Ready Player Two OUT NOW

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The tired cat said:
I honestly don't get how you write a sequel to a book that essentially ended on a happy ending. Quite frankly, I couldn't really stand the book I tried to read it and could barely get through it, then listened to the audio version read by Will Wheaton (seriously dude, put some emotion into your fucking reading) and man that book was just such obnoxious levels of "watch me jerk off my pop culture dick".
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I'd want it to be a prequel about James Halliday, but I never get what I want.

I imagine there'll be some threat to the oasis, maybe Halliday is an a.i. replicant that's lost its shit or something.
 
The tired cat said:
I honestly don't get how you write a sequel to a book that essentially ended on a happy ending. Quite frankly, I couldn't really stand the book I tried to read it and could barely get through it, then listened to the audio version read by Will Wheaton (seriously dude, put some emotion into your fucking reading) and man that book was just such obnoxious levels of "watch me jerk off my pop culture dick".
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Well, the most obvious thing to me would be make it about 90’s pop culture instead of 80’s.
 
Jasonfan89 said:
I'm honestly glad the movie cut Klein's neckbeard atheism out truly Spielberg can take even mediocre material and make it passable. As seen with jaws, mostly because he knows how to please audiences and critics alike. Unlike Klein who only knows how to please his fellow Fedora wearing neckbeard fans
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The tired cat said:
I wouldn't shock me of Spielberg looked at the source material and went "Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me....Good god this is trash...Okay..better get to work..."
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The book is actually better though, the movie is not able to convey that OASIS is truly a world of everything as well as the book does due to licensing issues, for example we never see anything from Star Wars, only a throwaway line referencing the Millennium Falcon, this is a world of everything you can think of from pop culture but we never see anything from Star Wars, the biggest thing in pop culture? (or at least it used to be)

In addition to that the final battle is on a far grander scale in the book than in the movie because in addition to fighting on the ground there's a battle between every spaceship you can think of in the sky.

The movie tried but was of course held back by budget, licensing and other practical reasons whereas the book is free to go crazy.

Spielberg often does this even in good adaptations though, there's a lot of cool shit from the Jurassic Park novel that I wish was in the movie but wasn't just to keep the movie under budget, he even chose the San Diego finale in The Lost World to save money on set building.
 
I'll admit, Ready Player One isn't quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

At the same time, I completely get why it draws so much ire and the book was very much a product of the early 2010's when "geek is chic" was just taking off and nostalgia was the hot new thing, and the newest round of the "culture wars" hadn't fully kicked in. To say it aged badly is an understatement.

It's very much the literary equivalent of a "popcorn flick" and very much a product of its time as well, and that's fine as long as you enjoy it for what it is and leave it at that.

I will give @Dom Cruise some credit in that the book really does feel eerily prescient in how everything's been banking off of pop culture nostalgia and VR really does seem like the next big thing for escapism in future decades.

Still don't know why Ready Player One of all things would warrant a sequel, it's the kind of book that really just works better as a one-off thing.
 
Ready Player One is proof Gen X is every bit as gay, consumerist and culturally bankrupt as the Boomers and Millenials.
 
Terrorist said:
Ready Player One is proof Gen X is every bit as gay, consumerist and culturally bankrupt as the Boomers and Millenials.
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You would have a better point if you included some purchasing demographics...

One problem with all the generations is being nostalgic for an era they never experienced. I know Zoomers that think they understand all of Seinfeld, but can't recognize an old Macintosh or understand what a 'dial tone' is.
 
Daddy's Little Kitten said:
What's left to do with the story?
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Honestly? I'd like to see the ramifications of ignoring the real world as it goes to shit with VR explored more seriously, the first book kind of hints that it wants to tackle this, but never really does, this is what people don't get about the book though, it's not just a nostalgia trip, it's a nostalgia trip set against the backdrop of a dying world, this is also something the movie barely acknowledges at all and one reason why it's inferior to the book.

We don't need a full on Last Jedi style subversion of expectations but an exploration of just where humanity might be going has potential to be interesting.

Syaoran Li said:
At the same time, I completely get why it draws so much ire and the book was very much a product of the early 2010's when "geek is chic" was just taking off and nostalgia was the hot new thing, and the newest round of the "culture wars" hadn't fully kicked in. To say it aged badly is an understatement.
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This is what's funny is in one way RPO's depiction of a future world where geek culture isn't simply people having constant political pissing contests makes it incredibly dated, as much a retro future as anything from the cover of a 1950s science fiction magazine.

It's also funny how quickly it became dated considering only the following year was when Sarkessian launched her Tropes vs Women Kickstarter thus firing the first shot in this Forever War.

But in another way the novel was incredibly prescient as nobody was really talking about VR back in 2011, that was before the Oculus Rift Kickstarter and it's amazing how far VR has come in the almost decade since the novel.
 
Orange Rhymer said:
You would have a better point if you included some purchasing demographics...

One problem with all the generations is being nostalgic for an era they never experienced. I know Zoomers that think they understand all of Seinfeld, but can't recognize an old Macintosh or understand what a 'dial tone' is.
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Nerd culture is a corporate marketing astroturf that applies to all generations, but RPL is still a celebration of Gen X pop culture written by an Xer. Many major cash cow franchises started in Xers' childhoods.
 
Dom Cruise said:
Honestly? I'd like to see the ramifications of ignoring the real world as it goes to shit with VR explored more seriously, the first book kind of hints that it wants to tackle this, but never really does, this is what people don't get about the book though, it's not just a nostalgia trip, it's a nostalgia trip set against the backdrop of a dying world, this is also something the movie barely acknowledges at all and one reason why it's inferior to the book.

We don't need a full on Last Jedi style subversion of expectations but an exploration of just where humanity might be going has potential to be interesting.



This is what's funny is in one way RPO's depiction of a future world where geek culture isn't simply people having constant political pissing contests makes it incredibly dated, as much a retro future as anything from the cover of a 1950s science fiction magazine.

It's also funny how quickly it became dated considering only the following year was when Sarkessian launched her Tropes vs Women Kickstarter thus firing the first shot in this Forever War.

But in another way the novel was incredibly prescient as nobody was really talking about VR back in 2011, that was before the Oculus Rift Kickstarter and it's amazing how far VR has come in the almost decade since the novel.
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The movie kinda hinted at this towards the end when movie haliday pretty much told parzival that escapism can never replace being with an other person and actually experiencing things. But it down played the crapsack world aspect a lot. Like there's no mention of the world outside the cites ironically being mad Max esq wastelands and we're never given the reason why his parents are dead where as in the book they died because of how sucky the world is. Book Columbus Ohio could give Warren Ellis city from transmetropolitian a run for its money. Where as movie Ohio aside being dirty with trailer parks towering to the sky barley has any impact on the plot aside establishing Wade is a loser born in a crappy lot in life.
 
Jasonfan89 said:
The movie kinda hinted at this towards the end when movie haliday pretty much told parzival that escapism can never replace being with an other person and actually experiencing things. But it down played the crapsack world aspect a lot. Like there's no mention of the world outside the cites ironically being mad Max esq wastelands and we're never given the reason why his parents are dead where as in the book they died because of how sucky the world is. Book Columbus Ohio could give Warren Ellis city from transmetropolitian a run for its money. Where as movie Ohio aside being dirty with trailer parks towering to the sky barley has any impact on the plot aside establishing Wade is a loser born in a crappy lot in life.
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There's really only a single throwaway line about "all the things happening in the world today" directly referencing it and maybe Haliday's "why can't we go backwards for once? As fast we can" line can be seen as referencing the state of the world if you're generous, but that's about it.

Gone is the scene you mention where Wade travels on an armed bus through abandoned parts of America, which I thought was one of the most interesting details of world building.

The movie just does not make it clear that it's a dystopia at all.

And yeah, the backstory with Wade's parents was sad and made the story more poignant.
 
The thing about this guys books is that his writing is so close to the kind of thing a stereotypical Reddit user would type out that taken out of context ready player one is the most cringe book ever written. while it makes sense in the context of the storys setting it still feels like bad writing to have everything be a pop culture reference and let that make up for describing a objects appearance. It does not help that his poetry is some of the worst stuff ever written which submits in my mind that Ernest cline is an average Redditor.

 
Somehow when I first read Ready Player One (must have been around 2012, it was still pretty new), I quite enjoyed it as a fun, quick read, maybe a bit silly but really nothing terrible. However, when I tried reading Armada, I hated everything about it. Anyway, this sounds like a sequel nobody needs.
 
He missed the chance to entitle it "Enter Player Two", 2/10.
 
gangweedfan said:
The thing about this guys books is that his writing is so close to the kind of thing a stereotypical Reddit user would type out that taken out of context ready player one is the most cringe book ever written. while it makes sense in the context of the storys setting it still feels like bad writing to have everything be a pop culture reference and let that make up for describing a objects appearance. It does not help that his poetry is some of the worst stuff ever written which submits in my mind that Ernest cline is an average Redditor.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nKLF19TnH3Ahttps://youtube.com/watch?v=VogdofDmX74https://youtube.com/watch?v=R3f5lNRI8bg
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What I take from all this is this is a man that really fucking hates monkeys.
(despite him also being a monkey himself.)
 
NGL, I liked both the book and movie, but also admit I'm hard pressed to say exactly why. Hell, I've even attempted to read some of the fan-fiction, but it is every bit as unreadable as you'd expect. Probably prefer the movie, honestly, for stuff like the Shining tribute and the opening race sequence, both of which held up pretty well for a re-watch.

I pirated the audiobook and found out Wil Wheaton sucks as a book narrator. The only format I couldn't finish.

Interestingly, it sounds like the movie lost money for Universal at the end of day, at least if you base your analysis solely upon what it earned in theaters. $582 million world-wide gross sounds like a lot, but the problem is something like 35% of that was earned in China, where studios only get 25% of the gross. This guy did a write up on Reddit, complete with a crude spreadsheet, for those who are curious/give a shit. And, yeah, I sometimes read the /r/readyplayerone subreddit. I guess because I hate myself.
 
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Did any of you run across Lacero, written by Andy Weir (the guy who wrote The Martian)?

Cline actually gave it the nod as being canon, which paints RPO's main antagonist Sorrento in a very, very different light. Somewhat unsympathetic, but in a way even more disturbing.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Did any of you run across Lacero, written by Andy Weir (the guy who wrote The Martian)?

Cline actually gave it the nod as being canon, which paints RPO's main antagonist Sorrento in a very, very different light. Somewhat unsympathetic, but in a way even more disturbing.
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I've never even heard of this, was it an online story or something?
 
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