The Sword and Laser discussion
This topic is about
Ready Player One
TV, Movies and Games
>
Ready Player One movie
message 51:
by
John
(new)
Aug 13, 2017 06:14AM
Loved this book, but I wonder why they changed the city from okc to Cleveland Ohio.
reply
|
flag
John wrote: "Loved this book, but I wonder why they changed the city from okc to Cleveland Ohio."Did they?
I haven't listened in a few years but I remember Wade moved around a lot and he definitely was in Columbus, Ohio (not Cleveland) at some point in the book though I no longer remember if it was the beginning or end.
They wouldn't put in Cleveland though, thats the other Hellmouth.
Interestingly (to me anyway) I had my wife listen to RP1 and she just finished today. She hasn't read an actual book in 30 years since high school. But a few years back I got her into audio books. She's done the whole Harry Dresden series and a smattering of stand alone books. But I think RP1 was by far her favorite so far. She couldn't stop talking about it. She'd seen the trailer for the movie with me a month or so ago and was very ho-hum about it since she didn't get what its about. Now she is excited beyond belief for the movie.
the hate is strong.....I'm 51 so everything in the book rang pitch perfect for me, sorry for the rest of you that have to retro the 80s
I feel better now that you've properly apologized.
Fresno Bob wrote: "the hate is strong.....I'm 51 so everything in the book rang pitch perfect for me, sorry for the rest of you that have to retro the 80s"
Same here. I feel that nobody under 40 can really appreciate RP1
Mod
I'm sure there are some references I didn't get/love as much (like I started on NES and only played Atari games a bit), but I feel like I knew most of them.
Rob, I'm glad you enjoy this book, I do too, but one question, how about the unabashed love for Rush? Is that in your wheelhouse? I'm 40, and I feel I'm just out of the range for feeling that. I enjoyed hearing them, but just about anyone I know who thinks of them as "the greatest band ever" is 5+ years older then me. I think the rest fell in line with fond memories I had. My stand up video game machine choices would be slightly newer, but the classics were still in the arcade when I would go. It was AD&D for me most of the time, but I knew of the older modules.
One of my few criticisms of the reverence to these things we love, is he didn't take creative liberties with what art would be created in the next few decades. (This is a common complaint of mine of future works that reference past works, or people.) It would have been nice to have made things up say in the party scene where all these vehicles were landing. If he had just stopped at the 80's, that would have been weird, but sort of fit in, but I'm pretty sure he mentioned the ship "Serenity", so he could have made some ships up from sci-fi in the next few decades as well. I know it is a nit-pick, but it is just a pet peeve of mine.
Mod
I've since come to really love their 2112 album a lot, but most of their other stuff I've tried hasn't been for me, especially the stuff from the 80s.
For me I'd take Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd over Rush any day, and have seen Roger Waters in concert twice.
But that's probably a bit strange for a person my age. My favorite bands that were new when I was growing up was like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc.
For 80s rock bands, I'd go Guns n' Roses and a bunch of one hit wonders. Most of what I listen to from that decade is more pop than rock.
I definitely played a few of those games in the arcade, and some atari games were ported to the NES. Plus I had an Apple IIgs and there were some ports on that as well.
I'm in my 50's but never really likes Rush at all. Even saw them in concert and was not that impressed. However, a bunch of the people I hung out with at the time really liked them so it I think I may be in the minority. They were really popular at the time. I'm with Rob, give me Zeppelin, Floyd, Genesis, Yes or AC/DC over Rush any day.
Rush is one of the most polarizing bands ever.....
All us old guys here, we should call this group Cane & Bifocals.
Trike wrote: "All us old guys here, we should call this group Cane & Bifocals."get off my lawn!
Mod
get off my lawn!"
Get off my (starship) Bridge?
I can't think of a good Fantasy trope. Get off my Dragon maybe?
"Fly, you fools!"Of course we're rewarded for that sacrifice by being sent BACK to hang out with the same group of Hobbits and their sweaty feet. Even Shadowfax couldn't out run it.
John (Taloni) wrote: "Even Shadowfax couldn't out run it."Maybe old-timey Shadowfax couldn't, but the new Korean-made one could. Vroom!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9015952...
John (Taloni) wrote: ""Fly, you fools!"Of course we're rewarded for that sacrifice by being sent BACK to hang out with the same group of Hobbits and their sweaty feet. Even Shadowfax couldn't out run it."
I was going to go with "You Shall Not Pass!" myself
Rob wrote: "So, I love a lot of 70's rock, but Rush was never a band I listened to before this book apart from say Tom Saywer/Limelight coming on the classic rock radio station."Rob, thanks for the honest response. I too love the 60's and 70's rock. Led Zeppelin is one of my all time favorite bands, and I much preferred the early 70's Aerosmith, to the late 80's and 90's version. But like I said, the Rush fanatics just seem to be a bit older for whatever reason.
This is a bit of a tangent, but one of the reasons I really enjoy listening to the iFanboy comic book podcast is the three host's are pretty much my exact age. Yes, I enjoy the talk on comic books, but there is also a shared exposure to pop culture, at the same age, that makes it very relateable. You move a few years off of that, and it just isn't the same. You may understand the reference, but it doesn't hit you the same.
Take the movie "Hudson Hawk", it is critically considered a very poor movie, but just about anyone I know who considers it a good movie was within about a 5 year window of 12-17 when the movie came out. I can't exactly explain why, but ask around it tends to be true.
Oh, well, thanks for going along with me on the tangent, I guess my point was that to a degree I think Bob is correct, there is a certain age that is going to be more into the book, and thus the movie then the public overall. I think that can be stretched, but only so far. We will see when the movie finally comes out. I think if it is really well done, it may cross over some of these age barriers, but if not it will likely not reach the wider audience.
Mod
I've always thought it would be anyone born in 1970-1985 or so, depending on their interests during that time. But it sounds like 1970 may be a bit later than the actual range as well.
I was born in 1963 and I enjoyed the '80's references but would have enjoyed it more skewing towards the '70's. Nostalgia usually seems to look back about 20 years to when the people creating current media were teenagers. We start consuming pop-culture in our teen years and we're too stupid then to not realize it may not actually be the best thing ever.
The 80s stuff works best, I think, for people who were into it during the 80s - that's just the nature of nostalgia. that's probably people who were Tweens to early 20s in the middle of the decade. Sure, I know people who weren't even alive then who like 80s stuff... but by definition it can't be nostalgic for them. Same for folks like me - I was in my 20s but we're talking late 20s (born in '58) shading into 30 by the height of the geeky stuff. Cline and his peers grew up with this stuff. He genuinely loves it.
I didn't mind all of that, but it felt like a writer indulging himself and the outline of the story wasn't anything I'd not read before. AS for the movie... I wonder if they're going to get the feel right.
The nostalgia in Ready Player One was both integral to the plot (even if gratuitous in some areas) and part of who the main character was, which is why it worked. However, in Armada it seemed forced and I didn't enjoy that story as much because of it.
Brian wrote: "The nostalgia in Ready Player One was both integral to the plot (even if gratuitous in some areas) and part of who the main character was, which is why it worked. However, in Armada it seemed force..."Yeah, I know. I just don't find it likely that people in the 2040s will care about the 1980s nerd culture much. How many people care about tech from the mid-50s now?
A lot of RP1 seemed like a vehicle for Cline to indulge himself in his own 80s love.
Rick, I think your point is good, but you picked the wrong decade. Between games like Fallout, reruns of TV shows, and political campaigns that compare themselves to that decade, I actually think the 50's get a lot of love. But I think you are correct that the chance of the 80's getting that same love in another 25 years is unlikely.
John (Nevets) wrote: "Rick, I think your point is good, but you picked the wrong decade. Between games like Fallout, reruns of TV shows, and political campaigns that compare themselves to that decade, I actually think t..."Ah, but fallout is inspired by the 50s... but it's not a 50s game. I'll give you re-runs, but what Cline does is assume people will be incredibly interested not in things inspired by the 80s but by the things that are from the 80s themselves. And that these people will be kids.
But I've made that point so I feel like I'm harping on it too much. Some people really liked the book and for them, I hope the movie is a good adaptation.
In the 1970s there was tremendous nostalgia for things from the 1950s, the most visible manifestations of that being Happy Days and Grease. By the early 1980s we already had a full-on nostalgia craze for the 1960s (meaning 1965-1972, really, but heavy on the Summer of Love), with movies like The Big Chill in the forefront.I remember sitting in film class as a freshman in college after seeing The Big Chill (which came out the same month as my first semester) talking about this with my new classmates and we had the collective realization of, "Oh no, that means the 1970s are next, then we'll have 1980s nostalgia after the millenium." Because we had lived through the terrible 1970s and were currently suffering through the 80s, so we were dreading it.
We completely neglected the rose-colored glasses that come with the Nostalgia Package. If you go back and listen to the old recordings of Casey Casem's Top 40, you realize just how much genuinely shitty music from the 70s and 80s has been filtered out of our collective consciousness. Along with that goes the dreadful TV shows and lame movies, and all the other stuff we handily choose to forget. Gas lines, race riots, the threat of nuclear annihilation, insanely high crime rates, recessions, assassinations, diseases, drug problems, rampant homelessness, all that stuff.
We live in the Happy Shiny Land of Mega-Cool Stuff when everyone was lovely and innocent.
In the 2030s when people are looking back to now, they'll conveniently edit out the government shutdowns, the wars, the terrorism, the opiod crisis, the Ebola scare, the global financial crash. It'll be all gay pride, Beyonce songs and Guardians of the Galaxy flicks.
Trike wrote: "In the 1970s there was tremendous nostalgia for things from the 1950s, the most visible manifestations of that being Happy Days and Grease. By the early 1980s we already had a full-on nostalgia cra..."What this illustrates is the nature of cultural nostalgia - note the the interval between the current time and the time being looked back on fondly is about 20 years. Roughly speaking what you're seeing is that people approaching middle age (35-45) tend to yearn for the times of their youth when they were freer, things were (allegedly) simpler and the future was rosy. Of course, Trike's point that we edit our recollections is in play here.
So, if someone told me that in 2045 kids were looking back on their 2020s fondly, I'd buy that. But people don't, in any significant numbers, yearn for times that were decades before they were born.
Rick wrote: "But people don't, in any significant numbers, yearn for times that were decades before they were born. "*cough*Steampunk*cough*
Trike wrote: "Gas lines, race riots, the threat of nuclear annihilation, insanely high crime rates, recessions, assassinations, diseases, drug problems, rampant homelessness, all that stuff.."Apart from a couple, those sound just like today.
Yeah, I know. I just don't find it likely that people in the 2040s will care about the 1980s nerd culture much. How many people care about tech from the mid-50s now?I would think the chance of getting billions of dollars and to be the most powerful person on the planet may have some influence on this.
Mike
John (Taloni) wrote: "Rick wrote: "But people don't, in any significant numbers, yearn for times that were decades before they were born. "*cough*Steampunk*cough*"
Shush, you.
Found this hilarious video on YouTube about the RP1 book: https://youtu.be/BcTxIT6RyGcThe video maker has strong opinions on it... (spoiler: he doesn't like it very much)
Ruth wrote: "Found this hilarious video on YouTube about the RP1 book: https://youtu.be/BcTxIT6RyGcThe video maker has strong opinions on it... (spoiler: he doesn't like it very much)"
Wow.
I generally rip the hell out of a book for only one of those crimes. Either he's overstating the sins RPO commits or I completely lost control of my senses when I read it.
Clearly there's only one answer: dark magic.
Cline must've made a deal with the devil to get me to go easy on it.
The other explanation is that the book is so poorly written and thought-out that I didn't bother taking any of it seriously, treating it like the geek pr0n it is. As I mentioned when the group discussed it back in the day, I'm not going to subject myself to anything else Cline ever writes because the book was that bad, but I didn't hold the empty calories against him.
Maybe I should revise that opinion, but I'd rather just move on.
That video is pure gold. And dead on the mark.
John (Nevets) wrote: " I too love the 60's and 70's rock. Led Zeppelin is one of my all time favorite bands,."Out of curiosity for those of you who love Led Zeppelin. What do you think of the new band Greta Van Fleet? From what I've seen rock fans seem to be divided. Some think they are awesome for bring back such an old Led Zeppelin type sound while others think they are just ripping them off.
If you haven't heard of Greta Van Fleet I'll link the video to their main song here. If you close your eyes and listen you could convince yourself its a lost Led Zeppelin song. If you watch though you'll be baffled how those sounds are coming out of a band of teenagers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJg4O...
Rik wrote: "Some think they are awesome for bring back such an old Led Zeppelin type sound while others think they are just ripping them off."LOL
Considering that Led Zeppelin is famous for ripping off other artists, that's hilarious.
(Although in their defense, at least they never sued people who copied their stolen sound. *cough*RollingStones*cough*)
Mod
Out of curiosity for those of you who love Led Zeppelin. What do you think of the new..."
I'd never heard of them before. The song was ok. For a 70s throwback band, I always liked Wolfmother
https://youtu.be/3afXXsJwYZo
Rik wrote: "John (Nevets) wrote: " I too love the 60's and 70's rock. Led Zeppelin is one of my all time favorite bands,."Out of curiosity for those of you who love Led Zeppelin. What do you think of the new..."
The singer's aural resemblance to Robert Plant is downright uncanny !
I love Led Zep (and not for nostalgic reasons, they broke up before I was even born) so I'm enjoying this music... but at the same time, I can't help thinking young musicians should be creating something original rather than imitating bands from 40+ years ago!
Rik wrote: "Out of curiosity for those of you who love Led Zeppelin. What do you think of the new band Greta Van Fleet?"Oh snap! I'd never heard this before. Love it! Until someone digs up Bonham and Jones and reanimates them there's not going to be any more LZ so anyone who can carry on that type of music is just fine with me. I thought R&R was dead and gone. It's good to see that I'm at least a little bit wrong.
My favorite LZ knockoffs were The Cult, Whitesnake (for two albums anyway), Cinderella (just a couple songs), and the double album of Page playing with the Black Crows (not sure if that counts as a knockoff).
Ruth wrote: "I love Led Zep (and not for nostalgic reasons, they broke up before I was even born)"So do you feel like you've wandered into an old folks' home when you read our posts?
Randy wrote: "My favorite LZ knockoffs were The Cult, Whitesnake (for two albums anyway), Cinderella (just a couple songs), and the double album of Page playing with the Black Crows (not sure if that counts as a knockoff). "
Billy Crystal did a joke in his stand-up routine not too long ago, "My son was surprised that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings." It was such a lame old-guy joke, because the actual joke would be that he's never heard of Wings, while everyone knows about the Beatles. At this point -- and more importantly, when that show was taped -- they're barely a footnote in McCartney's career, nevermind pop music as a whole. Nowadays Wings is almost as obscure as Plant and Page's follow-up band after Led Zep, The Honeydrippers. But in the early days of MTV, The Honeydrippers videos were in heavy rotation.
The old guy joke I'm most proud of that I made on Usenet back in the day, which has since become a generic meme, is, "I'm so old, I remember when MTV played music on television." My one contribution to culture. :p
Trike wrote: "Ruth wrote: "I love Led Zep (and not for nostalgic reasons, they broke up before I was even born)"So do you feel like you've wandered into an old folks' home when you read our posts?
Randy wrot..."
ha I don't think the original Led Zep fans are quite at the old folks' home stage just yet...
there's definitely an elite group of artists from the 60s/70s (the likes of LZ, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Bowie) who have attracted new generations of fans via our parents' old LPs plus appearances on soundtracks.
Other artists... like Wings for example... not so much!
Which is the thing about nostalgia - it's easy to fondly remember music (and other things) from your youth but actually as per Sturgeon's law 90% of it was actually crap!
I am absolutely stunned that my 16 year old nieces and nephews like Led Zep and Pink Floyd. It would be like me being into Big Band and Swing when I was 16
Mod
Nowadays with streaming and before that with Naptster I think kids were able to try a much larger variety of music rather than just whatever was popular on the radio. I know I got into a lot more music that way in college.
I was also into Big Band and Swing (as well as classical) when I was a teen, which was the late 70s and early 80s. It's definitely unusual to listen to music outside your generation when you're younger but I don't think it's especially rare.In my case, I listened to Swing because that's all my dad listened to, and I was never one of those kids who disliked something just because my parents liked it.
I think a true test of popularity is when the generation of original fans of a work are gone yet the thing still resonates. We're not at that stage for '80s culture, since we're now the same age our parents were then. They still played Big Band music on numerous radio stations in the '80s, because the people working at those stations were in their 50s and 60s, so they remembered when that music was new. Same thing with music from the '80s now: a lot of those radio programmers are just playing hits from their glory days.
I still hear theme shows like "Brunch with Beatles" when I travel around the country. Thirty years ago those stations were playing "Brunch with Benny Goodman." As time goes by those become rarer. Thirty years from now they'll have "Brunch with Beyonce."
I'm not even 30 yet and I like swing and big band a lot, but that was probably more due to me enjoying playing it, and as a clarinetist Benny Goodman was my music idol in high school. I grew up on Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd in the house and I never liked it but I never hated it either. It was just there, I mostly listened to modern instrumental music in highschool, and didn't really get into other stuff until college where I got a laptop and YouTube all day. I just try not to stay the same. It's kinda sad to me personally watching coworkers still listening to the same stuff they did when they were kids and not moving on to newer stuff for a fresh experience. Also terrified of falling into the NEW X is all bad trap. That's part of why I think I also dislike nostalgia trips so much not just in this book here but in everything.
Mod
When I was a kid I had a limited budget so I mostly listened to what was on the radio and saved my money for the bands I really liked.
Of course I have no idea what the radio plays anymore, or if kids still listen. I listen to audiobooks at all the times I used to listen to the radio as a kid, and I stream music when I listen to music now instead of turning on a radio station.
My rock station played some stuff from the 80s, but it was mostly 90s music when I was growing up. It had changed over from "Rock" to "new Rock Alternative" at some point though.
But I also listened to the "Oldies" station (50s and 60s pop mostly) and Classic Rock stations (60s and 70s rock, later some 80s rock) when there were commercials on my main station.
But by High School I found napster and I started downloading all kind of stuff I probably wouldnt have listened to otherwise.
I feel like with Spotify, Pandora, etc the bigger issue now is too many choices, not too few.
Also the best music stands the test of time. Of course what is "best" is very subjective, but I don't know too many rock fans who don't at least some Zeppelin. I'm sure they exist though.
My old classic rock station does Beatles A-Z once a year I think. I used to listen to that every year. Now of course I just own most of it. I think when I was 15 I asked for all their albums for Christmas.
This could very well be an urban myth, but at one time I heard that your musical "tastes" were pretty much cemented by the time you turned 30. This was not to say you couldn't adjust to a new particular artist, or song, just if you weren't a fan of country by the time you were 30, you probably would never be.I honestly think that can be said for a lot of things, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to just start liking horror movies now that I'm 40, when I haven't been a fan before. But I do think it is cool to keep an open mind for new things, like Aaron says he does.
John (Nevets) wrote: "This could very well be an urban myth, but at one time I heard that your musical "tastes" were pretty much cemented by the time you turned 30. This was not to say you couldn't adjust to a new parti..."I've heard that but I'd say my musical tastes did a huge turn in my mid 30's so I don't think it applies to me as I'm now 46 and still discovering new music I love (along with old music I missed the first time around).
I remember watching Daredevil with Ben Affleck and being stunned by two songs in the movie by Evanescence. Their album became the soundtrack of my life for a year or so until I got one of those if you like Evanesence try . . . . Within Tempation. WT quickly became and still is my favorite group of all time. From there I expanded to other European female fronted symphonic metal and discovered Nightwish and fell in love with them as well (the non Tarja version anyway, Annette and Floor are far better). I haven't had the opportunity to see Within Temptation in concert but I've now seen Nightwish (with Floor singing) twice and they are running a close second as my favorite band and just put out their first album with Floor singing a few years ago.
And even at 46 I still seek out new music. Right now I'm listening to Wolf Alice which is a current British alt band. . . . Don't Delete the Kisses is an awesome song that would be at home in new wave 80's, alt 90's, or alt 2010's - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqxE-...
That said I'm constantly discovering new music I missed back in the day. I'm not sure I even had ever heard of Joy Division until a few years ago when one of their songs, Love Will Break Us Apart, popped up on Song Pop (a mobile phone guess the song game). Still pretty much ignored them til Stranger Things last year when one of their songs was featured and I loved it and sought it out. My mind was utterly blown to discover that New Order is Joy Division minus Ian Curtis. Somehow I never knew that growing up in the 80's. But I'm now a Joy Division / New Order junkie and Ceremony (the last song demo'd by Joy Division) is one of my favorite songs (albeit the New Order version since Joy Division never was able to record a finished version because of Curtis's suicide).
Watched the trailer for this movie and I'm definitely interested!
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 2nd Edition (other topics)Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need (other topics)
Story (other topics)
Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (other topics)
Eragon (other topics)
More...
