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Just a small indication that K has a sense of humor - choosing Peter's theme as his "hunter's theme song"
The last child has a different father
Agreed, it's really easy to imagine them as older folks taking care of their house.
It's especially obvious they're NOT servants during the one scene where Walter's greeting the guests. I love that bit, even though it's only seconds long. Old, wealthy white folks greet Walter like one of their own, even though he's dressed like a groundskeeper - it's very jarring (in a good way).
I'll admit it, I'm racist.
I vividly recall being flanked at a urinal by two black guys, and honestly thinking I was about to be mugged, before I zipped up and backed away enough to see that the guys were a teenage boy and a professional in a business suit. I'd noticed their skin color before their clothing, and allowed that factor to overshadow my judgment.
That was the first time I realized that I have preconceptions programmed into me, and they'll continue to affect my judgment unless I consciously address them.
I also studied under a black professor who admitted he'd been surprised at how articulate his Harvard-educated intern was, just because the intern was black. This was a black man, highly educated and a specialist in racism in the law, who himself had a racist reaction to another black man.
Like me, he recognized the reaction in himself as a vulnerability to acknowledge and overcome.
The problem is "racist" has become synonymous with "bad person," so much so that actual racists will deny being racists because in their minds, they're not bad people.
The jokey rescue worked for me because (A) it played against expectations and (B) it paid off the theme that Rod, however ridiculous his conspiracy theories seemed, turned out to be right about everything
... not to mention that goofy whiter-than-white Flanagan and Allen music
Same here.
I think they'd be dumb to overlook Ultraman, whatever the cost. Ultraman media & merchandise have been continuously popular in the U.S. for five decades.
Like I said, though, your interpretation is REASONABLE for someone in their situation.
And like YOU said, it's not until the ending that the horror sets in, as we realize that they've all been slaves to the machine all along.
In this movie's universe, there's no free will, only the illusion of free will. For all we know, the same could be true of our universe. Scary stuff.
Cracked.com just published an explanation that's disturbingly credible:
http://www.cracked.com/article_25082_the-horrifying-easter-egg-everyone-missed-in-indiana-jones.html
In short, the first blade kills people who fail to kneel before God.
The SECOND blade kills people who DO kneel ... but then bow down, Muslim-style.
Makes sense for traps designed by Christians and guarded by Crusaders.
Magic is true in these movies, whether it looks like Christian miracles, Jewish vengeance, Hindu mind control or alien technology.
It's consistent with the pulp fiction motif, even if it's not consistent with the notion of a single "correct" religion.
Consider: maybe the grail, ark and Sankara stones are just objects with powers, and ancient people either wove mythologies around those powers OR shoehorned those objects into their existing belief systems.
E.g., Christians find a cup that heals, and presume it's the Holy Grail.
Just reverse cause & effect.
Sorry Hal but I have to disagree. The future is fixed as far as the film shows. Callie THINKS she can change things, but turns out to be wrong.
It's true that she's been sending herself messages from the future, but she got the first message from a photo on the professor's wall. In other words, she's been a slave to her own predetermined messages from the start of the film.
She thinks, as you seem to think, as most reasonable people would think in this situation, that she's exercising free will in "the future" since (A) things are working out for her and (B) she FEELS like she's got free will (as we all do).
Until her final message falls off the window, we don't know for sure whether the future's fixed. But it does, and her one attempt to purposely "change the past" fails.
I'm the opposite
I saw this when it first came out, and I immediately recognized what was going on in Ready Player One even before Broderick was mentioned.
Helped that the gate was a WarGames poster.
Also helped that I enjoyed Dragon's Lair & Space Ace so much (video games that were actually interactive movies where you got points for following the script)
"I'd consider tormenting the little bastards by flinging flares down the hole, light up their dark pit, and listen to their screams. Mind you, it could also be a doorway to another dimension where the flares would get sucked away"
It could be a doorway to another dimension, but they could at least try it
I thought of the flares too. In a movie like "House," you might actually see that happen, which is why I often find that sort of comedy/horror better than this sort of film
It makes sense that the characters are obsessed with the 80s because (A) the treasure hunt in the novel is all about the 80s, specifically one geek/tycoon's obsessions having grown up in that era and (B) the author himself is a self-professed geek whose obsessions stem from having grown up in that era
Should be no more depressing than a science-enthusiast being a science fiction author
Also, there's the (I'm sure intentional) social commentary pushed by the story, the (I think well-proven) notion that culture stagnates when it's purely commercialized. Corporate executives tend not to push the limits of art and culture.
Heck this movie's a self-referential example of that very thing - it's likely being financed because producers figure its nostalgic (and therefore unoriginal) elements make it a surefire hit.
SPOILERS
Iron Giant was in the book, briefly mentioned as one of the robots available to those who passed the second gate
Looks like the film shows the giant alongside Wade and Samantha's avatars. Maybe one of the others, perhaps "Aech" chose it instead of a Gundam robot.
Possibly they didn't get rights to Japanese characters, meaning no Gundam, Raideen or Ultraman. It's at least (depressingly) possible that the film version would stick to Western pop culture to reach a wider, American audience.
Every reference requires its own licensing agreement in a film like this, so it wouldn't surprise me if they only stuck to Hollywood film references.
Classic accountant comeback to "What do these books say?"
"What do you WANT them to say?"
Lamar may have hoped Chris would not only be perceptive but a willing conspirator
Maybe our brain is shaped like theirs
(i.e., within this fantasy universe, evolution is directed enough to result in humanoid carbon-based life everywhere, because these celestials guided it all)
Agreed ... Rat was the opposite of the idiot chief trope. He was decisive but open to reason.
Just watched the film again and was struck by how cool & competent the military guys were (often when a pencil-pusher like Grant is the hero, the soldiers are portrayed as bull-headed grunts)
Then again, I also recall seeing Leguizamo, Morton and Wong in the opening credits and assuming they were going to play computer nerds.
Jude Law's character, Bradley Fine, I'm pretty sure - he was still looking out for Cooper even while pretending to be dead and working with Rayna