In the movie, Buckaroo Banzai wears bow ties. Which Art3mis instantly recognizes when she sees him.Įxcept it’s wrong. Parzival’s dance outfit is a grey suit with a purple medium-width tie and a white Team Banzai button on the lapel. But it is still the case in the movie that gunters compete with each other on the basis of exact knowledge of what Halliday likes.) (Admittedly, in the context of the movie, it becomes clear that what is important for winning the contest is mostly understanding Halliday’s life experiences and preferences, understanding Halliday as a person, a concept that incidentally would have horrified book-Halliday. You have to understand the level of detail I’m about to provide is not because having some perfect fan recall is a sign of superiority or it’s my way to win this review, it’s because in the context of the book, having perfect pop culture recall (of a very specific set of content) is what Halliday requires. Ready Player One (2018): Not Recommended.Īlso see much longer review, with a lot to say about toxic fandom. Instead… Halliday saying he doesn’t like rules, which he never, ever, in a million years would have said. IOI wanting to take away the total anonymity that the OASIS currently provides? Gone. And so the entire movie is a flattened-out, “will it play in Peoria” generic mess. Which is what you do if you want to pretend that you care about fandom, but actually don’t. Which is not how it would work according to the rules of the movie and the book. Recognizes him instantly in a movie based on a book that is all about getting your references not just close, but perfect.īasically, Wade shows up looking like he googled Buckaroo Banzai and didn’t even bother to perfectly match the outfit that came up on screen. So in the movie, Parzival wears an outfit that Banzai never wears in the movie, with a button that he never wears, using a blank white circle instead of the actual logo, and Art3mis recognizes him instantly. (For details on how they get it wrong, see Appendix 1.) Wow, what an obscure reference! And it’s in the book! What a gift to fans! Except … they get it wrong. He tries on various outfits, settling on Buckaroo Banzai. Parzival is getting ready to go dancing with Art3mis. There is another key scene that illustrates this. Because the movie is basically a corporation pretending to understand a particular subculture without actually caring. That scene basically encapsulates this entire movie. There is a key scene in Ready Player One (2018), where Wade is talking to Sorrento, the corporate suit who is mouthing John Hughes pop culture references being fed to him by his support team. A short review of the Ready Player One (2018) movie.

Ready player one big red button