Ready Player One Spoilers Thread

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 Exploring a throwaway planet designed just for virtual school according to an outdated D and D manual and then clearing a puzzle and having to beat a hyper-complex AI at Joust?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?" :D
 
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

That part of the tech was really inconsistent.... It was just set up to be convenient for the plot. There are MULTIPLE times where Wade is not only talking to people IRL while inside the game, but also LOOKING at them through the visor. You can see the visor is actually like a clear pair of goggles with the screen projected on to them... So you can somehow see the game and also see through the game? It doesn't make sense.

I actually could believe the people that didn't have the proper gear would have to basically run around IRL but that can only be believed to a certain extent. I feel like they did it more for comedic value than anything. I mean our current VR tech has people tripping over chairs literally within a few feet of walking. I can't imagine all these people kicking and punching and running/jumping around in the middle of a city and not severely hurting each other. Unless, again... they can see through the visors while playing... which just doesn't make sense either.

How are you supposed to immerse yourself in the world when you can also still see the real world in the background?

Honestly I wish the tech was more like a neural connection where you wear a helmet of some sort that just taps directly into your brain. At least that would better explain the scene where they trick the bossman69 guy into thinking he's in the real world... because otherwise shouldn't he realize really quickly that he's still in the OASIS if he can see through his visor and whatnot?

Just really inconsistent with the tech in the movie.
 
i thought it was great and will own it when it becomes available.

If u never read the book, you'll like it....if u did read the book, you'll just have to go into it knowing before hand to approach it like the book never existed and its an original stand alone film.

I looked at it like an extention of the book, meaning we got all of the 80's nostalgia in it but not the exact same nostaligia items that are referred to in the book.

Instead of war games, we get the shining....instead of playing joust, we get king kong...etc..etc....its all good imo.

Now i have two things i can enjoy separately: I have the book, which is better than the movie and more arcade related..and the movie which is great (to me) with all different kinds of nostalgia.

Its a win-win.
 
Does it for me, I love new order, Robotron and my wife has a hemangioma. :).
 
That part of the tech was really inconsistent.... It was just set up to be convenient for the plot. There are MULTIPLE times where Wade is not only talking to people IRL while inside the game, but also LOOKING at them through the visor. You can see the visor is actually like a clear pair of goggles with the screen projected on to them... So you can somehow see the game and also see through the game? It doesn't make sense.

I actually could believe the people that didn't have the proper gear would have to basically run around IRL but that can only be believed to a certain extent. I feel like they did it more for comedic value than anything. I mean our current VR tech has people tripping over chairs literally within a few feet of walking. I can't imagine all these people kicking and punching and running/jumping around in the middle of a city and not severely hurting each other. Unless, again... they can see through the visors while playing... which just doesn't make sense either.

How are you supposed to immerse yourself in the world when you can also still see the real world in the background?

Honestly I wish the tech was more like a neural connection where you wear a helmet of some sort that just taps directly into your brain. At least that would better explain the scene where they trick the bossman69 guy into thinking he's in the real world... because otherwise shouldn't he realize really quickly that he's still in the OASIS if he can see through his visor and whatnot?

Just really inconsistent with the tech in the movie.

Agreed! Glad someone else noticed all that. Just seemed like a major oversight when the book lays out very clearly how the tech works and when there's already real world tech to pull from, both released and in development, that does ALMOST everything they do in the movie. I've played on high level full immersion rigs that could potentially run OASIS, aside from the crazy full body haptic stuff the only thing shown in RPO that isn't feasible yet is the Oasis itself (graphically and in terms of scale, closest thing is VR Chat and ugh).

Speaking of, this movie's got me with the VR bug again, working to make space to upgrade my terrible Gear VR setup to a full room scale VIVE rig, especially doable since they just sliced the price :D
 
My only complaint, if i had to make one, is the cameos were just so fast and dark you couldnt make them out. For example Lara Croft was in a few scenes but youd never know it. The only way i knew was because i watched some youtube pre-hype vids talking about characters making an appearance in the movie.

Unless the character was front amd center of the screen and lighted properly you would never know they were there. 99.99% of all the easter egg characters were in the background, in darkness and for a split second or less. Spielberg doesnt give u chance to make out any of them.
 
The goggles projected the oasis right onto the retinas. So it was possible for a person to still see the real world. At least that's how the book explained it.

Now as for them running around in the real world. That was stupid and not in the book.

And as far as why some ran and some sat in chairs and some flipped around, etc. In the book some had omni treadmills. But most just used buttons and control devices to move and jump.

The movie messed that up too.
 
Movie was good. It'll make money.

It's a shame we'll never get to see a closer adaptation of the book itself. It really could do well as a mini-series. Someone like Netflix of Amazon Video could have a field day exploring the sub-plots within the book.
 
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton a few years ago. Wil sucks as a narrator and killed the book for me. I was hoping the movie would make up for it, but I might just skip over this one.
 
I listened to the audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton a few years ago. Wil sucks as a narrator and killed the book for me. I was hoping the movie would make up for it, but I might just skip over this one.

I loved his narration. I thought he did an excellent job.
 
The sides of the Robotron cab were painted black. Fail.

Correction 4/7!! The art's there! Whew.
 
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I loved his narration. I thought he did an excellent job.

I suggest checking out something narrated by Vikas Adam (Divine Dungeon Series), Roger Wayne (Spells, Swords, & Stealth), Liam Owen (Hard Luck Hank), or Luke Daniels (Magic 2.0). They don't just read the book, they invent the voices for the charters and really get into the role. It's like a really good actor playing the part.

Wil read the book. He did a good job of reading the book, but that is all he really did. It left no impact on me.
And I got really tired of the "he said this, now she said that, then he said this.". Only two people are talking, I can follow the conversation without all the he said, she said. Shut up Wesley. :)
 
Wow. I really thought more people on here were going to like this movie. Oh well. To each his own. I, for one, loved it. I never got around to reading the book. I will now. I enjoyed all the pop culture references, a lot. In many movies, I don't get a lot of the references. In this one I felt like I got most of them. Guess it helps to be born in 1970. I loved the arcade games I saw. The incantation from Excalibur was awesome. Mechagodzilla was awesome. The holy hand grenade was awesome. The easter egg in Adventure was awesome, because I did that when I was like 10 before you could google it on the internet. When they mentioned playing, my firth thought was Adventure. So many more things that I can't even think of right now. It was nostalgia overload. Some people hate nostalgia, I know someone on here has said as much. I love it. It felt like someone who knew me really well wrote this. I will probably go see it again with my son, just so I have an excuse to see it again. :)

If you did not enjoy it, well, I am sorry that you didn't. I hope that you see something good soon. Maybe Deadpool or Infinity War will be better. I know I am looking forward to them both. I was reading Silver Surfer during the Infinity War crossover. Luckily I do not remember much, so I shouldn't have a problem accepting the story as is and not trying to compare the movie to the comics.
 
I suggest checking out something narrated by Vikas Adam (Divine Dungeon Series), Roger Wayne (Spells, Swords, & Stealth), Liam Owen (Hard Luck Hank), or Luke Daniels (Magic 2.0). They don't just read the book, they invent the voices for the charters and really get into the role. It's like a really good actor playing the part.

Wil read the book. He did a good job of reading the book, but that is all he really did. It left no impact on me.
And I got really tired of the "he said this, now she said that, then he said this.". Only two people are talking, I can follow the conversation without all the he said, she said. Shut up Wesley. :)

I've listened to hundreds of books on tape. I have my own business and work by myself so that's what I do all day long. Some are better than others I agree. But who you like or don't like is an opinion based on what you personally prefer. I personally don't like when people change their voices , it annoys me. So I liked the way Wil did it. You didn't, no big deal.
 
Saw it last night, liked it. My boys, 6 and 8 loved it. The movie had a decent pace and was visually stunning. I enjoyed some of the references but really was hoping for more. Mechagodzilla was the most striking and exciting part for me, but I wished they would have come up with better adversaries for him. Bring Kong back for the finale, make the Iron Giant a little bigger, bring in Devastator or Voltron, something. It just seemed like corporate dumb shit thought big(ger) but no one else could? I mean the Iron Giant and the Gundam guy were cool and looked pretty large compared to humans, but once they stepped in the ring with MechaGodzilla they looked like undersized chumps. Wasn't a huge problem for the movie overall, but if you're gonna do it then do it, don't wimp out in the finale. The potential for a nostalgia filled climactic battle with evenly matched giants was huge. Also wonder why the Shining was so heavily referenced. Its a good (psychological) horror flick but not as iconic as say the main 80's horror franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street or even standalone films like Poltergeist to be honest. And no, I haven't read the book.
 
Saw it last night, liked it. My boys, 6 and 8 loved it. The movie had a decent pace and was visually stunning. I enjoyed some of the references but really was hoping for more. Mechagodzilla was the most striking and exciting part for me, but I wished they would have come up with better adversaries for him. Bring Kong back for the finale, make the Iron Giant a little bigger, bring in Devastator or Voltron, something. It just seemed like corporate dumb shit thought big(ger) but no one else could? I mean the Iron Giant and the Gundam guy were cool and looked pretty large compared to humans, but once they stepped in the ring with MechaGodzilla they looked like undersized chumps. Wasn't a huge problem for the movie overall, but if you're gonna do it then do it, don't wimp out in the finale. The potential for a nostalgia filled climactic battle with evenly matched giants was huge. Also wonder why the Shining was so heavily referenced. Its a good (psychological) horror flick but not as iconic as say the main 80's horror franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street or even standalone films like Poltergeist to be honest. And no, I haven't read the book.

I was born in 1970 and I must admit that I never saw The Shining... it was still a fun part of the movie, but I thought a more iconic 80s movie would have been way "mo betta" but maybe they had issue with getting license rights to the right film...
 
Saw it last night, liked it. My boys, 6 and 8 loved it. The movie had a decent pace and was visually stunning. I enjoyed some of the references but really was hoping for more. Mechagodzilla was the most striking and exciting part for me, but I wished they would have come up with better adversaries for him. Bring Kong back for the finale, make the Iron Giant a little bigger, bring in Devastator or Voltron, something. It just seemed like corporate dumb shit thought big(ger) but no one else could? I mean the Iron Giant and the Gundam guy were cool and looked pretty large compared to humans, but once they stepped in the ring with MechaGodzilla they looked like undersized chumps. Wasn't a huge problem for the movie overall, but if you're gonna do it then do it, don't wimp out in the finale. The potential for a nostalgia filled climactic battle with evenly matched giants was huge. Also wonder why the Shining was so heavily referenced. Its a good (psychological) horror flick but not as iconic as say the main 80's horror franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street or even standalone films like Poltergeist to be honest. And no, I haven't read the book.

In the book MechaGodzilla was the prize for finding the third gate first. The others got next choice of giant robots.

There was no Gundam robot, Daito, Shoto and Wade did a quest and got UltraMan. And no Iron Giant either.
 
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Every single person I've talked to has rated it a "5/10" which is.. pretty sad for a Spielberg flick.

Spielberg is not the director he used to be. He lost his magic touch years ago IMO.


Atari 2600? I mean sure the Adventure thing was a nice tie in... but they couldn't put in one arcade game being played?

Someone gave me the book when it came out. I never read it, and I have no interest in seeing the movie. But I'll say this much - since the movie came out, the value of Adventure carts on Ebay has absolutely skyrocketed. I've seen loose carts selling for $20..$30... $50! there's even a seller trying to scam somebody for a boxed copy, for $1,500!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-2600...580230?hash=item2f18aeedc6:g:kTIAAOSwAfpawWie

What's funny/sad about that is, it's not an original release from 1980. It's a re-release from 1981 at the earliest. The game was originally released in early-mid 1980 and no boxes from 1980 had a hanging tab on the back of them. Also, every box with that tab had glued flaps, and both features didn't start appearing on Atari's boxes until early 1981.
 
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I think that was my biggest disappointment: no Ultraman .
That was really strange to me in the film too. Seems like it'd be one of the easier properties to get a license to since it hasn't been culturally relevant in, god, how long? I can hardly believe Gundam with its constant new versions and products being pushed worldwide would be more easily obtainable than something I don't think has been broadcast anywhere in 30 years.
 
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