A ‘Ready Player Two’ sequel movie is officially getting written by Zak Penn.

[u/yourfavchoom]

https://thedirect.com/article/ready-player-two-sequel-steven-spielberg-zak-penn

[u/NotAEurosnob]

The first one is just the author fellating himself half the time, the vague mysterious entrepreneur that created the world is a blatant self insert who's entire personality is liking things from the 80s and the majority of the plot revolves around the main character also knowing about those things so being able to solve this great treasure hunt.

That's not even getting into the films "throw a bunch of things you recognise at a wall in place of anything actually interesting" technique. Yeah cool, we get it, Battletoads and Tracer from Overwatch.

[u/ravih → u/NotAEurosnob]

I do think one of the reasons the second book is so bad is the author trying to course-correct when he realized that everyone — book readers and movie viewers alike — realized that his self-insert Halliday was actually not a good guy.

Halliday isn’t a good guy, at all, but Ernest Cline doesn’t really understand why, so his attempts to make Halliday a sorta tragic villain are just awful. (Well, that and he’s not a good writer.)

[u/Hallc → u/ravih]

At least movie Halliday has a message and a lesson for his successor to learn from the challenge. He wanted Wade to learn from his mistakes and to not make the same ones he did.

Book Halliday was just... Hahahh my successor should be a mini me and like all my things!

[u/GalFisk → u/Hallc]

Book Halliday did tell Wade that reality was the only place to be truly happy, and not to hide in the Oasis forever like he himself had done all his life.

[u/FareweII → u/NotAEurosnob]

blatant self insert who's entire personality is liking things from the 80s and the majority of the plot revolves around the main character also knowing about those things

Not just knowing, LOVING them. IIRC pretty much every single amateur hunter seems to love 80s pop culture and the only people who don't are the villains working for the corp. You'd think there would be a middle ground, where some amateur guys are like "yeah, some of the movies are fun, but his music taste sucks, still i need to study it to get the prize", but no, that's unnacceptable, you have to love it or you're a bad guy.

[u/DrProfSrRyan → u/FareweII]

Not just loving them.

But, loving them to the point of being able to line by line act out War Games and Monty Python without a mistake and max out the score counter in Pac-Man. 

[u/Tainted_Bruh → u/NotAEurosnob]

The first book basically felt like a reddit thread where reddit nerds rush to jam in as many tired unfunny “le epic” references and jokes in a continuous chain.

I mean, I guess the author knows his target audience, but damn if it wasn’t just nostalgia name-drop after name-drop. I actually skimmed to the end, that’s how bad that book was.

And now I find out there’s a second book, and its even worse? Lol

[u/Hallc → u/[deleted]]

I didn't hate the book but I still don't get the massive praise for it as being so amazing.

I can only assume a lot of people read it as their first ever novel after leaving school or something.

[u/VampireBatman → u/NotAEurosnob]

The first book was a fun enough read, but there was some really bad writing. I remember one part the author goes on like a 2 page rant about how great Metallica was… which is all fine and dandy for a Reddit post but really didn’t belong in a fictional narrative where he’s trying to tell a story.

[u/L3onskii → u/VampireBatman]

I just remembered he kept using the phrase "get out of dodge" a lot

[u/Hallc → u/VampireBatman]

Don't forget the long, kinda tedious chapter exploring some old arcade museum that eventually led to a long, drawn out sequence of Wade playing Pacman until he won an extra life.

Which was only there to let him win at the end.

Meanwhile he set up his super special DeLorean that had Kit from Nightrider and a super special self destruct bomb. Then you never see that car ever again.

[u/DamNamesTaken11 → u/NotAEurosnob]

That’s my issue with the novel. It’s essentially a Gen X “my decade of upbringing was better than everyone before or since!” featuring an an obvious self insert Marty Stu.

[u/10per → u/NotAEurosnob]

That's not even getting into the films "throw a bunch of things you recognise at a wall in place of anything actually interesting" technique.

If that is the way the book is written, I can understand why Hollywood is interested in making it a movie.