Book to Movie: Ready Player One

Hello Enthusiasts,

Ready Player One is a story involving a border-line dystopian future where society hasn't crumbled, but the world is much worse than we have it now. Over-crowding and pollution have become rampant issues, and most of the people in the world have decided to distract themselves from these issues by diving into a wonderfully immersive VR experience called The Oasis. The Oasis has become so big over the years that it is the most lucrative business in the world. However, the creator/owner has recently passed away, leaving his fortune and the rights to the The Oasis up for grabs. Rather than leaving them to a trusted friend or family member (because he apparently didn't have either of those things), his last wish was to have the people in The Oasis participate in an elaborate easter egg hunt to decide who gets it all. Those who primarily participate in this are professional egg hunters, such as our main character, Wade Watts (or Parzival as he's known in The Oasis), and a big corporation called IOI.

Here are the basic highlights: There's an endless VR world with too many references to count (mostly from the 80's), some heavy-handed commentary on society, and a big evil CEO.

The novel was written by Ernest Clines, and it was later adapted into a film that was directed by Steven Spielberg. The book and movie may have the same basic plot, but nearly all of the details were changed for the film. Did one do it better than the other? For many, the immediate answer is yes, the book was much better than the movie (as you get with every adaptation), but I think this is more debatable than people often think. This starts with something that is leaned on very heavily for both adaptations, references to 80's pop culture. Due to the nature of the easter egg hunt, many people have become infatuated with content from the 1980's, so there are a ton of references throughout the story. By the very nature of the mediums that the audience experiences the story through, this is going to be a lot smoother in film. The book will have an entire page or two just describing all of the references Wade encounters in a room, while the movie can take two or three seconds to show us the room and move on. This means that the movie can reference more content in a shorter period of time and move forward with the story, rather than having to explain everything in painstaking detail.

Moving on, the easter egg hunt involves several challenges that need to be completed in The Oasis, and the challenges vary greatly between the different adaptations. I actually appreciate this, because it made the movie-going experience more interesting since I hadn't seen these challenges before. However, the book did do the challenges more justice. The movie's challenges felt like they could have been completed by anyone, where the challenges in the book were not as straight forward. In the movie, everyone knows where the first challenge is, it's a racetrack that nobody can beat. In the book, the first challenge is sealed away in a hidden cave on the school world, which is the only world that Wade really has any access to because he's poor and it costs money to travel from world to world. This adds an additional element to the story and makes it more believable that hard-core easter egg hunters hadn't been able to beat the challenge in the first few years of the hunt. Again, I appreciated that there were changes for the movie, but I feel like the book did these challenges better.

One difference between the two that I hadn't landed on either side of is the timeframe for the story. This story in the book happens over a long period of time, with months at a time being summarized until the next big event. The movie keeps the whole thing within the span of a week or so. While I appreciate that the movie pushes the idea that this easter egg hunt is a mad race once people get past the first challenge, I also really enjoyed the idea that each clue and challenge were so difficult and well thought out that nobody could get it right away. If I had to choose a side on this one, I think I would make it the book, if for nothing else than we get to see Wade grow up a bit as time goes on. The book version of Wade is definitely given more time to develop as a character than the movie allows.

There are several other changes and comparisons to make, but I can boil it down for you. Is the book better than the movie? Yes, but not by that big of a margin. The movie gets a lot of things right, and I think credit is due, even if it wasn't exactly a phenomenal film. However, if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, the best experience comes from doing them in that order. Enjoy the book for what it is, and enjoy the film for what it is. You'll enjoy the similarities and, if you allow yourself to keep an open mind, you may enjoy some of the differences as well.

Or you can hate them both, it's your call.

Sincerely,

The Bored Enthusiast