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Ready Player One (2018) FILM Discussion


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5 hours ago, Richard said:

 

I hear what you're saying, @Richard Penna, but JURASSIC PARK/SCHINDLER'S LIST was a two-picture deal.

He had to shoot SL in March, to get an authentic "winter" feeling.

I see no problem with going from a summer blockbuster, to December Oscar bait, and Lucas doing post on JP certainty didn't do Universal any harm, in 1993: 15 Oscar nods, 10 awards, from just two movies, and the biggest film in history. It was a win/win.

 

I don't have any issue at all with him making both films, but it seems that in both dual productions, the oscar bait got more of his attention.

 

Can't he just finish a film before moving on, like other directors do?

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I totally agree with Will about his take on RPO. The way the Halladay character is portrayed by Rylance (and the script) is especially well done. Going into the movie, I kind of expected Halladay to be disagreeable in a kind of Silicon Valley tech-bro way. I couldn't have been more wrong. Also, after seeing it, I'm convinced Spielberg does action almost as good as James Cameron.

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There are many great musical moments. Did I imagine I heard a snippet of 1941. I loved the Max Steiner bit

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Just now, Margo Channing said:

 

Sort of. Kinda reminded me of Super 8.

Yes! And it probably is a slightly better film.

 

Karol

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The fact that there's a SS film that opens with a Van Halen song and has a scene that basically "references" AKA rips off iconic scenes from The Shining without contributing much of anything of an original spin to said scenes aside from floating CG things is...odd, to say the least.

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Saw it last night, overall I think it was a fun film. A few slight problems here and there with severely underdeveloped characters/motivations and a few too many 80's references for a story set in 2045, but I think it was one of Spielberg's more engaging films of the last few years.

 

Silvestri's score was there, but I was kind of hoping for a diversity of themes, and half of it is drowned out by the sound fx.

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

The problem of new Spielberg films is not that they are worse than the old ones, but downright forgettable. Does this also apply for Ready Player One?

 

You say that like none of the old Spielberg movies are forgettable.

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On 4/2/2018 at 6:36 AM, Brundlefly said:

The problem of new Spielberg films is not that they are worse than the old ones, but downright forgettable. Does this also apply for Ready Player One?

 

Yes.

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I saw it earlier today. Hadn't read the book, so I'm just going by the movie's own merits. It was entertaining, had its heart in the right place, but undone by excessive VFX and a bit too long for its own good.

 

I realize that the story necessitates a lot of VFX, but Spielberg could've used a few more in-camera tricks to make it more convincing. It got really distracting, and in the 3D format that I saw, it hurt my eyes at times. Alan Silvestri's score was also entertaining, but it wasn't as memorable as it should've been.

 

It's eye candy but it needed to be leaner and more tangible.

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5 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

I haven't seen the film myself, but from the sound of it, it reminds me of someone dangling a cat toy in front of a cat, but instead it's Steven Spielberg dangling nostalgia in front of middle-aged nerds.

It is exactly that. But, surprisingly, the film isn't as bad as that description. Just forget everything you know about the artistry of cinema and you'll be fine. ;)

 

Karol

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Bad comparison. Roger Rabbit was mainly live action with supporting animated characters and environments. It also had a much better story.

 

RPO is like taking Eddie's brief excursion through the insanity of Toontown and making that the majority of the movie!

 

The CG in this film is just overwhelming and headache-inducing. It also lacks Spielberg's touch, as though he wasn't even involved with those sequences. It's like he handed it over to the computer guys and they made a 2 hour video game cut scene.

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I was left wanting more human interaction, scenes shot on a set and with more substance and heart - just to break up the constant assault of CG.

 

I haven't read the book but apparently Wade doesn't meet Sam in the real world until the very end, God, how interesting and emotional that would've been but instead we meet her almost 1/4 through the film. 

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I’ve read the book. I thought in the film The oasis stuff was really great, I just wish the real world tone was a bit darker and more threatening, like minority report or AI. Instead we kind of good a version of hook where the bad guys aren’t really that bad, and the stakes aren’t all that high

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On 28/3/2018 at 8:55 PM, Richard Penna said:

 

I don't have any issue at all with him making both films, but it seems that in both dual productions, the oscar bait got more of his attention.

 

Schindler's List isn't "oscar bait" (whatever that means), but instead a very personal project that Spielberg nurtured for many years. Whatever you may think about the film's inner qualities, it's not something he did just to win trophies and awards. Quite the contrary, he almost put his own career at risk with such a project (hence why he had to deliver a huge blockbuster to Universal Pictures before getting the greenlight for Schindler's List)

 

On 4/4/2018 at 12:34 PM, Stefancos said:

Think of RPO as the spiritual cousin of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

 

I think it's a very fitting comparison. Spielberg tried to do his own version of Zemeckis' classic in many ways. And like that film, I think the most interesting angle to see and "read" RPO is the meta-textual one. It's very much a film about movies almost to the point that, like Jurassic Park, it's also a film that talks about itself. It's almost obvious to see Hallyday as a representation of Spielberg himself, while Wade/Parzival is a character that represents the young generation that Spielberg hopes will come to save the escapist entertainment movie industry.

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Saw the film last night. It was a lot of fun. It won't rank very high on the list of Spielberg films but it's far from terrible. 

 

Overdoes the 80s nostalgia but then again so does the book. There's a distinct lack of peril in the book and I think SS made an effort to address that in the film. Even Simon Pegg's stupid face didn't ruin it for me. 

 

I enjoyed it. I'd rather watch this than another superhero film anyway, that's for sure! 

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Saw the film this weekend. It was ok. Didn’t really feel like a Spielberg film.

 

The Shining bit had me laughing.

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Abrams, really? Wow! It felt absolutely nothing like an Abrams picture to me. Edgar Wright or Matt Vaughn, sure. But nothing whatsoever like the work of JJ.

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I see that RPO was blown out of the water by a relatively small film this weekend.  I wonder if Spielberg will ever come close to recapturing the glory of a true blockbuster that has real legs and cultural impact. 

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As in he does not have enough time left to do so, or a 70 year old just cannot tap into pop culture in a way that really resonates? 

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Do blockbuster “have legs” anymore anyway? They usually reach the billion within 3 weeks and disappear again. 

 

Titanic, Fellowship of the Ring, and Avatar seemed to stay in theatres forever but those are few and far between.

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So, all in all the film doesn't work, like Children of Men and Mad  Max: Fury Road, as linear spectacle entertainment with a multilayered environment which is there but not focussed on?

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17 minutes ago, Tom said:

As in he does not have enough time left to do so, or a 70 year old just cannot tap into pop culture in a way that really resonates? 

 

Directors usually decline when they get older - exceptions prove the rule - but Spielberg is a prime case. He was tops when he was young and hungry. 

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