The Zemekis Cube is named after Robert Zemekis who wrote and directed Back to the Future.

Also ... HOW HAVE YOU NEVER SEEN "THE IRON GIANT"????? Do yourselves the favor of seeing it ASAP. You will love it so, so much.

Halliday saying, "Thanks for playing my game" always hits me in the feels no matter how many times I see it.
Damn VR ninjas cutting onions.

"no man is a failure who has friends" - Clarence the angel to George Bailey, "It's a Wonderful Life"

Zemeckis directed Back to the Future, ergo Zemeckis Cube

Zemeckis cube: a reference to Back to the Future and hence the cube’s ability to turn back time.

The story of them getting the Rights to all that IP is pretty interesting.

Ernest Cline said he thought about it when he was writing it and never thought it would be filmable.

Warner Brothers was the studio and they were a big reason it could happen because they owned or had rights to such a large amount of IP.

When IP holders heard what they were doing and that Spielberg was involved, response ended up really positive in what would otherwise have been a whole lot of refusals.

As I understand it, Ultraman was missing because of some legal mess involving Netflix causing the IP to be unavailable to license.

Disney had acquired Star Wars and wouldn't give up the rights. They allowed some smaller things to be used as Easter Eggs, but nothing major was included. The popular assumption is that Lucas would have let Star Wars be used given his close relationship with Spielberg.

Blade Runner was bad timing with the sequel not out yet and a worry that the portrayal might not help with Blade Runner 2049.

The Shining scene was a replacement for missing IP. It was a good tribute from Spielberg.

"Like Hos on Santa." "So like three?" bwahahaha

"Goodbye, Parzival.  Thanks for playing my game."  eyes explode with tears

I have to say my favorite part of this is how Haliday is portrayed. Its about as perfect a representation of geeks and nerds growing up in the 80s to 90s where. We didnt have many friends and most of our time was spent exploring these amazing worlds created by developers, even as crude and simple as they where back then.

Zemeckis cube is a time travel reference to Back to the Future which he wrote/directed. If you listen closely, right when Wade activates it, you hear the little piano jingle from the Back to the Future films.

As a RUSH fan I loved that in the book they had to go the a planet called Syrinx that referenced the Rush album "2112".

The chant for the orb is from the movie Excalibur (1981).

so with the heavy use of the magic spell from 80s movie Excalibur, you guys should totally watch it if you haven't already seen it... star packed too! Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne & the best damn Merlin EVER!!

I love the little detail of the "Extra Life" being a quarter, which is what was used to play older arcade games.

Ps: How have you guy not see the Iron Giant?!

I'm glad that I was warned beforehand, that Spielberg was working with the original author to create the "alternate" version and differences in the movie compared to the book. Some folks came out disgusted that a lot of things were changed. I loved both, but I highly recommend the book for a larger, more in-depth experience.

This movie was always going to be challenging to adapt from the book, but getting Spielberg and nailing that corny sincere tone was exactly the right call. It makes it such a fun movie!

I love that they included Halliday's construct saying "Thank you for playing my game."
A nearly direct quote of the late Satoru Iwata of Nintendo, thanking gamers for finding joy in his works.
IMO this movie is about the mutual love that exists between people who create art and the people who admire it, derived of their mutual love of the art itself, hence the answer to the final challenge being the hidden name credit of Warren Robinett, hidden for the benefit of players who loved playing Adventure enough to discover the name of the man who had made the thing from which they got so much joy.

In the book, almost all of the avatars and "skins", vehicles, robots, etc. were from the 70's, 80's and 90's. The Blizzard stuff was not in there because the book was written before any of those characters existed.

This book, and the movie, are love letters to us 80s kids. It's a lot of fun going through the book and movie to find all the references.