Warner Brothers Ready Player One

So I went to see Ready Player One today. Fans of my blog will remember that I recently reviewed the book. This time, it's the movie and I kind of have an odd reaction to it. I'm going to try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but a lot of my reaction to the movie was based on where it differed from the book. Basically if you haven't read and seen both and you don't like spoilers...Uhhh.... I've done some other posts you might like, I guess. I'm not saying you're not welcome to read. Everyone is welcome here. I'm just saying you may not want to. Spoilers start in the next paragraph.

If Ready Player One were a standalone movie, it would have been freaking awesome. The 80s nostalgia was was again excellent, even if there wasn't as much of it. Then again, it's just not possible to fit as much into a movie as it is into a book. I get that. It was just kind of weird. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed this movie. It just felt like it was missing a lot of the background.

Actually, let me get this out of my system now. They changed A LOT of the book for this movie. A whole lot. A huge, quivering mass of lot was transformed from what it was in the book to what it became in the movie. I don't know if I can remember it all, but I'll try.

First off is the relationship between the characters. Somehow, Parzival, a lone gunter, ends up in a semi-alliance (not a clan, because "I don't clan up") in the first five minutes of the movie. In the book, Art3mis is a blogger that Parzival (he's our hero) has a thing for. At first she wants nothing to do with him. Then they meet and fall in love in the Oasis. They don't meet until the last couple of pages of the book though. In the movie, they're in each other's physical presence in meatspace for a good chunk of the movie. Daito and Sho work together for the whole book but Parzival doesn't know much about them until they get onto the scoreboard. In the movies they're all chilling on Planet Doom together at the beginning. Aech and Parzival do hangout throughout the book and the movie, so I guess that stays the same.

It's not just the relationships either, although that is probably the biggest thing. Stories are about characters. There are a lot of other differences as well. The wrong character infiltrates the IOI stronghold the wrong way. Odgen Morrow doesn't show up until the challenges are over. That's a major subplot that gets thrown to the wolves.  It drives me bonkers. Probably the biggest problem I have with the movie is what they've done, not to Wade Watts the human, but to Parzival the avatar.

In the book, Parzival is a broke-ass n00b. He has to hitch rides to low level planets to kill kobolds to make copper to try to level a little and get some coins. I really don't see how he could have paid for that Delorean. It really sucks to be him. He wouldn't last five seconds in player versus player combat in a place like Planet Doom. He's too weak and way too undergeared. For all of my WoW players out there (and others who will probably still get the reference) he's basically a level six toon in gear with no gear gifted from another toon and Planet Doom is a max-level battleground. Yeah, deadski. Game over man! Seriously. Parzival is the kind of toon that you would roll up on with your caster and kill with your staff because he wasn't worth the mana. But somehow he has a high enough level with good enough gear to go to Planet Doom to make money off the enemies he kills. The fact that he's able to level up his toon after getting the first key is a major thing in the book. The movie completely cuts it out.

Oh, did I say key? That is another huge change. In the book, the first key has been hidden for five years. No one knows where to go to get it. Parzival ditches his hangout time with Aech when he figures it out and heads to go get the first key. After he gets the first key, he has to solve the clue to the whereabouts of the first gate. He has to get to the first gate and solve the puzzle there before continuing and so on for the next two keys. In the movie everyone knows where to go to get the first key, it's just a matter of doing what needs to be done. Once Parzival gets the key, the gate appears in front of him. He puts the key in and that's it. Credit achieved. It takes a lot of the suspense out of the story. Ok, now I'm done whining.

Wow, I just realized that I totally nerd raged about a movie that I really freaking enjoyed. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

At any rate...

Viewed on its own terms, this really is a good movie. The plot moves. It's action packed. The characters are believable. I'm really getting into SF that goes back and forth between  the "real" world and the online universe. This is the type of thing that makes sense in a modern context. How much time do people in the here and now, Planet Earth, 2018 spend online? How much more time do gamers spend online? Dear lord, how much time have I spent gaming online? It just makes sense that this will continue into the future. I don't see it ever quite getting to the point that it gets to in Ready Player One but it could. With the appearance of Bitcoin, it even seems realistic that online currency would have real world value as well.

Ready Player One is visually gorgeous, except in the instance when it is intentionally ugly. I went and saw it in 3D (which I highly recommend if you can come up with an extra few bucks) and it was stunning. Seriously. Explosions, gunfire, magic, drones, mecha, it all looks wonderful. There is so much here and anything that is meant to be recognized is easy to recognize. Seriously, I saw the 1970s Batmobile, a Gundam, the Iron Giant, Mechagodzilla, you name it.

Not all of the graphics were licensed from other products either. The avatars in the movie were amazing. I-Rok was awesome. Sorrento looked sweet. Honestly, Parzival didn't but he wasn't supposed to. Being broke has its drawbacks after all. All in all though, the unique aspects of the story were amazing. I loved it.

The acting was good as well. When Wade finally got to kiss the girl I wanted to cheer for him. When Art3mis gets taken by IOI the freak out on her face looked real. If that was really Tye Sheridan in those last couple of chase scenes then that kid can take a sick bump.

All in all, this really was a good movie. Others have complained that it was too long but it needed this much time. There really wasn't anything they could have eliminated that wouldn't have made Ready Player One worse by its absence. One of my college professors used to have a saying about a story, "It needs to be like a woman's skirt, long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep things interesting." I think two hours and twenty minutes fits that description to a T. It just worked.

I may have been a bit harsh earlier as well. Although the movie does abandon many of the particulars of the book, it does retain a large part of the spirit of the book. This is still the story of a bunch of plucky freedom fighters trying to keep the corporation from taking over their playground. It still combines danger in the real world and the Oasis. It still holds your attention and won't let go. It's still a great story.

Bottom Line as a Stand Alone Movie: 4.75 out of 5 Easter Eggs
Bottom Line as a Translation of the Novel: 3.5 out of 5 Easter Eggs

Ready Player One
Warner Brothers Entertainment, 2018

Ready Player One is available for purchase the following links:



 

Microsoft Films Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

(How's about a little bit of housekeeping? This is my fiftieth post! Yay me! Or sumfin'...)

Here's a good way to start your Saturday: Get out of bed. Feed the animals. Grab a bowl of cereal. Watch Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. This is a movie with all of the goodies: The hero that doesn't fit but that we all want to see win, badass aliens that come out of nowhere, redemption, combat, and flying bullets. Things go boom. They fall down. Our heroes have to think fast if they want to survive. It doesn't get much better.

First off, the disclaimer: I have never owned an X-Box nor have I ever >GASP< played Halo. I'd love to check it out sometime and I'm a fan of first-person shooters in general but I haven't gotten there yet. I do most of my gaming on PC. I'm an MMORPG guy for the most part these days. So if you're here looking for a review of how the movie compares to the game, I'm sorry. I can't do that. I'm just an SF fan sharing my opinion with other SF fans. That much being said, this was an awesome movie.

This is the story of a young man who has been forced into a military life that he didn't want. His mother is a storied hero. His brother is a soldier in a line unit. He does what he is expected to because he is expected to, but his heart isn't in it. He's the stereotypical maverick who doesn't fit and can't (or won't) follow orders. He gets in a fight. It gets worse when he is offered a medical discharge because of an allergy. He could get out. While he's still deciding the shit hits the fan and off we go into the type of insanity you can only find in a well-written Science Fiction movie. And (minor spoiler) we do eventually get to meet up with the famed Master Chief.

You do not have to be an expert on the games to love Halo 4. Everything you need to know is contained at the beginning of the movie. The background of the people, the progress of the ongoing war against the Insurrectionists and the fact that something has gone haywire... It's all there. It was really easy to take in.

I'll be honest. This movie is trope laden but I loved that part about it. We get the Reluctant Hero, the Love Interest, the Just in Time and more. As stated before though, this is comfort food. The story unfolds and things happen more or less as you expect them to. The one big plot twist comes out of nowhere and is much bigger than I expected it to be. I like to call these types of moments "the Oh Shit Button." The writers didn't just push it, they almost broke it. That the characters in the movie held it together is to their credit.

The main character and his compatriots are all students at the United Nations Space Command's most exclusive training center. They're kids, freshmen for the most part. They get stuck in a jacked up situation and have to fight their way out even though they're not full trained yet. They're not sure where to go and they're poorly equipped but they do their best anyway. When faced with a fight for life they do what they have to and they act like soldiers.

The special effects crew for H4:FUD is to be commended. The explosions are massive. The aliens are impressive and the Master Chief looks like every promotional poster I've ever seen of him. Falling building look like falling buildings and the crash rocks the world.

The writers of H4:FUD have apparently read at least a few (and possibly many more) accounts of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of what I have read matches up with things that happen in the movie. I have no doubt that this was intentional. It adds an element of gritty realism that is missing from a lot of SFnal entertainment. Think about it. How many times did Kirk send the redshirts off to get killed and leave his audience wondering how it happened? Halo 4 doesn't do that. We get to see the action as it plays out.

My only beef is that this flick should have been longer. There was a bit of a cheat at the beginning to familiarize us with the characters that could have been worked around with another ten to fifteen minutes worth of action in my opinion. I find those types of cop outs to be rather annoying to say the least. Having said that, it did get us to the action sooner. All in all, it's a forgivable sin even if it did stick in my craw a bit.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Stun Rounds

 Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
Microsoft Films, 2012

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is available for purchase here:

Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction

Once upon a time, when I just a wee little Jimbo I loved a toy line/cartoon named Transformers. They were brand new and transformable robots were a new craze. That's right. I'm so old, I remember Transformers, G1. Optimus Prime was the big tough good guy. Megatron was his arch-nemesis and actually transformed into >GASP< a gun!. Ironhide, Starscream, Soundwave (when he was still a boombox), Bumblebee, Scout, I could go on for hours. This was before such newfangled craziness as the introduction of Rodimus Prime or Ultra Magnus. Nobody knew who Blur was because he hadn't been invented yet. Ironhide was simultaneously the best character on the cartoon and the dumbest toy ever made. Seriously, whoever heard of a humanoid robot with no FREAKING HEAD?!?!?!?!? But eventually time went on. I got involved with other geekish pursuits (Star Trek, Star Wars, RPGs and books. Lots and lots of books.) Some of the iterations of the toys/cartoons just got weird. Then awhile later, they started releasing live action Transformers movies, the latest being Transformers: Age of Extinction.

I went into the movie knowing what to expect,. I mean, this is Michael Bay and Transformers right? I got what I was looking for too. Say what you want about Michael Bay and his story telling ability (I'll get to that later)  but nobody does explosions as well as he does. Yes, I've seen and loved every Star Wars and Star Trek movie (Yes, even number one. I was the only person in the theater opening night that liked Jar Jar Binks and was over the age of twelve.) but Michael Bay can do a fight scene better than anyone who has directed in either series of movies. Things go boom. They go hack and slice. Someone lives. Someone dies. It all starts over.

I don't want to spoil too much, but I kind of have to here. If you don't want to see it skip the rest of this paragraph. The new, human made, Transformers and their method of transforming on screen is just awesome. The new "transformium" alloy that scientist Joshua Joyce discovers makes some really cool looking things possible. Watching a Transformer transform not just by moving one part over this way and one part over but by basically disappearing into a cloud and reforming out of nothing was down right awesome. I won't say that it seemed all that plausible, but let's face it. This is Transformers; When you're dealing with a Mack truck that can turn into a thirty foot robot and talk you're not starting from a very plausible place to begin with.  That much being said, I'm going to take this someplace a lot of younger folk may not like.

I have, since the 2007 movie Transformers had an intense dislike of the look of these robots in these movies. Talking about this in public makes me feel like I should tell a bunch of kids to get off my lawn and then drink a Geritol but I remember when the robots looked like robots. I am not at all a fan of the new "organic" look. They're not organic, they're freaking metal. I could see something more contoured. Cars don't look as boxy as they did in 1984 anymore. I'm not good with this whole wires hanging everywhere thing. I'm organic. Do you see veins hanging out of my arms? The spaceship has the same kind of look to it and it's not even a living thing. I could see an organic look if it was necessary to the story. The Invid Clamships from Robotech: New Generation come to mind. For <i>Transformers</i> though? Not so much.

The story here is only kind of okay-ish. I will give Michael Bay this much though; At least he doesn't treat his audience as if they're too stupid to realize that Megan Fox is attractive this time. I wonder if they gave him a high school aged character this time specifically to prevent him from doing that again. The whole father versus boyfriend angle is one that I can kind of feel from both sides being a father of three girls and having not spent my entire life devoid of female companionship. The eventual friendship between father and boyfriend was pretty much inevitable given the plot and the characters do develop a bit over time but it's just too disjointed. We're here we're there we're everywhere. The US government is trying to destroy the Autobots to get a seed and the president doesn't know about it? Umm, no. I get scientists and obsession but there is such a thing as going too far. I can't buy that. And where did the Dinobots get involved?

As far as the Dinobots go, I've been a fan for as long as they existed. Grimlock was an utter badass back in the day.  Swoop provided the air cover, etc. But, unless there was something important that I missed somehow, there was no connection between them and the Autobots/Optimus Prime until Prime showed up like "Follow me or we all die." That sounds like good advice but what reason did they have to believe him? There was no prior relationship established. I get that the movie was almost three hours long but come on. If you can't fit in it, don't put it in. The writers and Bay could have found another way for the good guys to win.

That much being said, this was what I expected. If you want to have fun and not put too much thought into what you're watching, Transformers is a good franchise. It makes no attempt at imitating actual scientific principles or advancing anything that may someday be possible. It's not always all that internally consistent. But things blow up. Chase scenes happen. There is a surprise or two along the way. Explosions happen and the bad guys always get their tails whipped. The quality of this one depends on what you're looking for in your story telling.

Bottom Line: 3.75 out of 5 Hanging wires

Transformers: Age of Extinction
Paramount, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction can be purchased here:

FilmRise Studio's Atari: Game Over

Long, long ago (in the 1980s) in a galaxy far, far away (or maybe right here in the United States, I get confused sometimes) there was a video game company named Atari and they owned the world. Well, not really, but close enough. It came from nowhere, built a HUGE following (Seriously, if you're around my age you played Atari. If you didn't own one then someone you knew did.) and then it flamed out like a meteor upon re-entry. This meteor, rumor had it, had buried itself and a game named E.T. The Extraterrestrial in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico in an effort to hide the existence of the biggest flop in video game history. The story is told by Zak Penn in his movie Atari: Game Over in cooperating with FilmRise.

 The death of Atari was something that shook the world of one James Ricky McCoy Jr in the mid-80s. The vast majority of my friends had Ataris. I had an Intellivision (I didn't get my Atari until the late 90s, oddly enough) but when Atari fell it took everyone else with it. For awhile there it was assumed that video games had been a fad and would never be seen again. Looking back on it now, we all obviously know the story of the rise of Nintendo and its role in saving the industry. At the time though, no one knew that was coming. I was kind of ticked. I really like video games and I wanted one to play at home.

The story of the rise of the video game industry (in both its coin operated and home versions) is one that has been retold ad infinitum, but what makes Atari: Game Over special is its hook (the search for the lost E.T. games) and the fact that it includes information from so many of the game designers that worked for Atari. Also, the one thing that I don't remember ever seeing mentioned previously is the emphasis on the rise of story-based video gaming after the fall of Atari.  Video gaming underwent a change to the basis of its formulation that could only be fixed by the rise of story and the then-next generation consoles that allowed it. To be fair though, that's not the focus.

The story begins with the story of the E.T. game. It wasn't JUST a flop, it was a floptastic flop. I remember one of my friends buying this game back in the day. We hated it. If we hadn't turned it off at one point, our little E.T. character would probably still be falling now, thirty years later. That game was brutal. What I didn't know until watching this movie (although I'm sure lots of other people knew) was that it had been rushed to market after five weeks in development. That's insane. Game design times were shorter then because the games were simpler but nowhere near THAT short.

There is a brief interlude in the movie where Penn makes his case that E.T. was not a failed game and that Howard Scott Warshaw, the designer of the game,  has been unfairly blamed for the fall of the company. He makes it well. Warshaw was the only designer to have made multiple games for Atari and not work on one that sold less than a million copies. At the end of the day, he has me convinced. 

The story is so much bigger than just the game though. Atari HQ was apparently a party place unmatched even by my first bachelor pad. Things were live there. Details of marijuana use and keggers flow freely at the beginning of the movie. These guys were not the way I pictured them at all. I've always figured that game designers would be like my buddy who makes his living programming: Very intelligent, but kind of uptight. I'll say this much for myself: I appear to have at least gotten the intelligent part right. These guys were party animals. I'd love to work in that type of an environment.

Atari: Game Over is a documentary but it's a very well done one. The host has personality, the people he interviews are entertaining and personable. The gaming enthusiasts (I'm not going to say "nerds.") who appear and can't wait to find out if the games really are buried in the desert are just like me. Hearing the history was cool, but watching these people waiting made me jealous. I'll obviously never get a chance to show up at the actual dig, but I don't think I'll ever stop wishing I was either.

The director of the piece, Zak Penn, got the length of this movie just about perfect at just over an hour. Is there more he could have included? Probably. Are there things he could have left out? Well, probably that too. I don't think he could have cut anything without losing something. Nor do I believe that he left out anything I really had to know. This is one documentary that moves well, bouncing from person to person and subject to subject yet remaining coherent in its narrative. I took a writing class in college where the prof told us that "A paper should be like a woman's skirt: Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting." Granted this is a movie and not a "paper" per se, but Penn has done exactly that here. Kudos to him.

I won't spoil half of the ending. (The other half being that Atari does indeed fail.) I will tell you that there is a dig in the desert. What, if anything they find (other than sand which they do indeed find in abundance) is something best discovered by watching the movie.  Will our heroes discover what they have set out to find or will they go down in ignominius defeat searching for something that never existed? Will they find the Holy Grail of gaming or be laughed at for the rest of their natural lives? Go find out.  I'm sure glad I did.

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Joysticks

Atari: Game Over
Filmrise, 2015

Atari: Game Over can be purchased here:



or here:

Paramount's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Be well my friends. You're all we've got left.

Granted, I'm only thirty-eight so I haven't seen as much as some. But this story of friendship and courage, of sacrifice and dedication, or risking it all for one of your nearest and dearest, is one of the most powerful I have ever seen. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is an epic tale. It features the struggles of the Enterprise crew to do what they can for the man who saved all of their lives and  who has seen them through adversity on many other occasions. A man who is, and always will be, their friend. And in typical Star Trek fashion it answers, or at least attempts to answer one of life's great questions: When, and to what extent, do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. And yes, I reviewed it today because of the death of Leonard Nimoy. I'm a nerd. It's a memorial.

This is perhaps the only time we see the ST:TOS crew together in a continuing story arc. ST III begins with one of the final scenes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The death of Spock is reshown, followed by his funeral and eventual consignment to space, similar to the practice of burial at sea practiced by wet navies for centuries. When the replays end, the plot of the new movie begins and Kirk is informed that he has left something important behind: Spock's soul. What follows is a roller coaster ride.

Kirk and friends sail off into the cosmos, once more on a rescue mission. They once again encounter new lifeforms and old friends. The sacrifices are many: The potential losses include expulsion from Starfleet and/or imprisonment, loss of life and public humiliation. (Spoilers, if you're one of the three people on the planet who haven't seen this yet.) The loss of both Kirk's only son and the Enterprise herself are clearly shown. McCoy risks his own life in order to return Spock's "katra," his soul to his body. There is no sacrifice the crew is not willing to make to save one of their own. And in the end, they do so.

All of that being said, the story is not quite perfect. The action is very tightly plotted and Kirk's actions in defeating a Klingon Bird of Prey and her crew stretch the limits of believability. Given Kirk's history as a character and his relationship with his son it was probably inevitable that he would avoid a complete breakdown upon David's death. The fact remains that both Shatner and the production team could have added something here to make his reaction a bit more realistic. One does not simply shrug off the loss of their own child.

The ending is one of my favorites of all time. The only people who haven't dreamed of being able to see someone they were close to who has passed are people who have never lost anyone. While I certainly envy those people, they're in the minority. It does the heart good to see Spock stand up off of that stone table and walk away. My reaction when Spock stops and recognizes Kirk left me wondering if perhaps the pollen count was a bit higher than I expected even now. I can't help but wonder if maybe, just possibly, this movie and others like it will put the name Roddenberry up among the greats of storytelling. Only time will tell. Bottom line: 4.75 out of 5 phasers.