Ready Player One | Book/Movie

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I got to see this a day before the actual release date!!

Amazon – Ready Player One

Goodreads – Ready Player One

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape. – Goodreads Synopsis

I am going to chalk up my early viewing as a happy mistake from the movie theater, but hey, I’m not complaining!

I cannot believe that I have not posted about this book yet! (but I did Armada?!) Ready Player One is always going to hold a special place in my heart, as it spoke to me in new ways. I grew up with the zillion references that were packed tightly into this book, and I’ve played MMOs religiously for as long as they’ve been around. You put both together and you get my childhood (and adulthood?). Whether it is because both Wade and I had shitty lives, and were trying to escape to find real adventure and happiness, is beyond me to say – but MMOs have always been there for us. We both have best friends who we’ve only met on MMOs as well!

This book perfectly imitates the joy (and many other emotions) of being on a quest. There are challenges, excitement, and rewards! (Which we all know is the recipe for producing serotonin)  There is friendship, love, camaraderie, and all that stuff that brings people together.

Let’s talk about the movie now…

MAJOR SPOILERS

The hype for this movie to come out was real for me. After reading the novel years back, I was very excited to say the least (because of how much the book meant to me) when they announced that there was going to be a movie adaptation. Here is the thing about movie adaptations – all of us readers KNOW the movie is going to be worse, but we just can not get away from that hype. We know it will not stay 100% true, but what if it is an amazing adaption? Gets me everytime.

I did enjoy the movie overall, but there were so many times during the movie I said “WTF this is not what happened in the book”. I get that movie adaptations have to be cut down for time, and be able to tell the true story in a short period of time, and blah blah blah – but it irks me when things are changed to make the story more enjoyable to a wider audience. That makes it feel like a money grab to me. Some of the differences that got to me were:

  • The challenges were different

Yeah ok. I get some of it, but I went into the theater expecting to hear 2112. (But hey they called back to it with Aech’s shirt at the end!)  I think the first race should have had a bumpin music track in the background too. (Think the Black Panther car chase scene.)

  • The extra-life coin

I wanted to see Wade playing Pac-Man! Where was the training montages of playing all of the old arcade games? Why did Og have to be the curator?

  • Everyone lives?

Pfft.

  • No weight-loss for Wade.

This part kind of irked me as well. I wanted to see more training montages of Wade becoming better than he was in the beginning of the movie. Give me more character development. Maybe it is personal to me, because I use to be overweight when I was growing up playing video games, and then I worked my ass off to get where I am now.

There were more differences, but these are the ones that made me go “WTF?!” I did really enjoyed the overall movie. It was worth the money, and I am still stoked I got to see it before the actual release date. I was not expecting it to be as animated as it was…but that’s on me for not thinking it through beforehand.

“Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.

71 comments

  1. I agree with your review 100%. I read the book first only to hear abut the movie adaption a few weeks later. Yes it sucked that many of the challenges changed for the wider audience and they limited his character growth. They made it look too action-based when it fact it is still a teen movie. It was suppose to be about Wade’s story and how OASIS changed his life. Not about the OASIS exclusively. Small things like this upset me. Despite all of that, still a brilliant book and a good movie

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  2. I agree! I enjoyed the book and the references, and knew the movie would dumb it down a bit — it was very pleasing visually though.

    Also at first my friend and I hated how cringey the interaction was between Wade/Sam, but then realized that was because lots of nerds were like as an awkward teenage gamer kid. The movie got some parts wrong, but did other parts really well.

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  4. My experience of RPO the book is very similar. It referenced almost everything I remember from growing up and reading it was a warm and fuzzy walk down memory lane. Haven’t watched the film yet, not sure i want to. great post.

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  5. I could not agree more! I always try to tell myself, “Maybe I should try to watch the movie first before reading the book.” In my mind, starting off with a lower expectation going into the book would allow the book to exceed those expectations. How awesome would that be! Can you imagine being like, “Hey that didn’t happen in the move WTF!” Yet I always end up reading the book first. I agree with you, the movie was good. As readers, it did not sum up to the effect of the novel, however, we have to ask, was there some sort of improvement? Arguably, yes. Looking into the little things, one complaint about the book, for me, was the lack of connection to the real world. Everything was OASIS, rightfully so. There was the cool part where Wade decided to be a badass and hack the Sixers, which did take place in the real world. But I feel that the movie delivered more on this aspect of connection to reality. Which I felt lacked on the printed version.

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  6. I can say one of the first things that bothered me about the casting was that they did not make him overweight at the beginning; I feel like that is an important part of the story. Also, I heard different reasons why a lot of references were left out (copyright and Spielberg himself) but had I read the book closer to viewing, I would’ve probably been more upset that a lot of them were missing. And it could DEFINITELY have used more Rush.

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  7. Ugh, I so agree with this. The book is so amazing and the film really didn’t do it justice. Like you, I can’t seem to resist the hope that maybe the adaptation will be amazing. Hey, at least Twilight succeeded on that front.

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  8. I loved the book! But literally all the references went over my head, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And I haven’t watched the movie but I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY GOT RID OF THE PACMAN GAME PART. THAT WAS THE BEST THING ABOUT THE BOOK! IT SAVES THE DAY!! HOE COULD THEY?

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  10. Pingback: Ready Player One | Book/Movie — Life of Chaz – GJHS Library

  13. ‘Whether it is because both Wade and I had shitty lives, and were trying to escape to find real adventure and happiness, is beyond me to say – but MMOs have always been there for us. We both have best friends who we’ve only met on MMOs as well!’
    I get this!
    Seen the movie but not read the book yet, but I will do now. Great post. Thank you.

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  14. Reblogged this on Perfect Periwinkles and commented:
    I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump recently, but I didn’t want ya’ll to miss out on your weekly dose of bookish content! Check out this review of Ready Player One (and the rest of Chaz’s blog if ya wanna) and come back next week for our regularly scheduled programming 😂
    -Rachel

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