Ready Player One - Is This It?
By BlackRedGaming 63 Comments
For those who don't know, "Ready Player One" is a book written by Ernest Cline that is being adapted into a movie. The book is about a future where the world is being neglected and everyone is using a vr system called 'The Oasis.' The creator of the vr system died and has left an easter egg in the game in which unraveling it will reward the solver the entirety of his company and all of his wealth. Also, the creator loved the 80s, so crazy amounts of 80s nostalgia litters the book. The book follows a teen boy who has cracked the first part of the easter egg five years after the announcement of it and is on the quest of completing the easter egg before an evil corporation gets to it first.
Personally, I thought the book was great. Despite some cheesy dialogue that made the characters feel like the stereotype of video games from people who don't play video games, the book had good characters, a fun story, and a fantastic setting both virtual and realistic. It's a fun read and I would recommend picking up a copy.
But back to business. And that business being what I meant by "this is it." The trailer for a "Ready Player One" movie was released recently, and watching it put a question into mind. Is this it? Is this going to be the first good video game movie?
Now before I begin, I know this isn't technically a video game movie. This is a book movie. But the constant references to real video games as well as the heavy emphasis of video games in the book almost makes it a video game movie. So for the sake of this blog, I am going to refer to this movie as a video game movie.
I loved the trailer to "Ready Player One." I totally thought this book would be impossible to pull off as a movie, but this trailer says otherwise. With its impressive visuals, great action, tonal change from serious to light-hearted (as the book does,) the cool characters, the music, and of course, the loads of 80s culture, this trailer was meant to amaze. Now I did see some inaccuracies with the trailer compared to the book. This is all based off memory, so I could be wrong, but I didn't remember there being a race, and I know for sure he didn't live in the stacks in Columbus. But the Columbus part should hopefully be fixed and at worst be something minor in the story. As for the race, well if it is as good as it looks, then I would happily turn a blind eye to the book for that. But other than that, I can't wait for this movie to come out.
Despite it being a video game movie(for the sake of this blog,) and that the few big actors in the movie are put into smaller roles that I personally don't believe fit them, I honestly believe this movie has hopes of being good. It's got THE Steven Spielberg as the director and it even has the writer of the book Ernest Cline as a writer. With a mixture of the story and setting of the book, the directing power of Spielberg, and Cline to keep the movie in line, "Ready Player One" just may be the video game movie to end the bad-video-game-movie curse.
It's kinda sad to see the closest chance we may have to a good video game movie is actually based off of a book, but by now it's whatever we can get. I really hope "Ready Player One" is a great film not just for video game movies, but for the book as well. Sadly, we will have to wait until March 30, 2018 to find the answer, but if more time means a better movie, then so be it. This story is no easy feat to make into a movie, but with Spielberg and Cline behind, I believe their just may be a chance.
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