Ready Player One
By Ernest Cline
Hardcover | Kindle
Crown
Release Date: August 16, 2011

In a not so distant future, the world is in shambles. Instead of the dealing with the truth of reality, the people of this bleak world create an escape by using OASIS, a virtual reality world where you can create your perfect reality and do everyday things like going to school or meeting new people. When James Halliday, the creator of OASIS and the richest man to ever have lived, dies, it initiates a contest that Halliday leaves behind in his will. There are three keys that for whoever finds all three will win Halliday’s entire fortune. The contest won’t be easy to win, but protagonist Wade Watts is determined to be the victor.

Ready Player One was one of the most innovative and entertaining books that I’ve read in a very long time. The book is truly a love letter to the era of the 1980s. With references to 80’s video games, movies, and television, the book is like a geek bible to those who grew up in the 80’s or is just a fan of that time period. The author, Ernest Cline (screenwriter of 2009’s Fanboys), has a vast knowledge of the 1980s and it definitely shows. Cline also makes very likeable characters in the novel. Wade and his group of friends were very relatable in the book. You understand their poverty stricken world and their need to constantly escape into OASIS to make a new world for them.

The San Diego Comic Con is the end-all be-all of yearly movie, TV, and comic book conventions. It’s the convention where the biggest movies show off their newest footage, it’s where major announcements are made, and there is no other better place for one to completely disappear into an ocean of excited fanboys and girls who are buzzing with excitement…and likely dressed as their favorite characters.

Due to this scorching Summer celebration of all things geek, popularity in the convention has constantly grown over the years. It’s gotten to the point where so many people attend it’s painfully impossible to comfortably attend; hotels are hard to find, lines are infinite, and the many various halls replace oxygen with far more people than capacity would indicate.

With San Diego’s claim to the convention set for expiration in 2012, many other locations have began bidding for the right to claim it as their own. And because of the many aforementioned flaws, this has not sounded like the worst idea ever, despite the fact that it would be strange for Comic Con to be held anywhere but its beautiful San Diego home.

Fanboys very much embraces all that is geek, telling the tale of group of friends in 1998 who risk it all to break into the Skywalker ranch and steal a copy of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace for their dying friend.

Along the way, they encounter about as many icons in fanboydom as possible, including multiple cast members from various Star Wars movies, celebrity fanboy Kevin Smith, and even William Shatner. Word is, somewhere along the way there is a confrontation among Trekkies and Star Wars fans, which could be worth seeing on its own.

To help pass the time until you and I do get the chance to see it there are a couple of new clips online. One is a funny Skywalker Ranch hostage situation and the other involves the usage of the Jedi mind trick.

Continue reading to check out the videos, which are preceded by the full trailer if you haven’t seen it yet!

Cinematical has premiered a new poster for the forever-in-limbo comedy Fanboys. Check it out out at right and click for large view.

This latest poster is a take-off of the Judd Apatow comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which is a very different marketing angle than the original Return of the Jedi-inspired one-sheet (see it here).

I think we’re at the point now where it’s safe to say that The Weinstein Company truly does not know what to do with this movie.

“Recently, studio head Harvey Weinstein told the LA Times that Fanboys has been moved to January 2009 so that it can be involved in a major promotion and large advertising tie-in with Comcast. This was a film that was supposed to be released early 2007, then got moved to August 2007, then was held in limbo after reports surfaced that a major plot point was removed. So, if it will actually be released in January — typically a death warrant for most films, except Cloverfield — remains to be seen.