SADDO: THE MOVIE (aka READY PLAYER ONE)

The Westing Game is peerless I hope kids are still reading it

FWIW, my older kid read it when she was younger and thought it was just OK. My younger kid (10), we coincidentally tried it last week or so and she wasn't having it. So who knows?

they should have just made the movie a 15 minute "We Didn't Start the Fire" music video with Billy Joel just singing all the characters as they appear on screen.

Goddamn it, I am now almost certainly going to wind up spending a large portion of my day reconfiguring Billy Joel lyrics. Thanksalot.

i do feel that gen x's inability to let go of its childhood pop culture b.s. really poisoned culture to some degree

I agree mostly because it's one thing to talk about all the fun shit you grew up with wistfully, still ok to quote movies and shit around friends...but some years I go to our local Fringe festival and see a show that's all goddamn references and people howling and it is nuts.

Everybody wants to blame Family Guy but its references were often more obscure and inside baseball. like how many times a day do I need to hear Princess Bride quotes?

and a lot of these people are the same folk who say "80s kids remember REAL music and movies" on Youtube comment sections about fuckin' Bananarama

That just means "people who were kids in the 90s", there are people complaining that today's musicians don't live up to Justin & Britney as well.

I guess it feels less impactful to me because I try to avoid things that celebrate hollow nostalgia in favor of my own personal celebrations of hollow nostalgia.

nah, people always been looking to the past. Sgt. Pepper was a nostalgia play on early 20th century salvation army bands and pre-war pop. The Renaissance had plenty of intellectual layabouts getting off on "classic" retro Roman/Greek culture

I grew up in the 90s watching Happy Days b/c it was on TV all the time. the whole nostalgic aspect of the show was totally lost on me. I thought it was actually made in the 50s. I wonder if the next generation is going to think the same about That 70s Show.

there's always been nostalgia for past eras

but i think it's turned into an industry in a way that it wasn't back then

Golden Age isn't a new phenomenon though but the 80s was an explosion of pop culture characters that were expressed in toys, t-shirts, 8-film movie franchises, etc, and now we have the information age where people can just crank out references to the shit all day long.

so yeah it was always there but now it's more in your face.

and yes it will not strictly be stricted to 80s people, I saw someone ruminate wistfully about how there hasn't been good quality music since the 90s on a fucking 69 Boyz youtube video

69 Boyz actually were the last good music iirc

what was their New Jersey?

I would posit that this isn’t a Gen X phenomenon but rather starting way earlier(American Graffiti, Grease, and the aforementioned Happy Days, anyone?), but Gen X grew up in an environment where media became omnipresent, so the Boomer nostalgia process got shoved thru that.

So you had shit like doo-wop being a part of kids entertainment(which I’m not complaining about, but it was there, esp on Nickelodeon), Monkees reruns(also crucial), and that weird Garfield animated special where they wind up on a ‘50s Polynesian Island w/ Wolfman Jack(airdate: May 1986)

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xYEuiYP-rvA/maxresdefault.jpg

yeah I guess American Graffiti is more ground zero, and from Lucas so it has a tie to what would become the ongoing Star Wars franchise which turned these impulses into the Nostalgia-Industrial Complex of today

also that drawing of wolfman jack in garfield is fucking me up

Nostalgia began the moment human life ceased to be a minute-to-minute struggle for survival. The looming apocalypse should put a pretty decisive stop to it, I'd think.

Nostalgia began the moment human life ceased to be a minute-to-minute struggle for survival.

i miss those days things were simpler then

no joke if you log onto second life you see stuff like rasta pikachu doing sex with the joker from batman the animated series. second life is way better than this movie i bet.

rasta pikachu

amazing

Okay, y'know, somewhat in reference to my recent post, I got to thinking about the setting of this story and I realized after confirming my suspicions on Wikipedia that my ire has been entirely misfocused:

In the year 2044, the world has been gripped by an energy crisis from the depletion of fossil fuels and the consequences of global warming, and overpopulation, causing widespread social problems and economic stagnation. To escape the decline their world is facing, people turn to the OASIS, a virtual reality simulator

...Is this world supposed to make any sense? Someone(s) mentioned this qualm upthread, I think. Like, okay, postapocalyptic energy crisis and social meltdown...and a population retreating into a MMORPG which relies on a functioning electrical grid and internet infrastructure. Okay, sure, why not.

driving a virtual car takes a lot less energy than driving a real car to the store, you see

I won't even get into how much energy driving a real iron giant around costs. virtual is surely much more efficient

I'm open to the possibility that Cline actually details how such an arrangement is both possible and sustainable but let's say I'm skeptical about how sufficiently he addresses the glaring flaws in his worldbuilding.

the Mike Nelson podcast makes extensive hay of an early reference to the steady stream of electric trains, or elon musk vehicles or something, that carry "goods and workers" into the city. like... it all sounds pretty functional? but then everybody lives in stacked-up trailers (another ripped-off idea) which routinely collapse or get blown up by the bad guys, killing thousands, and nothing is done. all the while everybody in the trailers has efficient, high-speed, lag-free bandwidth. bonkers. at least in snow crash the people jacking into the elaborate virtual world live in prefabricated storage units, rented under reliable if grim conditions by chains and franchises.

It's the product of a writer whose imagination only extends a few inches beyond the circumstances which he himself has experienced.

'He grew up on...Melm Street, in...Fittsburgh, Stencilvania. His house had two...no, three stories. And he was purple. Not like super purple, though, just a little purple.'

rasta pikachu

aka Pikachouli

apparently there were a lot of issues with copyrights, meaning the director of Raiders of the Lost Ark (and almost Return of the Jedi) could not use any Star Wars IP content in this. they also couldn't get Ultraman (and good on the Ultraman people imo) maybe hence this giant robot instead of that giant robot.

...Is this world supposed to make any sense? Someone(s) mentioned this qualm upthread, I think. Like, okay, postapocalyptic energy crisis and social meltdown...and a population retreating into a MMORPG which relies on a functioning electrical grid and internet infrastructure. Okay, sure, why not.

― Another helping of mouthwatering cobbler? (Old Lunch), Friday, March 16, 2018 2:40 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

he is bragging at once point about their Amazon-style instant delivery service that can send food, movies, games, whatever you want to your address. the post apocalyptic ravaged world makes no sense. he is going to win the game and now own the VR system that is enslaving people in this hellish life and keeping them from revolting? the hero's goal is to inherit the role of Big Brother?

like how do they recite the entirety of "Wargames" the movie on the internet with no lag and no disconnections between dozens of people at once, they have better internet than we do already!

they should have just made the movie a 15 minute "We Didn't Start the Fire" music video with Billy Joel just singing all the characters as they appear on screen.

Just got word that I can finally share my rejected theme song from @readyplayerone. They went with Alan Silvestri's theme, but I still want to thank Steven Spielberg & @WarnerBrosEnt for the wonderful opportunity. pic.twitter.com/aK32ZOUA16

— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) March 7, 2018

lol

killllllll meeeeeeeee

https://out.reddit.com/t3_85h3w3?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fvc5Kdt8.jpg&token=AQAAlMmvWoW21rkBg5BBZryl-6Igvf2oN-jZDzAWOhmuv9LrYFf4&app_name=reddit.com

In my totally unsolicited opinion, the sustained success of The Black Panther is the feel-good story of this young year. Marvel went all-in on ‘Panther’, trusting a $200 million dollar budget to a Director, Ryan Coogler, who’d only made two movies before – and allowed him to tell a story that walked a tight-rope between mass-market appeal and cultural specificity.

Black Panther is a movie where characters make cracks at colonization, reference Grace Jones, speak openly about the trials and tribulations of the African American experience and weaponize a wig- while at the same time being a slam-bang action picture for all ages and audiences. This tight-rope walk was rewarded justly – with the flick hauling in over a billion dollars at the box office – so far.

It’s a movie but also a movement; an authentic celebration of a culture and a people (by those people) who have been historically disenfranchised, that won audiences over by leaning into that disenfranchisement by showing them a kingdom untouched by the ills of colonization.

In fact it’s been a good couple of years for big-budget, culture-specific movies. ‘CoCo’ from Pixar was an exploration of Latin American norms in a way that educated, entertained, and brought tears to many an eye – but resonated on an entirely extra level for Latin Americans. Wonder Woman, while a ‘lesser’ movie than Black Panther, was an empowering film – both in practice and production – even if the film itself shied away from the feminist zeitgeist that celebrated it.

Which brings us to ‘Ready Player One’ and its designs on celebrating ‘gamer’ and ‘nerd’ culture, which is far far far far far far far far far (far) less important than the examples provided above, but still an appetizing idea. Someone like Steven Spielberg (who is by all reports a ‘true’ gamer) taking a culture you love dearly, and dropping $175 million dollars to make a movie celebrating and exploring it in serious regard, is an intoxicating notion.

believe it or not it only gets worse from there: https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/03/ready-player-one-black-panther-culture

how did I miss all the references to Desperado and Ricardo Montelbon in CoCo

In the same way millions were excited to have a massive movie speak directly to their culture, strife, and beauty, Ready Player One will speak directly to a culture that transcends age, race, gender, sexuality, and even politics. People who learned their geography from Oregon Trail. Their sports from Madden. Their friends from Xbox Live. Their engineering from Minecraft. In some cases, their sense of duty from World of Warcraft raids.

finally, a movie which speaks directly to a culture of total morons

i particularly enjoy the constant hedging which presumably comes from the writer realising that conflating race with a hobby is a really stupid idea, but not so stupid that it was going to dissuade him from writing this dreck

so it's like a comic book movie, but for nerds

this isn't the first time this guy has written about black panther, either: https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/02/black-panther-shot-in-africa-on-location/

But when it comes to a movie like the absolutely incredible Black Panther – a movie which is celebrated for its authenticity and celebration of African culture – there is a question of how much of the film was shot on location in Africa. Naturally, Wakanda is not a real place; so shooting ‘on location’ is clearly not possible. However, the setting of Africa is paramount to the film’s success. When you look at films like Braveheart, Dances With Wolves, and the recent Wind River; the sense of place is almost a character in the movie; you ‘feel’ the lushness of Braveheart’s Scotland, the wide-open wilderness of South Dakota and Wyoming, and the cold, frigid, isolating nature of the Wind River Native American Reservation. Wakanda, in its own way, feels like that too.

Wakanda is such a realized place, and the world of the film so sensational and ‘real’, you’d assume the movie would have filmed quite a bit in Africa. But it turns out, not so much. According to IMDB; there were 14 filming sites for Black Panther in three locations; Argentina, Georgia, and South Korea.

(much of braveheart was shot in ireland, you clueless prick)

i assume he's also going to be dumbfounded that rpo wasn't shot on location inside virtual reality

People who learned about criminal justice from commercials featuring animated mascots absconding with cereal. Who learned about working from listening to their aging parents complain about it over dinner. Who learned about masturbation by doing it all day long with the blinds drawn while weeping copiously.

i object to your third point on uh personal grounds

It pains me that people get paid to drool out opinions like these while I sit here dropping gold on this board all day long for nothin'. Where's the justice, I ask you.

People who learned their friends from Xbox Live?

TBF, weepy self-abuse is, I'm sure, becoming a more popular pastime with every passing day.

you need to work harder to suggest seething, barely-suppressed racism in everything you write, that's where the money is if this guy's anything to go by xxp

But is gaming and nerd culture in need of legitimacy?

In the case of Black Panther, absolutely.

This is getting confusing.

Oh, I see, it's a Dadaist piece. I feel like such a dope for having expected coherence and lucidity and basic writing skills.

thing is, gaming is 'legitimate' by any rational definition - games have made more money than hollywood for years now, hundreds of millions of people play games on their phones or on facebook or both every day, mainstream gaming's biggest names like mario or pikachu probably have more global recognition than any movie star

the problem is self-identified 'gamers' who scream for recognition of games as art but ruin lives when someone makes even the slightest move towards offering the mildest form of artistic critique, and seek social acceptance for their entirely illusory skillset built in a medium which actively prevents them from engaging directly with society

finally, a movie which speaks directly to a culture of total morons

like MARVEL never happened

http://sensesofcinema.com/assets/uploads/2016/07/Macovaz-Image-5.jpg

i just hope spielberg is prepared for the backlash when there's a nerdsplosion after tracer from overwatch gets cucked by panthro from thundercats in the background of a scene or whatever - packing this many nerd treasures into a single movie is basically a nerd-rage wages of fear type situation, where the slightest knock could blow the whole thing sky-high