MasterFygar
Well-known member
Well, I honestly enjoyed it, first of all. Not as good as the book but it couldn't have been, I was expecting a virtual reality blockbuster action flick and it was definitely that. I was disappointed that the 80s atmosphere/focus was highly shifted, and that arcade games weren't crucial, but I expected them to do that to make it a big spring blockbuster. My only real gripes, which did really baffle me, are these:
In the book, the challenges were all arcane enough it was at least slightly believable that nobody had figured it out in ten years. Exploring a throwaway planet designed just for virtual school according to an outdated D and D manual and then clearing a puzzle and having to beat a hyper-complex AI at Joust? Playing every chord of a super complicated rock song perfectly first try? Reciting every line as a character of entire movies? Perfect game of Pac Man!?
I can see how in a world with thousands of planets, that hadn't been attempted, and how the Sixers can't just do the equivalent of Googling the answer to it. It's something you'd figure out by really internalizing the media Halliday loved and living it, not something you can known by having corporate slaves Google trivia for you.
In the movie version, we're supposed to believe that there's a race that's the first step to winning TRILLIONS of dollars, that's been run by thousands of people every day including a megacorporation paying/enslaving thousands by themselves for that one purpose, and that the ending is literally impossible and everyone knows it ("Nobody EVER gets by Kong! It's impossible!")... and that nobody has EVER gone backwards for TEN YEARS? That nobody did it by accident, had a rig glitch, did it out of frustration, did it just fucking around--REALLY!? I've gone backwards from the start in Mario Kart I don't know how many times out of curiosity or fucking around or drunk and hitting the wrong button--it's basically an instant win if you happen to go backwards in this game, but the entire Gunter subculture never did it? Ever? Once? Before TEN YEARS passed? Ugh.
The Shining challenge was fun to watch but even it came down to "go inside this movie and go to one of the key rooms and hop across an obvious minigame of zombies to get to the "princess." Again, seems way too simple and obvious with this many people playing. I know they found the movie by very precise detective work, but somebody would've gone to check it out already, even if by accident. I'm sure SOMEBODY 20 years in the future wanted to just go in and see the Shining in person. Even if they had to have the first key, too easy. I don't mind them changing the challenges, but it became impossible to believe that ten years have elapsed with a dangling prize of ALL THE MONEY AND POWER and that nobody's figured out the wayyyyy easier things. There was an ARG when the book came out that was ten times harder than the actual challenges in this version to rule the Oasis. Come on.
And my other issue is--we then see kids running across/through busy streets with their headsets on to race into battle? Wouldn't they get run over!? How can some people early on go through an entire battlefield jumping on their couch or locked in a pod, but these kids with just headsets have to run into the street to be immersed? I get everyone has different peripherals in this world, but--people running around in public blinded? One could argue the Oasis is an AR game instead of VR, but it's clearly not when we see inside it and Wade spends like ten minutes with a gun pointed to his face at the end without realizing, so are all the roads closed for the end of the event or are kids just getting mowed down left and right and running into walls? LMAO
Keep in mind I enjoyed the movie, I just overthink these things too much and expected with the budget and star power and SPIELBERG, they'd at some point have gone "wait, really... they're running into the road!?" or "nobody's gone backwards here ever for ten years... really?"
In the book, the challenges were all arcane enough it was at least slightly believable that nobody had figured it out in ten years. Exploring a throwaway planet designed just for virtual school according to an outdated D and D manual and then clearing a puzzle and having to beat a hyper-complex AI at Joust? Playing every chord of a super complicated rock song perfectly first try? Reciting every line as a character of entire movies? Perfect game of Pac Man!?
I can see how in a world with thousands of planets, that hadn't been attempted, and how the Sixers can't just do the equivalent of Googling the answer to it. It's something you'd figure out by really internalizing the media Halliday loved and living it, not something you can known by having corporate slaves Google trivia for you.
In the movie version, we're supposed to believe that there's a race that's the first step to winning TRILLIONS of dollars, that's been run by thousands of people every day including a megacorporation paying/enslaving thousands by themselves for that one purpose, and that the ending is literally impossible and everyone knows it ("Nobody EVER gets by Kong! It's impossible!")... and that nobody has EVER gone backwards for TEN YEARS? That nobody did it by accident, had a rig glitch, did it out of frustration, did it just fucking around--REALLY!? I've gone backwards from the start in Mario Kart I don't know how many times out of curiosity or fucking around or drunk and hitting the wrong button--it's basically an instant win if you happen to go backwards in this game, but the entire Gunter subculture never did it? Ever? Once? Before TEN YEARS passed? Ugh.
The Shining challenge was fun to watch but even it came down to "go inside this movie and go to one of the key rooms and hop across an obvious minigame of zombies to get to the "princess." Again, seems way too simple and obvious with this many people playing. I know they found the movie by very precise detective work, but somebody would've gone to check it out already, even if by accident. I'm sure SOMEBODY 20 years in the future wanted to just go in and see the Shining in person. Even if they had to have the first key, too easy. I don't mind them changing the challenges, but it became impossible to believe that ten years have elapsed with a dangling prize of ALL THE MONEY AND POWER and that nobody's figured out the wayyyyy easier things. There was an ARG when the book came out that was ten times harder than the actual challenges in this version to rule the Oasis. Come on.
And my other issue is--we then see kids running across/through busy streets with their headsets on to race into battle? Wouldn't they get run over!? How can some people early on go through an entire battlefield jumping on their couch or locked in a pod, but these kids with just headsets have to run into the street to be immersed? I get everyone has different peripherals in this world, but--people running around in public blinded? One could argue the Oasis is an AR game instead of VR, but it's clearly not when we see inside it and Wade spends like ten minutes with a gun pointed to his face at the end without realizing, so are all the roads closed for the end of the event or are kids just getting mowed down left and right and running into walls? LMAO
Keep in mind I enjoyed the movie, I just overthink these things too much and expected with the budget and star power and SPIELBERG, they'd at some point have gone "wait, really... they're running into the road!?" or "nobody's gone backwards here ever for ten years... really?"




