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Wheat Loaf posted:Chadwick Boseman is a pretty good singer. I was thinking about saying that it's a shame James Brown died because he would be a perfect ancestor spirit to show up and give guidance, but Chadwick Boseman already was James Brown. 
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Dec 24, 2017 06:50
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Rand Brittain posted:Most of the complaints I've heard are basically "it's a book about how having nothing meaningful in your life except consuming the media people sell you and making that the basis of your identity is super cool." It's also literally nerd gatekeeping: The Movie; the only way to win is to be a REAL fan! And the book is basically "I blasted out of my Firefly Class Ship from the TV show Firefly in my Deloren from the movie Back to the Future blasting the heavy guitars and machine gun drums of I Want To Break Free as Alf from the TV show Alf sat in the passenger seat. Alf turned to me and said "May the force be with you" and I replied "from Star Wars?" and then all the women took their tops off."
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Dec 24, 2017 12:57
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Sgt. Politeness posted:My girlfriend's response to the trailer was basically "gently caress the virtual world, I wanna know more about this junkyard trailer park" The book is crazy like that, the world is this insane shithole and the main character/author really don't seem to care about it. There's a plot point later in the book where the main character goes into hiding by buying a new identity, loading it up with credit card debt and waiting until he is arrested and then sold into literal slavery to pay off the debt (this was all part of a plan to infiltrate the evil bad guy company.) The outside world is like this but the main character only cares about his fake virtual world where he can play dress up with nerd toys.
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Dec 24, 2017 13:17
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It's actually worse than 'consumerism is cool'. The book somehow fails to understand how people can *enjoy* media. The various references are treated without any sort of emotional connection, but as a pure agglomeration of Wikipedia facts. There's like an argument between two characters where the protagonist argues a film (that he supposedly loved enough to watch many times) must be good because the director worked on another good movie.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 13:17
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Oh the protagonist is using my tried and true Michael Bay defense? A good man.
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Dec 24, 2017 14:18
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I neglected to mention this argument happens in front of a spontaneous and admiring audience. So yeah basically CD will probably love it Fangz fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 15:43
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The book is awful, but the movie will probably be at least watchable. It's Spielberg, I don't think he's really capable of putting something out that's actively bad. If you're expecting something of Bayformers-level quality that you can point and laugh at, I suspect you'll be disappointed. Wait, no. I just remembered the Crystal Skull exists. Carry on.
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Dec 24, 2017 16:52
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I think Crystal Skull is better than Lost World. 
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Dec 24, 2017 17:03
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Wheat Loaf posted:I think Crystal Skull is better than Lost World. Whoever wins, we lose.
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Dec 24, 2017 17:24
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muscles like this! posted:The book is crazy like that, the world is this insane shithole and the main character/author really don't seem to care about it. There's a plot point later in the book where the main character goes into hiding by buying a new identity, loading it up with credit card debt and waiting until he is arrested and then sold into literal slavery to pay off the debt (this was all part of a plan to infiltrate the evil bad guy company.) The outside world is like this but the main character only cares about his fake virtual world where he can play dress up with nerd toys. To be fair, winning does give him a vast fortune and control over the corporation that everyone is jizzing themselves over, which probably renders the above moot. Yeah, everyone only cares about the 80s nostalgia virtual world, but it’s also total escapism because the actual one is so lovely. I dunno. It’s not a great book but I think goons have made it seem even worse than it is, at least in terms of theme. I’m not going to defend the actual prose.
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Dec 24, 2017 17:25
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fruit on the bottom posted:I’m not going to defend the actual prose. That's sort of the point, all the prose is terrible and it's a book. So you can basically only say "Elements of the world are interesting in the abstract, although not in execution, because of course in the specific case of the book it's all horribly written". And if the book said that it'd probably talk about Airwolf, because no loving way it can go nearly 30 words without making an 80s reference. Literally just a reference to a thing that was around in the 80s and how the main character remembers it, the end.
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Dec 24, 2017 17:37
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Wheat Loaf posted:I think Crystal Skull is better than Lost World.
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Dec 24, 2017 17:37
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fruit on the bottom posted:To be fair, winning does give him a vast fortune and control over the corporation that everyone is jizzing themselves over, which probably renders the above moot. Yeah, everyone only cares about the 80s nostalgia virtual world, but it’s also total escapism because the actual one is so lovely. It's an insane world, and also (unintentionally?) hilarious because the Big Bad Corporation, instead of actually doing things like, I don't know, murder or extortion, has a special division with thousands of people working on memorizing all the useless trivia that the Oasis creator liked in hopes of finding his Easter Eggs and winning the prize.
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Dec 24, 2017 18:12
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I'd not be surprised if the VR stuff is a small part of the movie with most of it being the hero and the girl running away from corporate goons. His other book, Armada, is exactly the same, except the hero is chosen to fight a secret space war, and he's got a Awesome Mix Tape that he got from his dad.
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Dec 24, 2017 19:18
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twistedmentat posted:His other book, Armada, is exactly the same, except the hero is chosen to fight a secret space war, and he's got a Awesome Mix Tape that he got from his dad. that sounds like a lovely version of the GOTG movie
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Dec 24, 2017 19:27
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It is basically a lovely version of The Last Starfighter.
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Dec 24, 2017 19:33
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FlamingLiberal posted:Neither one is great
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Dec 24, 2017 20:03
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Somehow Armada panders even harder to REAL GAMERS and it's even more cringey. The main character -whose name is, I poo poo you not, Zach Lightman - has a jacket handed down from his father - who is literally the best gamer in the world - with video game championship emblems sewed on it. Like the main character in RPO, who consumes everything the OASIS creator enjoyed, so does this one, but with his father; there are a couple of pages that are literally a list of sci-fi crap he continuously devours. Armada is so massive and spectacular that every single notable game developer worked on it, like Gaben, Miyazaki, Miyamoto and so on. He gets recruited by the Secret Gaming Service when they land a ship in front of his High School and leaves as everyone fawns over him, including the school bully and the girl he pinned for, but they don't matter because when arriving at the Gamer Base he meets a COOL PUNK GAMER GIRL who compliments his nice jacket and they immediately bond. At some point, the MC needs to contact the people in charge of the whole defense system, who are said to be the 5(?) smartest genius on Earth and, of course, one of them is Neil DeGrasse Tyson(Carl Sagan is also mentioned when they watch a video showing the discovery of the aliens). One of the top players he meets is Chinese and I honestly can't remember if there was anything racist about it but I'm going to go on a limb and say yes. There's more poo poo that I can't remember clearly right now, like how, before the last wave that will probably wipe humanity, everyone in his squad is enjoying their last moments by loving each other, which thankfully is not detailed.
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Dec 24, 2017 20:13
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Looking back i gotta give lost world props for making Malcolm's daughter black and not commenting on it at all and she's a boss That's uhhh fairly uncommon
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Dec 24, 2017 20:15
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site posted:Looking back i gotta give lost world props for making Malcolm's daughter black and not commenting on it at all and she's a boss Dude as a little black girl who was obsessed with dinosaurs that was so amazing to me. Also iirc she kicked a raptor in the face, like a boss.
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Dec 24, 2017 20:25
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That’s simultaneously the best and worst scene in that movie.
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Dec 24, 2017 20:44
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Samuringa posted:Somehow Armada panders even harder to REAL GAMERS and it's even more cringey. Oh yea, and the creator of the Space Game comes in to meet the top players, and our hero isn't the top ranked, only like 5th or something, but the creator goes right to him to talk to. And the Punk Gamer Girl has a Tank Girl tattoo because she drives a tank, and then vanishes. Oh and the ending is super stupid the hero finds out that the alien invasion is actually a big test and the alien super computer running it just straight up asks Zach if humanity would like to join the federation, which he says yes to its just so dumb. BTW, if you want to listen to great deconstructions of the books, I Don't Even Own a Television has great episodes about both. http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/2014/06/19/010-ready-player-one-w-mike-sacco/ http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/2015/07/20/034-armada/
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Dec 24, 2017 21:09
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Going to assume that the pinnacle moment of those series is the main character igniting a lightsaber, because Star Wars
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Dec 24, 2017 21:22
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A lot of you people seem to have read this book you hate No wonder these trash authors become so successful when everyone reads their book even if they despise it or think it sounds like poo poo
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Dec 24, 2017 21:42
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It's really easy to read RPO for free. Like Google Books even lets you leaf through a bunch of pages if you don't wanna pirate.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:59
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Also there's this crazy invention called a library.
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Dec 24, 2017 22:07
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I just read screens on twitter from when the movie was announced and it was enough to turn me off
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Dec 24, 2017 22:14
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Yeah I mean there's that too, pretty much all you need to do is read a single page of RPO to get the gist of it (the gist is it's garbage).
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Dec 24, 2017 22:16
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah I mean there's that too, pretty much all you need to do is read a single page of RPO to get the gist of it (the gist is it's garbage). I picked the book up on Kindle last summer without knowing anything about it and gave up after about three chapters. There was a scene where the main character drops an ice burn on his virtual bully and a bunch of students stand around and applaud that just broke me.
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Dec 24, 2017 22:22
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 There you go, the holy grail of pop culture.
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Dec 24, 2017 22:33
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I was given a used copy of this trash book, which took me 5 tries to get through because several friends loved it. Everything about it is so bad that it defies description. It is a book written entirely free of intentionally placed subtext. The author strictly wrote text, and the subtext is all just layers of indictment of his godawful biases.
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Dec 24, 2017 22:33
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I'm mainly familiar with RPO via excerpts. I've not read the whole thing and I don't really want to. Is his "research list" where he describes all the movies he watched and all the games he played in preparation for writing it which ends (hilariously) with "and, of course, Kevin Smith" in the foreword or the acknowledgements or is that a separate thing from the book entirely?
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Dec 24, 2017 22:37
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Wheat Loaf posted:I'm mainly familiar with RPO via excerpts. I've not read the whole thing and I don't really want to. Is his "research list" where he describes all the movies he watched and all the games he played in preparation for writing it which ends (hilariously) with "and, of course, Kevin Smith" in the foreword or the acknowledgements or is that a separate thing from the book entirely? That's literally part of the text of the book. Not acknowledgements, or a "hey kids born after 2000, this is the stuff you should check out to get this book", no Cline needed to make up another page, and he couldn't triple space the text. I read it because it kept popping up on recomended lists and won awards and poo poo, so it had to be good. And I'm exactly the target market for this book, I love all this poo poo, expect the music, its way too drive time classic rock for me. I got it at a used store and paid 3bux for it, and when I finished it I threw it out.
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Dec 24, 2017 23:22
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Zzulu posted:A lot of you people seem to have read this book you hate I was going to say something about how you have to try things before saying they're bad, but I'm the stupid idiot imbecile who bought and read not one, but two Ernest Cline books so, honestly, you're right, gently caress me, I'm to blame for this garbage. twistedmentat posted:Oh yea, and the creator of the Space Game comes in to meet the top players, and our hero isn't the top ranked, only like 5th or something, but the creator goes right to him to talk to. And the Punk Gamer Girl has a Tank Girl tattoo because she drives a tank, and then vanishes. My favorite part of the twist is the ADVANCED SPACE CIVILIZATION judges species based on that test and if you pass, you're integrated into their special Space Club, basically like if you were forced to join the European Union. The ones that fail get loving genocided. The main character has the gall to think in the end "Are these really the good guys? HMMMMM" when they're literally a Warhammer 40k villain.
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Dec 24, 2017 23:41
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I read RPO because I had friends say it was good, and they raved about it on the Tested podcast. It was horrible, so I never bothered with Armada. The bits and pieces I’ve seen have backed that up as a good decision.
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Dec 24, 2017 23:49
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I'm not going to try and argue that reading bits and pieces of things gleaned from Twitter screenshots is necessarily an effective substitute for actually experiencing a piece of media in its entirety but these days it's trivially easy to get enough of an impression about something to form a reasonably educated opinion about whether you think it looks good or looks like poo poo without paying a dime, so the whole "hmmmm you all seem to know a lot about this book you hate, no wonder the author is so successful" thing is a really dumb take even for 2017, The Year of Dumb Takes. Ready Player One is successful because it shamelessly and nakedly panders to a demographic that unabashedly loves being pandered to and is demonstrably willing to shell out money for the experience. It's the literary equivalent of a Funko Pop figure.
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Dec 24, 2017 23:58
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hiddenriverninja posted:Going to assume that the pinnacle moment of those series is the main character igniting a lightsaber, because Star Wars The protagonist of Ready Player One wins the scavenger hunt by reciting and acting out Monty Python and the Holy Grail in its entirety, from memory.
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Dec 25, 2017 00:29
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Zzulu posted:A lot of you people seem to have read this book you hate https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha?utm_campaign=web-share-links&utm_medium=social&utm_source=link
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Dec 25, 2017 00:33
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Removing all the pop culture references might be a fun writing exercise. "I arrived in my custom car."
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Dec 25, 2017 01:03
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hmm the audiobook version is narrated by Wesley Crusher.
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Dec 25, 2017 01:17
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