Thursday, March 29, 2018

Ready Player One 2018 Film

As with my last movie review I stated that I'd do only one more review for 2018 and here it is. Ready Player One, adapted from the novel that unites MRA and SJW in mutual hate. No I will not review Infinity War, fuck that.

I went to the theater I usually don't go to because it's more expensive and boy do they put their upcharge where their mouth is. I got to sit in a leather recliner with buttons to adjust it and it was lovely.

This movie smoothed over a lot of problems I talked about here. It changes and pair downs the challenges. That's a problem with adapting novels though, they always hat to cut an consolidate and that is why I think movies should stick to adapting short stories and adding to them and leave the novels to mini-series that can flesh out what is dropped in movies. I'd have vastly preferred the Harry Potter series as a BBC or Grenada series, that lasted seven seasons instead of the Hollywood eight films (most inconsistent in stage design, direction and acting choices) that cut so much out and butchered the fourth book badly.

The challenges here are a race, a Shining reenactment and Adventure. The racing challenge was stupid and comes off as 90's/00's nostalgia, cannot remember any 80's racing games, though I could be mistaken. I hate the movie Shining, so I didn't enjoy that, or the elevator of blood because I'm having blood problems as we speak, but I like that we got some development with AECH. I liked that Art3mis solved it when she found the ballroom of zombies dancing to Midnight, The Stars and You (which is in The Shining) which is the closest I had to a nostalgic cry because I was introduced to it outside of Shining's context and was thus not ruined for me like it was for everybody else. I feel that it's the same as people being introduced to Singing In The Rain in Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick sure knows how to ruin good things. As for Adventure it was in the novel as a gate, but used here as the last challenge worked. Unlike the novel, there's no completing gates. Just the challenges to win the keys.

Other nitpicks I have about the movie are The Rebellion (yawn...), everybody being in the same town (movie coincidences) and drones that look like they haven't changed much in thirty years.

I didn't mind the changes in what the character's avatars looked, because more people ought to do crazy stuff with their online personas instead of, me: but skinny, me: but without birthmark, etc. They gave Art3mis the birthmark, but like Wade they didn't make her fat, so win/lose. AECH gets to be a black lesbian played by a black lesbian. They de-aged Sho to eleven years old which is such a Spielberg move, but neither are played by actor's of Japanese descent. Their avatars Wade: Cartoon-like with exaggerated features, white and blue hair, Art3mis: A pink bird humanoid, AECH: A cyborg orc, Daito's a Samurai and Sho's a Ninja. They expanded I-Roc's role to bounty hunter working for IOI. He says some of the funniest lines. At one point he says: "There's three things in the world I hate, Steampunk, Pirates and Tabbouli, like why do they even..." As my brother likes steampunk, my sister likes pirates and my pop likes Tabbouli, I felt like he was calling out my family there and laughed.

They have the club scene in the novel in the movie with changes. Of course they play Blue Monday and Stayin' Alive because you can license those songs easily unlike Cyndi Lauper, or Billy Idol apparently. At one point Wade gets a selfie with a cat-furry who's so cute, but sexed up in wrong way, but she turns out to be a turncoat for IOI. I know it was in the novel, but I fucking hate Travolta mode. I swear if I ever got the power to make a Hollywood film, no Saturday Night Fever references.

One other thing I'd like to mention is the lack of licensed Rush songs.

1 comment:

  1. Hey, sorry I haven't checked this blog in awhile. I went into the movie with an open mind and I think it helped me not get disappointed that they didn't do it the same, so I can see it as standing on it's own even if I have nitpicks.

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