Why you need to read Ready Player One before you see the movie
What’s in it for you
What’s it about?
Ready Player One is set in the future (2044-2045) where the world is in extreme poverty, technology has advanced tremendously, and most humans don’t interact face to face. Our narrator, Wade Watts, spends most of his time inside a simulation called the OASIS. He’s not the only one. Most of the world interacts through the OASIS, goes to school, runs a business, and more. A contest is held to find easter eggs within the OASIS and win the fortune of a tech mogul who helped create it. It’s not all fun and games, and some unsavory characters come into the fold.
Cultural background:
Steven Spielberg directed the live action film that came out on March 29, 2018. From the trailers, I’ll tell you it looks a lot more bombastic than I imagined. It’s highly anticipated by readers and nonreaders alike because of its director and the very heavy dose of pop culture nostalgia it depicts.
The film stars Tye Sheridan (Mud, X-Men Apocalypse) , Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), Letitia Wright (Shuri in Black Panther), Lena Waithe (Denise from Master of None), T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley, Deadpool, Transformers), Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, Ben Mendelsohn, and more.
I would read the book before you see the film. I can already see from the trailer there are some big changes that affect the tone of the story.
What to expect:
If you are a hardcore gamer or pop culture nerd, you’ll find a lot of references you can enjoy throughout. You might be a bit envious of this MMORPG that’s fully immersive. Someday I’d love to be able to play World of Warcraft this way. /sigh
The book also has a dark side. The villain of the story, IOI (Innovative Online Industries) wants to win the Easter Egg hunt in order to gain complete control of the OASIS and, of course, monetize it. IOI will do anything to win and the consequences are shocking for what seems like a popcorn novel.
Upon reflection, I have to say the novel lacks female characters. There is only one of prominence. While she’s portrayed as a genuine well rounded human and the author does not write her with too much of a male gaze, I’m still a bit disappointed to realize she was the only one in the book. Lets see if the movie does anything to remedy that.
What I got out of it
Why this book?
My friends Pat and Lindsay had been begging me to read this book for months before I read it. They offered to just mail it over. With that much passion behind the recommendation, I had to follow through.
What I learned
I can’t say that I recognized all of the pop culture/gaming references so I definitely added to that file in my brain. After reading, you may want to check out this post to have a richer experience.
Quotes
OK, on second thought, maybe honesty isn’t the best policy after all. Maybe it isn’t a good idea to tell a newly arrived human being that he’s been born into a world of chaos, pain, and poverty just in time to watch everything fall to pieces. I discovered all of that gradually over several years, and it still made me feel like jumping off a bridge. -Page 18
Oh Wade. I continuously struggle with this throughout my life and I’m 31. I think this is one of the most relatable and universal coming of age moments we all have. Even in a book set in a dystopian and very technologically advanced world, our relationship with the truth is still tough to understand.
Looking around, I wondered why Halliday, who always claimed to have had a miserable childhood, had later become so nostalgic for it. -page 103
I smirked at this. When I originally typed up this note, I thought the concept was interesting. Why do we long for times we didn’t enjoy? Maybe it’s as simple as, we long for the times we were innocent.
I’m smirking now because nostalgia is Greek for nostos (homecoming) algia (wound, sickness). It’s a homesickness. Nostalgia in its essence is painful, so Halliday’s painful desire for his painful past is ironic to me.
Will you be seeing the Ready Player One movie? What’s your favorite Dystopian novel?
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