Today we discussed what roles nostalgia and marketability could play in the success of a film. Nostalgia can be defined as a sentimental affection for the past. This idea of nostalgic films has become very present in modern day films (Guardians of the Galaxy, Stranger Things, etc). Ready Player One utilizes a lot of nostalgic allusions as a means to relate to its audience. As for marketability, it is defined as an object's ability to be sold and/or marketed. With these two terms in mind, we viewed the new Ready Player One film trailer. On our first viewing we were told to just absorb the information. On our second viewing, we had to write down every allusion we noticed within the two minute trailer. After completing all of that, the class shared the allusions they found. Then a discussion was posed about how a person's knowledge of the allusions would impact their view of the movie. (Essentially asking how people who saw all of the allusions might react differently from those who only noticed a few.) That was what we completed in class today. Don't forget to complete reading Ready Player One in preparation for Wednesday's in class letter/essay.
~I apologize for not being able to include the trailer, it is blocked on the Chromebook's browser.~
When looking at nostalgia and marketability outside of class, it is easy to see that they can be very effective together. Two of the best examples are Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World. Both films brought franchises back to the silver screen for the first time in many years. Their trailers used many elements from the original films including characters, music, and set pieces to really push nostalgic appeal. This strategy worked wonders for these films as they went on to become the third and fourth highest grossing films of all time, grossing over $3.6 billion combined (based on Box Office Mojo's worldwide box office results). However, I do not think the nostalgic draw is helping Ready Player One. The amount of nostalgic allusions is overwhelming and distracts from actually learning about the plot of the film. The trailer seemed more focused on showing off all of the cool 80s characters than it did in selling Ernest Cline's story. There is no way to be sure until the movie comes out, but based on the recent trailer I think all of the allusions will do more to harm than help Ready Player One.
This is what an extension looks like! Awesome connection to SW & JW as nostalgia driven market machines. Lots of great details on the class’ activities too, but the extension takes it to another place. Clear tone and well communicated. Might have liked to see you push that nostalgia a bit further in terms of SW/JW via a specific character or musical choice (as we did with the trailer in class).
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