I know it’s cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason: the book was better. As
I posted, there are very few books that have made me stay up late, just to see
what’s next. Ready Player One was one
of those books. (Side note: The Martian
was another.) The novel isn’t anything flashy, and the premise isn’t anything
out of the ordinary for science fiction: in a near-future beset by energy
shortages and the resultant economic depression, a more immersive virtual
reality system creates an alternate “universe” for people trying to escape
their dull, dead-end lives.
The movie missed an opportunity right off the credits. The title is incorporated
into the story: when any player logs into the OASIS, the last thing they see
before the world goes wonky is “Ready Player One.” Work that log-in into your
title sequence, using old-school WarGames
black screen / green text. Contrast the outside world (which was far too “clean”)
with the inside world with that transition point between Red Pill and Blue Pill
being those three words.
Our hero is a kid who has known nothing but these two worlds – bleak and
hopeless in reality, shiny and full of promise in the virtual OASIS. From that
starting point, however, the stories diverge. In the novel, Wade, known as
Parzival (or Z) in OASIS, is a student and limited to the “school planet” due
to his extreme poverty in both realities. In the movie, Z is a slightly awkward
kid with almost no problems. In both, he lives with his aunt and her latest
boyfriend in a high-rise trailer park known as The Stacks. The movie visual of
The Stacks is great. It really pays off what Cline’s description in the novel
can only really hint at. In the novel, this trailer and the many like it nearby
are overcrowded with multiple families not just sharing the trailer, but often
sharing rooms within the trailer. It really emphasizes the desperation of the
people in this depression. In contrast, the movie shows people living in a
trailer park – certainly not a great place to live, but nothing to be ashamed
of. Both the book and the movie present very little of Wade’s home life, with a
major early event in both narratives being the destruction of his home by the
Bad Guys, but the movie actually makes you side with the aunt and boyfriend as
Wade has apparently “stolen” the boyfriend’s interactive OASIS gloves. Sure,
the boyfriend is a total jerk about it, but he comes across as only slightly
unreasonable, given that this kid has stolen his stuff (and apparently not for
the first time). Boyfriend apparently had bet a good deal of money on him
winning virtual combat game and lost, at least partially because he didn’t have
his gear (this whole story line was new for the movie). Where the novel spends
a good bit of time, early and middle, establishing Wade as a poor kid with big
dreams, the movie establishes him as kind of an arrogant jerk.
In later scenes, after Z meets his love interest and sometime-ally
Art3mis, this arrogance vs. dreamer comes out again. In both versions, Parzival
declares his love for Art3mis, and she shoots him down hard. In the novel, he’s
a sweet kid experiencing his first crush who has no reason to know better. In the
movie, he’s a self-centered narcissist. The novel uses the rejection to drive
Wade to make a commitment to the main plot – finding the hidden Easter Egg
within the OASIS to become rich and powerful in both the real world and the
OASIS. The movie uses this rejection to lead to another epic gun battle, which
turns out not to matter to the plot thanks to a Cosmic Reset Switch in the form
of a Rubik’s Cube. In the novel, Wade leaves his (destroyed) home and settles
in for the “hunt.” In the movie, Art3mis (real name: Samantha) kidnaps Wade and
welcomes him to “the Resistance” (sounds like it could be political with a
Trump / Resistance thing, but this movie isn’t that clever).
As for the challenges themselves, I understand there were some issues
acquiring the rights to all the intellectual property, given that the book and
movie are both awash in pop culture references (though the movie expands
greatly into 90s and 00s from the books 80s focus), so I can understand not
bringing everything verbatim from the novel, and I liked several of the
changes. What I didn’t love was the transition from success in the novel being
driven by knowledge of the 80s nerd / geek culture to success in the movie
being driven by dumb luck and a good guess. In the (much longer) novel
challenges, you had to beat about 4 old-school cabinet video games. In the
movie, you just have to guess a couple of relatively simple clues. I thought
the switch to The Shining was a good choice, even if it did nothing but chew
screen time as a distraction from the real, very easy quest with zombies and
ballroom dancing. WarGames and Monty
Python were a little too niche to be instantly recognizable the way the creepy twin
girls in the hallway are.
The novel’s penultimate fight, where Wade goes into the real world to
take down the evil corporation IOI from the inside, also loses something in the
adaptation. This may be the biggest departure of all. In the novel, it’s every
Egg Hunter (Gunter) for himself or herself, until a final epic team-up for the
High Five. It’s a hugely rewarding moment when they come together. In the movie,
they all sort of show up, talk about being solo for lifez, then immediately
form a baby clan all on their own. In the novel, the isolation permeates, so
this real-world take down is so solo, no one else knows it’s going on. In the
movie, it’s Arty in the clutches of IOI, and Z pretty much rescues her from her
damsel-in-distress belly-of-the-beast moment. Arty gets a kinda cool take down
of the super-duper-Level-99-magic shield, but it’s way less cool than the
moment from the novel where Z hacks a robot, embeds a Trojan virus, and Epic
Wins an explosion to kick off the Final Countdown, er, Battle. The novel was
about Wade / Parzival; the movie is about Parizval and Art3mis, with the others
supporting. I’m cool with the equal time / chicks fight too vibe, but the
original hack was much cooler than reading a spell into a microphone while
hiding behind a column.
The final fight worked. In the novel, the set up was better, deeper,
but I don’t think it would have worked for a movie. It was almost too much
awesome to capture on screen. The toned-down movie, with the same main villain-monster
and a slightly different hero-monster approach, but not one monster per
character as in the novel, really kept the fight as heroic underdogs versus
powerful corporate baddies. By the time of the novel’s final fight, our heroes
were going to win the battle. In the movie, it was reasonably suspenseful.
The novel’s conflict ended after the final battle in the OASIS, but
kept you reading because Z and Arty had not met in the real world. The movie
has them meet very early, so it kept the evil corporation conflict going
longer. I didn’t think the end of that part of the story worked. For one, the
IOI baddie had no reason not to shoot Wade when he finally found him in the
back of the package truck (after a lame chase scene with one pay-off one liner
that was almost good enough to make up for it). Then, the movie went to the
well two more times with an open-the-doors reveal / close-the-doors aside (with
the police, then with the good guys’ corporation and lawyers, mixed with the
Big Kiss after the win).
It’s always going to be the case that the book goes deeper than the
movie, and your own imagination is better than any art director or animator. Ender’s Game suffered from the same
problems – too much material, too much depth and inner monologue explaining
things in the books that can’t be brought to the movie. There were great elements
here – The Stacks were a perfect visualization; the characters were fun and
varied and had great callbacks; I liked the clans and the 90s / 00s references
(a Halo-centric clan was prominently featured, for example). I didn’t like
Aech, but that could be because the supposed twist was obvious (not just from
reading the book). They reversed Daito and Shoto (Sho in the movie) from the
book to the movie, and the twist on Sho was better than the twist on Aech. I liked
a few elements around the Easter Egg award, including the flashback to the
childhood home rather than the office of the creator and the one last trick /
test.
Overall: a fun ride and a solid story. Good visuals throughout, with
great visuals in places. I think without reading the book, I would have enjoyed
it for what it was rather than compare it to what it could have been. The Ender’s Game comparison is apt, though
Card had the added pressures of real-world politics and many more years of fans
compared to the much more recent RP1
novel and relative obscurity of its author.
Watch it at home, for free.
