Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One is a staple for anyone with a love of 80s pop culture, with its extensive knowledge and obscure references, the book would be intimidating for anyone to adapt. When the movie was first released fan expectations were high, anticipating that the adaptation could never accomplish what the book did with its nostalgia filled pages. Even Cline himself acknowledged that the movie could not have adapted the book exactly, as it would never have been able to get the rights to all the prominent franchises it featured. Cline made the following statement while interviewing with Wired;
“It seemed by design impossible to make into a movie,” he says. The main problem he saw was one of the book’s most-loved aspects: its extensive and shameless celebration of pop culture. How would he ever get permission to feature so many disparate franchises?” - Ernest Cline
No movie could afford to feature all the video games, shows, and songs that the book did, but it was able to make up for it by adding new, fresh references for the audience to enjoy. Besides its limitations in pop culture, the movie was also limited in its runtime, making the story shorter and less complicated to be coherent for the movie. Halliday, one of the story's most prominent characters, was also changed, making him a more inviting and friendly character in the adaptation. The movie did cut out a lot of the mature aspects of the story, making it more family-friendly by eliminating the shameless adult themes the book had included. But the dramatic final fight was just as climactic, despite it being very different from the resolution of the book. When compared scene by scene, it is true that the adaptation is almost nothing like the book. But by looking at Ernest's intent for the story, and the values and love her poured into the plot, this retelling is very much like its original. With both Cline and fans happy with how the adaptation turned out, they would not have been able to make the adaptation any better without spending several hundred more dollars and making it several hours long. While taking advantage of its ability to showcase the limitless potential of our modern CGI, this visually stunning retelling of Cline’s classic is an impressive feat.
Halliday’s contest, the main focus of Ernest Cline’s novel, had the same intention in both versions, though none of the contest's tasks were the same. In the book, there were 6 tasks you had to complete, three to collect keys which would then open three gates. In the movie, the tasks were simplified into only three, all to collect keys, which only require minimal knowledge of pop culture to complete. The movie’s first task, a race that was impossible to complete by going forward only required one to go backward to finish. The book's first task was a dungeon that first someone needed to find, then make their way through before battling a lich king at the arcade game joust to get the key. The key was then used to open a hidden gate where they would play through a simulation of the movie War Games and would need to essentially know the movie by heart in order to complete the gate. This is just one example of how complex the book was, its pop culture knowledge was intense and somewhat intimidating. The movie was more accessible, with its referencing being less obscure and easier to grasp by the average person, while still being entertaining. Like how our main characters' important “extra life” was gotten through simply winning a bet, rather than being won by getting a perfect Pacman game as it had in the book. The book certainly made an emphasis on having the contestants be similarly obsessed with Haliday’s pop culture lifestyle as he was, otherwise they would have never been able to complete the difficult tasks. In contrast, the movie focused more on the contestants having a desire to learn while having fun with his contest. Halliday’s Easter egg game was certainly different in the movie, but the entertaining value of the game was not lost in translation.
Aside from the contest itself, the book featured several mature genres; murder, religion, sex, and masturbation. Much of these aspects were cut from the movie and while I think the more violent nature of the story could have been included, I am not surprised that the book's religious and sexual tones were left out. The few instances of the book's religious beliefs come across preachy and hypocritical, stating outright that religion is a scam for the naive.
“That story you hear? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny.” Ernest Cline, PG 17
To compare anyone's religious figure to something as trivial as Santa Clause is disrespectful. And at several other points, the contestants feel no shame in calling Haliday “like a god” to them, which makes the religious stance come off unbearably hypocritical. It served no purpose to the story, only coming up a few times with no real reason, so it makes sense that the movie would not have included it. The subject of sex was also talked openly about in the book but left out of the screenplay. Like the religious tones of the book, the discussions about masturbation and sex dolls were not pivotal to the plot making it easy to remove for the movie. The violence was less minimal, with the main villain, Sorento, trying and failing to kill Wayde at one point, while succeeding in killing another of the contestants later. He throws the contestant from his balcony, filming the entire thing which is later how he is arrested. This did not happen in the movie. Although Sorento did attempt to kill the main character Wayde, like in the book he fails and does not attempt to murder again. While the movie lacked these genres, the entertainment value was not lost, and removing these aspects allowed the story to be accessible to a younger audience, expanding its reach to a new group of people.
Halliday himself was also represented very differently in the movie, showing a softer more geeky side that was absent from the book. The original Haliday was somewhat unlikable, losing his best friend over a girl, centering himself around everything he did, and preaching his beliefs to anyone who listened. The awkward, autistic man of the movie came across as relatable and adorable. These differences showcase two different storytelling methods, one which made Haliday a pop culture icon, with the other making him a lovable nerd. Furthermore, the book portrayed Haliday’s game contestants like gatekeepers, holding knowledge over each other throughout the entirety of the novel. This book portrayal made the genius come off prideful, while you rooted for the movie's version who made his contest accessible, and winnable, to anyone who tried. This changed the way fans of the book perceived the contest in the movie, with some favoring the changes to its complicated nature and some feeling it weakened the impact of the book's obscure knowledge. Both Haliday and his contest became accessible to a wider audience than it previously had in the book, expanding its contestants beyond those who had dedicated their lives to the pop culture knowledge that had consumed Holiday's life. This less complicated Haliday made the contest as a whole easier to enjoy to those who only had a beginning interest in pop culture, and allowed for new fans to enjoy Cline’s amazing story without wading through the technical aspects.
The adaptation of Ready Player One gave its audience the same nostalgic feeling, climactic ending, and nerdy story that the book originally conceived. It upheld the same values that Cline had written, creating a story about making connections and appreciating other cultures. Despite the differences in the contest's task, in the end, it was still about making friends and working together, as Cline had intended. It also still had an abundance of pop culture references, though not the same ones as the book. Where the book was filled with references to Ladyhawke, Gundam, and hundreds of classic arcade games the movie had The Iron Giant, King Kong, and Mecha Godzilla. It gravitated more towards modern pieces of nostalgia that a larger audience could recognize. Although the movie cut out a lot of the themes prominent in the book like death and sex, it captured the romantic subplot beautifully. Recreating the romance with the same stunning visuals that helped translate the classic book onto the screen. And although Haliday’s personality was changed, he was still the same nerdy man who loved the classics he had grown up with. What the movie could not include they replaced with scenes that were feasts to our eyes, showing off the stunning CGI we can create nowadays. Like the race scene in the movie, which was absent from the book but was one of the most impressive scenes of CGI I have ever seen. With what they were able to afford and execute, they would not have been able to make a better adaptation than this, especially considering that Cline himself helped write the screenplay. This Nostalgia filled book turned stunning action movie is beloved by new and old fans, allowing a whole new audience to appreciate the pop-culture filled universe that Ernest Cline created.
Sources;
Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. Century, 2020.
Turk, Victoria. “Ready Player One Author Ernest Cline: 'It Seemed Impossible to Make This into a Movie'.” WIRED UK, WIRED UK, 21 Mar. 2018, www.wired.co.uk/article/ready-player-one-interview-author-ernest-cline-book-film-differences.
Cover art by Deys on Instagram
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