美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Ready Player One' Is Full Of '80s Nostalgia And 'Easter Eggs'

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

The young adult bestseller Ready Player One is about the search for an Easter egg - not the kind that kids will search for this weekend, Easter egg in the sense of an unexpected bonus feature, the kind found in video games. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who's no stranger to giving audiences unexpected bonuses, has brought the novel to the screen. Critic Bob Mondello says, let the hunt begin.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE¹: The world is a pretty unpleasant place in 2045 - fossil fuels depleted², population exploded, climate change way past the point of no return. There have been corn syrup³ droughts, bandwidth riots. Cities are surrounded by trailer parks on steroids, double-wides stacked 20 stories high. And in one of them, we find our hero, Wade⁴ Watts⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

TYE SHERIDAN: (As Wade) My dad picked that name because it sounded like a superhero's alter ego⁶, like Peter Parker or Bruce Banner. But he died when I was a kid - my mom, too. And I ended up here.

MONDELLO: Here is the stacks outside Columbus, Ohio, where Wade spends most of his time as an avatar in computer simulations, wearing headphones, goggles⁷ and gloves, interacting with other people's avatars.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

SHERIDAN: (As Wade) They called our generation the missing millions - missing not because we went anywhere. There's nowhere left to go, nowhere except the OASIS⁸.

MONDELLO: The OASIS is the brainchild of a socially awkward guy named Halliday - a virtual reality that's both interactive⁹ and immersive with whole worlds for warriors¹⁰, for pole dancers, for folks who would drive fast cars if there were any gas left to power them. The OASIS made Halliday rich, and it's made the real world bearable for the billions who need escape. And wouldn't you know? He's figured out a way to keep them intrigued¹¹ even after he's gone.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

MARK RYLANCE: (As Halliday) Hello. If you're watching this, I'm dead. I created a hidden object, an Easter egg. The first person to find the egg will inherit half a trillion dollars and total control of the OASIS itself.

MONDELLO: A Willy Wonka prize worth playing for if you're a gamer and a movie conceit¹² worth playing with if you're Steven Spielberg. Ernest Cline's novel gave Halliday a consuming nostalgia¹³ for the 1980s, and who better to bring that to the screen? The filmmaker crams¹⁴ every corner of Wade's cyberscapes with Deloreans, Batmobiles, aliens, King Kong, The Iron Giant. There's Prince and Van Halen on the soundtrack and even a sequence where Spielberg lets loose his inner Kubrick. Wade, who calls himself Parzival in the OASIS, teams up with his best buddy¹⁵, Aech...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

LENA WAITHE: (As Aech) What up, Z?

MONDELLO: ...And a girl who calls herself Art3mis and becomes very protective.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

OLIVIA COOKE: (As Art3mis) You don't tell anyone who you are. You can't use your real name.

MONDELLO: And since they need an opponent, there's a corporate¹⁶ creep who's hired a geek army trying to gain control of the OASIS so he can monetize it.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "READY PLAYER ONE")

BEN MENDELSOHN: (As Sorrento) Who is this Parzival, and how the hell is he winning?

MONDELLO: The plot's not going to tax anyone over the age of 12, but Spielberg crams the screen with visuals eye-popping enough to make viewers not care - grimy and dystopian for the real world, bright and cyber-sparkly for an OASIS that's just unreal enough to ring a little hollow. Presumably that's the point. With a creator who's emotionally stunted¹⁷, Halliday wanted a place, remember, where he could avoid the real world.

The OASIS is a fun playground but problematic when a whole society tries to live there. You could say the same thing about nostalgia, whether it's the kind of '80s name-checking that Spielberg and Cline are doing in "Ready Player One" or the kind that politicians and advertisers do when they encourage their audiences to remember the good ole days - comforting if you don't think too hard and, as corporations and film studios well know, monetizable. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF VAN HALEN SONG, "JUMP")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 depleted   

adj. 枯竭的, 废弃的 动词deplete的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Food supplies were severely depleted. 食物供应已严重不足。
• Both teams were severely depleted by injuries. 两个队都因队员受伤而实力大减。

3 syrup   

n.糖浆，糖水

参考例句：

• I skimmed the foam from the boiling syrup.我撇去了煮沸糖浆上的泡沫。
• Tinned fruit usually has a lot of syrup with it.罐头水果通常都有许多糖浆。

4 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

5 watts   

（电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• My lamp uses 60 watts; my toaster uses 600 watts. 我的灯用60瓦，我的烤面包器用600瓦。
• My lamp uses 40 watts. 我的灯40瓦。

6 ego   

n.自我，自己，自尊

参考例句：

• He is absolute ego in all thing.在所有的事情上他都绝对自我。
• She has been on an ego trip since she sang on television.她上电视台唱过歌之后就一直自吹自擂。

7 goggles   

n.护目镜

参考例句：

• Skiers wear goggles to protect their eyes from the sun.滑雪者都戴上护目镜使眼睛不受阳光伤害。
• My swimming goggles keep steaming up so I can't see.我的护目镜一直有水雾，所以我看不见。

8 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

9 interactive   

adj.相互作用的，互相影响的，（电脑）交互的

参考例句：

• The psychotherapy is carried out in small interactive groups.这种心理治疗是在互动的小组之间进行的。
• This will make videogames more interactive than ever.这将使电子游戏的互动性更胜以往。

10 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。

11 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

12 conceit   

n.自负，自高自大

参考例句：

• As conceit makes one lag behind,so modesty helps one make progress.骄傲使人落后，谦虚使人进步。
• She seems to be eaten up with her own conceit.她仿佛已经被骄傲冲昏了头脑。

13 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。

14 crams   

v.塞入( cram的第三人称单数 )；填塞；塞满；（为考试而）死记硬背功课

参考例句：

• Have you seen the way he crams food down his throat? 你见过他那狼吞虎咽的样子吗？ 来自互联网
• He crams his ducks with cornmeal every day. 他每天用玉米面填饱他的鸭子。 来自互联网

15 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

16 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

17 stunted   

adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的

参考例句：

• the stunted lives of children deprived of education 未受教育的孩子所过的局限生活
• But the landed oligarchy had stunted the country's democratic development for generations. 但是好几代以来土地寡头的统治阻碍了这个国家民主的发展。