We can’t get excited for… Ready Player One
The world is now days away from the release of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, and we could not care less. What happened to our old selves, we ask ourselves, the ones who used to get more excited about summer cinema than the weekend after a long week of work? If you’re in the same boat as us about Ready Player One, perhaps you’ll agree with our reasoning as to why this release seems like a non-event.
The source material
Ready Player One is based on a book. Now before you get upset at us for hating books, we must say we do enjoy reading! (And not just our own writing!) The source material in this case originates from Ernest Cline, and was published in 2011. From what we know it’s pretty much the Family Guy of novels, in that the setup (think dystopian Charlie and the Factory) only exists to string along different set pieces based around modern pop culture. How else would you explain a chapter that is entirely based around the 1983 forgotten non-classic WarGames? That movie is so outdated the best thing it can get right now is an interactive series, which is nowhere to be found when googling for it. Even Tron got a sequel in the cinemas!
The director
Alright, so at least this kind of material could work with a younger filmmaker who’s been inspired by pop culture classics of the past. Think someone like Edgar Wright (who is our dream hire for any directing job really). Instead we get Steven Spielberg, who’ll be throwing Iron Giant and Freddy Krueger onto our screens. What’s the point of this? Is it a dream come true for Spielberg to play with the screen icons he first saw when he was in 40s?
The visuals
From what we’ve seen in the trailers, the world with the virtual avatars just looks like a terrible video game. The characters pretty much look like an updated version of the ones from the forgotten 90s show Reboot.
What do you think? Are you excited for some reason. Let us know in the comments!