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business hammocks posted:With a sample size of two serving my analysis, I can say that it’s simply a transparent expression of Ernest Cline’s actual personality and value system. Also, he’s really into punk rock girls with tattoos who aren’t like those other girls, and he wants you to know. He really wants you to know. If you need another data point- he wrote the screenplay for Fanboys. Never watched, have zero interest in doing so, but I think someone in the Lets Read summarised it as 'the exact same story he's been rebranding for the last 25 years".
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Jun 21, 2018 04:36
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Paingod556 posted:If you need another data point- he wrote the screenplay for Fanboys. He wrote the first draft of Fanboys, facilitating Adam Goldberg to come in and try to save it (he failed). Jay Baruchel posted:There's no Fanboys without Ernie Cline of course. But the movie that we did is Adam Goldberg's. The story we did, the lovely indie version of the plot of the first Star Wars, that is entirely Adam's invention. Before that, it was 100 pages of IG-88 jokes. [Source] Cline's pissy rebuttal is also worth reading. Suffice to say it tells you everything you need to know about how Cline deals with criticism and jokes at his expense AND his twisted view on "originality". Ernest Cline posted:I love Jay, but he's talking directly out of his rear end. The title, the premise, all of the characters (including his character, Windows, which I named after the character in The Thing), and the entire plot were entirely my invention. Even the name of the town in Ohio that the fanboys live in, Shandal, is an anagram of my hometown, Ashland. From the very first draft, the plot was always intended to mirror the hero's journey in A New Hope. The van was always their Millennium Falcon. Skywalker Ranch was always the hidden fortress, like the Death Star. And the print of Episode I was always the MacGuffin, like the stolen Death Star plans. "The plot was entirely my creation!" says man who wrote a screenplay that was a 1:1 retelling of A New Hope only with actual nerds in the place of Star Wars characters.
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Jun 21, 2018 04:58
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Armada is a constant stream of the main character noticing that something he sees or hears seems familiar, then realizing that it’s because he recognizes it from the plot of one of his favorite films, television shows, or video games. Then he explains the reference. He makes a hot punk-rock girl like him by recognizing the pop culture reference on her tattoo, then they bond over quoting Arnold in Conan. They each know the other one is cool and good because they consume the same media.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:08
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business hammocks posted:They each know the other one is cool and good because they consume the same media. Write what you know.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:10
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Well now I can go back to enjoying Fanboys as a not very good curiosity if it pisses Cline off.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:13
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There's been  that Armada was actually a trunk novel; something Cline wrote before RP1 and then shelved until RP1 turned out to be a hit and then whipped it out when agent asked "Okay, what else do you got?". Because it's basically Ready Player One all over again... but worse. All the ideas are unrefined, the exact same tropes appear in both versions only to be more sloppily deployed in Armada, and the prose is markedly weaker than even RP1's. So either its an exhumed relic from earlier in Cline's artistic development (such as it is) or he pulled a Paolini and actually managed to get worse in his follow up attempt somehow.I truly salute you, business hammocks. I tried the Armada read-along when 372 Pages was updating live and I made it to the 50 page mark before I took the book back to the library in revulsion.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:22
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Pop Culture Detective put out another video on how toxic masculinity is pervasive as hell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8xL7w1POZ0 More than a few of the sample clips made my skin crawl, and there's just, an endless amount of them.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:55
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I could see it either way; it being an earlier work before coming up with a structural justification for constant references, or a churned followup that took a reference-hungry audience for granted.
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Jun 21, 2018 05:55
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business hammocks posted:Armada is a constant stream of the main character noticing that something he sees or hears seems familiar, then realizing that it’s because he recognizes it from the plot of one of his favorite films, television shows, or video games. Then he explains the reference. He makes a hot punk-rock girl like him by recognizing the pop culture reference on her tattoo, then they bond over quoting Arnold in Conan. They each know the other one is cool and good because they consume the same media. Wasn't the tattoo from Aliens or something else that is pretty high profile? It's not from some obscure property but one of the most iconic sci-fi series of all time?
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Jun 21, 2018 06:12
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Testekill posted:Wasn't the tattoo from Aliens or something else that is pretty high profile? It's not from some obscure property but one of the most iconic sci-fi series of all time? Cline's reference pool is loving shallow most of the time. "In [i posted:Nerd Porn Auteur[/i] he"] If you're an intelligent woman who is interested in breaking into the adult film industry, and if you can tell me the name of Luke Skywalker's home planet, then you are hired.
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Jun 21, 2018 06:16
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Testekill posted:Wasn't the tattoo from Aliens or something else that is pretty high profile? It's not from some obscure property but one of the most iconic sci-fi series of all time? There’s also an integral part of that scene where, upon recognizing the romantic spark between them, the main character woos his love interest by openly calling her a pedophile because she’s like 20 or something (her actual age is conviently never revealed because she’s just an object, not a character) and he’s only 17. Real charming there, Cline.
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Jun 21, 2018 06:21
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Having googled it, it's a tattoo of Tank Girl. So it's simultaneously something everyone of a certain age and demographic will be able to place due to a studio movie having been made out of it, but obscure outside of its time due to it being about a girl who fucks kangaroos.
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Jun 21, 2018 06:24
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Read Roadside Picnic, watch Tarkovsky's Stalker, then play GSC's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, they're all good in their own ways.
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Jun 21, 2018 06:40
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Cline's reference pool is loving shallow most of the time. I remember reading an excerpt of Cline's Armada around the time it got released, and that's the other half of what makes his writing annoying. It's forced and obnoxious as hell, but the stuff he references is the most obvious, surface level stuff. Like, the most interesting thing I read about the RP1 movie was that one of the character cameos was Regina from Dino Crisis, and that's only because I think most people have forgotten Dino Crisis. Like if I wrote a novel, I'd probably litter it with references to things I like, but I'd try to be discreet about it. Even then, it'd probably be stuff that most people wouldn't even pick up on.
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Jun 21, 2018 06:57
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Max Wilco posted:I remember reading an excerpt of Cline's Armada around the time it got released, and that's the other half of what makes his writing annoying. It's forced and obnoxious as hell, but the stuff he references is the most obvious, surface level stuff. Like, the most interesting thing I read about the RP1 movie was that one of the character cameos was Regina from Dino Crisis, and that's only because I think most people have forgotten Dino Crisis. Isn't that the point? By making references that most people get but presenting them as "secret & obscure" knowledge you are making most of the audience feel special, it's a cynical thing to do but it doesn't means it's not effective. I'm not familiar enough with Ernest Cline to know if it's intentional or if he's only familiar with the common stuff though.
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Jun 21, 2018 07:28
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Imagine defining yourself by all the cool geek media you like and then having the most entry-level taste. I bet Cline's one of those lamers that think he's hot poo poo because he knows what Ocarina of Time is.
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Jun 21, 2018 08:04
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I think in Ready Player One the poo poo with giant robots was the only time he really went beyond lowest common denominator references.
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Jun 21, 2018 08:07
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Ballpark, how many Funko Pops does Ernest Cline own?
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Jun 21, 2018 08:10
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Groovelord Neato posted:*slams table* the book's way better!!! It's also ruined by the next two books. Well, ruined is harsh but as a standalone story it's great, you just have to choose not to read the others.
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Jun 21, 2018 08:45
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Scholtz posted:Ballpark, how many Funko Pops does Ernest Cline own? None because he hates how posers are buying them when all media he likes should be consumed by only those he approves of.
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Jun 21, 2018 10:44
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Hel posted:Isn't that the point? By making references that most people get but presenting them as "secret & obscure" knowledge you are making most of the audience feel special, it's a cynical thing to do but it doesn't means it's not effective. I'm not familiar enough with Ernest Cline to know if it's intentional or if he's only familiar with the common stuff though. Certainly works for a bunch of "top 10 things you didn't know about x" *lists things that actually everyone knows*
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Jun 21, 2018 11:30
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Cline's reference pool is loving shallow most of the time. I love the way he's phrased that, like such a person could never exist outside of his fantasies. When really they'd just find his references as insufferable as anyone else.
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Jun 21, 2018 11:35
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The shallowness of the reference pool is a bit tedious. At least with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Anno Dracula they'll throw you something you might need to go and look up.
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Jun 21, 2018 11:35
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armada is a ripoff of the last starfighter packed to the gills with 80s references.
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Jun 21, 2018 12:03
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I would love a show with just Jay Bauman
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Jun 21, 2018 12:40
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SatansBestBuddy posted:Pop Culture Detective put out another video on how toxic masculinity is pervasive as hell. I like this guy's videos and discussions, shame that he's such a dweeb otherwise.
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Jun 21, 2018 13:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3reatmiC8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYK4CKGptgE Brian Zane did a video on the greatest bad promos of all time. Somehow Steiner maths only came in 2nd
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Jun 21, 2018 14:18
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Hel posted:Isn't that the point? By making references that most people get but presenting them as "secret & obscure" knowledge you are making most of the audience feel special, it's a cynical thing to do but it doesn't means it's not effective. I'm not familiar enough with Ernest Cline to know if it's intentional or if he's only familiar with the common stuff though. Bingo. This sort of thing isn't old. I remember family members thinking Frasier was "high brow" because they name dropped classical music and philosophers in the show, despite none of the jokes needing you to know anything besides "La Boheme is an opera", which the previous line mentioned they were coming back from the opera. It's remarkably good at engendering "in group" feelings. Big Bang Theory took the Frasier cultural reference model and adapted it towards a new demographic, that's all.
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Jun 21, 2018 15:10
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At least Kelsey grammer and David Hyde Pierce put in good performances which is more than I can say for Jim Parsons. It's sad because Parsons can act but he's stuck playing an unlikeable jackass as his most popular role.
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Jun 21, 2018 15:35
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Part of it is that Cline was young in a time before the internet, when dork things were harder to find and their discovery was often a matter of chance. His fantasy world is still one where personal relationships develop knowledge of movies, comic books, and video games. It gives Armada a weird atemporal quality, like it’s sometimes set in the 80s, sometimes in the 90s, and sometimes in the present. Everybody has a cell phone and texts with it, but I don’t think anyone uses the internet at any point other than to play video games.
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Jun 21, 2018 15:47
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Scholtz posted:Ballpark, how many Funko Pops does Ernest Cline own? Every single 80s related one. business hammocks posted:Part of it is that Cline was young in a time before the internet, when dork things were harder to find and their discovery was often a matter of chance. His fantasy world is still one where personal relationships develop knowledge of movies, comic books, and video games. It gives Armada a weird atemporal quality, like it’s sometimes set in the 80s, sometimes in the 90s, and sometimes in the present. Everybody has a cell phone and texts with it, but I don’t think anyone uses the internet at any point other than to play video games. My big issue with him is that everything with his interactions with nerd totems is so loving shallow. There critical depth. I don’t even just mean “here are issues with etc”, it’s literally just name dropping with maybe a trivia piece. He is more shallow with nerd poo poo the Big Bang theory. stillvisions posted:Bingo. This sort of thing isn't old. I remember family members thinking Frasier was "high brow" because they name dropped classical music and philosophers in the show, despite none of the jokes needing you to know anything besides "La Boheme is an opera", which the previous line mentioned they were coming back from the opera. It's remarkably good at engendering "in group" feelings. Big Bang Theory took the Frasier cultural reference model and adapted it towards a new demographic, that's all. GrandpaPants posted:I like this guy's videos and discussions, shame that he's such a dweeb otherwise. Same. Most of his videos are decent/good. Shame about the twitter and being a prudish chode. At lest he is left wing unlike movie bob. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 16:21
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Arcsquad12 posted:At least Kelsey grammer and David Hyde Pierce put in good performances which is more than I can say for Jim Parsons. It's sad because Parsons can act but he's stuck playing an unlikeable jackass as his most popular role.
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Jun 21, 2018 16:31
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Annihilation is funny to me because the book is very clearly biting at Tarkovsky's Stalker while the movie is much more in the vein of the original Roadside Picnic novel.Hel posted:Isn't that the point? By making references that most people get but presenting them as "secret & obscure" knowledge you are making most of the audience feel special, it's a cynical thing to do but it doesn't means it's not effective. I'm not familiar enough with Ernest Cline to know if it's intentional or if he's only familiar with the common stuff though. I used to call this sort of needle-threading the Whedon maneuver, as his only real talent was writing dialogue or plotting that was just clever enough that it let his fans think they were clever for decoding it in advance without actually being challenging.
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Jun 21, 2018 17:35
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Whedon was definitely the perfect transitional figure from the old network model into the age of complexity. He’s still cleaving to the old formulas and limits, but being clever in small ways that seem subversive while not actually subverting anything. I remember him saying in a commentary for the Buffy pilot that he wanted a character who dies in the episode to be included in the opening credits so that people would be surprised when he died, but the network said that was too much. Yet that seems trite in modern tv where even the most extreme version of that trick, like it was done in the first season of Agents of Shield for example, seems tired because it relies on the rigidity of a network formula for shock (“they can’t do that: the opening credits identify the main characters!”), and tv follows those formulas much more loosely these days.
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Jun 21, 2018 17:45
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At the same time I will give Whedon credit for pulling that trick extremely well.
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Jun 21, 2018 18:06
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Mokinokaro posted:At the same time I will give Whedon credit for pulling that trick extremely well. I am not of a fan of the dude(he is kinda of a prick and a massive hypocrite.) but he is very good at sounding clever and smart with his movies. He knows how to use old troupes really well.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:03
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re: Cline's shallow reference pool and lack of knowledge beyond entry level, the discussion made me think of this neat video I watched where someone proposed a "fix," for the grand finale of the RP1 movie that I thought was kind of brilliant revolving around the Iron Giant. Nando v Movies: The Giant Mistake Cline would clearly be the villain in his own story
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Jun 21, 2018 21:50
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Sanguinia posted:re: Cline's shallow reference pool and lack of knowledge beyond entry level, the discussion made me think of this neat video I watched where someone proposed a "fix," for the grand finale of the RP1 movie that I thought was kind of brilliant revolving around the Iron Giant. Yeah I remember people mocking that because it misses the whole point of the movie. I mean yeah it’s cool/fun to talk about who would win in fights but lol at Cline. Cline is a vapid manchild who can only list poo poo.
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Jun 21, 2018 21:55
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Cline’s an unbearable star fucker. Attempting success through simple proximity to talent. The movie required the industry’s best turd polisher to make it passable.
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Jun 21, 2018 22:49
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SatansBestBuddy posted:Pop Culture Detective put out another video on how toxic masculinity is pervasive as hell. I don't think I've seen any of the movies shown there but it does make me think of that movie Overboard where the rich woman falls off her yacht and ends up with amnesia and the carpenter she ripped off convinces her she's his wife. Even as a kid I thought it was creepy and weird. Also in trying to remember the title I discovered that they did a gender swapped remake that came out earlier this year. What a bizarre choice.
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Jun 21, 2018 22:49
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