Permanently Deleted
The guy that wrote the book just seems to be an unending font of cringe. Look up his poem ‘nerd porn auteur’ if you feel like ruining your day.
Being a huge nerd I must shamefully admit to enjoying the trash wish fulfillment narrative of the book a few years ago (even though I always took issue with some of its cringe), but my god has it aged worse and worse for me with each passing year. It’s basically Twilight for gamer bruhs who can’t even be self aware enough to say “Ok…the book is trash…but hey…its my kind of trash…”
If I ever find myself in a position to be some kind of a director/producer person doing yet another remake I would give this book and movie the Paul Verhoeven Starship Troopers treatment. Its entire story is in effect a celebration and championing of capitalist realism. Hijack and lampoon the shit out of it and the “culture” it promotes.
There was actually an interesting setup in the beginning of the film. The “city” that the main character lives in is essentially a giant landfill, and people have fled to VR en masse to avoid having to deal with reality. There’s a Matrix-like direction they could have gone with it, where humans were essentially choosing to be plugged in all day and ceding control of the world to a cyberpunk corporation, but instead they chose to make the most predictable Hollywood narrative imaginable. Literally every single plot element is exactly what you figure it will be, and the moral at the end of the story (which I’m 99% sure was shoved in by Stephen Spielberg) was just to stop playing video games.
(which I’m 99% sure was shoved in by Stephen Spielberg) was just to stop playing video games.
Read the book. Can confirm.
It doesn’t even make sense in the context of the film, let alone the book. A huge chunk of the world building in both is spent spelling out that for all intents and purposes: the economy of the oasis has become the defacto world economy. People use it to go to school, work remotely, engage with other people for trade, etc. Shutting it down two days out of the week is less analogous to turning off a videogame, or even the internet, and more akin to shutting down ALL commerce in general for two days out of the week.
Oh, I watched it, I had fun, I don’t remember it very well, and yes if was dumb lol. I especially liked when the love interest was built up to be like disfigured or whatever and in true Hollywood fashion she turned out to have model looks BUT she had a mild birth mark around her eye. Oh, and the super weird “compromise” they figured out at the end, that was pretty sad lol. Apparently the book is really awkward and kinda sexist I’ve heard? Idk. It’s not a bad way to waste a couple hours eating slop. I was never into gamer culture so I don’t know like 99% of the references, but maybe it is cringier if you do.
