Ready Player Won?

Confession: I have a really bad sugar addiction. I'm not making that up for effect either, it's been confirmed by the addiction support group I went to. I know it's unhealthy and will hurt my body, but I can't get enough of it. What's worse, I enjoy consuming it, to an insane degree. Candy, soda, fruit, chocolate, pastries, you name it, I've had it in extreme quantities on multiple occasions.

I was gonna use this as a segue into Ready Player One, a movie I've discussed before, and how I'd still go see it anyway, but early reviews shattered anything I could say. Despite everyone's initial reactions being of violent rejection, Ready Player One's been receiving solid-to-good praise from those who've seen it. And this includes critics, who tend to be more critical of what they watch. Not all reactions have been positive, one reviewer called it Steven Spielberg's worst movie, but enough have that it's been giving closure to my claims that people were too quick to render judgement.

A part of me wants to rub it in. A part of me wants to boast about how wrong everyone was, and how ashamed they should be for demanding I think like them. A part of me wants them to apologize for the agony they've caused me, the endless and stressful arguments I've had, the fact that I had to block the movie's title in my Twitter search engine because of the backlash. A part of me wants to rub it in like a sore winner.

But I won't. Because not only is it rude, but it won't change anything about how people have been acting over Ready Player One's existence. On some level, I get it: the book it's based on is misogynistic, self-obsessed trash that panders to the lowest common-denominator. Instead, I'd like to address a fundamental frustration I've had in the world of internet discourse, as well as how that's made any attempts at conversation nigh-impossible.

Keep in mind that the internet was never a great place to talk sensibly. Its format is open and anonymous, so even the most well-intended people have auras of confidentiality that make what they say weightless and unrestrained. It also allows for the rhetoric of extremes. Yet with the rise of instant communication, as well as the factional nature of politics and nerd culture, it seems as though that's gotten worse. No one can have an intelligent conversation anymore in large groups, that's simply impossible. What's worse, people frequently make assumptions, as opposed to waiting for the full picture to form.

I mention this because it's especially bad with entertainment. In a medium once known for restraint, we now have the worry of instant gratification. If something isn't known now, it's a problem. If something we know now isn't validated, it's also a problem. And when someone disagrees…let's not go there.

A few months ago, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released to extreme backlash. Some of it was rooted in quantifiable claims, but most was a cesspool of negativity and extreme rhetoric that still hasn't dissipated. People were talking about how "Disney raped their childhoods", and how it'd "never be the same now that SJWs have ruined everything". It's the epitome of the child at the candy store throwing a tantrum, with the sensible adults, unsuccessfully, pulling them aside to calm them down.

Ironically, it now feels like those adults are being the irrational children. Call it ridiculous nonsense, but ask yourselves: who was more excited and level-headed (relatively-speaking) about Ready Player One, the fans, or the detractors?

I get it: the media hasn't been helping. If anything, they've been exacerbating the problem, constantly promoting the worst in what Ready Player One has to offer. The trailers, while not god-awful, were only adding fuel to that, showing the worst of the film. Even the ridiculous comparison to Black Panther that one outlet used warranted ire, such that even I was annoyed! If all else, the promotional material has been awful.

But that doesn't mean the film was gonna be the disaster everyone feared. For one, it's directed by Steven Spielberg. Ignoring that he's not perfect, he's had his share of duds, Spielberg isn't a slouch. He's a master craftsman for a reason, having influenced Hollywood for over 40 years, and Ready Player One, which was basically a love-letter to his work, was always gonna be a perfect fit for his subtly-bombastic sensibilities. At worst, it was never gonna be flat-out awful.

Two, and this can't be stressed enough, books aren't movies. So what if Ready Player One was a bad fan-fic? So what if it seemed like a terrible idea at first-glance? Movies are a different medium than books, containing an entirely-different set of rules. If a book is basically a glorified reference-fest, then wouldn't film be able to bring that to life without the arduous text?

Thus is the complication that gets in the way of talking about this property: so what if the book was awful? So is practically everything Mark Millar has done. That hasn't stopped several of his ideas from working as films, has it? If Logan and Captain America: Civil War were regarded as improvements over the graphic novels that inspired them, then why can't other works of fiction be the same?

I'm sure Ready Player One will have its share of issues; after all, it's an over-glorified action movie from the king of sentimentality. If Spielberg's oeuvre has taught me anything, it's that he's not impervious to emotional overreach and goofiness. It's his modus operandi.

But to assume there's nothing there? From Spielberg, the man who made a movie about hunting a shark a masterpiece? From Spielberg, the man who made a movie about dinosaurs coming back to life into a tension-filled thriller? From Spielberg, the man who directed, arguably, the definitive film about The Holocaust? From that Spielberg?!

I know there's plausible-deniability, but this is pushing it! Even if the film was a disappointment, that doesn't automatically mean it'd be the worst experience ever. Spielberg, even at his worst, is too high-class for that. (His work as a producer's a different story, but that's more complicated.) Had it've been another talent behind the camera, maybe I'd be more on-board with the hate. But not Spielberg!

But that's what the internet discourse was like. And it was toxic. And it was grating. And it made me scared to mention that. And it-you get the point. It simply wasn't a healthy conversation-starter, and that upsets me.

However, like I said, there's no use crying over it. Rubbing it in won't reverse the pain I endured. Because it happened, it's over, the movie defied expectations. Should you still end up not liking it…fine, have your cake and eat it too. But we collectively spoke too soon with this.

Either way, I'm looking forward to this sugar rush of a spectacle. It's too bad that I have to wait a few weeks before seeing it, but what can I do?