Amph Ready Player One- book and film discussion thread

But Snow Crash will cure all that. In fact, I can then blatantly mock all of those insecure LOSERS who post in this thread who actually liked RPO, knowing full well that I am, in fact, a better person than they are.

 

I mean, maybe it will be life changing for you, and you will?

I'm about halfway through Snow Crash myself. It's okay, but I don't have the urge to call people losers, let alone in all caps.

 

But because you are still halfway farther in Snow Crash than I am, and that I like RPO and you don't, that makes you a better person than I am.

 

Thank you, I appreciate you acknowledging that!

 

Do you still want that bridge I was selling you before?

 

The one between RPO and half decent books?

 

The one that allows you to actually finish Snow Crash; because I've heard it's the best thing written since the Bible.

 

Snow Crash is good science fiction. No one ever said it was good fiction.

 

You know what's amazing? People have said that RPO is good science fiction too.

 

Theodore Sturgeon would like a word with you.

 

There's definitely Battletoads in the movie twice (one at the start when you get a shot of the entryway and three of them climbing over the hill in the climax) but not sure if they're in there anywhere else. But, yah, I love seeing Spielberg do a mainstream blockbuster-ing again which he hasn't done in a long while. Whole lotta well done chatty historical dramas. But there's a visual sense in the film that is great to see him unleash, I especially dig the backwards / underground POV of the race at the start. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the lead actor, tad bland-y to be honest but a couple of decent bits, I do dig anything Olivia Cooke does in the movie, she has interesting, fun, unique spin of line deliveries, like I love when she asks Pervcial out one time and he looks behind himself confused and she goes "Yes, YOU!" and laughs at him. Really only saw her beforehand in Me, Earl and the Dying Girl but I loved her in that too and about 3 eps into Bates Motel and she's always decent to watch.

 

She is a delightful girl.

 

I'm leaving work an hour early just to see this movie again, but this time in IMax 3D.

 

I don't think I've ever actually seen any movie in IMax 3D. I've heard good things about it though.

 

Snow Crash is just the story that Cline tried to rip off to build RPO; it actually explores the socio-economic themes, rather than using them as the basis for a revenge tale against all the bullies in high school because in RPO's future, the Geek inherit the earth.

It's hard not to consider a tale about a hyper-fractured US, with a main character named Hiro Protagonist and the most powerful cars on the road being pizza delivery cars, slightly intentionally ironic. However, it's also not hard to imagine based on your preference for the shallow and superficial that you also don't quite know what irony looks like...

But part of what makes good dystopian cyberpunk fiction works is the fact that the dystopia has a structure to it, and doesn't just exist as a one dimensional backdrop for the purposes of shoehorning in several dozen pop culture references (for the sake of shoe-horning in pop culture references) per page. In the 2012 novel Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan at least weaves the ethical and legal implications of Meths into the story. In William Gibson's Sprawl books, the Sprawl's former of hypercapitalism creates a lethal pace that means if people disturb the equilibrium, they tend to disappear. Law is laxly enforced in hub cities like Chiba, where life has become dirt cheap. In his Bridge trilogy, the concepts facing us now like underemployment and barely being able to afford the cost of modern life in the US are front and centre.

In RPO, the world has gone to **** but everyone will be happy if they get the references and the paper thin allegory for the bullied teen reading the book, Wade, will get the gurl and the moneys and control the Oasis so they can make whole worlds populated by the offspring of John Rambo and Pac-Man.

You fail to realise the book exists as a masturbatory wish fulfilment fantasy for its author and you're making him rich for having geek tastes. That's literally it. This film will be forgotten in 2 years time, and the book will continue to appeal to those with the most odious of personal habits who, because they otherwise only read Star Wars novels, think it's punchy and good because what's an Irvine Welsh (or insert other modern iconoclastic author)?

 

You have absolutely no proof that Cline ripped off Snow Crash; but whatever. But I'm bored of arguing about this. I've actually had a revelation that I'm pretty proud of myself about. If you and a handful of other people want to talk about how AWESOME and AMAZING Snow Crash is, especially when compared to RPO, then by all means create another thread about it. We get it. You don't like RPO. You think it's a ripoff of the greatest novel since War and Peace. Aren't people allowed to actually like something that you don't? Newsflash: it doesn't make them inferior people to you.

 

The only thing Snow Crash and RPO have in common in virtual reality. Otherwise they are nothing alike. Might as well accuse Snow Crash of ripping off Neuromancer.

 

I've actually seen articles online where, if you can believe it, people actually liked both RPO as well as Snow Crash. Those people can actually go to RPO fans and say something like, "well if you liked RPO, you should TRY this one". The "RPO sucks, you should read Snow Crash instead" suggestion won't go anywhere.

 

Huh, Quiet Place won the weekend in the US but Canadians still went for Ready Player One for #1 2nd week in a row, neat! (it's a hellova lot smaller box office percentage overall but still a thing)

 

One would think you'd need to read Snow Crash first, Tano, in order to make that statement and not be upset that book, with references you mostly didn't get but you got some and that's like belonging to the cool club, right, might be challenged.

But, you can continued to huddle under the duvet of finally feeling like you matter in the world which RPO brings, by making Knowing References Cool!, or you could at least see if there's anyone out there in Googletopia making similar complaints about the things RPO lifts from Snow Crash. Since you haven't read the latter.

1. Here's one
2. Here's another
3. Here's a third, which spins into a positive the similarities

Now, to get back to references in lieu of substance, rather than making a point about how "enough people saying the same thing about the same thing would be an indicator that the problem is visible to many", I'll instead quote Douglas Adams who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide, something you probably only have seen by way of the stupid American remake and not the original BBC but still, you might get this reference!

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."

 

Yes, they read Snow Crash first, liked it, and THEN LIKED RPO. I don't really give a damn about why a few people liked one book over the other; especially those that made up their mind before opening up the inside cover.

And 74% of Amazon reviewers gave the book 5 stars.

 

It's more than a little strange to find a post that one the hand berates someone for their lack of familiarity with material and on the other hand refers to having "seen" a story that originated as a radio drama and whose most popular version remains a series of novels.

 

I assume that based on the lack of reading to date, the familiarity would have started with the film and would have ignored the radio drama, trilogy of four books, early text-based computer game, etc.

It's made worse by the patent lies Tano keeps telling.

 

I don’t really have an interest in seeing this movie, but this thread is very entertaining.

 

Yeah, I'm telling lies. Snow crash is the greatest thing since sliced bread. There's one.