#and my dad has worked as a programmer for games all my life. ive seen where the sausage gets made

[sharksfood]

so this thought just came into my head and i want to explore it.

in my life i’ve only seen 3 films so far that i read as books before they became movies. im not counting comic books/graphic novels that became movies bcs thats a little different, books that became tv shows, or plays that became movies. but its interesting to think about that.

i didnt read harry potter until well after the films (all of them lmao) were released, i’ve never read how to train your dragon, i’ve never read the hobbit/lotr, the animated alice in wonderland came out in the 50s, i have only recently read the last unicorn, i read World War Z after the movie came out (and ive never seen all of the movie), and i read the neverending story when i was cast in the play.

the books that i read before they came out in film are; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Warm Bodies, and Goosebumps.

Goosebumps kind of fits but it was made into a tv series first, and im not sure if i read the books or saw the shows first. i did both, i know that much.

I read Warm Bodies only bcs I wanted to see the movie but thought the book would be cool to read (its amazing and has a completely different feel from the movie), and Lion Witch Wardrobe was bcs my dad read it to me when I was younger. That and The Magician’s Nephew are the only Narnia books ive ever read.

I was going to try and read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children before the movie came out, but that work out for me.

if you want to count comics and graphic novels, then the list gets bigger. but comics already have the characters drawn out, so unlike books, you dont have an idea in your head on what the character looks like. that is so often changed in film, plus you loose so much detail and nuance when you go book to screenplay to film (this is also true with comics, but its still different)

However, and the biggest reason as to why I’m thinking about this, two movies will be coming out in the next few years, and both of them are based on my favorite books of all time (aside from the alice books of course). 

The first is Captain Underpants! I know that this is a book series with words and pictures, so technically its a graphic novel series, but they’re kids books! and those tend to have an awful lot of pictures. This series was my FAVORITE (other than the alice books) as a kid!! they were fun, hilarious, relatable, and just all around super great. So when i saw the trailer for the animated film that’s coming out this year based on the series i was ECSTATIC!! Were it live-action i would be bummed out since kids picture books usually fair better when animated (im not a fan of the diary of a wimpy kid movies....) but this animation is handled a lot like The Peanuts movie. The animation look like a color and 3D version of the exact art style!! its wonderful and im SO EXCITED

The other one, and this i am VERY VERY nervous about, is Ready Player One. that is my favorite sci-fi novel ever. i often say its my favorite book ever bc it deserves more love! and i do so much love it. ive reread it i dont even know how many times. and what do you know, they’re making it into a movie!! when i heard about this i had so many mixed feelings, and most of it has to do with the style of the book and the characters.

-Ready Player One Spoilers-

In Ready Player One the protagonist starts out as a dirt poor, fat, unattractive teen boy, and later he gets more physically fit/healthy and rich. he claims to still be unattractive at this point (mostly bcs he jues doesnt like how he looks and he looses all his body hair). this is very important to the character! i’m afraid that in this movie hollywood will do as they always do and make him a skinny conventionally attractive teen from the get-go. people will probably pull the Holes excuse of “the filmmakers didnt want to make the actor gain a bunch of weight and then loose it all” BULLSHIT they can cast a fat actor! and through his training and as they film the movie he can loose some weight or they can use movie magic (like when they made chris evans a scrawny little thing). its not that hard, people.

Another character, and this was super important to me and was a big subplot, is that Wade best friend, Aech, whom he only knows through the game (OASIS) plays as a white, straight, guy avatar, but they’re actually a black lesbian named Helen. And she plays this avatar to protect herself and to get a job and be taken seriously within OASIS. is super sad she has to do this, but its a big part of her character. she’s also fat as well, and im REALLY worried that in the movie she’s going to be a skinny straight white girl.

Two other characters who have important characteristics are Art3mis (Samantha) and the creator of OASIS James Halliday. Art3mis is Wade later love interest and GF. She is notable bcs her avatar is just like her, a chubby girl with black hair, but sans her port-wine birthmark. I know they’ll keep her birthmark, since its an intimate reveal, but they’ll probably make her skinny and i hate it. Now it’s only half canon in the books, but i’ve chosen to go with it, but at one point Wade talks about James Halliday’s childhood and his personality and all that, and mentions that he might have been autistic. Now, since it’s only he “might have been” in the books, the filmmakers will probably not make him autistic. That’s fucking sad to me, I mean, it would be amazing!! This character is one of the smartest, most famous, most prolific video game programmers/designers in history!! And he’s autistic! That is some wonderful representation and the filmmakers should jump on that opportunity. It’ll inspire so many autistic people who have a passion for video games to pursue their dreams. But, i have a hunch they wont go with it.

Two other characters, Daito and Shoto, are Japanese young guys who claim to be brothers (and their characters are) but are just friends in the real world. My initial hunch was that the filmmakers would keep them Japanese, but given the recent whitewashing of important Japanese characters, I have my doubts.

My few other concerns are that this movie won’t have 80s pop culture as the main style and focus of the era they book is set in, not to mention OASIS and most of people’s interests. It’s incredibly important to the novel, but so many dystopian movies choose to go with gritty, futuristic, edgy stuff. The other concern is how they will handle the real life vs OASIS look, since over half of the book takes place inside a VR video game. I’ve seen news that they are utilizing VR technology, but i havent read too much. I’m wondering if they’ll animate all of OASIS and the avatars and action and anything in the video game! That would be awesome.

So these are all my thoughts. I havent looks at who they’ve cast yet, so I’m going to do that right now. I do know that Steven Spielberg is directing it, which could be fantastic or terrible. Okay, cast time.

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So the IMDB doesnt say who is cast as Daito and Shoto, but Wikipedia says that Win Morisaki of PrizmaX will play him, which is great! I hope that’s what happens.

Art3mis/Samantha will be played by Olivia Cooke, who in my opinion is way too old. She’s older than me! The character’s age (i think) isnt mentioned in the book, but she’s got to be 17-20, and Olivia Cooke looks older than that. She’s also not chubby, but hey, maybe they’ll fit that. She also doesnt have the birthmark, but that’s gonna be makeup. (wouldve been cool if they found an actress with a port-wine stain on her face...)

Parzival/Wade will be played by Ty Sheridan. He was Cyclops in X-Men Apocalypse. He’s the right age, but way too fit and attractive. DAMN IT Well, I guess there’s always makeup and special effects, but i’m 80% sure now they wont make Wade fat.....

Aech/Helen will be played by Lena Waithe who is almost PERFECT. She’s much older than Aech, who is around 18, but like Samantha i imagine they’ll have make up and acting to cover it. My biggest concern is that she’s not fat like Aech, which means they’ll use a body suit or effects or Lena will gain weight, or they wont do anything.....

T.J. Miller will be playing I-r0k, who is another OASIS player and a bigtime douchebag jerk. This is perfect. We don’t know his age, or really anything other than his personality and avatar, and T.J. Miller is hilarious so this/ll be great.

Mark Rylance will be playing James Halliday, witch is fine by me. He’s not quite what I imagined, but thats what makeup and wigs are for. He’s worked a lot with Steven Spielberg, so that makes sense as to why he’s cast here. I just hope he can portray an autistic character well and with respect.... (would be better if he IS autistic but ya know.....)

Simon Pegg will be playing Ogden Morrow, the co-creator of OASIS, and thats perfect. No complaints.

Nolan Sorrento (the antagonist of the book and head of operations at Innovative Online Industries) will be played by Ben Mendelsohn, who was Director Krennic in Rouge One. He is much older and not quite and slimy as I imagined him, but this can totally work. I pictured Nolan Sorrento as Andrew Scott in my head, since he seems like the perfect evil, charismatic, slimy, attractive but ugly inside business man.

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So, after looking at the current casting choices im a little let down, but still excited! I’ll have to wait patienly for the trailer, since this thing is coming out in 2018. Dang, this turned into a Ready Player One post, but its been on my mind recently.

If you read through all of this, good job! let me know what you think! i probably dont talk about Ready Player One very often but thats bcs i dont know anyone in real life (other than my dad) who has read this book, and the online fandom seems nonexistent. Who knows?

But yeah, I guess I made this post bcs I wasn’t able to share the collective nervousness, complaints, and excitement of Harry Potter or LotR or Percy Jackson fans when their fav books became movies.

#babble #i talk a lot about books and movies #mostly ready player one lmao