Ready Player One

As someone born in the early 80's, I feel like I should have enjoyed this more. The premise sounds fun - in the near future, James Halliday (expy Steve Jobs) creates the OASIS, which is basically “what if the Matrix was an MMORPG?”. When he dies, he leaves the keys to his fortune and ownership of OASIS to whomever can solve his scavenger hunt made up of 80's nerd and pop culture references. As such, nerd and pop culture of the late 20th century is having a bit of a renaissance. Anyone who hopes to have even the slightest chance of winning is completely immersing themselves in the music, movies, television and games from the late 1970's to the 1990's.

So why didn't I like it more? Honestly, most of the 80's references felt like they served no purpose. At one point, the main character Wade (alias Parzival in the OASIS) drives a Delorean, with the voice and red light of Kitt, and the logos and license plate of the Ectomobile. It exists to be the most over the top 80's reference possible, and is never mentioned again. 80's allusion are name dropped left and right, and most of them are never referenced again. Many references just feel like they were shoehorned in, copied and pasted from Wikipedia.