OldBoy

**SPOILERS WITHIN**

Please continue pre-release discussion here.

Movie:
"Ready Player One" (Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance)

Release Date:
3/29/18

Rating:
PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action violence, bloody images, some suggestive material, partial nudity and language throughout.)

Running Time:
140m. (2h. 20m.)

Budget:
$175 million (estimated)

IMDb Synopsis:


IMDb Info and Rating:
8.1 (15,443 votes as of 3/30/18)

Rotten Tomatoes:
Fresh:184 Rotten:55 (77% as of 3/30/18)

Metacritic:
64 metascore ('Generally favorable reviews' as of 3/30/18)

Trailer:


Poster Art:

Brack

dex14

From the other thread:

The movie was fun. Though it takes place so much within The Oasis it starts to feel like you’re watching an animated movie.

There is one sequence in particular that brought a huge smile to my face. And I’m sure it will to most film buffs who see it.

This is probably the most fun and enjoyment I've gotten out of a Spielberg movie since 2005.

whotony

Ok I’m jumping right in to spoilers.


Do you think Halliday is still alive at the end?

SmackDaddy

Never read the book, but I think he is. We caught this last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. Will have to watch it again to see all the background things we surely missed. Loved the Iron Giant (quite possibly my favorite animated film), was hoping he'd go "Superman" in this.

I mean where else would Gundamn leap from The Firefly to fight Mechagodzilla with an assist from The Iron Giant???

Why So Blu?

Even the song choices didn't bug me. I do think that they should have used You Spin Me 'Round in the club scene instead of Blue Monday. IMO

The Overlook Hotel got the best reactions.

I recall seeing Spawn in the final battle, I just don't remember who he was charging with. I think TJ Miller had a phenomenal character design.

dex14

Yea. I saw Spawn.

I at the Chucky bit.

Why So Blu?

Shit, and somehow I missed that Olivia Cooke was in Limehouse Golem -- that was one of my favorite films of last year.

I like how Art3mis had Ripley's pulse rifle from Aliens in the club scene.

dex14

I've seen her in a lot of things and like her a lot. I find her very attractive. I never knew until recently that she is actually British and has an accent.

On the other hand, I always thought Tye Sheridan actually had a southern accent (after seeing Mud and Joe), and that he was doing a fake accent to get rid of it in this or X-Men. But he isn't.

Why So Blu?

I bet her not having a British accent in RPO threw me off.

Orbi-Wan Techno

From my review page Orbi-Wan Goes To The Movies:

Ready Player One (PG-13) - Imaginative and nostalgic love letter to the pop culture of the 80s is pure Spielberg magic

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD - BE WARNED

Reading some of the reactions to “Ready Player One”, the latest wonderfest from my favorite director, Steven Spielberg, it seems that your enjoyment of this virtual-reality based movie-length video game/Easter egg hunt depends on how beholding you are to the original Ernest Cline novel. Apparently, while some characters and situations translate from page to screen, there is a whole lot in this movie that is purely Spielberg - and I am completely fine with that. In fact, Cline worked with Spielberg to bring his book to screen, so let’s assume that any modifications have been blessed by him, shall we?

Getting on with the review, the story goes something like this: It’s 2045, and reality, for lack of a better description, is terrible. The economy is based on cyber currency, it seems that all human-held jobs are tied to a digital industrial base, and a lot of the population, at least in Columbus, Ohio, live in communities like “The Stack”, which consist of trailers and RVs stacked atop each other.

The preferred method of escape from the real world is a virtual reality one, called The OASIS, the brainchild of James Halliday, a genius who created a massive game within the OASIS before his death five years earlier. The winner of the game will gain control of The OASIS and Halliday’s fortune. In the interceding years, everyone from casual players to entire corporations enter The OASIS and try to find the three keys that are critical to unlocking the fortunes and control of The OASIS.

One player is Wade Watts (Ty Sheridan), a kid from The Stacks, who enters The OASIS every day as his avatar Parzival. Watts has studied Halliday’s life, and as the story begins, he is friends with Aech (Lena Waithe) and Art3mis (Olivia Cooke) in the OASIS, and they work together to beat the games, find the keys, and figure out the next level of challenges.

Standing in their way is Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), head of the Innovative Online Industries, who sends teams of his own workers into The OASIS daily to find the keys, with the intention of taking over The OASIS and inserting...wait for it...invasive pop-up advertising.

As Watts and his friends discover the keys and additional clues to Halliday’s life, the competition gets increasing fierce and dangerous, not only in The OASIS, but in the real world, as well, as Sorrento will stop at nothing to get his hands on the keys.

I never read “Ready Player One”, and really had not foreknowledge of it before the movie was announced. But I can tell you, I absolutely LOVED what I saw. Yes, the movie takes place primarily in the virtual world called The OASIS, and the majority of the pop culture references are from the 80s, but if you know what you’re looking at, you will find fun geek culture Easter eggs from the 70’s, 60’s, 50’s, and even the 30’s and the 00's. There were some things that popped completely out of nowhere that made me yelp and laugh out loud - and I had a great time. There are a LOT of references to movies that Spielberg had a hand in creating, but “Ready Player One” honors everything 80s and beyond, from music, video games, books, and movies, including a particular movie based on a Stephen King book (spoilered in the NOTES TO PARENTS).

I loved “Ready Player One” for its references, its energy, its imagination, the incredible visuals, and all the Easter eggs both subtly hidden and in plain sight. I will definitely be revisiting The OASIS to see what I missed the first time around. I am giving “Ready Player One” 4.5 out of 5 lightsabers.

NOTES TO PARENTS - SOME SPOILERS AHEAD. Ready Player One is rated PG-13 for video-game style violence, language, and an extended sequence based on situations from “The Shining”, which includes some scares, blood and a PG-13 version of the Room 237 scene. Profanity is primarily frequent use of the word sh**, at least one use of the F-bomb and other milder words. People in real life are killed in an explosion in “The Stacks”, though bodies are not shown. All other deaths are of avatars in The OASIS, and are very non-graphic. In scenes copied from The Shining, a nude woman is shown a bathtub, then walks towards one character, but graphic nudity is strategically blocked; blood pours out of an elevator in a scene and washes down a hallway; characters are pursued with axes through a snow-covered maze.

MID AND END-CREDIT SCENES: There are no extra scenes once the credits begin.

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Orbi-Wan Techno

Physically, no.

Orbi-Wan Techno

The only F-bomb in the movie, but I would have probably dropped it at that point...

dex14

Na. That was great.

islandclaws

Hundreds of '80s cameos distract viewers from the fact this film is scripted in cliche and bogged down by endless exposition.

LOVED the MechaGodzilla fight, though. And that Shining sequence was brilliant.

Mike86

Coming from someone who hasn’t read the book I thought it was a lot of fun. Predictable and very reliant on nostalgia but damn if it wasn’t fun to see all those characters and references peppered throughout the film. It’s definitely something to watch again to catch things you missed the first time.

Supermallet

This was my concern, that the movie would be a big budget blockbuster episode of Family Guy essentially, where the references are the full extent of the content.

TomOpus

I hope they devote a large part of the home release on doing the Shining sequence. That was simply amazing.

DJariya

Probably one of Spielberg’s most fun movies in recent years. The soundtrack was amazing.

It’s really long and there is a lot of imagery to digest, but it was really entertaining.

I at the Chucky cameo. They did a hell of a job getting so many imagery rights. And getting the rights to show the Delorean was really cool. Obviously since Spielberg produced BTTF, it was probably easier to get the rights to use it.

Mondo Kane

It was too bad Nicholson's likeness wasn't allowed. Probably would have even been more fun.

Out of all the geek imagery seen in this, The Glaive (Krull) was the jaw-dropping one for me. And I was hoping to hear the holy hand grenade blessed

Shoveler

Saw it last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. Loved the music, especially certain parts where I picked up on pieces of theme music from 80s movies, not just the 80s classics. Loved the use of Merlin's spell from Excalibur. Definite sensory overload trying to pick up on all of the references. I appreciated how they avoided the clichι of "if you die in the game, you die in real life".

Azor Ahai

The movie was an enjoyable and fun ride for its duration (the recreation of 'The Shining' was golden) but, in the end, it still feels strangely hollow and soulless, especially for a Spielberg film. A LOT of eye candy and fun references for '80s kids but in the end, what was the point of all this? Seeing the Serenity, DeLorean, Alien xenomorph, Krull boomerang, Battletoads, Robocop, Iron Giant, Gundam, etc. etc. etc.etc. was all cool and all but once you've seen them all what else is there to go back to this movie for? Fun but overlong, overplotted, the lead kid is a bore and the attempts at emotion fall flat. Fun but a one-time-only watch. Disappointing.


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Brack

The references worked surprisingly well. They weren’t just for show, but served as another virtual connection for the film's characters. I meam, movies are probably a thing of the past and Halliday was a big fan of games and movies. Halliday seems to hold onto the past a lot, reflected with his "mini me." So for me, the references not only work, but enrich the whole story of the film.

sherm42

Halliday’s backstory was cut a lot for the film. In the book, his parents argued a lot and his father was abusive or an alcoholic or something, and he would play video games to escape.

Mike86

The Chucky part was one of my favorite things in the film too. That along with what appeared to be Keaton Batman scaling Mount Everest, the DeLorean, the whole part that took place in the Overlook Hotel (aka The Shining part), and Mechagodzilla were probably my favorite things. For some reason I kept expecting the theme from Back to the Future theme to kick in for a little bit since the opening part of it was in the trailers and Alan Silvestri was the composer for the film.

I also disagree about the references just being for show and distracting from the plot. The plot largely revolves around a guy who created something to live out the fantasies of all the pop culture things he loved and I felt like the references felt pretty natural to the story. It’s not like Family Guy or something where references are just put in for no reason relating to the plot 99% of the time.