In theory, I have every reason to like "Ready Player One".
In terms of taste, I can almost count as an American house:
Sci-fi fan, more than 20 years of game history (both console and PC), carefully listened to European and American rock of the last century, Kubrick’s diehard fan, Monty Python fan—it can be said that this film contains a million I can easily identify each easter egg and give it a knowing smile.
Not to mention that I am currently working in the VR industry. My daily task is to design and plan VR experiences. The technical elements of the VR industry in it are basically the things I need to come into contact with every day of my work.
If you want to ask questions such as "Can those VR technologies in "Ready Player One" be realized", there are probably no other guys in China who are more expert than me.
But I still don't like this movie.
Why? I think the film critics who praised this film have explained the advantages of the film almost in detail. The most impressive thing about this movie, according to many comments I have seen, is this:
"The "Top Player" is an acknowledgment for those of us who have played games for so many years, watched movies for so many years, or, in general, the generation of Chinese audiences who have enjoyed popular culture-our "funny ambitions" for so many years, and It's not vain and futile."
It recognizes that our entertainment is a valuable act.
For the young and middle-aged Chinese audiences who have been carrying the title of "playing things and losing their ambitions" since childhood, this kind of recognition is simply a clear stream and blows into people's hearts. Because it is too difficult for Chinese youth to find this kind of recognition in real life.
I think the core thing I don't like actually comes from this recognition itself. If we think about it carefully, we will find that the acknowledgment created by the director through this 140-minute movie is untenable.
Let's go back to the plot setting of this movie (also the original):
The talented game designer Halliday created a virtual game world "oasis" and became the richest man in the world. After he died, he left three easter eggs in the game. Finding these three easter eggs will be able to inherit all his wealth and the administrator rights of "Oasis".
So everyone in the world has invested in his research. And the object of research is all the traces left by him:
His daily life, his past history, the pop culture he loved in the 80s, the games he played, the movies he watched, the music he listened to... all of this. The evil development peripheral company IOI also hired a large number of experts in this area to do this kind of research through the power of the organization, hoping to finally gain control of the oasis.
In the original novel, the author has undoubtedly substituted himself into the identity of the richest genius designer. I can almost see the fanatical thoughts in his head while writing this novel:
One day I will become the richest man in the world, what am I going to do-I want everyone to listen to me! Everyone likes what I like! Let everyone agree with me!
Don't you think that this kind of thinking has an incomparable arrogance?
The biggest reason why we love what we love is precisely that it is "worthless" in nature.
We play games because the games are interesting, and we also have very annoying types of games, so just don’t play them; we watch movies because they are good-looking, and don’t touch movies that are not good-looking.
We do these things that we are willing to do because these things do not produce value, they are part of consumption. Once consumption becomes production, the game immediately deteriorates.
What if I just don't like "The Shining"?
What if I just think the games on the Atari2600 are boring? (To be honest, I don’t believe that players who have not experienced that era will really find those old games interesting)
You hang a 500 billion dollar carrot on my head and force me to delve into these things. Isn't this the most fundamental capitalism?
When the genius designer Holedy did this, wouldn't it be possible that the emergence of IOI is a necessity, and it is actually his fellow traveler?
Turning games from entertainment to production is the most fundamental capitalism. Capitalism is such a process of turning people into machines, which Marx called " alienation " (Entfremdung).
500 billion dollars actually destroyed all the meaning of this game and turned it into a machine production process.
As players, we will laugh at games that "just recharge and win", or page games such as "Blue Moon" that "you can get a magic ring to exchange for money", or the gold in World of Warcraft The studio (the IOI in "Ready Player One" is such an organization), then change it into a "game easter egg", why can't you see it?
From this perspective, Holland destroys not only the Easter Egg game, but another very valuable thing he destroys is the innovative spirit on which his own success depends.
I can hardly imagine a future in 2045. In a virtual world that is supposed to be the most creative, the most popular things are actually from the 1980s! Please, it has been more than 60 years. We can quote Baoshu's three laws of popular culture adapted from Douglas Adams:
a. Most of the pop culture that I had when I was born is outdated and not worth mentioning
b. Most popular cultures born between my 10-30 years old are classics that cannot be copied
c. Most popular cultures that were born after I was 30 are stupid and superficial, naive and ridiculous
Of course, this is the common psychology of human beings (probably the result of the theory of evolution). But there is no doubt that we have seen someone who took it seriously and wrote a novel based on these three laws. This novel is "The Number One Player".
As mentioned above, this $500 billion giant carrot not only destroyed the game, but also destroyed the spirit of innovation. Everyone is spinning around in the 80s pop culture circle for this giant carrot, so will anyone create something new?
More importantly, innovation itself is the result of the spirit of the game-exploring the unknown and opening up new areas. Innovation and gaming are essentially the same thing.
But, in order to figure out the heart of Ledi, if you watch Monty Python a thousand times or just listen to Duran Duran, which is likely to get you 500 billion dollars, will this make you make anything new?
There is nothing new under the sun. Any creator grows up on the basis of previous works. In his theory of otaku culture, Toshio Okada said that their science fiction fans had a kind of "Noblesse Oblige" (Noblesse Oblige), they had to work hard to absorb and study, to truly integrate the works. Then they made "Leap to the Peak", "Sapphire Mystery" and "Wang Li Universe Army". The best way to love previous works is to create your own works with your own tastes and preferences, and pass on this taste and preferences.
As the creator himself, Holledi’s method of conveying his tastes and preferences was US$500 billion-Holledi killed himself by himself.
From the film level, this is the same: the more easter eggs in a film, the more dangerous it is actually. Because it only recycles the classic images of the past, rather than creating a new visual image of their own.
Throughout the history of Hollywood, there have been a large number of Hollywood "tribute" and "nostalgic" movies in the 1980s, such as "The Car God" and "City of Philharmonic", and "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "The Shape of Water". ". This is actually a dangerous signal:
Hollywood (especially the part of science fiction) has not launched an original and highly recognizable visual image for a long time.
What are the stalks and easter eggs in "The Matrix"? What are the stalks and eggs in "Blade Runner"? What about "Terminator"?
They don't need to pay tribute and talk. They are the object of tribute and the source of stalks. They can all bring brand-new original images and breakthrough visual styles . In the past 10 years, Hollywood sci-fi movies that can do this can be said to have disappeared ("Blade Runner 2049" is barely half of them).
And from the use of these past visual images in the movie, it can also be seen that the director is still a filmmaker after all, not a gamer. Undoubtedly, the most completed and classic section is a tribute to The Shining. The director grasped the key elements and bridges of "The Shining", and the tribute in this section was really steady, accurate, and ruthless.
Personally, I think that maybe no other director can do it except Spielberg. But the egg part of the game can only be described as a floating skin scribble-it can be said that almost all of the game stems are just a skin problem.
From this perspective, Zhu Xin said that the "1XX Easter Eggs" of "Top Player" can actually be regarded as a carefully calculated harvest for the widest possible audience.
There are a lot of fans in the movie, which undoubtedly can take care of the fan community; the game stalk also takes care of the game community. The plot of the movie finally brought everyone back to reality, and established a very light ending that is in line with mainstream values. As a result, everyone was overjoyed.
"Ready Player One" is such a work that "everyone is happy". It is not science fiction, but a fairy tale-this is the type Spielberg is good at. Both "ET" and "AI" are such fairy tales under the setting of science fiction.
It is a light and dreamlike story, exactly the same as the 80s movies it pays tribute to.
So this is a dream. When the dream wakes up, everyone will be over.
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