SADDO: THE MOVIE (aka READY PLAYER ONE)

Steve S to fill the hollow

I don't think most people gave a shit about the Lego Movie until it was actually released and revealed to be surprisingly good.

i think i'm nostalgic for an era when nostalgia wasn't defined by children's commodities

I remember trying to watch Lego Movie at home; might've lasted 10 minutes.

I would've been knocked for a loop if your reaction had been otherwise.

it was like an animated Moulin Rouge, and A.D.D. is not part of my aesthetic vibe

(referring to the Luhrmann travesty and not Jose Ferrer as Toulouse-Lautrec)

From that IndieWire review:

It runs too long and drags a bunch in its final third

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overwhelming CGI pileup

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There’s nothing particularly unique about Wade, but the movie’s throwbacks extend to its live action scenes as well: He’s the typical white kid ready to rule the world, a Spielberg staple since “E.T.”

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prolonged setup

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trips over its exciting momentum

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it lacks edginess, subtleties or the genuine dread to explore life in a complete technocracy

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On paper, “Ready Player One” certainly looks like another ill-conceived Hollywood product

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this is not a completely brainless blockbuster so much as an attempt to elevate the blockbuster form in its own language

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The bulk of the live action scenes lack the same crisp energy of the Oasis, and Spielberg can’t match the forward momentum with character depth to spare. Wade and his pals have backstories, but they mostly just dangle in the background

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retrograde gender politics

Translation: It's a piece of shit, but I'm afraid/forbidden to actually say so.

I did not like The Lego Movie at all. Lego Batman was worse tho, made the former look like Toy Story.

I agree, I hated the second Lego movie so much. Especially when they kept making a big deal about the world's most powerful villains being let loose, and they turn out to be the world's most powerful villains ... that Warner Brothers owns the rights to.

such a cherrypicker, unp.

A definition of Hell for me would be sitting for this in a theatre full of pop culture uber-nerds oohing and ahhhing and wooohooing loudly at every reference-come-to-life.

No, I don't hate fun. This would be the complete antithesis of fun.

wasn't there some Spielbro quote about how everyone is supposed to be shouting "I recognize that"?

wouldn't you just be... yelling that constantly the whole movie?

meh i'll just wait for the EVERY EASTER EGG listicles

there are zero easter eggs if every damn thing is a reference

lol

tbh they could have saved a lot of money and just released this direct-to-listicle

"Here Are The 100 Things You Probably Missed In "Ready Player One"!"

An irony is that (I assume) this will be free of superheroes and Star Wars and other iconic (now or previous) Disney properties that would otherwise be formative fuel for the nostalgia factory.

xpost oh, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob...

apparently among the licensed characters are "various characters from the DC Comics universe" according to wikipedia :/

might as well "spoil" (hah) it:

Among licensed characters in the film are the title character from The Iron Giant, the RX-78-2 Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam, various characters from the DC Comics universe and The Lord of the Rings film series, Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Duke Nukem, Tracer from Overwatch, Ryu, Blanka and Chun-Li from Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, and Chucky from Child's Play. A massive in-game car race includes vehicles such as the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future (outfitted with KITT from Knight Rider), the Mach 5 from Speed Racer, the possessed '58 Plymouth Fury car from Christine, the van from The A-Team, the modified Ford Falcon used in Mad Max, the monster truck Bigfoot, and Kaneda's motorcycle from Akira. Additional references to RoboCop, Jurassic Park, King Kong, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Halo have also been identified in promotion materials.

kill me now

you could just not go

I could just not post in the thread, too, but this is really fun to gripe about

the RX-78-2 Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam

aaaaaaaaaaagghhhh

you could just not go

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 12, 2018

nah i try to live and let live but fuck it...

*chugs gallon of haterade*
*belches luxuriously*

...i have never rooted so hard for a thing to fail

I haven't seen anything by Spielberg for years! I'll probably wait for this wreck to come out and then watch The Post instead.

what was the source of your nostalgia-hate for Lincoln?

the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future (outfitted with KITT from Knight Rider)

"you know what would be EPIC?"

after months of defending the post i'm not emotionally prepared to defend ready player one ... but i will

— Max Read (@max_read) March 12, 2018

that'd be fine if it's William Daniels as the voice (he's about 90) xp

xxpost LOL!

I have no opinion on the Spielberg movies I haven't seen! I just haven't been in the mood to watch one of his historical takes. He generally makes good films.

I think the last one I watched that was new to me was Duel, and chronologically I haven't seen anything since 2008

..which I shamefully must admit was the Indiana Jones one

The Ready Player One premiere featuring the Iron Giant and his gun that he famously loved so much pic.twitter.com/v8ofo4300R

— Dan Sheehan (@ItsDanSheehan) March 12, 2018

I've only seen five of Spielberg's post-1989 movies but they were all so dumb or pointless that I'm fine having opinions about the ones that look even worse

tbf most are better if you take the last twenty minutes of the movie out

RAiders of the lost ark certainly becomes a lot more sad

that one you can keep the whole thing

Minority Report, you lose the part where they break him out of cold storage

Schindler's List, you lose the part where a bunch of people hug Schindler or something

Another variation on this that might have been cool is if this were a celebration of nostalgia that just got everything wrong. Like, they're hundreds of years beyond the heyday of these properties and all that remains are scattered fragments hinting at what once was and they think moldering boxes of Franken-Berry actually depict Frankenstein's monster.

Franken-Berry is Dr. Frankenstein, Count Chocula was the monster

Kinda like how we just think of Socrates as a philosopher but have no record of his larger career as a motocross champion.

Plato was swole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77alKlYzGEQ

Now that I would pay to see.

Am I crazy for thinking that Spielberg still might be able to do something with this mess? I mean, the trailer is obnoxious, and the book (which I only know anything about because of the I Don't Even Own a Television podcast) is notoriously awful, but I insist on believing that he must have had some vision for this to even take it on in the first place.

tbf most are better if you take the last twenty minutes of the movie out

I did walk out of AI a couple of hours in, but there had only been twenty good minutes in it so far

I’ve never watched more than twenty minutes of that one, either

The io9 reviewer doesn't like it, which honestly shocks me. (The commenters are crawling up his ass for it, which surprises me a lot less.)