That’s my thought on both the book and the movie. Perhaps its not the book’s fault. There was so much hype surrounding it when it came out I thought it must be awesome. Instead I found the same simply story I’d read in a dozen other books, except this one drowning in a sea of 80s and 90s pop culture references. If it was a simply summer read without the hype I likely would have liked it for what it was.
I had similar disappointment when I finally read Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”. I read that same type of story a dozen times in other much better books but everyone was saying it was a groundbreaking book.
Regarding The Da Vinci Code, I had already read a conspiracy “non-fiction” book called The Templar Revelation that posited the idea of Jesus having living descendants when the Dan Brown novel came out, and I thought “well I’ve already read that, haven’t I?”
I read it after reading The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, which was a much more compelling fiction. I also read Focault’s Pendulum around the same time, and what a ride that was.
I had heard nothing about it before it came out. I had a friend who was just like “you’ll like this book” so I read it. It was a simple story, but I enjoyed it. The movie, not so much.
I found the book kind of insufferable, so I never bothered with the movie. Every ‘puzzle’ was solved by the protagonist saying something like ‘fortunately, I’d memorised the entire script of War Games’ or something. I started to wonder how many lifetimes it’d take to actually learn and memorise all that stuff.
EVERY SINGLE CHOICE made in Ready Player One. What a disappointment.
That’s my thought on both the book and the movie. Perhaps its not the book’s fault. There was so much hype surrounding it when it came out I thought it must be awesome. Instead I found the same simply story I’d read in a dozen other books, except this one drowning in a sea of 80s and 90s pop culture references. If it was a simply summer read without the hype I likely would have liked it for what it was.
I had similar disappointment when I finally read Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”. I read that same type of story a dozen times in other much better books but everyone was saying it was a groundbreaking book.
Regarding The Da Vinci Code, I had already read a conspiracy “non-fiction” book called The Templar Revelation that posited the idea of Jesus having living descendants when the Dan Brown novel came out, and I thought “well I’ve already read that, haven’t I?”
I read it after reading The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, which was a much more compelling fiction. I also read Focault’s Pendulum around the same time, and what a ride that was.
I had heard nothing about it before it came out. I had a friend who was just like “you’ll like this book” so I read it. It was a simple story, but I enjoyed it. The movie, not so much.
The people saying Davinci Code (2003) was groundbreaking never read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” from 1982:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail
Or the Preacher comics from 1995-2000:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
I found the book kind of insufferable, so I never bothered with the movie. Every ‘puzzle’ was solved by the protagonist saying something like ‘fortunately, I’d memorised the entire script of War Games’ or something. I started to wonder how many lifetimes it’d take to actually learn and memorise all that stuff.
I actually liked it. The book was good too. I wasn’t completely disaffected. Agree to disagree.
A few of the visuals in the movie were stunning to me!
I also didn’t mind it in either medium. It’s not like it’s a novel of a generation. Fun silly book, fun silly movie
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