We were tasked to do some exploration this week. I was planning to go more museums on this Monday and Tuesday, BUT unfortunately, the museums I want to visit were closed on Tuesday nor Monday. Therefore I need to find some other alternative destination. It is so hard to find something to do when your project theme is about web graphic and encyclopedia. After long thought, I decided to go watch a movie. It title is Ready Player One. I found this movie will help me a lot to give inspirations to draw some characters for my projects. I am not passionate about drawing characters, so I decided to watch this movie to give me some inspiration and spirit to finish my weekly task.
Here is the review of the movie.
The movie concept is more or less mainstream, a science fiction with plot of video game. However, there is more on this. The movie focus on introducing a young man who obsessed with a founder of the game world called Oasis. Oasis founder was a nerd, well, antisocial guy who is a bit weird. Wade is the name of the protagonist and he wants to win the game made by the Oasis founder when he died. He hides several clues to find an Easter egg. The one who found the Easter egg will be granted all his assets and the right of Oasis. Player competes each other to get the first key.
I am not gonna explain how the movie story is, but more into the storyline review and some interesting point that made me realise something simple. So, the whole story of the movie is a combination of romance, mystery, and action. I found the romance a bit cheesy because well, the characters are mostly teenager and with the power of love, they save the world. However, the cheesy-ness could be handled with the interesting plot in the story. the way they should solved clues in order to get the next clue and the key to the easter egg is simply stunning. The reason behind this is because they use many iconic movie, video game, and 80-90s stuff which bring us to nostalgic feeling. Oh, by the way, the movie set the time in 2045, so no wonder, stuff in 90s or 80s called so ancient already. They used the iconic shining movie in the movie as one of the puzzle, as well as the old adventure video game glitch, which I have guessed they were using the glitch puzzle. It was interesting to see how our current, or my parents era stuff is being presented in the future point of view.
As for the action, Ready Player One combines two different world, the Oasis and the real world. Most of the action is handled in the oasis. well, since the oasis is a virtual reality, they are given more possibilities there. The end fight scene was so brutal and super super interesting to watch. abundance of iconic characters from video games, book, movie show, televisions, comics make appearance. As a nerd growing up with tons of comic, I found that I really enjoy that scene. They success bringing nostalgic feeling to the audience. The twist plot is also unexpected, when the enemy activate a tool to annihilate all the vr characters, the protagonist survive because a simple thing. A 25 cent coin given by one of the NPC or well, a hidden character acting as NPC! the npc gave the protagonist a 25 cent coin for successfully solve the 2nd puzzle. The coin was actually an extra life in the game, so… that was one un expected plot twist! In the arcade game, an extra coin means extra time to play!
Overall, all the aspect of this movie is amazingly created, the story world, the setting, the plot, and the environment. I could watch this again just to spot some characters that I had missed spotting.
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After watching this movie, I began to realise that to make an iconic characters it is not about making them to be iconic, but how we make them to be different. they will be iconic when they are well known and could be distinguished by other people. Mario is not iconic because of the creator wants him to be, but people start making him an icon to nintendo and then that title attached to him. Being different and having characteristic is the key to be recognised by other! That is the simplest thing I didn’t realised to put in my illustration!
Putu Deny Pratama Saputra 