I watched Ready Player One late Friday night at the local IMAX, a first since my 6th Episode 8 outing back in January.

It’s been a while since I last saw a Spielberg-helmed film, and that was 7 years ago when I caught War Horse on telly. My fondest memory of his films comprises the joy I experienced watching the Indiana Jones films and ET, as well as those produced by Spielberg especially the Back To The Future trilogy and The Goonies. So, having this joy rekindled from a film that I knew nothing about, bar the trailers on YouTube, was a surprise.

Ready Player One is based on an Ernest Cline book which I’ve never heard of, and let alone read. Therefore, the (largely) 80s nostalgia noted in the film (in the form of pop culture reference) was kind of a surprise. The premise of the film centres on finding an easter egg in a large virtual reality universe called the Oasis, and stars a diverse (intentional?) bunch of new(ish)[1] faces. One to thing to note is that the film is also filled with lots of easter eggs for the audience to find, some of which only lasts seconds onscreen. See if you can spot some of them in the following trailer.

This film was Sentosa cinema at PJ Section 17 on an afternoon in the early 1980s all over again. Highly recommended.

__________________________________

Much to my surprise[2], my 3D blu-ray copy of The Last Jedi arrived in the post Saturday morning.

What I did first was to watch The Director And The Jedi and Balance of the Force which explain Rian Johnson’s reasons for the direction of the story. My stand with regards to all these different take on the concept of the Force remains as it was – like life, that’s how the story goes. You may have an idea on how you want things to happen, but life gets in the way. So, I thought both docus in the bonus section were brilliant to watch.

My only gripe with the bonus features is that I feel there should be more of it, but I guess I can easily see these extra material on the official Star Wars YouTube channel.


Now, to find some time next week to watch TLJ the seventh time.

__________________________________
[1]Goes to show how much film I’ve watched of late this past… decade.
[2]Not really.