Ready Player One
is a 2011 science fiction novel by Ernest Cline which became a feature film in
2018 directed by Steven Spielberg. I watched the movie first which is unusual
for me because I like to read the books first before seeing the films. After
watching it, I read the book and re-watched the movie. I came to an odd and
rare conclusion: the book and movie were both entertaining on their own.
However, together I see the movie as better than the book which is something I
rarely say. Both have their merits with the story and both can appeal to the
reader and the expert and the novice gamers.
The book opens with the narrator, later revealed to be Wade
Watts, introducing the audience to the great and powerful, James Halliday, the
creator of OASIS the massive multiplayer online virtual world. Halliday has
died, leaving behind no family, so he created a game so that a single player can
inherit his estate. The Hunt for the Easter Egg, the ultimate prize, begins.
Wade lives in a dystopian world in 2044 where most people spent their day in
the OASIS, some were hunting for the egg and others were simply living in a
virtual reality because it was better than the real world. Wade soon discovers
the first clue in The Hunt and soon it becomes a race against time as he is up
against the evil Nolan Sorrento and the Innovative Online Industries (IOI) who
want to control the OASIS themselves.
The movie opens in Columbus, Ohio 2045 and it’s been 5 years
since Halliday has died and The Hunt began. Eighteen-year-old, Wade Watts
(played by Tye Sheridan) lives in “The Stacks” with his aunt and her boyfriend
of the day. It is a world where “people stopped trying to fix problems and just
tried to outlive them.” He has virtual friends, Aech, Art3mis, Daito and Sho,
and together they team up to figure out the clues which leads them to the next
challenge. However, he must be careful. Can he really trust them? No one is
really who they seem in the OASIS and his “friends” could be members of the
dreaded Sixers, IOI employees whose sole purpose is to figure out the
challenges and find the egg. Their leader, Nolan Sorrento (played by Ben
Mendelsohn) tries his own tactics in the real world to win the game.
As I mentioned in the introduction this is an odd and rare
instance where the book and movie cannot be compared. Each were enjoyable on
their own and there is so much in the book that cannot translate to the big screen.
So much had to cut or changed in order to keep the audience engaged. For
example, in the book, Wade plays the game, Joust,
in the first challenge and unless you are the ultimate gamer (which I am not),
you cannot imagine what the game looks like as he plays it. In the movie, the
first challenge is changed to a racing game which many people are familiar with. Even though the ending is a bit predictable but still enjoyable. I also enjoyed that the moral of the book remained the same in the movie:
“As terrifying as reality is, it’s the only place you can find happiness
because reality is real.”
In conclusion, both the book and movie were filled with 80s
pop culture references from television, movies, music, books and, of course,
video games. Many of the characters are the same with their bios being
relatively unchanged from book to movie. I enjoyed each on their own. However,
if I had to choose, I would watch the movie again over reading the book. The
book was weighed down with a lot of narrative which, while important to the story,
seemed to drag on and on. I think the background information could have been
shorter while still being effective. The book is a great read for the gamer
bookworms out there and the movie is a fun, entertaining adventure story for
the novice gamers. I highly recommend both.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
is available in
paperback and eBook
at all major
booksellers
Ready Player One (2018)
is available on DVD,
Blu-Ray and digital download
at all major
retailers
