Ready Player One (the book) is Terrible

The hardest thing about discussing film online is that there's this really toxic misunderstanding that the importance or the value of opinions can be defined by how entertaining they are. Now, this just isn't true. But the problem faced by people like me is that our ability to cover a topic hinges entirely upon how entertaining the video we make could potentially be. And so, when I spend over ten minutes discussing the faults of Infinity War, and then my thoughts on this movie are a lot shorter and with some words of praise than the impression is almost certainly going to be that I liked Ready Player One more than I did Infinity War. And this is just not the case.

Because Infinity War is this box office shattering, unique, beautiful, hilarious film. And Ready Player One, I went in expecting it to be the worst movie of all time. And instead, it's just this passable, underachieving Friday night blockbuster. Now, the film has a lot of issues. The pop-culture references seem to be selected out of recognizability and not actual relevance to the plot or the themes. The clues that the main characters find in the movie are so blatantly obvious that it's impossible to believe that it's been years since anyone figured these things out. It takes someone like five years to look for an invisible wall in an Easter egg hunt. And the scenes where characters stop and analyze the plot don't actually match up to the scenes where the plot is happening. Like at the end of the film, Wade runs up to Ogden and it's like, "It was all about you, Halliday. Just wanted to make a quest that showed how much he appreciated the friendship that you two shared and how much, how much that meant to him throughout his entire life." And it's this nice little wholesome moment. It's nice. But it doesn't match up to anything else in the movie. "Hey, I didn't, I wanted to convey how much your friendship meant to me, so I made a sidequest about how I wanted to bone your dead wife." Yeah.

But what can I say? Steven Spielberg is a talented director and filmmaker. And honestly, there were a lot of scenes that I was totally invested in that I loved. And I thought that I thought were unique and incredible, even if those scenes have nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Because there was like no connection whatsoever. Honestly, one of the reasons that I can't go too hard on this movie is that I relate to the plight of these filmmakers. Because Ready One, the book, is not something that I have any sympathy for. So I wanted to get my review of this book out before the movie came out. But I got so sidetracked with other projects that I just didn't have the time. And to be honest, when I'm not working on a video, I'm trying to get out and like enjoy myself. So I don't have a lot of time in my day to just whip out a 600-page book and rough through it for a potential video. And honestly, I would not have been able to get this video out as quickly as I have if it were not for today's sponsor, Audible.

A lot of people know about Audible, but I don't think everyone understands the scope of how incredible this service is. Audible is a website and app that allows you to download and read books on the go. Every month that you have a membership with them, Audible allows you to download one book of any price and any length, absolutely free. That deal is an incredible steal. Not to mention the fact that even after that, any other books you buy that month are 30% off. And with the Audible app, you can download these books onto your phone so that you can take a listen and whenever you have the free time, even when you're on the go. Use my link audible.com/Quinton or text Quinton to 500 500 to get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial.

Now, obviously, I've been listening to the Ready Player One audiobook, which is masterfully narrated by Wil Wheaton, who you probably know as that guy that blocked you on Twitter for some reason. Also, I think he was in Stargate. However, I additionally want to recommend Norse Mythology, narrated by Neil Gaiman, the writer himself. It's a fantastic retelling of original myths featuring such characters as Thor and Odin. It's so easy to see these characters as creations of modern pop culture, and it's honestly refreshing to remember that they date back as far as 14 centuries. Once again, check out my link audible.com/Quinton or text Quentin to 500 500. Be sure to tell me what you think of the recommended books, and also tell me what books I should check out next month.

So, when you pick up a physical copy of Ready Player One, the first thing you're going to notice is the atrocious quotes plastered all over it. "Willy Wonka meets The Matrix." "Incredibly entertaining." "A geek fantasia." "A rollicking, surprise-laden, pot-boiling." And my favorite, "Delightful." "The grown-ups Harry Potter." I do despise how Harry Potter has become like the modern standard for all literature. Yeah, it's kind of like Harry Potter. Given that there are words in it and you know, all that. I get that it's good, but is it as good as Harry Potter? It's better than a Harry Potter and worse than Terry Pratchett. I think that when you throw these quotes, the sentiment that is absolutely conveyed by them is this book has some good ideas in it. And I certainly can agree. There's so many cool ideas and Ready Player One. I mean, it has fantastic worlds, this dystopian future with with the stacks and everything, this virtual reality simulation game. And it does introduce so many ideas that are so cool. The problem is that all the book really does is indeed convince you that they are good ideas because it talks about these ideas, it introduces them, but it doesn't explore them in any interesting way. And it certainly doesn't say anything about the ideas. This book thinks of interesting ideas, awkwardly drops them, and then just shrugs and keeps fumbling for words.

So, the most infamous element of Ready Player One is the blatantly pander-some throwbacks. The entire book is written from the perspective of characters who are obsessed with the culture of the 80s, or rather, should be said, the culture of the 1960s to the 1980s. The problem is that the book is said in 2044. And in 2044, characters aren't gonna care about 80s culture. Realistically, they're probably going to be obsessed with things that are coming out right now. But in the opening chapters, this is sort of semi-explained. There was this guy named Halliday. He built a really cool video game. And when he died, he said that he left an Easter Egg somewhere in there. And whoever found the Easter Egg would win his entire fortune. And so most of society becomes reattached with his nostalgia in order to find his money. This is hilarious, but I feel like the author doesn't realize it's hilarious. Because what a better way to lampoon nostalgia and an obsession with the past than having an entire society become obsessed with someone else's nostalgia? To have nostalgia for someone else's nostalgia, that's ridiculous. You saved me. Honest. When I read that, I suddenly went into this book with different standards. Suddenly, I wanted Ready Player One to be the geeky version of Midnight in Paris. But Ready Player One doesn't have any clever goal or purpose with its constant implementations of references to other works. It's just blatantly a bunch of stuff that the author likes, so he decides to reference randomly.

"The DeLorean came outfitted with a non-functioning flux capacitor, but I'd made several additions to the equipment and appearance. First, I installed an artificially intelligent on-board computer named K.I.T.T. into the dashboard, along with a matching Knight Rider scanner embedded in the DeLorean's grille. Finally, to complete my ad super vehicle, I slapped a Ghostbusters logo on each of the DeLorean's skull doors and then personalized plates that read 'ECTO 88.' I'd only had it a few weeks now, but my time-traveling, ghost-busting, Knight-riding, matte-penetrating DeLorean had already become my avatar's trademark." Yeah, there's a lot of pages in the book er that art that are written like that.

So, there's this moment partway into the book where Wade has installed an artificial intelligence into his computer that is mimicking Max Headroom. Now, Max Headroom was a character from the 80s that was supposed to be like the first artificial computer intelligence. And Wade points out that people in the 80s had put prosthetics on a real actor to make him look like a computer-generated image. And now he was using computer-generated technology to make an AI look and sound like a guy in prosthetics. And it's just like, that's so close to saying something about anything. Ernest, you are staring at potential social commentary, and you are slamming the door in its face. The people of the 1980s used their limited technology to imagine an expansive and exciting future. And now that we live in that future, we use our unlimited technology to recreate the 80s. That's incredibly ironic. But Wade doesn't bring up this fact to point out that society is hypocritical and repetitive and stupid. He does it because it's a stupid fact about his favorite movie. Care / MTV host / I don't know. Didn't he hijack a television station or something?

So, a couple passages and we start getting told a little bit about the world and the kind of life that Wade has been living. We learn about the Gunter's. The Gunter's are the people that hunt for the Easter egg left behind by Halliday. And then we get to this horrible passage that lasts like five honest-to-god pages where Wade is just listing off recognizable pop-culture things that he has watched. People pointed out that if you don't know everything about the pop culture that is randomly brought up in this book, then these passages come across as mindless drivel. But as someone who honestly recognizes most of the references that the author dishes out in this, it's also super unimpressive. The references in this book would be the equivalent of me turning to you and on ironically saying the sentence, "I have seen every Star Trek episode, film, or spin-off ever created. Beam me up, Scotty." Now, can't you immediately tell that I'm lying? I studied Monty Python, and not just Holy Grail either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC series. What about The Simpsons, you ask? I knew more about Springfield than I knew about my own city. Star Trek? Oh, I did my homework. TOS, TNG, DS9, even Voyager and Enterprise. I watched them all in chronological order. The movies too. Phasers locked on target. I gave myself a crash course in 80s Saturday morning cartoons. Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, Schoolhouse Rock, G.I. Joe. I knew them all. "Because knowing is half the battle." That's what it says. I'm not, I'm not lying. This, that's what he wrote. This is how the book is written. I memorize every last Bill Hicks stand-up routine. I've burned through the entire They Might Be Giants discography in under two weeks. Steve-O took a little longer. Did you know that Midnight Oil was an Australian band with a 1987 hit titled "Beds Are Burning"? Did you listen to these songs, or did you read the Wikipedia articles about them? Also, bragging about listening to They Might Be Giants is like bragging about breathing. It fell right next to this, which is the book I should have read. No one references pop culture in this book like a normal nerd. Like, I'm a nerd. I'll admit that. I'm a geek. I know how we talk. We quote The Simpsons. We quote Transformers: The Movie. We quote Randy of the Redwoods because we're weird. That's just how we act. I swear to God, I do not remember a single time in this book where someone referenced pop culture without turning to the camera and saying the title of the pop culture thing that they're referencing. Like, it's not a good thing that this is a book about being a nerd, and there are multiple times in this in the book where I was reading and like, I thought of a nerdy joke. Like I quoted Monty Python to myself, or and made a Simpsons reference. Like, that's what these characters should be doing if they're actually geeks. This isn't even pop-culture pandering, this is pop culture validation. It's written this way so that Ernest Cline can reference things like Doctor Who, Robotech, and G.I. Joe without actually knowing anything about them, so that some geek somewhere will see the thing that they like being referenced and will suddenly like the book more because they feel like they've been validated.

One of the things that I liked about Ready Player One, the movie, is that one of the only reasons that Wade is able to get the lead in the competition is that instead of just memorizing all of the TV shows that Halliday liked or whatever, he tries to get a hold of Halliday's personality, his beliefs, his fears, his insecurities, his regrets. And it's only because of this that he is able to get ahead in the competition. In the book, so he reaches the first gate. In the book, he goes and expecting something challenging like a boss or like a puzzle. And guess what happens? He's in the movie WarGames, and he has to recite it line by line, or he fails. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? I never got the feeling of any stakes in this book for several very good reasons. For one, most of the intense segments are describing him playing arcade games from the 80s. The art of prose is incredible because it allows you to be so imaginative to describe any situation that you want without any limitations. And you use that space to describe this. Second of all, anytime that this main character runs into any problem in this book, he magically has a backstory explaining why he can solve it with no effort. I never once believed that he was going to lose in this book because he's constantly saying things like, "Oh, the challenge is Joust. It's a good thing I played Joust a bunch of times with my best friend and I'm basically perfect at it." Or like, "Oh, WarGames. I've seen WarGames so many times that I haven't entirely memorized. I can easily beat this challenge." I swear to God, at one point in the book, he finds like a guitar in the challenge and he's like, "It's a good thing I know how to play guitar." [ __ ] you know you don't. And he plays like the one song that he needs to play to unlock some sort of additional Easter egg. What again? This comes across as not meaning anything. These are just things that Halliday liked and that the main character is like exclusively because they want his money. There is little to no commentary on the nature of the hunt or any of the elements that they're incorporating. And it just makes it feel so without depth or weight or even importance. When the final challenge of the game is honest to God reciting Monty Python and the Holy Grail word-for-word, then I'm not left with an impression that that choice means anything. Monty Python and the Holy Grail was not chosen because it has any importance to Halliday's life or these characters. It's just a thing that uh everyone knows about. And then at the end of the book, Halliday comes back as a ghost and he goes up the way and he's all like, "Hey kid, maybe don't play video games as much as I did. The real world is pretty important, apparently." What? Where does that come from? That's not the theme of the book. Don't pretend that's the theme of the book. That's not the theme of the book.

Let's talk about how this book is written because by gods, it's a burden. So we start off on chapter zero, which is written basically just detailing the history of Halliday's hunt and how the video describing the hunt was released on the day of his death. And then the end, the writer previews that he was the person that solved the hunt and that he's going to explain how he did it. "Dozens of books, cartoons, movies, and miniseries have attempted to tell the story of everything that happened next, but every single one of them got it wrong. So I want to set the record straight once and for all." I feel like this guy sounds [ __ ] awesome. He's like this cool, intelligent, reserved dude who's who's been through a lot but is ready for some intense self-reflection and to tell the story of his life. The problem is that the rest of the book is written in two main ways: really boring Wikipedia article and fifteen-year-old Linkara. I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front as soon as I was old enough to understand it. "That story you heard about how we were all created by a super powerful dude named God who just lived up in the sky? Total [ __ ]. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling each other for thousands of years. We made it up, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Oh, and by the way, there's no Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Also, [ __ ] sorry, kid. Deal with it." Like, earnest, earnest, buddy-buddy. I get that like a seventeen-year-old thinks like this and a seventeen-year-old talks like this. But you are writing this like it's a 30-year-old describing his life. Why is a 30-year-old talking like this? "You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that happens to every other human being who has ever lived. You are going to die. We all die. That's just how it is." And it's like, Jesus Christ, dude. You're just screwed. Do you know imagine if you read the autobiography of the guy that like beat beat the Pac-Man high score, whatever, and he started talking like this.

Wait, is this weird, insecure, idiotic, misogynistic troll? And the weird thing is, despite having read the entire book, I'm not sure if these are actually supposed to be negative qualities. At no point in the book does anyone stop to tell him that what he's doing is messed up or that he's changed for the better. If anything, he's actively rewarded for his manipulative, stalker attitude. This character is the worst because he's honestly so obnoxious, so unsympathetic, but he won't shut up. Like, at no point in this book does he ever analyze the nature of nostalgia or the kind of person that Halliday was. But by the gods, he goes on little mini rants about how he feels about the existence of God and global warming and masturbation in stupid detail. Like, oh my God, dude. I'm sorry. Go back to talking about Power Rangers or whatever.

Most of you have probably heard whisperings that Wade is a misogynistic, impulsive idiot, and you've presumed that it's just masterclass satire and all the critics are too stupid to understand. But I don't think that's true. Wade is this undercover government hacking badass who wins billions of dollars because he memorized a Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The only thing that you really feel coming from him is pride for this lifestyle and this kind of person. When he gets rejected by the girl that he's been following online for several years, and then he goes on to stalk and harass her, we're supposed to feel bad for him. Because by gods, that harlot, how could she do that to him?

I wanted to bring up a poem written by Ernest Cline. This poem is called "Nerd Porn," and it's about what sort of porn Ernest Cline likes watching. This single poem has brutally murdered any lingering respect I had for this book because it makes something abundantly clear: Ready Player One has no satire or self-awareness because the author is Wade.

"I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies that are made for guys like me. Adult films are populated with these collagen-injected, liposuctioned women. These aren't real women, they're objects, and these movies aren't erotic, they're pathetic." Milan car is pretty much my MatPat. And it's not that I'm against pornography. I mean, I'm a guy, and guys need porn. Fact. Like a preacher needs pain. Like a needle needs a vein. Guys need porn. It doesn't even rhyme. I want porno movies that are made with guys like me in mind. Guys who know that the sexiest thing in the world is a woman who is smarter than you. This reminds me that stupidly pretentious viral video. What was it like? "I want a girl that reads." You can have the whole cheerleading squad. I want the girl on the tweed shirt and the horn-rimmed glasses. Betty, fine. Bowski, the valedictorian. Oh yes. If you feel uncomfortable, remember that this is spoken poetry, so I could be playing the actual author saying all of these things, and you'd feel a lot grosser. I notice that they don't seem to be any porno movies that are made for guys like me. These aren't real women, they're objects, and these movies aren't erotic, they're pathetic. Pieces. Back you're headed. [ __ ] bunnies don't turn me on, they disgust me. And it's not that I'm against pornography. I mean, I'm a guy, and guys need more. In fact, okay, Ernest, I noticed that you've started this palm out like it was an attack on the fake nature of porn, but you're pretty much at this stage using it to attack certain kinds of women entirely on the basis of whether or not you would sleep with them. But go on, I guess. First, I want to copy her trig homework. Then I want to make mad, passionate love it gets better for hours until she reluctantly asks if we can stop because she doesn't want to miss Battlestar Galactica. I shall be the quintessential nerd porn auteur, and the women in my porno movies will be the kind that drives nerds like me mad with desire. I'm talking about the girls they used to [ __ ] up the grading curve. Chicks with weird clothes, braces, four eyes, and a 4.0 GPA. If you're an intelligent woman interested in breaking into the adult film industry, and if you can tell me the name of Luke Skywalker's home planet, then you are hired. It doesn't matter if you think you're overweight or unattractive. It doesn't matter if you don't think you're beautiful. You are beautiful. Rubenesque, even. Just imagine that for 600 pages.

There's so much wrong with this book. I could talk about it for hours. Let me try and wrap this one up. I've noticed this weird trend in nerd culture where it's becoming constantly less important that you actually stop and enjoy these stories that everyone likes, and more important that you have an obsessive, encyclopedia knowledge of these stories. Meaning that basically, you can go read a fan wiki and get just as much relevant information that you need as if you were to actually watch these things. And Ready Player One is a great representation of this, not only because its references hold absolutely no weight, but also because it's a book built off of people's loves for the ideas and not for the actual content. I get why people like this book, and I even understand why people enjoy the movie adaptation. But I just don't respect this story. And honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to make a video about this, I would have retained none of this. Look, okay, I didn't like this book. If you liked it, I can't take it away from you. If you hated it, good. We're on the same page. That's all you need.