Ready Player One Critique
Feb. 29th, 2020 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamer (short version): H was leagues better than anything else in Ready Player One and I hear the character real world intro was so much worse in the book
(also she was a lesbian? Movie didn’t mention that but it plays into movie’s slight homophobia—and it usually has to be as bad as Persona 4 for me to notice anything. Maybe I’m getting better about seeing this stuff? Maybe it was just worse than your average? Dunno. According to beta-senpai, Spielberg has a good track record with anti-homophobic tendencies [Directing The Color Purple; a speech against it at Harvard] so Imma put this one at Cline’s feet if he was super involved in the movie. Or the screenwriter. [Research said Cline co-wrote the screenplay, so it’s him or the other writer. Probably.] The “dude, pretty lady could be a dude” moment was played for the usual homophobic laughs, like “ugh I couldn’t think of anything worse” *rolls eyes* moment and the moment where they were playing up the “he really regretted not kissing the Waifu” and they were leading it up to “to continue the quest, Love Interest has to kiss NPC Waifu” and…copped out last second. To titillate with possible Lesbianism for the Male Gaze? To continue with the homophobic humor track? I got no clue. I would’ve liked to see it as a brief moment of ‘yeah, it’s for the quest, but girl kissing girl? Nothing wrong with it’. [Honestly, I wouldn't have been expecting a kiss at all if they hadn't Chekov's kissed it with about a million repetitions of the word 'kiss'.])
Not sure why Bad Guys are Bad other than their Health Insurance plan which is real-world denying coverage, so I don’t see why that’s any worse than Current Corporations. There were a few other characters from the movie—the geeky Evil Sidekick Dude who looks all intimidating and instead just rambles, the Nonsexualized Female Assassin Assistant, and Cool Snarky AI Butler whose coolness factor dropped about fifty degrees when it turned out he was an AI who stopped snarking and started worshipping the moment Main Character actually completed the challenge—that I found interesting. The soundtrack was great. Better than Guardians of the Galaxy (ducks the pitchforks) and hey, don’t think I didn’t notice Alan Silvestri’s name in the credits (of the Mummy Movies, Captain America, and A-Team fame), but half the sing-along songs were better because of previous use (Stayin’ Alive from Mystery Men, for instance). To be fair, that’s kind of the whole point of the movie; I’m not sure it’s a good one.
Game-wise, I was more invested in D’arby the Younger versus Kakyoin in the racing game, for instance. Because there were actual gamers playing actual games with actual rules. They didn’t even show anyone using the Racing Technique of knocking everyone else off the track (I did an informal poll and found that I’m not the only one for whom that was a preferred strategy simply because I couldn’t figure out any other way to win). They did show some of the actual responses to playing roguelike games (well, not entirely permadeath, though you did lose everything…though when geeky Evil Sidekick died there was a pile of stuff so maybe it works like Dark Souls??) fairly accurately (from what I’ve read; I’m not a fan of roguelikes though I don’t mind watching others playing them). Even then, how is it the most stable currency if you can accidentally find a glitch, fall out of the world, and suddenly everything you’ve earned is gone? (That’s happened to me in three of five MMORPGs that I’ve played, Beta-Senpai fell through on the other two, and Markiplier and JackSepticEye are notorious for this.) Can you bank your money? Can you trade it for real-world currency like Russian Gold Farmers? …Actually, geeky Evil Sidekick Iraq (hey, it’s how he pronounced it in the movie) made a big deal about having all his stuff disappear, but didn’t bank any of his stuff in a bank as a precaution knowing he’s given his slightly unhinged boss a means of wiping out every avatar within the area, so there probably isn’t a bank. That leaves badly designed game or people can turn that into real-world currency. Other than that, the rest of MMORPG culture is…nonexistent? Not understood by the writers? For whatever reason, disguising your appearance is how you go undercover (which, it was explained at the beginning of the movie people change their appearance when they feel like, so how does that work again?). There are no gamer tags or global handles or anything (I don’t think I’ve played any MMOG that doesn’t have one). I could see someone having run the race a lot to have memorized it but he didn’t know what the track looked like so how could he have done it with no problems? Even a veteran gamer would be concentrating hard and you’d notice a lot of minute adjustments. Anonymity doesn’t exist; hackers can get it. (Usually, by credit card charges, which is part of why they bother hacking in the first place—it was a big deal for several MMORPGs that got hacked a few years ago in the first place). So if Evil Tech Company wanted they could easily get the information on players that are giving them trouble, more than just “oh, hey, we might get this information by drone if we’re lucky”. No one’s good at every single game, especially not without practicing. The store didn’t have any cosmetics or pets. I call shenanigans. (Again, if they’ve never played an MMOG, only console single-player videogames, then I can see where this would come.) Where’s the lag? Where are the glitches? What about hackers getting access to your account? What about griefers? Scammers? What about the LFG (looking for group) or Trade channels? Do people playing the game trade things?
There was a moment that could have been cool where they set up the (Step-Uncle?) to be humiliated and poor because he’d bought too much equipment and I thought the Villains that Be paid him to somehow betray the MC, like, for example, fake bomb plot that allows for his capture, or something. They could even have tried to use the guy and double-crossed him. But no. And that’s when I started having comparisons to Sword Art Online in my head. Now, it’s not as bad as that, simply because there were characters I liked even as there were other characters whose fates I didn’t care about. I didn’t care about the MC, mostly; Sho (Shou?) was a little interesting because of the “badass 11-year old” scene. Love Interest dying would have made her character more interesting for once and not just be a Fridge the Girlfriend moment; her desire for revenge for her father (so very Yukari Takeba of her) would have outweighed her desire for life or love (and in a world where most fictional female characters are written to place Love above all else, a nice touching Revenge death scene would’ve been amazing); she’d sacrifice herself and save the day and it would mean something, rather than just being safe. At the very least, previously Afraid of Handling Gun villain (which I thought was an amazing, realistic character detail because like many real-world people guns and hurting people are scary that they promptly erased because screw character complexity am I right?) or, better, Assassin Assistant could shoot her shoulder and she could barely make it out. The stakes could feel like actual stakes.
Instead, the stakes don’t feel like real stakes. Because the MC is just so OP and manly and strong and obviously gets the girl, and doesn’t struggle both because he’s awesome and because the villains are so incompetent. There are some competent ones (Assassin Assistant comes to mind), but they fail because the incompetent ones can’t just leave them to do their job. There’s one lady who might be anonymous (I seriously thought she was the Waifu) who was spouting off trivia at her workplace and I bet if they’d given her an Oculus she would’ve solved it for them. Easily. But seriously, they can’t actually make reasonable decisions because they’re so cripplingly incompetent. Only two people die—and I’d like to point it out, I’m not calling for mass death here. I’m calling for meaningful death in the story. I joked about “nooo not Uncle Own and Aunt Beru”, but honestly this is nothing like Star Wars. You might not have known the characters that well, but they had some character and Luke reacted to the death of important people in his life. In RPO, the MC gets one line. One. He reacts a little when it first happens, but you don’t get to see that for long because of the pacing. This is so very SAO it’s painful. (Also an SAO move: the MC explains some trivia to the Love Interest, even though they’re both Creator of the Game Ubergeeks. That’s unrealistic but goes along with the Only The MC Can Be Competent; subverted only slightly because H is competent. Except for a dislike of horror movies, but that’s fair and doesn’t necessarily make someone incompetent. What matters is that she’s competent in different ways than the MC and not meant to be shipped with him as that’d be a cross-racial pairing *rolls eyes again* so that’s Not a Big Deal. Women can be cool, but only if they don’t show up the guys or threaten their sense of superiority *seriously, my eyes hurt at this point*.) How can it mean anything when it feels effortless?
The stakes are...letting a Labeled Evil Corporation have more money and monetize the game to death, or keep it completely the same. Hmm. Except even Abstergo managed to get a ton of volunteers to try out their VR system for cash. If everyone’s super poor, why wouldn’t they get a bunch of people desperate for a job, any job? (Except the city they ended up in just seemed like a normal city, which is…what??) And having the Main Evil Dude be a nerd too would lead to a really cool MC vs Villain nerd-off (but I guess would take people out of the Wish Fulfillment Fantasy; can’t have that just for the sake of better-written complexity).
It’s meant to be a dystopia, so of course it’s not supposed to function well, but I’m not even sure how it functions. Who’s actually employing anyone? (Shown in movie: the only employers are Evil Corporation, someone paying lawyers who want signatures for something, the police, which…who knows where they get their money. Which, Evil or not, employing people in that type of economy would get you gratitude, particularly if you’re paying a bunch of gamers to do what they do best [find bugs]. Instead you’re chaining people in debt in cubicles chained to the wall with zappy ankle bracelets and treating them like dirt so of course morale’s low and you’re very incompetent. The terms of the contract the villain offered were super good; now how about letting people take bathroom breaks and not pee in cups [hey there Amazon] and you’ll have defenders and probably have won. Honestly, you still probably should have won. 1000 gamers can find bugs in the game, guaranteed, and you should be able to reverse-engineer a game.) How does anyone get money to live in the slums? Are they just borrowing and living on neverending debt or what? Sure, the real world is important, but some people still do Twitch streaming, and closing the game on Tuesdays and Thursdays cuts into their ability to make a livelihood.
The creator of the game is written as a caricature “loser nerd”, but there’s no self-awareness here. Neither the characters in-game nor the audience are invited to actually recognize this fact, because doing so unravels the entirety of the story. Sure, there’s value in enjoying or rewriting material despite what the author intended or a dislike of the author (my interaction with Buffy and Firefly), but no mention is made of that—in fact, there’s a deification of the creator. At least in Sword Art Online never mind everything else they got wrong the slight deification swaps entirely when it’s determined that the creator was insane and demanding b.s. tests from people. There could even be a good commentary about how your heroes might not live up to your expectation, but this is definitely not that self-aware.
I’m glad that they removed some of the things I’ve heard about from the book, like the casual racism (the Japanese characters spoke normal English and weren’t horrible stereotypes), and the H reveal (apparently the MC acted “betrayed” that someone would choose to play a different gender than their own on a game? Which is a thing that happens especially when women gamers are trying to be taken seriously?), but not having read the book I can’t say for sure.
Another review mentions that it feels hollow because once disconnected from their original sources, the reason of why any of this is liked is lost, so the heart’s missing. That might be fine for some; the ones that consume without engaging their brain, the gatekeeping Male “Real” gamers, but the ones that are like “I loved this—here’s the things I loved and here’s a few flaws” aren’t the target audience. Which is a shame. People try to shut them down in every online forum ever (as shown by the million threads of “So why would anyone hate SAO??” followed by some sensible comments and other “lol just haters” comments trying to make them sound like complete idiots), so it’d be nice to have an intelligent, not overly emotional/taking it personal conversation about things (self-awareness would be a great first step). In contrast, the line “a fanboy knows a hater” is in the movie, referencing all those “fake geeks” that “real fanboys” can somehow just tell—even if they know the right stuff, they still aren’t “real”. RPO is a celebration of toxic geek culture in which the only way to enjoy a work is to turn off your brain and just say “I like it” without examining it any further. Women, other minorities, and anyone else who likes watching and reading reviews, writing fanfic or making other fanworks to interact with and fix their fandom of choice, and having long discussions about the world and meaning of any particular character, scene, or other writing choice are not meant to enjoy or even feel welcome. You’re supposed to catch the references and smile, but not think about why you liked those references in the first place. It’s not an homage, it’s a password to the sekrit awesome clubhouse. And definitely don’t question how any of it works. Because it falls apart, and it’s not the point.
The world isn’t much better written than Sword Art Online, and yet I still enjoyed watching it more. I wasn’t watching as closely (I was actually looking at job ads the entire time, and liveblogging via comments to a roommate who was uninterested in watching it due to having already experienced it via movie critic, and watching it, but I think the real difference lay in that there were a few characters that I cared whether they lived or died (still not the main character, but hey, Wish Fulfillment Gary Stu is not actually a character no matter where he appears). I did find predicting the plot interesting, although I wanted the plot twists to actually occur, and it was far too predictable. Also, I didn’t have to completely turn off my brain to watch, which is a plus.
If you want a Geeks Save the World thing, try The Last Starfighter or Galaxy Quest. If you want a better People Stuck in a Game, .hack or Log Horizon did it better. Hey, if you want Geeky Romance, give Scott Pilgrim vs the World a try. My ultimate score is: I wasn’t so bored I stopped, like what happened with SAO, but I wished I was watching or playing one of those instead.
Though if Nicholson had showed up as a zombie lady he would have killed it. And I am sad that that is not a thing that exists.
