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Am I Ready, Player One?


Yukle

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Saw this a few days ago and I enjoyed it. Sure there's the all too familiar Spielberg cornyness that's peppered throughout but it didn't detract enough to dull my enjoyment. One thing I have to say, which swayed my opinion significantly, is that I watched it in glorious Digital Laser Projected (DLP) IMAX - and this enhanced a 6/10 movie to a 7.5/10 movie.

Spoiler

1. Loved Gundam vs Mecha Godzilla, with assist from The Iron Giant.

2. And Sho drawing The Glaive against i-Rok... the fuckin' Glaive from Krull! Should've used the Glaive at the start kid.

 

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I saw  it and enjoyed it. 

One thing they could have done better is show how IOI was working the contest.  They showed hundreds of IOI players in the war room, but didn't show their numbers on the scoreboard, how they were right behind Clan Hi Five.  They didn't show how the IOI players were systematically keying up, just skipped to them trying for the last key.  They could have also showed board changing as each IOI player failed and how another IOI player moved up to emphasize how if Wade and his crew failed, IOI would win.

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It was...fine. The plot is pretty stupid, the internet of 2045 and the culture around it feels like what someone in 1990 would describe the Internet Of The Future as (OMG, they accidentally called each other by their screen name! HOW AMAZINGLY WEIRD), there are hugely stupid plot holes here and there, but it's pretty and somewhat charming and works okay. There's very little reason to see it again save to catch all the references, which really feel a lot more like putting in a reference to say 'see, here's a reference' instead of having any real relevance. 

The ending totally pissed me off, but whatever. 

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I never read the book (Yes, I know. I know. 'Tis nerdgasmic. I must read it.) but I enjoyed the hell outta this film. I saw this in IMAX 3D and had an absolute blast. I'm definitely going to see this again on the big screen before it leaves theaters. It's really not about the characters or plot but basically just enjoying seeing what happens when Steven Spielberg gets to do a pop culture mash-up with a couple hundred milly.

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It's a very Spielbergian Spielberg movie.  Everything will work out if you are just young at heart! I honestly had more fun looking for various references though.  There was an absolute ton of Batman shit (besides just Batman, who was also in it) all over the place from characters to vehicles and symbols.  I am curious if Disney just flat out said no to them for any visual references (there is the one Falcon dialog).  I was also fully expecting the winning atari game to be ET. 

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10 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

From what I've read Disney said no to any Star Wars inclusion.

That was always the thing I thought would make the movie fail.  The shear number of references in the book, it didn't seem like they would be able to include them all.

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9 minutes ago, Fiddler said:

That was always the thing I thought would make the movie fail.  The shear number of references in the book, it didn't seem like they would be able to include them all.

Really, the number of references is not at all what makes this movie fail. Or at least not because it didn't have enough references.

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On 2018-04-02 at 7:57 PM, Kalbear said:

It was...fine. The plot is pretty stupid, the internet of 2045 and the culture around it feels like what someone in 1990 would describe the Internet Of The Future as (OMG, they accidentally called each other by their screen name! HOW AMAZINGLY WEIRD), there are hugely stupid plot holes here and there, but it's pretty and somewhat charming and works okay. There's very little reason to see it again save to catch all the references, which really feel a lot more like putting in a reference to say 'see, here's a reference' instead of having any real relevance. 

The ending totally pissed me off, but whatever. 

To be fair, he kinda nailed a lot of shit in minority report. 

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7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Really, the number of references is not at all what makes this movie fail. Or at least not because it didn't have enough references.

It's not but the references are a problem I think.  I mean, who is the movie for?  There's all kinds of modern video game references the pace and action scenes are made for a younger audience, but then there's the Shining scene and various other older references and how 95% of the movies score (Soundtrack and Orchestra stuff) is taken from 80's bands and 80's movies that nobody under like 30 cares about.  Buckaroo Bonzaii being the most notable of that to me.

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1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

It's not but the references are a problem I think.  I mean, who is the movie for?  There's all kinds of modern video game references the pace and action scenes are made for a younger audience, but then there's the Shining scene and various other older references and how 95% of the movies score (Soundtrack and Orchestra stuff) is taken from 80's bands and 80's movies that nobody under like 30 cares about.  Buckaroo Bonzaii being the most notable of that to me.


Well yeah. He's trying to make a movie that works for everyone. Like many others I don't think the book did the reference thing very well and so am not suprised to hear that the movie didn't either, but aiming for a wide target audience isn't exactly an intrinsic problem or an unusual thing to do.

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23 minutes ago, polishgenius said:


Well yeah. He's trying to make a movie that works for everyone. Like many others I don't think the book did the reference thing very well and so am not suprised to hear that the movie didn't either, but aiming for a wide target audience isn't exactly an intrinsic problem or an unusual thing to do.

Chris Stuckman's review made a good point regarding this in the sense the collective audience unwittingly demanded this with their wallets. The biggest films/shows at the moment are all about the nostalgia (he mentions "Deadpool", "wreck it ralph", "stranger things" "It"). I'd probably add "star wars" to the list as well.

It sounds as though the problem with this film is that it casts a wide net in terms of age/hobby demographic. Maybe it should have stuck to films/games or 80s/now rather than a bit of everything?

Although I guess "who framed Roger Rabbit" through everything into the mix - although it did stick with american cartoons so had one theme still.

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I went to see this against my better judgement since the boards tore it up and have to say I am glad I did. I am a 45 year old man who played some games growing up and watched 80's-90's tv and movies so this was just fine for me. I like others spent most of my time not paying too much attention to the plot but looking around the screen for things from my childhood. And I also strongly agree that you need to see this on the biggest newest screen you can.

Now, that said, I have no plans to ever see this again but I enjoyed it and it was worth my money and time, what more could I expect from it?

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I saw it and it was all right.  I have to say I was a little surprised at all the rave reviews it’s getting, it’s a solid couple of hours entertainment but there’s not much more to it.

The references are a bit all over the place.  The tight focus in the book makes a lot more sense, although they are obviously going for a broader appeal here.  The best bit was the Shining sequence, which is a lot of fun to watch when youre familiar with that film but I can’t see how other sequences would have the same effect as they’re mostly action scenes with a mishmash of different stuff involved.

The 80s family film feel they were going for, particularly at the end, didn’t really work for me, it just felt kind of forced.  And I was sorry to see that they retained what I found the most horrible element from the book - the beautiful girl with a very slight facial defect (if you could even call it that) genuinely unwilling to believe this entirely mediocre gamer guy could love her despite it.

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Saw it in IMAX 3D on Tuesday. It was enjoyable, but I felt it was heading down a dark path early on when that first race scene made me think of the pod race. Not good. 

But it improved and held my interest. The references ended up being a fair bit subtler than I expected too. I liked Alan Silvestri's numerous callbacks to his Back to the Future scores. 

All the same, I don't really get why anyone in 2045 would remember anything about Atari...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finally saw it!

The film was... okay. It was worth paying to see in a cinema. The action sequences were well done, but also not really explained. It was just a collection of chase sequences. It also suffered from all of the goodies figuring things out in a flash of inspiration - all the while being good, smart and funny - while the baddies were all incredibly stupid - and unbelievably evil.

As per my fears, though, it swept aside the uncomfortable aspects of the story that really made it worthwhile. The setting and the focus on pop culture was not the purpose of the story, it was just a plot device. There was meant to be ethical questions surrounding the way they neglect the real world for the fantasy, the way that people meet and become intimate but without doing so in real life. There was also a sad look in the book about how certain characters deliberately hide their true selves in the Oasis, especially for sexual and racial prejudice that humanity hasn't solved because it's too busy ignoring its problems. I reckon it was a pity to lose those elements.

I did, however, think that it had a more polished ending than the book. They both had a similar ending, but the film added on a little more to it to give it better payoff. The weird part was, it concluded the thematic elements of the novel but didn't include them in its own story.

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