’m not the only one.

I can appreciate criticisms of things I like. But snark filled super pedantic negative for the sake of being negative, like CinemaSins ‘everything wrong with’ and their ilk, just drive me nuts.

It’s a good, funny podcast that does its best to keep an open mind and highlight the positives (which, even as a non-fan of Ready Player One at this point, do exist). No, they don’t like the book, and there’s plenty of reason not to. But it’s not “super pedantic negative for the sake of negative”. Nor is Rifftrax, frankly. If they were I wouldn’t be up for it either.

I actually knew about the book because the online negative opinions.

It’s really not a well-written book. The premise was interesting and fairly original, and I’m not immune to nostalgia, but the actual prose was awful. Maybe not Twilight bad, but bad enough. It was a fun read, somewhere around the level of an old Star Wars Legends novel. While reading it, you can picture hwo cool it could be as a movie or videogame.

But Armada? Yuck. That was a straight-up piece of shit. Cline didn’t even bother to hide that he was ripping off The Last Starfighter.

Audience reactions to the SXSW premiere were extremely positive, though usually that audience is pretty biased.

The gist seemed to be, “Spielberg made a good movie? Who would have doubted that?”

I am cautiously optimistic that Spielberg makes a fun action adventure out of this fun summer beach reading novel.

I wish I had your optimism. But betting against Spielberg isn’t smart, since his track record is mostly good. I just feel like this is going to end up in the AI camp.

The Verge didn’t seem to enjoy the book much for the same reason many of you guys listed, but thought the movie improved on it quite a lot. Given that I loved the book, I’m pretty jazzed now.

It sounds like the film does a lot less worshipping the reference material than the book did.

Which is probably good.

Though I did hear the movie downplays a lot of the class struggle that felt like the best part of the book. Which is sad, because it added the heart to the book in my mind.

This poor kid, living in a literal stack of trailers is able to use his wits, friends, and love of pop culture to defeat an evil mega corporation. Which feels right out of an 80’s movie, which was kind the point.

I still would recommend the book, if you know what you are getting in to.

If you want a serious (and better written) VR book, read Reamde.

This is why I liked the book. I went in expecting a literary version of a popcorn movie. Not everything has to be pulitzer level to be enjoyed.

They’re saying the movie shows all the geekery, rather than lingering on it lasciviously in paragraphs of text they found overwrought and I found hilarious, so it becomes part of the world-building spectacle rather than the point. And that’s fair.

High hopes for this one.

Exactly. I read, and enjoyed, Ready Player One while at the hospital after my daughter was born. It was the perfect book for those times when both mom and baby were sleeping. I finished it in about 2 days.

I also enjoyed reading Umberto Eco’s Foucalt’s Pendulum. The overlap between why I liked both is essentially 0.

RPO knew exactly what kind of book it was, and what it wanted to be. Which was enough for me. Sometimes I just like to relax and enjoy a low effort adventure, and I’d rather read a book than watch TV, so this fit that bill.

I haven’t read it but it seems awfully crazy to write a book that only targets fathers waiting in the maternity ward. Since we’re done at 2 kids, I’ll never really get to experience its true message and that makes me sad.

If I had a dollar for every time I read the “shut off your brain, popcorn book/movie” explanation I’d have, like, dozens of dollars. To me, it almost always seems defensive and unfair.

On behalf of us folks who didn’t care for the book, we know how to enjoy that kind of thing. We agree that fun books are fun and fun movies are fun. We were hoping for a light, popcorn read. It’s just that the sheer number of pop culture references got in the way of that light-hearted fun. The world and plot had some merit but I couldn’t see past all the times he was studying reruns of Diff’rent Strokes or whatever.

The movie looks iffy but I outgrew my anti-Spielberg phase a long time ago so I’ll keep an open mind. I hope it’s really good!

Family Ties, come on.

Myself, I was merely explaining why I liked it. It wasn’t meant as and shouldn’t be taken as a slight to anyone who didn’t. Like it or don’t like it, as you will, that’s your choice. I don’t even care if people voice their reasons for not liking it. State your opinion about it and then move on.

On a related note, what I do get tired of is people repeatedly crapping on those who like something that they do not. And no I’m not saying that’s what you are doing, its merely an observation of forum behavior in general. I simply do not understand why people have this need to go into a forum topic about some form of entertainment they do not like and then rip on it and the people who enjoy it, repeatedly.

Because disagreement is more interactive, and therefore more interesting, than agreement, and some people like to take this to unfortunate extremes. (The latter half can also be summarized as the classic “opinions are like assholes.”)

I guess we’ll find out closer to March 29th when the movie is out? I’m cautiously optimistic now.