LOVED the movie (SO MUCH!) and LOVED the book (SO MUCH) but both very different!!!

Rating: 10/10 (16 April 2018)

Well, I finished the book last night, and I have to say that it was just AMAZING how so LITTLE of the book... actually made it into the movie!!!
AND how MUCH of the movie plot was TOTALLY NEW (IE totally different from the book!)
If I had disliked either the book or the movie... that might have been a criticism... but in THIS case, BOTH book and movie STOOD on its own; and STOOD WELL.
So I'm just saying... that I'm rather amazed what a TOTAL rewrite the movie received, and given that, how incredibly GOOD the movie turned out to be!!
One of the things about the book that I loved so much was the detail in which the author referenced ALL the VERY EARLY video games, and VERY EARLY computers!
As someone who had purchased a Radio Shack TRS-80 as my first computer, moving on to Apples, and MANY of the other early computers in my early employment (anyone remember the PDP11-23???) the degree of nostalgia, just regarding the litany of EARLY computers that Ernest Cline reviewed, repeatedly, in the book... was music to my ears.
Then ADD TO THIS the DETAILS of playing the VERY EARLY video games; we're talking Asteroids, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Joust, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Battlezone, Table Tennis for Two, Q*bert, and Tempest!! These were MY favorite arcade games, but really, just a PORTION of the whopping 57 computer/arcade games, mentioned in the book.
I CAN understand the need for a re-write, to make this story comprehensible to the modern audience (avoiding the details of playing the games, as is in the book), while still including enough of the references to the legacy early computers and arcade games... NOT TO MENTION the early Techy Movies (such as "War Games") and early Adventure movies (over 87 movies were referenced directly!) to really connect, directly to me. OK, yeah, I'm 68 years old now, LOL, but young at heart... for eternity.
I think it's VERY RARE, and nearly IMPOSSIBLE for ANY movie, ANY story, to manage to bridge the gap between generations, as well as "Ready Player One" managed to do. This MAY be (IMHO) the MOST successful movie (and book!) to have managed to pull this feat off! I really can't think of a near second!.
Lastly, I will say that I feel privileged to have been able to watch "Ready Player One" in a modern Hi-Tech Digital theater (yes, they have those in (expat) Thailand, LOL), as the amazing graphics and graphic realizations within the movie deserve to be seen on the BIG SCREEN. Having said THAT, I can't wait for a HD version of this to show up on the Internet, as I TRULY need to watch it a few more times, to be able to catch all the nuances I'm sure I missed the first time, as I was being totally overwhelmed by this masterpiece of Steven Spielberg; quite possibly one of his finest works, if not his finest.