Ready Player 1

‘Ready Player 1’ (film)

Directed by Steven Spielberg.

Released in March 2018.

 

James Halliday created a virtual game called the Oasis where people can be anything, do anything and go anywhere. Then, he dies. He has no heir, so he leaves this funky will where he says that if someone finds the Easter Egg he left in his game, they win his shares of Gregarious Game Simulations, the company who runs the Oasis.

Wade Watts is a guy who spends all of his time looking for the Easter Egg and the keys that lead to it. He and his friends have to battle the guys from IOI, a corporate company that is focused on making the most profits and which wants to take over the Oasis at all costs. Eventually, after a couple of hic-ups, Wade/ Parzival finds the Easter Egg and wins the contest.

This film is based on a book of the same title written by Ernest Cline. Read the book to understand my disappointment with the film. That is the only comparison that I will make to the original source material.

So, let’s look at the film as a standalone entity. About 12 minutes in… the introductory monologue was STILL going. The entire premise of the movie was explained by Wade’s voice-over. We don’t see how Parzival met Aech, there is very little development of characters (any character). They just seem to all have figured it out. It doesn’t matter that Parzival lives in the stacks and he barely has enough to eat, of course he has to have a DeLorean.

The film looked like a long cut scene from a video game. If that is the look the creators were going for, well done to them. But it felt fake and it made me detached from the story. Most of it was guns blazing, monsters popping out. All of the interesting bits were explained by Wade’s annoying voice over. (I thought one of the most important film making rules was show NOT tell) After 10 minutes I wanted to switch it off. The only reason I stuck around till the end was because I wanted to know how they would mess up the rest of the film. (And to write this review to express my frustration.) I must admit the thing that annoyed me the most was how the players of the ‘High Five’ all managed to end up conveniently living in the same place/ knowing how they each looked in real life. (You remember that bit where it said the entire world was plugged into the Oasis? Oh, yeah.. do you remember how they said never to reveal their true identities?)

This film is riddled with plot holes like swiss cheese.

It’s a good film for folk who like excessive CGI and action. Warning to the book lovers though; if you read it (and love it as much as I do) expect everything that happens in the book but scrambled, turned up-side down, inside out, and lacking depth. It looks pretty, but that’s about it.

I tried to keep an open mind, I really did, but they just keep on making these films that use excessive CGI and lack a truly meaningful narrative.

 

Ready Player 1

Ready Player 1

By Ernest Cline

Published by Arrow Books in 2012, first published in Great Britain in 2011 by Century.

 

The world is in chaos. War, poverty, destruction of the environment. The human race has depleted the world’s resources and is now struggling to survive. In this setting, the reader is introduced to Wade Watts. Wade is a guy that manages to win a huge contest in a Virtual Reality game called the Oasis, which was a VR game designed by James Halliday. People had turned away from bleak reality into a virtual fantasy, turning the Oasis into a worldwide phenomenon. Halliday had no heirs, so he left clues in his game, easter eggs, and the person who could solve his riddles would inherit his multi-billion company.

The technology in this book is believable, and considering the fact that VR is now becoming more and more common, it may not be such a fictional book after all. The problem of resource shortages has been dealt with realistically… solar panels generate electricity, food has been rationed, there is a housing shortage and people live in squalor.Throughout it all, people turn their attention to the OASIS, as they ignore their problems and refuse to fix them.

I love the contrast between the VR and the real world which has been created. The protagonist can be anything in the OASIS, riding spaceships and fighting with swords… but in reality he is just a guy who is plugged into a machine.

After Wade found the first key, and the contest for Halliday’s Egg began, the book just kept on going. It just continued to build momentum… right until the end. I couldn’t put it down, I just had to finish it.

It’s filled to the brim with 80’s references… so for those who are unfamiliar with 80’s culture, they may get stuck and lost. They may find it difficult. I admit, I didn’t understand all of the references, but I am a nerd so I have dabbled in most of the games. The book is written in a really clever way, making very interesting connections between media.

Honestly I just feel like going through the whole book and making a list of all the 80’s references. I want to binge all of the shows, music, and books. I had to watch Monty Python after reading it. So, that review will come about in a bit.

It’s a fun fiction novel for adults, but I think younger readers may struggle with it unless they have an understanding of the references.