Michael Corvin

BTW, the novel was a strictly 80's affair, but the Iron Giant was 1999. Someone mentioned Lara Croft which I don't see in the trailer, but that's 90's as well. Deadpool, if that's him, is clearly more recent as well.

So it seems Spielberg is changing a few things up.

Big Boy Laroux

The book did have 90s references as well, including The Iron Giant (mentioned along with the others in chapter 26 - just grabbed my copy to be sure). But the robot didn't have a further role other than simply being mentioned.

Michael Corvin

Hmm, I must have forgotten that.

Sean O'Hara

Tons of '90s and 2000 references in this:



(Just reading that, I want to strangle the author. It's like Family Guy on amphetamines.)

Why So Blu?

Ok, enough with "if that's Deadpool." It's not fucking Deadpool. It's Deathstroke walking with Harley Quinn.


/rant

Obi-Wanma

Well, the reason that happens is because he's largely in shadow and the character model looks like Deadpool, and thanks to the movie, Deadpool is way more well known among casual fans. And the reason that he looks like Deadpool, is because Rob Liefield created Deadpool as a shameless copy of Deathstroke.

It wasn't until Joe Kelly's run on Deadpool's first ongoing that the character began to come into his own, which is why I give Joe Kelly way more credit for the Deadpool that we know and love today than I do to Liefeld & Nicieza

Mabuse

I'm convinced we could have written this book if we each took turns writing a sentence.

emachine12

But he could not get certain Japanese characters this time, also,the Roger Rabbit deal was that the competing characters shared the exact same amount of screen time.

E Unit

I'm dying to see how they'll do the Wargames sequence. It's be awesome if they get Matthew Broderick to do it, just for kicks.

Big Boy Laroux

I've seen that floating around on Twitter. While I had issue with the use of references in the book (definitely got pretty tiresome), that training/research section is by far the worst part of it. I remember rolling my eyes as I read it originally. Just references for the sake of references, over and over and over. At least in the rest of the book, the references actually play into the story/action going on.

As someone mentioned, the story actually has redeeming qualities - showing humanity living and escaping into a complete virtual reality. But those themes are redeeming in spite of the references, not because of them.

dex14

kefrank

If that's Art3mis then, they've certainly strayed from her description in the book.

kefrank

I am pretty much the target demographic for the book. For example, the Atari 2600 and the movie Wargames both play a major part in the story. I own and still regularly play an Atari 2600 and I've watched my copy of Wargames on Blu-ray in the last six months. With that said I read the book a couple of weeks ago and even I found it to be a little too over-saturated with geek culture references. I think it could have struck a little more of a balance. But its well worth a read and does have some pretty interesting and timely themes.

starseed1981

It is. But look at Wade. In the book he's an overweight pimply faced loser. Here, he looks like he belongs in a boy band. The worry meter keeps rising on this adaptation.

kefrank

Yeah. Mild book spoilers:

Michael Corvin

According to imdb, Olivia Cooke is indeed Art3mis and comingsoon.net confirms that's her in the pic.



I trust Spielberg, so hopefully he has something up his sleeve for the real Art3mis.

gryffinmaster

If that's Art3mis (it's Art3mis), then they're also straying from the story in the book. Color me concerned.

Michael Corvin

I'm thinking/hoping it's some fun/creative marketing misdirection.

It's almost like Olivia Cooke is playing the Oasis version of Art3mis. Just a quick publicity still of her in the goggles misdirects everyone and keeps the reveal for the film a surprise.

Decker

Just finished reading the book to my 11 yr old son (I cleaned up a few lines here and there). Took about 3 weeks. I really enjoyed the book and so did he. We are certainly looking forward to seeing the adaptation and Spielberg is a great choice in a semi-meta sort of way.

I keep wondering about the car race though. It certainly looks like that's the way to get the Copper Key in the film adaptation, in which case it makes all the 80s knowledge sort of meaningless. Will have to wait and see I guess. I'm glad Ernest Cline is writing the screenplay; hopefully he will keep the gist intact and just punch things up cinematically for the screen (as well as make the references less obscure, apparently).

Decker

I'm not worried about that at all. It's potentially just a minor change. And remember that publicity still is in profile, FWIW.

Am I missing something? I just finished the book and have no idea why you two guys are so worried about the casting.

Feel free to spoiler-ize your response, but someone let me know what the issue is.

Mabuse

I haven't read the book, but I think the issue is that they cast a hottie to play a role that's written as a frumpy shut in.

Cellar Door

I think this will be more of a Zak Penn screenplay than an Ernest Cline one. My understanding is that Cline wrote a preliminary draft as part of the deal when he initially sold the movie rights for the book--way before Spielberg was involved. Zak Penn then took that as a starting point to write the final screenplay for the movie.

https://www.polygon.com/2014/6/24/58...nplay-zak-penn

Decker

That's not correct. That is not the reveal.

Big Boy Laroux

New pics and story from EW today. Story and Pics are slightly spoilerish if you haven't read the book:

http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/08/read...t-look-photos/

IDrinkMolson

I ended up getting the audiobook through an audible trial and I've listened to it twice in about 3 weeks. I love it!
All of my teen years were in the 80's and just about everything in there I knew something about it. I didn't know some of the names of real people he threw out there from time to time, but if I looked one up to see if that was a reference then I would recognize what that person was related to.

My only real concern about what I know of the movie so far is TJ Miller's role.

I haven't really gone out looking for spoilers. I read the 1st EW article and will read this one. And watched the trailer.

Things I'll be upset over if they're not in the movie, but not showstoppers:

I know there will be other things due to licensing issues that won't be in there.

I got Armada from the library and listened to it too. Not as good, but entertaining.