This movie just made me feel bad for Morrow. Like, you openly speak up about the issue of more people ignoring problems in the real world, end up having to leave the company because of it, your wife dies at a younger age. And your ex-bestie then creates a virtual version of your dead wife that players could potentially do whatever they wanted with. Oh and you are now needing to look after your entire personal memory bank of you and your ex-bestie... Because that's just... Out there.... The second book tries to explain how messed up this is but... Yikes the second book...
Yes!! I wish I'd mentioned this because it's such a good point! Poor Morrow getting shut out of Gregarious Games and then having to watch his poor wife get pined over
@@Scarylyn14Its just as bad as you think....I'd almost be impressed if he actually went the way of Wade beijg made into the villain sonce hw gets more and more authoritarian and awful but nope, he is the protwgonist so all his evil choices are the right ones and he just knows better
"Read the book" goto reply is so funny, considering the book is even worse, lol Also, I don't remember who said it first, but the joyles-boomer-main-bad-guy who desperatly wants to be seen as cool and flexes his nerd trivia while just listening to said trivia being googled for him by a bunch of faceless nerds is a pitch perfect metaphore for the movie itself.
I didn’t read it but isn’t there a scene in the first book where a japanese guy commits seppuku, the authors actual words for him committing suicide??! 😂
When I saw Ready Player One in theaters , sat behind me was someone my friends and I lovingly dubbed “Reference Man” Reference Man laughed, clapped, and cheered louder than an air raid siren every time he saw something he recognized on screen. And he did it such a predictable degree that his girlfriend was able to shush him in advance To this day I don’t know if I hate reference man for being loud, or if I envy him for his ability to be so unbridled in his love for the things he enjoyed in his childhood, and unburdened of the fear of public judgement … anyway I’d give the movie a 4/10.
Reference man is happy and in the end that's what we're supposed to strive for, so I'd say he's a role model. Be like reference man, give not a single shit what anyone else thinks, enjoy life and don't let people get you down just because your taste is shit.
@@thespanishinquisition4078 100%. Being in touch with your inner child is a gift. As long as it’s your inner child. Just being a bit of a child is how we get stories where the main character professes their love to a girl he’s never met. 😂 Reference Man was definitely the former. Hope that dudes out there continuing to live his best life
one of my biggest pet peeves about the movie is about the first 'egg' and how to find it. They are telling me no one had tried being stupid and driving/backing up into the wall as full speed!! no one!! not even out of boredom or even just messing around!!
Exactly! The number of Easter eggs that have been found in games both purely accidentally and out of sheer frustration by doing stuff like throwing yourself at a wall or glitching through level geometry is pretty wild. Even without the 3iq clue there's no way that Easter egg in anything as big as the Oasis is in universe would go more than a day before being solved
I mean ffs, speed runners found the very very specific FRAME PERFECT animation glitches that let's you basically teleport to very specific points in Elden Ring DAYS after its release.
Yeah and the fact that the way he found the egg originally was actually clever. In fact he wasn’t he first one to figure it out Art3mis found the entrance first but just took a day longer to beat the level. She still figured out the clue first though.
I would have 100% LOVED it if it was revealed that the Iron Giant wasn't able to be used for violence at all, like it was actually programmed that way in the OASIS. That would have been cool as shit and also likely something someone would do.
People should know that Brad Bird adapted The Iron Giant to a screenplay in reference to his sister getting shot to death. He pitched the idea to Warner Bros with "What if a gun had a soul, and didn't want to be a gun?". To then use it as a fighting robot in an action scene in a shitty nostalgia-bait movie seems especially ironic.
like imagine if it were used to gently avoid harming people, wading through the sea of enemies while letting the main character get into the castle for the final egg, you could still have the giant robot fighting Mecha Godzilla or whatever, just use pretty much any other giant robot
To your point about H, making a lesbian poc woman an orc seems... odd. It feels like it has the implications of lesbians being masculine. I had figured she was a male orc so she didn't face sexism, as I would have. But knowing she was supposed to be a presenting white man makes the orc thing feel very.... low key offensive
i myself am a masculine lesbian so that implication isn't something i inherently mind, but there's something...odd about how it's done, i think. if the movie had bothered to discuss how making her avatar a male with a fantasy race was connected to just not wanting to deal with how people are online when you're a woman and/or of color it would make more sense, but as-is it's strange, and seems more like a straight guy's perspective of lesbian masculinity rather than anything more accurate to more lesbians' experiences with gender identity and expression
also, the fact that she may have gotten that inspiration from her mother, who stated that the reason she chose her avatar to be a white man was because _she gained better experience both in social and professional life_ just adds to the oddity of the choice, i think? because i think it's a very explicit nudge (not even commentary yet) towards the discussion of racial discrimination, but they didn't even bother asking _why_ that sort of presentation was even needed to an overall quality of life improvement? i get that if the story were to thoroughly investigate that question it'll be ultimately a different story (and a much heavier one than the fun adventure quest story it's meant to be), but still ... come on, not even a, "holy shit that's pretty fucked up" "yeah i know"? so there's this: 1) weird allusions of lesbians being masculine; 2) a whole other can of worms of a black person being depicted as a non-human creature, specifically an orc; and 3) the unceremonious dropping of the topic of racial discrimination right after it was brought up and never be spoken about again. all in all, it's just weird!!
Your point at 50:50 reminds me of a Kingdom Hearts retrospective that pointed out something I never realized: In the first game, the Disney planets Sora visited _were narrative foils for where he was at in his hero's journey._ Alice in Wonderland symbolizes his fall into a disorienting new reality, Hercules makes him reflect on his responsibilities as a hero, etc. It's almost like we see how these stories shape a growing child, and reflect on how they shaped _us_ at that age. And then by the time KH2 rolled around, it was this recursive self-reference, asking not just 'Hey remember when this movie came out???' but also 'Hey remember last time we referenced it???' It's a reference _to the last reference._ 'Hey remember?' crossovers miss such a perfect chance to _celebrate the power of storytelling._
Oh thank goodness I HATE this movie. Felt like interacting with a terminally online person who was trying to explain why I’m not a real gamer bc I don’t play their personal favorite xyz shooter game. As a film. Felt like this movie would crawl into my DMs to ask me for feet pics and then insult my taste in other movies or games for not being nerd cred enough or something insane. This movie would follow me around a convention hall asking why my socks weren’t the right shade of yellow for my cosplay. Toxic, entitled, annoying, and irrelevant. Grabs some popcorn and sits back. Any roast of this movie is fine by my book. It’s just awful and actually had the distinction of making me feel gross and uncomfortable watching it.
I remember people sharing excerpts of the book to show how bad it was and fans of the book being upset and those excerpts were "just a bad part taken from an otherwise good book". But then I saw more of the book and yikes. It was painful, so hearing that movie drops some of the potentially interesting part of the book is even more assurance to never watch this movie.
I have a friend who read this book and liked it. He tried to read parts of it aloud to me, and every passage I was like, "My dude, you like this? You enjoy this?" "It's Monty Python!" "So?"
Doing my part to appease the algorithm. One thing that occurred to me after my previous comments: I'd be surprised if anyone involved with the making of this film was actually a gamer or had positive feelings toward someone in their life who was a gamer. And I should probably make clear that I use "gamer" here in the "someone who is enthusiastic about playing video games" sense, not in the embattled political sense. This whole movie feels like it was done by the same kind of executive who really, REALLY wants microtransactions in every game and every game should be a service -- the exact same archetype as the bad guy who may or may not have been based on the Activision and/or Ubisoft CEO. I guess I'm saying it's dumb, soulless, corporate drivel shat out by the same type of mind that thinks calling something "Gamer Fuel" will make it profitable because HELLO MY FELLOW GAMERZ UP WITH SMART FRIDGE SKYRIM AMIRIGHT. Anyway, great work. Cheers.
I know you probably won't see this, but thank you for covering this movie. This isn't because of a mutual hatred or anything. In fact, it's the exact opposite. I probably won't even watch this video, but the thumbnail and mention of the movie reminded me of seeing this movie with my grandpa when it came out. He died a few days ago, so being reminded of that memory is nice, even though it hurts.
I do a kind of Jekyll and Hyde thing with my online presence. I use one version of me as “me,” which I present in the same way I present myself irl, to the point I can use my accounts to speak to employers and things. The other accounts are completely untraceable back to me, with different gender expression, sexualities, hobbies, personal beliefs, and all other aspects of me that I cannot really bring into my daily life. It’s very liberating, and deeply uncomfortable for me to address. I jokingly call it Victorian Man Syndrome, but it really is… I’m ending this comment now.
Honestly I think you're giving the book more credit than it deserves. While the bit about H is in there, it really boils down to maybe one page dropping the exposition on the reader. Other than that you get the feeling that H and Artemis are the only two women allowed to play videogames because they passed the gatekeeping test. Even the relationship building between Artemis and Wade is basically summarized in half a page, just so he can drop on her how much he loves her now. The main bits of the book are used to fanboy about Halliday and all his special interests and how everyone who's not interested in exactly the same things is totally lame and can't hang out with the cool nerds. Wade's character development is also exhausted in him getting getting rich and him getting into shape so he can play the game with more energy. Apart from that he is so cool and knows everything he needs to know for 90% of the quests. It's Gatekeeping: The Book. And the Oasis is even shittier than it is in the film, because travelling between planets is locked behind a paywall. Wade, being poor, is therefore stuck on his school planet unless H is charitable enough to take him along on a quest. He's just lucky that the first easter egg is hidden on his school planet. Honestly, watching this video was really carthartic for me, there is hardly a book-movie-combo I hate more than this one. I chose to read Ready Player One for a University project, so throwing it in the trashcan was not an option...
Thanks for the perspective on the book Riley! Since I hadn't read it I didn't want to write it off and tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. A lot of the comments didn't particularly appreciate the book though, so I think maybe I should have been more critical :')
I dislike Ready Player One for several reasons: -removed the social commentary like you said, one of the few actual interesting things the book did with the black lesbian girl; -way too fanfic for me with references don't make sense: Overwatch was out for 2 years and Tracer already gets a cameo when there way more iconic legacy characters? Iron Giant kicking ass? Like, what? -the fact that they keep making bland protagonists that are abused trope is becoming borderline offensive. I always imagine writers thinking like "This guy is a loser with not personality, right? You must relate this, don't you? You fucking loser." No dude, I don't. I'm sure that are people that have bad family situations but I feel like it's never handed well; -Wade gets everything way too easily for being a nerd. Sure, being a nerd is important in the context of the movie but he gets crazy rich for it and a girlfriend just because of that? Is he the only nerd in the world? -Hollywood making a character that's supposed to be ugly just midly less attractive that usual trope. I was expecting Artemis to actually be ugly but when I saw she was a very normal looking girl, attractive even, with a red spot, I bursted laughing. No way lmao. And of course, Wade manages to seduce her by the sheer power of not leaving her alone. This is not how relationships work irl. People aren't suddenly gonna start dating depending how long are you willing to stalk and annoy them. Pacific Rim and Rogue One did it so well by making the main male lead and main female lead just be friends instead of being madly in love after knowing each other for 2 days. I don't know why more movies don't do it. Even I started doing on my own in my stories when I was 14. Like, people just don't fall in love so soon, even when they're already dating; -the movies just feels hypocritical. it's supposed to be a fight against big corporation and capitalism but the whole movie was just "Capitalism: The Movie" from the references, the product placement shots, the music, etc. I just hate when big companies do movies like this and people not seeing anything wrong. They're marketing their "rebellion" to keep them entertained instead of actually doing something. Nothing encapsulates this better than the Che Guevaras shirts kekw. I just hate media like this. I have more problems with it but this is what I can think of on top of my head. Anyway, great vid and commentary. Waiting for more. Cheers!
Just like how “The Last Airbender” turned Zuko’s facial scar-a scar which canonically is a 2nd/3rd degree burn that takes up half his face-into something that more closely resembles a mildly irritated rash.
Gamergate was absolutely fascinating to watch in the same way that a natural disaster would be. I used to hang out around the communities where this stuff was happening, and it was one of the most surreal and confusing experiences of my life (and a huge motivator of why I stopped going to those communities). The fact that I was even remotely near the epicenter of everything creates this need in me to, like, reconcile what I saw with what other people experienced. What I remember is that the whole thing started because of something that should never have made it into the public light, and industry shenanigans that should have just been a scandal. From what I saw, Gamergate started with the story that a woman was using sexual influence to manipulate review scores, and it exploded from there into everything that this video is talking about. A couple of big gaming publications actually did get caught collaborating to decide who would get press and who wouldn't. Most of the huge platforms did end up creating new standards of transparency during this time as well, such as disclosing any connection between a developer and a reviewer. So that was one thing. But at the same time as this little scandal was happening, hundreds or thousands of people were getting really aggressively harassed and threatened by the alt-right, because this wasn't just about bad journalism anymore. It was apparently about kicking people out of the hobby completely. It was thousands of people coming out of nowhere saying "this isn't just about unprofessional journalists, we're defending against an organized movement of feminazis and social justice warriors. This is the first battle for democracy, because they want to censor artwork and force their views on us, and it starts somewhere small like videogames." Like seriously, they would say that everyone on twitter telling feminists to die was 'fighting for democracy.' I hear experiences like MertKayKay's and she makes a great point about how this video was probably influenced by that entire culture war, how it is idolizing the gatekeeping and elitism that is still present in gaming, and our larger culture, today. I didn't want to admit it at first but I think she really is right. This movie doesn't feel like it reflects ANYTHING about what I've seen gaming culture try to shift towards in recent years, it's just stuck in that mindset when people would quiz each other about trivia as a way to prove themselves instead of just for fun. But at the same time it's going "No look this stuff is for everyone, we all love each other and we're such good friends" without showing anything to back that up. It makes me think about how there isn't just one hobby here, but a lot of parallel spaces that all kind of share the same hobby without necessarily overlapping. I want to think that we're all good buddies and we all share the same hobby and that makes all of us friends, except that's kind of a privilege for me to think like that because apparently that's not what everyone else is going through. Very few people get weird about my engagement with gaming, almost no one is going to chase me down online to threaten me. I don't ever have to worry that a conversation is going to result in a dangerous, imagined relationship between myself and another person, waiting to explode one day like an invisible land mine when I say the wrong thing to someone. As hard as it is for me to listen to sometimes, I still want to thank MertKayKay for sharing those experiences, and I feel terrible that they happen. I honestly take the time to try to internalize those kind of stories and experiences to try and reinforce empathy in myself. I want to see myself as being a safe person to talk to, but it takes work to be that kind of person. And part of that process is also, occasionally, writing a freaking blog post into a youtube comment section. It helps me reexamine my own experiences and try to actually remain aware of what other people go through. Thank you MertKayKay. Thus concludes my blog post/diary entry.
Aww hey Ridley! Glad you enjoyed the video and that it resonated with you on various levels :D I'm glad you appreciated the examination of Gamergate too! It felt so weirdly relevant to this film.
Lots of things that drove me nuts in this movie and the book is that, the book was released in 2011 and tried to be all cool with subverting expectations. 'the nerd is cool actually!!! You are wrong about bullying them!!! He's the hero!' when... The nerd being the butt of the joke began fading out in 2005... Like... You're not defying any expectations. My dad was hyped for this movie and we went to the theatre for it and I sat there, every now and then breathing slightly out of my nose going 'oh I know what that's from!' and that was the biggest joy I got from the film.
Aww Cas I'm super happy to hear it! And I've never played either of those franchises but I'd honestly love to cover them one day, I know they're GOATs in gaming
@@MertKayKay I'm 28, and had to play the entirety of Mass Effect a couple of months ago, after loosing a bet. And I'm shocked at how surprisingly good it is. So I highly recommend it, even if you know nothing about it and don't like space shooters (like I do)
@@MertKayKay Dragon Age is a mixed bag. And I'm not saying that in a bad way, but the three games are quite different and during my time in the fandom, I think everyone has one game they love and one game they hate of the three xD Or at least, has both strong positive and negative opinions about them. Mass Effect is more consistent (aside from the ending, yeah, everyone harps on about that, everyone prefers to ignore it really xD), if you want just one solid, consistent experience in tone, Mass Effect is the way to go. If you want to shake things up, go from a more disjointed experience but slightly more individual story to six bbfs (best bisexual friends) chilling in a mansion, living their lifes until it all goes to hell, a few times in a row, and rage about how Varric isn't a romance option, over to a bit more typical fantasy story, accidental "chosen one", grand adventure leading an army against evilllllll, with your gay best friend (because Dorian is the best), then Dragon Age is for you!
All of your points are fucking perfection. Like ok, when I saw ready player one, everyone was like "that movie is incredible" Me unable to keep my trap shut goes "could have been 100× better. I swear 10 people out of that movie looked at me like I just killed their infant child, like really??? It's a movie I'm allowed to have an opinion. Also I want to touch on this Daito, this man, chose gundam. For me Gundam was my very first anime. Well Gundam Wing was, and it got me into anime so I hold alot of love for the series even series people hate (alot of people hate the gundam seed series but I actually enjoyed it for what it was, I did see the issues it had I'm not blind, but I enjoyed it) Now, my problem with this is....he chose the weakest gundam out of all the gundams he could have chosen!!! This man chose the very first gundam which is by far the weakest of them all. No one can say "well gundam was made in the 80's so-" then what about halo? Iron giant? None of those are 80's this man could have chosen the Wing gundam or the gundam double X, or the burning gundam, hell even the strike freedom gundam and completely destroyed mecha godzilla, total annihilation....but no. And that shit annoys the hell out of me. If you need a giant robot to fight a giant robot, you are going to use THE MOST POWERFUL you know and if you are going to choose a gundam well.... yea there's hundreds that are massively more powerful then the original gundam. Personally I would have either chosen the strike freedom or the wing gundam, they have powerful distance fighting abilities that outclassed mecha godzilla in both speed and power and would have torched it in under 3 minutes and those 2 extra minutes are me being generous. This movie wasn't the beat, it was...., I was actually slightly bored a few times watching it. But the utter incompetence of the choice of gundam just clinched this movie as being absolutely garbage. Cause no gundam fan is that stupid to choose the original over something stronger. Especially when the fate of something you care about is at stake.
I don’t think the movie didn’t know its audience. The primary audience was Millennials and their kids. (You can decide how successful you think they were…) Millennials were the only generation still raising /young/ kids for the most part when it came out. The Marvel movies have been doing the same thing and honestly the nostalgia baiting is driving me nuts. They’re simultaneously trying to appeal to older generations as far back as baby boomers, because they care more about going to movies. ETA: The guy who plays Nolan played a corporate scumbag in the original Robocop. Much better role, much better movie. But I love watching that dude lol
"Just Write" also points out how hollow the ending is to Wade's character by comparing it to its obvious inspiration, "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Starfish." Wade wins the Oasis because he realizes that Halliday has regrets about the contract he signed; but it's not part of Wade's development. It just feels like another puzzle-piece. Charlie wins the factory by holding onto his morality; even though Wonka arguably cheats him and grandpa Joe out of the lifetime-supply of chocolate. He gives back the everlasting gobstopper; rather than keeping it or handing it to Slugworth for the payout. So shines a good deed in a weary-world.
0:30 "Every step forward we take...removing lead from pencils..." So I did some research, and I'm pretty sure pencils never contained true elemental lead, because the mark it makes is very light and rubs off easily. The Romans would mark papyrus with pieces of sharpened lead, but never in the form of what we would today regard as a pencil. Pencils as we know them always contained graphite, which initially came from low-purity natural sources, and was referred to as "black lead," because they didn't know it was made of carbon when it was first discovered. Neither of the articles I read are particularly well organized IMO, but if you're curious, they're called "Lead in Your Pencil" by Karl S. Kruszelnicki on ABC Science, and a very short, kind of bizarrely written paragraph called "Pencils never contained lead" by Joe Schwarcz, PhD on the McGill Office for Science and Society. This isn't so much intended as a "gotcha!" as a fun, useless fact lol
I remember watching this film when it came out and it was just .. So odd to me. I was like, 11 when it came out and even then I could tell it was just a tad soulless. Glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks that way Oh and nice shirt
I thoroughly dislike anything that communicates to the wider populous that gaming really is that bleep bloop brainless nonsense for kids that they thought it was. Almost everything about this film, including the name itself does that. Gaming obviously has developed so far beyond that.
It's weird because some of them seemed to be, but some of them - for example the Pizza Hut drone - were clearly paid for and I don't think could be portrayed negatively
I was 15/16 when this came out, and I was the perfect demographic for it, nerd kid whos favorite movie at the time was Ferris Beuller, but even I at the time thought this movie was actual basic trash with little substance.
It's just so obvious so quickly that whoever wrote Ready Player One has no idea how videogames work. Nobody would carry on playing the Oasis; a non-permadeath/full loot version would drop using similar hardware, and everyone would switch over to that. Just have high stakes ante to enter the tournaments. "Oh, you need an item worth at least 9000 points to enter this tournament. For most people that takes about 6 months to earn, especially doing entry quests." "This work? *holds up rare card* " "What? That's worth 9001 points!! But you're just a kid?!"
I read the book in hs. thought it was so good. this movie brought those memories screaming back. after reading people talking about the book, I realized the book is also not good.
Honestly I just implore people to watch Free to Play, it isn't a video game movie, but it is 200x more fascinating than ready player one ever could be.
I absolutely love your analyses! An extremely minor point I just thought of: I personally think Halliday's case (obsessing about a woman who wants nothing to do with him) is much creepier than Snape's. Snape's is more of an obsession with his own guilt rather than with the woman herself. Before he becomes accidentally responsible for her death, it's implied that he too had moved on with his life, albeit in an unhealthy way.
i only remember this movie because there was a sponsored roblox event to hype up the movie. i was maybe 15 or 16 and i just remember this ugly ass piece of gear that was (I think) a snippet of the book. and thats the only reason i even remember it existed. the event was pretty shit too.
I was born in the 70's, grew up in the 80's, am the target audience for both the movie and the book, and have zero interest in either. Some thirty years ago, we thought it would be really cool for all these properties and characters to be in the same movie. Now that it's been happening, it really isn't cool. It's not cool at all. So, I'll watch this video as a way of experiencing the movie without having to do anything stupid, like actually watching it. I'd rather just not know anything about it, like professional sports, but this'll work.
I really feel like a real life Halliday(sp?) would be the kind of guy that goes, "ugh you liked The Shining. They should have used the topiary instead of making up a hedge maze." Or he never would have read the book. 🤔
Okay, is “roastie” one of those words that sounds less bad in Britain, like the c-word? Because whenever I’ve heard it used it’s been associated with horrific misogyny.
Someone called me it and I thought it was such a silly word that I've decided it's mine now. I think off the internet it's pretty meaningless too thankfully
Where H is concerned, there is a demographic for whom this practice is very common, and that is trans gender people. I was always making avatars that presented as the gender with which I identified. I avoided getting “on voice,” even with my closest friends, not to deceive but because once they knew I wasn’t “real,” it would change how they treated me in some way that was essential to my escape. I have not read the book, but immediately pegged H as 1) hiding some aspect of their identity and 2) assumed they were trans or gender queer. I was thrown off by the fact that H was extremely coded in that way when you meet H, but not written in that way at all. I felt like someone got halfway to a good idea and got scared of how it would be received. I’m not saying only trans people do this, and I have not read the book. That’s just my personal experience.
I dislike being that person, but this is 1:08:50 there privilege shines the blithest, there whole subcultures on the Internet where people use male/other pronounces even if they don't identify as a boy/other, reason being, you're our dear sunflower speak English language, so you can" pass as a boy" while just typing a sentence, you don't have to use gender-specific verbs and adverbs to convey your thoughts and experiences, you free to say "I saw a cool cat today" without using any gender-specific words and give up the fact you're the girl, even if the general thought you convey has nothing to do with your gender.
It's a shitty movie based on a shitty book about how enjoying and liking things is all about memorising as many inconsequential factoids as possible about those things, rather than understanding then just understanding then and not judging those who DON'T memorise the said factoids. It's the glorification of that old trope of the geek who CLEARLY loves X series, because he knows how many toes where in frame on series 4, the best series, episode 13, during that one memorable quote they think shows how cool the second main character is, rather than the intended insignificance of the toes and that the quote is about the character externalising who he thinks he's cool when in reality his life is falling apart. Shout out to Breaking Bad's "I am the one who knocks" speech. Cheers.
"You could mispell goat; and have your life ruined..." Ah, the early internet was magical. The horrible and traumatizing things I found there will forever be seared in my mind.
Rereading Ready Player 1 as an adult, I genuinely did not like it- but I have to admit it did everything a million times better than the movie. Changing the first task from an obscure (for their time!) arcade game hidden in a free, public school planet to a CAR RACE absolutely destroyed Wade's characterization, but ESPECIALLY Haliday's. It was a cheesy, fan servicey book with an awkward message and rampant sexism, but at least there was some semblance reasonably developed anti-capitalism. Barely. Or at the very least Halliday wanted poor kids to win.
I have been awaiting this for what seems an eternity. Thanks for the content mert!! Looking forward to watching it 😁 UPDATE I watched the video great content as always!! As for the next pledge of a 13 reasons why video please go easy on my wife (Katherine Langford)
There's so many things that frustrate me about this book and its movie, but one of the big ones (and there are oh so many big ones) is how it chooses to show virtual human collaboration. Like yes, when hundreds, thousands, and sometimes millions of people across the globe come together to make something or celebrate something they love on the internet, it's usually an impressive and amazing thing to behold, but it's almost always *in spite* of all the gatekeeping, know-it-all assholes who think they're more enlightened and know better than everyone else around them. Ernest Cline all at once tries to act like he understands the nature of humans working together while simultaneously lionizing the worst people who usually ruin those efforts.
This movie is so staggeringly bad and i dont understand why more people dont recognize it. and from what i have heard about the book, its even worse than the movie. people saying "you havent read the book" as a defense of this trash heap movie arent even trying to make sense. It isnt the book. its a movie. its a separate thing that can be judged on its own.
The race thing is sooo stupid because there's NO WAY thar NOBODY EVER figured it out, even on accident. Someone not knowing the controlls just being there to idk, have fun because its a videogame accidentally going backwards, someone who like, rages and crashes their car backwards out of frustration, someone just wanting to have fun and thus goes backwards to, idk, anoy a friend who took the race really seriously, etc.
Like. Forget data mining, forget hacking and griefing, pure dumb luck coulda created huge progress by five years of millions of people trial and error-ing.
WHAT. NOBODY ELSE HAD A REVIVAL COIN? If they're super expensive and coveted because of the whole, zeroing when dying, a Lot of people who DID have the money for it woulda brought them with them to the final battle ON PLANET DOOM. Or just were at some other place. God knows I always go for revival stuff. I play super carefully and if i have the choice between something and a second chance/revival token of sort, unless I already have ones on me, I'll get the token.
As a black, bisexual girl who has experience playing online games with people very much not like me, I think what makes the movie bland for me is that Wade is literally the default video game character; a straight white male with the personality of a piece of cardboard. I wanna clarify that there's nothing wrong with that, I mean, I love Tony Stark, but the difference is that Tony Stark and other white male movie protagonists usually have something that makes them different or appealing. What annoys me is that Wade, as a straight white protagonist, doesn't have to be anything other than what he is because he's the "standard". If you replace Wade with any other gender or race or ethnicity and released it to an American /Western audience, people would've complained and called Wade "a woke persona devoid of any personality or features apart from (insert gender, race, ethnicity here)". Wade can be a bland protagonist because he's like I said, what we're used to seeing. He doesn't have to be anything but a projection for the audience that the audience can feel comfortable assimilating themselves into because Wade doesn't challenge the status quo in both his own narrative and the real world, he simply adds to it at the very least effective ways possible. POC/LGBTQ artists/writers always have to make an extra effort to make their protagonists "not too woke or preachy", but it doesn't seem to be a thing that white writers have to care about all too often. It's why Wade can be the "symbol of fighting against oppression" without making the audience too uncomfortable or having to differ from real-world oppression. It's why when I talk about racism or ableism or sexism or whatever, I am ignored or largely laughed at while my white counterpart literally said the same thing, and those same people praised them for being brave. It's easier to digest information when the person who talks about it is largely detached from it or isn't the physical embodiment of what they're saying.
That's actually so true. I completely agree. I think when white, straight males are the main characters and they're boring and stale, people excuse it and say "They're supposed to be a blank slate for the audience to relate to", even when that's utter bullshit (I absolutely hate the 'blank slate' excuse in films, as characters imo can't be blank slates if they have existing history, relationships, personality, goals etc.) It's used absolutely loads with stale white protags (see Geralt of Rivia, Bruce Wayne, Harry Potter, any FPS main character) The irony of a statement like this is that the experience of the white male isn't universal and will only relate to said demographic. Wade Watts isn't a 'blank slate' to me, he's just a boring guy. Which is what makes it so frustrating that, when characters of different genders/races/sexualities are used, white male viewers/players can't seem to see them as 'blank slates' for the audience because suddenly they're not relating to that main character any more. Sorry for the novel-length reply but you inspired such an epiphany in me lmao
@@MertKayKay Exactly, and I tend to see that in Anime, especially Isekai, as well, the generic bland insert guy who's just a stand-in for the audience. I just find it so frustrating that there's such a double standard, that if you replace the generic white protagonist with a black guy or a woman, it's suddenly woke garbage and the protagonist is largely unrelatable. They're not used to seeing people that don't look like them, don't act like them, or have different experiences from them because they're the main demographic. It's ok for white protagonists like Superman or Harry Potter to be blank stales, but a POC character has to be bursting with personality or cannot be too preachy so they don't have to alienate or challenge their audience. It's ok for the default character to be bland, but it isn't ok for the "other" protagonist. For example, Thor from Marvel. I don't think anyone relates to being a Godly prince with thunder powers, but he's a fun character nonetheless BECAUSE he's not just a blank idiot with absolutely no thoughts. There are two races: white and political. There are two genders: male and political. There are two sexualities: straight and political As soon as the status quo is challenged, it's deemed too political. I even noticed that someone in your comment section called you too political as soon as you called out the fact that Gamergate was perpetuated by right-wingers. It's ok to call out "woke, leftist media" but as soon as you challenge the status quo of what conservatives and right-wingers consider "normal" it's suddenly too political. As soon as it's not targeted to the main demographic, it's too woke, despite the Western atmosphere ALWAYS having a hand in politics.
I've been reading through Bret Easton Ellis' bibliography, and it didn't seem like he got much backlash for having his protagonist be bisexual in his debut novel "Less Than Zero" which was released in 1985. Bret didn't come out as bisexual until the mid 2000's. Still his portrayal of diverse characters never got any backlash. Funnily enough the book that he got death threats over was American Psycho, where the worst portrayal of someone was a straight white dude. He mostly got death threats because the book "Promoted violence against women" even though it's a satire on a fictional character who does heinous acts towards women. He's just one example though, other authors probably had different experiences.
@@MertKayKay My autistic ass probably didn't read it right, but I'm gonna ask anyways. How is Bruce Wayne a stale character? I mean like the worst versions of the character sure are, but the best versions are anything but stale.
@@randomnerd3402 I think you should re-read what I said. I never said anything about Bruce Wayne, I was talking about WADE from the ready player one series. I think you read it wrong. Second, I LOVE Batman, and he's like, one of the only modern superheros I'm entertained by on screen lately.
like it drives me insaaaaaaaaaaaaaane how obvious it is that the writer and director of the book and then movie dont actually understand anything about nerd culture
I have a small criticism for you, and two MASSIVE pieced of criticism for the movie. Starting small: You said Doom Planet shouldn't have that much population. BOLLOCKS TO THAT. Proof to my saying that? Well since you compared Oasis to minecraft: anarchy servers, specially 2b2t. Eve Online. So, so many games with permadeath. And sure you'll say, people loose so much more in Oasis... but that's not really true. They loose what they gambled, with for anyone who doesn't put money into it, means only time. And if anything much like all the prior examples I'd bet you'd see entire comunities of FTPers wasting ages there just to create works of art that they know will be griefed just for the accomplishment of that fleeting victory. I mean, have you seen Path of Exile players? That MMO features both an extremely convoluted progression system and an extremely hard to respect system which means characters take MONTHS to be viable, and indeed if you screwed up at any point, will be unviable which you won't know until months later. I personally have a friend who is a PoE player, I've tried it myself but it's not my thing, and I've seen both him and some of this other friends gleefully wasting entire months on a gamble that some obscure combo will totally work despite going against all conventional balance, a bet they almost always loose, which they seem not to care at all about. And me myself have done something similar with soulsborne titles. Making entire runs, which take a long time, just to try and make a new build based on some funny yet mostly useless weapon or spell. People who play these kinds of games have 0 respect for their own time, and they'd FLOOD Doom World. But this is where my fist critique of the movie starts: WHY WOULD ANYONE BET THAT MUCH ON DOOM WORLD ITEMS? Let's assume it, if I was gonna go there I'd first make my build, and then everything not needed for that build I'd either gift to friends or sell just to gift the money to friends. Because I'd assume I'm dying. I mean I'd go there just to try my build, not expecting to win, so why have anything in my bank? Point is, anyone with enough experience to reliably beat Doom World, would likely have the same mentality. If they got a doomworld item, they'd sell it before going right back in. Except of course for the ones doing it as a job, which would do the same but transfer the item or money to their boss instead. Which means the market would be FLOODED with these "rare" items IMMEDIATELY. I mean hell that's partially why in game player-to-player markets ("auction houses" as they're usually called) are rare nowadays. They completely devalue all late game items in no time as people farm them for sport while chinese bot farms mine them for cash (eve online for instance is FULL of mining bots), Doom World would be a JOKE by the end of the first week. NO ONE would gamble their irl livelihood there. And second critique should be obvious after the first: This film EGREGIOUSLY underestimates the sheer level of autism of your average player. No one would cheer for a kid stating 80s facts from memory, that'd be common. But more importantly as another comment said, the easter egg would've been opened before the body was cold. I mean. I'm both an ARG enjoyer and a Fromsoft fanboy. Let me tell you... our autism knows no bounds. I've seen people decypher the most obscure mechanics ever, wasting weeks of their life scouring every inch of the god damned game trying to use a broken pendant on every nook and cranny for no reason other than their need to know more. Even actually really, really hard mysteries have been disentangled in a matter of days, with 0 irl incentive, and even more so, while knowing full well there's a 50/50 chance the lore you're investigating is yet another shitpost because Miyazaki really loves to troll his own fans. (The aforementioned broken pendant for instance in the end was only a lore item for the dlc and had no use... it's a DS1 thing. Yes many, MANY people spent forever using it everywhere. In response Miyazaki trolled them further by referencing it in DS3, that wonderful bastard). And don't think needing IRL knowledge will stop people. Just look at the Kojima fanboys. For those that don't know Kojima LOVES to put irl stuff in his games. Most notably in Silent Hill PT, a game he basically used to get around a non disclosure agreement... I recommend watching the "hidden meaning of PT" by "The Grate Debate" as an ENTRY level video on the matter that references many sources for more in depth stuff. and thing is... as that video shows. Even with the stuff kojima references being a trade secret, they still got it, they untangled multiple IRL messes for no reason other than a need to know. And you think the chance to inherit that universe's equivalent to apple won't get people to do it even faster? Entire communities would form around breaking every nook and cranny, it would be madness. NO EFFING WAY 5 YEARS PASS WITHOUT THE EGG OPENING. Hell, just look at Space Station 13.The code for that has leaked multiple times, first from the original creator, then the creators of a better version, etc. Through increasingly wacky irl antics which at one point literally included a friend of the guy going to his house under a false premise and copying the code into a hard drive then running for it. Even if somehow no one could break a clue online, they'd hack it, bruteforce it, etc. No. Effing. Way. It stays safe this long And indeed btw no way a single person unlocks all keys. Just look at videos explaining how speedruns on any game evolve. You'll find that the only time when a single person dominates a chart for a while is when they're thebonly ones trying. Competition is FIERCE and the main character is honestly not nearly enough of a nerd to even pop up in the leaderboard once, much less do it all himself. NO. EFFING. WAY. I mean it was still fun the first time i watched it i guess. Very flashy and all that. But the argument was hilarious.
Here's the thing though, they can just print more money. The more people are hording without spending, the more it's safe to print. But that's the equivalent of a tax on the wealthy, so there's a lot of corporations and think tanks making the disproven counterpoint.
I have definitely, especially in the mid 2000s, joined forums and just let people assumed whatever they wanted. I didn't say I *was,* but I didn't say I *wasn't...*
While not exactly the same the planet doom and the whole people losing real world money it reminds of what I heard about the space mmo eve online where massive battles happen with hundreds if not thousands of real dollars worth of stuff being lost or destroyed the biggest pvp battle in the game and possibly of all time cost a total of $300,000 to $330,000 The battle even has a wiki page en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB
re: H and the accuracy of whether WOC uninterested in male attention would cosplay across gender and racial lines: Lemme just say that a non-human, non-female avatar is absolutely an option I have taken when I just wanted to game without dudes deciding to get weird. It's not so much "I want to lie to these people" as "I'll just let them make assumptions so I don't have to deal with preconceptions". Taking a non-human avatar actually feels like less of a lie because it's so obviously removed from the reality. I mean, nobody's going to feel catfished by an orc.
As a non-binary clown, yes, I 100% agree. Choosing a non-human avatar removes half the shit people might potentially say to you in an online game out of the picture. No more gender-related stereotypes and slurs, only pure fun of being an ork or a ghoul or an eldrich thing.
"I'll even talk about women." Women? Hide the comic books! Thank you for this video! I subscribed a while ago and I love how you talk about games and media! Keep it up!
Its very strange that those very same cishet men want to date women with the same interests, all while alienating them entirely by acting like women can never be "good enough" nerds or "true fans". Super obnoxious.
Never read the book. Not interested. But any criticism I have of the movie can be valid because the book and the movie should stand on their own. If anything, one should make you excited to see the other.
The book is better, but still not Good. It's still largely shallow references, just "Hey, remember this thing? We have nothing to say about it beyond some stuff we took from a Wikipedia article, but if this made you happy, you might associate this book with that happiness now!", But it's still a little better. Like, minor example, the door at the end requires 3 keys and thus, 3 people need to clear the challenges Together. It's only possible to open with other people's help. Easter egg hunting is a collaborative effort, and the person who takes over the oasis should be someone who can make interpersonal relationships, something Halliday felt incapable of doing himself. While the movie has Wade open it on his own and just get Told "Hey by the way friendship is important." By Halliday's ghost in the machine.
yeah exactly. when it comes to adaptations, the source material may provide additional context that can elevate your enjoyment/appreciation of the adapted version (and it's definitely a plus point), but it _shouldn't_ be a required reading.
"Staggered its way onto the screen, then shit itself and died" You are beautiful. Never change. "Enough criticism" cannot be heaped on this film, for so many reasons.
@@MertKayKay I can't comment on everything you brought up, or to the same depth, but this movie genuinely offends me. It's a patchwork. None of the references belong together. Are they trying to appeal to 12-year-olds, or 42-year-olds? Nintendo fans, or PC gamers, or console jockeys? Racing fans? FPS gamers? Adventure fans? There's varying amounts of crossover with all of these, and I understand that there's a general gaming hobby, but nobody is that all-encompassing. The writers of the RP1 script don't seem to understand that, which leads into my second peeve. They don't know shit about jack. There's no depth to any of the references. I was born in 1980; I watch Stranger Things, for example, and I think "these guys were nerdy little 80's dorks like me." I get some warm fuzzies, even if it's been a downhill slide since series 1. The references have as much substance behind them as a pop culture reference *can*. Meanwhile, there's RP1, which comes off like "we don't know the first thing about any of this stuff, but hey, money to be made. You kids like, uh, games, right?" like they're a bunch of pedophiles trying to lure 8-year-old kids into their van with black licorice, wondering why they aren't having any success. There's the product placement. Product placement can feel natural, or it can be humorously over the top. It can't be both at once, or it's neither. The two are mutually exclusive. Not much more to say about that. RP1 plays like they want a best supporting actor nod for that bag of Dorito's. What you said about the awfulness of the kid's upbringing. There's a personal twinge at that, but I see what you're getting at, and I agree that it's an overused trope. It's the kind of thing that's put into writing by someone who has no idea what it's like to be abused as a kid. Moving on before my mood sours completely. Dystopian future. Ok. I read "Brave new World," and I read "1984," and I can't decide whether our immediate future looks likely to head down the path of the former, the latter, or both. It may do none of the above, but you can see how it *would* because both stories refuse to let us look away from real problems in the real world. RP1 got as far as the stack caravans before my eyes rolled so hard that they fell out of my head. That's actually the moment when I lost my vision. True story. Not really, but it's a better story than... THE STUPID, UGLY, STUPID, SHITTY, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID FUCKING EXCUSE FOR A STORY. I refuse to go into specifics. I admire you for not throwing up while making that video, or was that just edited out? My 6-year-old nephew tells stories that he just made up off the top of his head with better characters, better plot development, and more relevance to anything real. RP1 is like the wet dream of someone who ought to see a doctor, because they shouldn't be having wet dreams yet, they're too young. I'm pretty sure that the movie was fundamentally driven by an immature child-man who thinks he's the smartest person in a lineup that includes Stephen Hawking and Isaac Newton. I'd say "The smartest person in the room," but I'm thinking he's usually the only one in the room/basement. He collects Star Wars toys (wait, isn't Spielberg involved in this?) and plays *mobile games* I'll bet, and thinks that he's King Nerd of Nerdlandia. He honestly thinks his "masterpiece" (he probably calls it his "magna opus," because he'll get the first word wrong) is intelligent and thought-provoking. The worst part is, it leaves me needing to think while I'm watching it, only to knit together all the poorly-written crap and incoherent bullshit. HE MADE ME THINK WHILE I WAS WATCHING *THIS*. I HAVE TO DO THE GODDAMN WORK TO MAKE THIS TRASH BARGE ENTERTAINING. Fuck him. I hope his mother dies in a fire. If she's already gone, I hope she miraculously resurrects, so she can die in a fire.
@@simontheblind8417 i think a lot of the problems with the movie were inherited from the novel. The author just… isnt good at authoring? He expects you to understand references he likes that the primarily YA audience won’t get while somehow still overexplaining other references that he seemingly just throws in there because its popular but doesnt understand himself. And its worse in the second book. That Prince section, man…
@@simontheblind8417 "THE STUPID, UGLY, STUPID, SHITTY, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID FUCKING EXCUSE FOR A STORY" sums up my feelings perfectly and it caused me immense duress hearing my friends praise it as the apex of nerd culture when it came out.
I'm still lolling at "I was so scared I was dyeing my couch brown" from one of their horror game reviews. Mert's foul mouthed witticisms leave me in stitches every video.
As for hiding your identity just so you can interact with people in online games without learning just how/what flavour of weird they would be if they knew who you really are... it's actually one of the reasons I went off online gaming spaces so quickly. I did enjoy playing the Mass Effect 3 online multiplayer for a while, but I learned alarmingly quickly that I tended to get kicked out of groups when I used my own, obviously feminine name; not so when I used my partner's gamer tag, which is clearly a boy's name. Like during the day I go out, I get openly ogled, have people covertly taking photos of me, I get beeped at from vehicles, I get whistled at, and sometimes they even come and engage me directly in conversation so I have to respond (I usually just pretend I didn't notice, it feels easier than trying to respond to it. The only time I've responded was because while I looked to be alone I knew my now-husband was nearby... funny how they tend not to bother you if you look like you're with your owner)... then when I get home safely I'm not then going to switch on a video game and go into an environment where I get digital equivalents of that. I'm just too tired of this shit. One time I was getting drinks after a choir rehearsal and I ended up at a table with a whole bunch of women and one dude, and as I sat down with my drink I started complaining about a thing that had happened to me earlier that day, and when I did, every lady at the table started chiming in with similar stories, and that went on for a really long time. That poor one dude, he was clearly shook at the sheer volume and ubiquity of the stories, and the fact that all of us were so blasé about it. He kind of kept just stammering "im so sorry O___o;;;"
i think why halliday made morrow give up his share of the company was literally because morrow "got kira all for himself" and so halliday wanted to have the company all for himself. and god the fact that morrow was the one who curated the halliday library and was therefore the one who decided to remove all other mentions of kira... u know he deleted so many files of halliday doing just thee worst incel rants abt kira from the library. i love that u brought up gamergate in this bc it really has had such a huge impact on nerd spaces to this day and it imo not acknowledged enough. like the fact that this MASSIVE hate campaign was happening less than a decade ago and reported on IN REAL NEWS PAPERS GLOBALLY and some young adults are completely unaware of it... saddens me. like some ppl in their late teens/early 20's will think that incel stuff started in 2020's but it's been happening for so long...... i've suffered thru this movie and i never read the book BUT i only watched the movie because i listened to 372 pages we can't get back podcast and had a good time laughing at the book being ripped apart.
That's a really good point about Morrow honestly! He was probably sick to death of just seeing hours and hours of footage of Halliday pining after his poor wife.
Inb4 the book was better. The book was actually WORSE. Literally a story about a self insert having the author's same snobbish attitude about how cool and superior his interest in 80s and 90s media is. It's so ****ing frustrating how every conflict or obstacle is solved by "but I already knew all the things I needed to know, because that's how dedicated I am to *insert pop culture thing here* or "I worked it out because I'm just that good". There's some serious misogyny from the MC but the author justifies it because he's actually really an empathetic and good guy 'cos he's attracted to a girl with a birthmark on her face. It's hilarious what it says about the author, he puts some lip service to being self aware and self critical but that's just it, lip service. He isn't a nerd, he's a weird elitist, desperately holding onto his nostalgia like it makes him a worthwhile human being instead of building his own personality
Oh no! I heard really good things about the book and I didn't want to pre-judge it, it's a shame to hear that it was worse in a lot of ways. It sounds like a very frustrating read. (also thanks for watching Alexander!)
@@MertKayKay keep up the good work! Hope to see you reeling in that elusive RU-vidr™ money soon 👍 I probably should have started with "Imo" and ended with "maybe that was a little harsh."
@@MertKayKay Some parts are better, some parts are worse. IMO, the core difference is malice. Ernest Cline is a gormless idiot whose Hollywood connections set him up for a cushy life of writing fanfiction about how much he'd totally be friends with George Lucas if they ever meet. So he's regressive and socially inept and his books and screenplays are shit. But crucially - Ernest Cline is not a corporation. Ready Player One the book isn't trying to sell you Star Wars and Joust and Atari. It's Ernest Cline trying to wow you with his nerd cred and gush about how much better the pop culture back in his youth was. Ready Player One the movie _is_ made by a corporation. And they are trying to sell you everything. Its jagged shards of cringe are polished by sensitivity experts, but it is now a marketing campaign to get you clapping to whatever corporate slop they shovel out next. And in that regard, I'd rather read the book than watch the movie. Or stab myself a couple of times rather than doing either.
@@MertKayKay There's a podcast about the book called "372 pages". Its hilarious just how TERRIBLE the book is. The book describes him having sex with a sex doll and that his haptic suit had discrete openings so he can relieve himself...shudders. In another one of Ernie's books there is a list of movies and games that goes on for multiple pages. It takes the audiobook narrator 7 and a half minutes to go through it. ITS INSANE.
I was 34 when I watched Ready Player One, so I'm old enough to have nostalgic memories from my youth of movies like Child's Play, Jurassic Park, the Iron Giant, and even Peter Jackson's Kong, but I can't say that Ready Player One ingratiated me to those references. They felt more pandering than fun. Not so much a walk down memory lane as being flashed by the Master Chief in a long trench coat down a neon back alley.
Just here to remind you that Ernest C also wrote that awful porn poem where he talks about how hot he finds """nerdy""" girls and he doesn't view them as objects like other guys
I was searching for this comment lmaooo that ‘poem’ is an absolute travesty, the worst part being about how overwhelmingly smug Ernest is about finding girls who wear glasses and aren’t blonde sexy
I wanted to like this movie because my brother in-law liked it. But the zero gravity dance scene where Artemis flows between wayed's legs made me so uncomfortable and their relationship going forward was so pandering to him and beneficial for him.
My wife and I actually grow up in the sixties and seventies, and there are actually lots of references to those decades as well, which we loved. With that said we found the main story boring, the characters one note and no matter how hard we tried the world building seemed to unreal to suspend disbelieve.
I never actually realised how shallow this movie's definition of a fan is, in how it glorifies gatekeeping as a literal source of moral and social reform and presents everyone beneath the bar of acceptance as morally and intellectually stagnant. To be fair, I never watched this movie but have had it explained enough to have experienced it through osmosis. You would think it would come up, but I guess not. Thanks for the (very personal) new take on this. I'll definitely continue to think on this. I quite enjoyed it, even if I have no personal perspective to offer in return.
The whole mystery element - and that Wade's intelligence and worth as a fan is expressed just by his having many many facts memorised - is really quite sad to me, in light of how the whole P.T. thing went down. I think I heard that Kojima expected it to be about a week for people to crack it, and it ended up being more like a day, I guess because he slightly underestimated 1) the dedication and 2) the sheer scope of the community. Like people were scouring it for clues, the game itself was so interesting oh this clue is someone rambling in Swedish, wait that guy is Swedish so we'll just get that translated, oh this sequence of numbers is a cipher, let's run through that... Try not to think about what happened to the whole Silent Hills thing...
It's not just gatekeepery and shallow about knowledge of the media, it's also utterly shallow in the understanding of the media. Like, Sorento says he wants to make all the schools into copies of the ones from Ferris Bueller, and Wade just goes "Eh, I arbitrarily don't trust you." Instead of, eg, "If you knew the movie, not just the names and the quotes, but Actually knew it, you'd know that Glenbrook North was a terrible place to be. The whole movie was About avoiding it, and you want to subject every kid to that?" But shallow, empty pandering, name drops and quotations, is exactly what the movie does.
God, I remember when I tried to read the book: I got to the scene (or, I presume, the first scene of this kind) where an annoying "fake fan" tried to quiz him about something, but of course he knew all the answers, and it turned into an obscure trivia challenge, and then everybody clapped. Ew. I immediately went online like "this is satire, right? The author is trying to say that Wade sucks, right?" and *everybody* told me that no, it was played absolutely straight and the author worships Wade. Gave up on the book there and then. I didn't even bother with the film, of course, so before watching this video I only had a vague idea of all of its problems. Like, I heard (mainly thanks to Jenny Nicholson's video) of the ironically hollow references, and I could have guessed that they would be particularly shitty toward female characters, but WOW, that's really something else. (Honestly, hyperbole or not, I don't think that you were wrong when you said that this mess of a movie was a step back for humanity).
I really didn’t get that impression. I definitely figured the point was that a guy who was constantly living online immersing himself in massive amounts of 80s nerd culture, was obviously going to be a socially inept asshole. He even gets punished for his niceguyness when he invaded Art3mis’s privacy. I honestly felt the he had the potential to grow and become a better character at the end. After all he just had to go through and watch his hero be all regretful about his own life choices. I was left with the a “don’t make my mistakes” vibe. Go out there and live in real life. Ironically. From that point of view I really liked the book. I like Wade becoming gradually better, but not unrealistically magically becoming perfect at the end. No. Self growth takes time, and setting it up for him to be ready to take that journey at the end was enough of an ending for me. So yeah that was my take. Maybe it’s not the way the author intended it to be read. I haven’t really seen or heard much about the author in general.
LMAO. Oh my god. The books are usually far better than the film adaptations, but that scene you just described genuinely makes me want to laugh but also, rip my skin off and light myself on fire.
I felt completely isolated knowing like 90% of the references as a 17/16 year old when the movie came out, especially cus im in the balkans. That's what the movie was for me tbh, a reference checklist Edit: also, art3mis has the akira motorbike and doesn't do the slide, for shame
WHAT?!! How can you call yourself a big "nErD" movie and not do the slide. honestly the movie feels like someone googled "Nerd references" and slapped it with boomer tech bad, creating this horrible thing
I could be way off, but The Oasis sounds an awful lot like the Web 3.0 that Crypto-Bros push. Everything is monetized, everything requires a buy-in, massive risks of total loss.
And unfortunately like how scammers were influenced by Wolf of Wall Street, Crypto/tech Bros were influenced by Snowcrash, The Matrix and this (Ready Player One). It's simply: Learning the wrong lesson. Makes sense since the source material of both of these works were from amoral, awful, greedy, and straight up corrupt people.
@@battlion507 a classic case of 'We're excited to reveal we've created The Torment Nexus from beloved novel FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T CREATE THE TORMENT NEXUS'
God, I relate to making up lies about myself in online games to avoid creepiness a bit too much... sometimes I just exaggerate my age or casually mention the imaginary husband that I have... One time before leaving a particularly weird lobby I said "Alright guys, I gotta go drive my kids to school now" and before exiting I heard one dude exclaim "KIDS!?!?!"
Not online, but working in customer service I used to do this too. Except, I have a very young looking face, so when I had creepy guys hit on me I'd mention something about being in middle school or high school. Go as young as I could get away with
On the point about masking, as someone at the intersection of being pansexual & black, I have concealed parts of myself on & offline to simply get by without like you mentioned giving the chance for someone to be weird about aspects of myself. Like unless I’m explicitly asked on a forum or in a chat I wouldn’t volunteer my race or sexuality unless necessary. And even in real life despite putting pansexual in my dating profile, if I meet someone out & about, unless I’m interested in furthering a relationship beyond physical, I might not mention it due to the stigma/misconceptions that some people believe that bi/pan people are more likely to have an infidelity. In the realm of games & representing myself online, if I make an avatar I usually would indeed make them look exactly like me if possible & in a world where a place like the Oasis, I likely would still do the same even if it opened the door to being discriminated virtually but I completely understand why a person like Helen would make the choice to just use a white male or Orc avatar. It reminds me of how in the real world too often, résumés where people put a name that could explicitly be interpreted as African-American or otherwise non-Caucasian would be discarded or ignored more often than something more ambiguous. Helen’s choice is essentially the most extreme avenue of avoiding that without the real life burden of changing your name or lying about your name to obfuscate your ethnicity.
Just a point, why would it matter if Artemis were a 40-year-old dude? Is their trustworthiness reliant on the fact that they choose a gender for their virtual avatar that conforms with theirs in real life? Or, in a more sinister perspective, is their value as an ally anchored to their eligibility to be an object of attraction to Wade?
Because Wade’s penisfeels would be hurt. But you see, he’s a Good Man, because his merciful and loving penisfeels _aren’t_ hurt by women with minor “physical flaws” as long as they are otherwise exactly how he wants them to be in mind and body.
This actually comes up in the book, he wants to make sure she isn’t “one of those people who just think they’re girls”. The fact I liked this book once makes me so frustrated in myself
Literal only thing I remember from this movie was it treating the girl with a birthmark on her face like she was the fucking elephant man when it was her only physical "flaw". Everything else about her fit hollywood love interest standards but LOOK SHE HAS A PINK BIT ON HER FACE! Also you're so right about new horizons, very based.
I dated a girl with a small facial birth mark and she was so self conscious of it. No one else ever saw it as a flaw but to her it was a huge block to her self esteem. Not that Trday Pkayer One isn't insanely poorly handled...
how you feel about the "you're just not the target audience" argument is the same way I feel about the "it's for kids" argument. I don't give a shit that it was written for kids, that's not an excuse for it to be poorly written. the problem is people think that if you criticize something, you think that it's 100% all bad and no one should be allowed to enjoy it.
And youdont do references only vor referencesske.They should be thereadditionalorgnic somewhere.And youdont need to know but good if. Honetly a lot kids mdi do ht with duult refereces making it more a family movies.its alsohow youdo references.Not intrusiv, or looking down.
RPO is so frustrating. It's one of the coolest worlds in fiction made in service to one of the worst plots featuring the most cringe protagonists ever made. I wanted to die at the scene where people were impressed by the heroes reciting 80's trivia to the point of cheering and being in awe.
I once dated a guy who said that Rwady Player One saved him... I had no idea how bad the book/movie was at the time but ohhhh my god, learning afterward? His behavior definitely tracked 🙄
Sister, I hope you’ve earned more self-respect since then. Anyone seeing himself in this book who’s okay with that doesn’t deserve to have sex outside of VR.
I've always hated this movie because of the nerd nostalgia it tries to play into and I'm interested to see what your take on this is, have you thought about doing a video on the movie Scot Pilgrim against the world? From everything I've read the comics might be good but the movie was just a complete power fantasy imo.
Weirdly I didn't mind Scott Pilgrim but I also didn't really see any references I recognised, so it just became a strangely stylised film for me 🤔 was there anything about the film you enjoyed or was it a complete no go for you?
The real tragedy is a waste of such a good title for something, Ready Player One. It conjures so many images to the mind if you are a gamer, that it feels wasted here. The story could be anything, but we got this instead.
1:09:05 I'm in the older demographic and while it's not uncommon to find people my age online, in my personal life I have always struggled to find people near me with similar interests so I don't get to share much of it "irl". The days where being gay and geeky was a social death sentence are almost over but there are still hostile environments that we can't escape. Since my first day online I enjoyed FREEDOM from identity, social media has always baffled me because I can't fully comprehend the appeal to broadcast oneself since anonymity has allowed me to erase the target on my back. I can enjoy neutral interactions without any baggage, it's wonderful. I do have a fulfilling life so I don't need further gratification from the internet and maybe that's why I don't usually share personal information to feel validated. .... what a messy paragraph, I'm sorry my thoughts aren't more succinct.
"my general issue with this film is that its pretty cringe" put that on the box cover. awesome video as usual, cannot wait to see you tear into 13 reasons also the googling vulpix bit- i had the exact same experience with lucario 😭
The poem "Nerd P*** Auteur" by the author has recently been doing rounds on twitter and it feels like it says a lot about him. I can't quite verbalize what it says but feels kinda like the movie in how it started with something that could be an okayish intended message if you squint just right but the implementation makes it just so so very wrong in every way possible. In terms of the book I tried reading it before the film came out and I somehow missed half the points you explored (e.g. the significance of H being a white man in game). I don't know why, it just felt kinda wrong to focus on the world building or characters - as if they were there just to ferry you between bits of nerd trivia. Not saying it's good or anything - just thought it a bit interesting. Also the side eye at 40:18 killed me.
I distinctly remember watching this in theatres. I was with my best friend, and neither of us had read the original book so we had no idea what we were in for. I remember my heart sinking as soon as Wade put on the VR headset as I realised - oh shit, I gotta sit here for another two hours. I had to stop myself from audbily laughing when the "ugly, disfigured" love interest was revealed. At least this video came out of such a creatively bankrupt movie, so that's something. I'm glad I'm not alone in my hate! If you wanted to talk about other horrible movies you felt passionate about, I would love to watch. You have a way of remaining critical, hilarious, and distinctive all at once, so if you ever wanted to experiment or branch out, I'd be there for it :)
When it comes to books turned into movies, I agree with the point cinemasins always make. Reading the book should never be a prerequisite for understanding or enjoying the movie. It should be able to stand alone. It just seems like an odd idea, like there’s research you have to do in advance in order to enjoy the film properly. As always, I’m happy to watch you tear a hole in all types of media. There’s a lot of good stuff in this video, it’s entertaining, thoughtful and well considered, as they always are but my favourite quote has got to be ‘I’ll summarise and explain why this film can suck my balls’. You have deadpan delivery mastered.
Here to tell you that I faked being a girl online for 3 years. So far as using my girlfriend at the time's picture and voice on one occasion. This was before voice chat was a common thing. It was an incredibly eye opening experience in the end. You really learn how other guys treat women in private for example. I didn't even do this for a reason. I just had a female avatar and leaned into it and it became my online identity. I learned when I left that MMO that I wasn't the only one that was doing that either. Another guy that I had known on the game for years revealed himself after doing a very similar persona for years. So H's portrayal here, is a more real person than I think anyone realizes. People do go through lengths to conceal who they are and not just women.
