We caught up with Ernest Cline , author of dystopian gamer novel Ready Player One , and challenged him to the ultimate geek test . Could he play Joust and speak about the cultural import of videogames at the same prison term ? See for yourself !
We also speak to him about the novel that ’s rapidly becoming the summer ’s most beloved science fiction book . you could read our full consultation ( minus Joust ) below .
io9 : Your movie Fanboys and your Modern novel Ready Player One both allot with 1980s nostalgia . What is it that fascinates you about 1980s pop culture ?
EC : I noticed in the previous nineties that my booster and I were already nostalgic for the 1980s , and by the turn of the century , VH1 ’s I Love the LXXX gave all of us an accelerated nostalgia for our genesis . Maybe our future feel so belly-up that we necessitate old cartoon and TV shows ?
The 1980s was also the birth of flake culture , with home video consoles , look out movies at abode , and have computing machine that we know more about than our parent did . That , plus the euphony and movies and all of it . I ’m fixated on it – I was bear in 1972 so the 80s were a formative decade for me . I learned about everything from computers to girls in the LXXX .
I notice when I ’m at a party where I do n’t know anybody – even if I have nothing in common with somebody we can still talk because we were elevate by the same television and cartoons and flick . That ’s something that ’s unique to our contemporaries . There was a homogenized culture in the 80s – we went to the same malls and arcades and view the same moves .
io9 : What do you think of all the remaking of 1980s movies now ?
In my novel , the thought that kids would be nostalgic for the 80s is partly a geeky illusion now that 80s kids are approach midway age . We ’re say , “ Hey , these shaver today have no idea what they ’re talking about — they do n’t know Karate Kid is a remake . ” peradventure it ’s a generational thing but I think we want Kyd to sympathize how awesome the things we had were . Pokemon and so many other cool things all staunch from 80s geek culture . And I ’ve hear that kids are take my book with Wikipedia , trying to get all the references . I love that .
io9 : Among eccentric , people often lecture about “ rap our childhood ” when there are remake or nostalgia flicks . How do you publish a book that ’s all about “ our childhoods ” without raping them ?
EC : I ’ve never been a advocator of the “ ravishment my puerility ” philosophy with George Lucas . If he made your puerility , it ’s always your puerility , and you should have nothing but positive feelings about the man . possibly he made poppycock you do n’t like now , but that ’s the same as what musicians do . Just because you do n’t dig their new hooey should n’t bust up the one-time poppycock .
I do n’t remember it ’s really posible to assault anybody ’s puerility metaphorically . This novel was a mode to celebrate my childhood and what I loved about it .
io9 : What about the negative parts of 80s culture , like the Cold War and increasing poverty in America ?
EC : Ready Player One is about [ plot graphic designer ] Halliday ’s vision of the 80s – he ’s focalize on the dada culture and warm blurred stuff . I require to do that without pass away into Reagan and the Cold War , since it ’s 2045 it did n’t seem like I should go into the government of the 80s . But that Reagan Era mental capacity of how to look at with homeless people – that alarm me . I abhor Reagan and Bush so much , and I find like in the future tense I imagined in my Good Book , that dystopia , I worry that we ’re headed in that centering . I palpate like that itinerary started in the LXXX . It retard in the 90s , but really kicked into mellow power train in the last decade . All this research I did for the Koran on apex oil and our vigor policy was really disturbing . I did n’t require to create this future with no hope – but when you calculate at the current state of the mankind , it ’s tough not to be cynical .
io9 : Nerd culture is pigeonhole as explosion - happy , sort of like the earthly concern we see in Evan Dorkin ’s risible serial publication “ The Eltingville Comic - Book , Science - Fiction , Fantasy , Horror , and Role - Playing Club , ” about swot fight to the death . But your eccentric and story are mawkish , and totally unlike the stereotype .
EC : I get it on Eltingville ! But if you attend at people who have move up to gibbosity in the flake world like Joss Whedon and Wil Wheaton – well , they are both really unfermented guys . I ’m very sentimental , and there ’s something sentimental about nostalgia in the first place .
io9 : What shape your delineation of the gameworld haven ?
Neal Stephenson ’s metaverse in Snow Crash was a openhanded influence . Neuromancer to a less academic degree . I care that idea of cyberspace as a practical domain , and what the internet would be like if it were a 3D space . Basically , what would be the cool potential edition of the internet in 35 years ? You ’re at heart of it , manipulating physical objects . It ’s sort of an prolongation of the Wii and Kinect . As for why it ’s free and anonymous – I think that makes it a way to completely escape in real life . It ’s the well potential version of cyberspace . Plus , it ’s great for an adventure story – I wish the mind of a kidskin being famous only in the practical space .
To a lesser extent , the haven was influenced by World of Warcraft , Anarchy Online , and Everquest . A lilliputian of Second Life , too , but I found Second Life not as fun as MMOs I ’ve played . It ’s just so otiose .
io9 : You ’ve been writing the film adaption of Ready Player One for Warner Bros. Were you worried about doing the pic adaptation after your experience with Fanboys ?
EC : We shot Fanboys in 2006 , and thought we ’d relinquish it in 2007 . But then there was a protracted battle with the studio , who wanted more reshoots . They did n’t like the movie . They wanted to take out the part with the kid dying . fundamentally , they require nerds to just do all this stuff [ like breaking into Skywalker Ranch ] for no grounds . But when people [ set forth to protest about it online ] , it just sour out to be too much rough-and-tumble for them . Weinstein take a meeting with me where he basically asked , “ Can you turn over off the internet now ? ” He was like , “ I ’ve wandered into this world of nerd I do n’t empathise . ”
at long last , Fanboys was very compromised . I feel like there ’s a much seraphic movie there – I ’ve construe it . We ’re desire for a director ’s cut one day .
So I did n’t call up Hollywood would let me geek out and drill down into geek culture the way I wanted to do . I figured the only style I could really do that was to write a novel . And then the movie rights sold 12 hour after leger rights . There was a bidding war over my grind ledger ! I was so caught up that I did n’t think about the difficulty of adjust a book I wrote because I know it could never be a movie . Getting a first draft of the screenplay done was the hard composition job I ’ve ever had .
BooksErnest ClineReady Player One
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