Ready Player One

(Warning : contains mild spoilers for Ready Player One)

Geek culture is something that has been relevant to the film industry for a long time and, in recent years, has undergone many different changes. No longer focused on one or two aspects of entertainment, it has become something fashionable, something to aim for and even, for some, a now acceptable part of life instead of something to hide.

So when a film is made based on a book that implied it was ‘celebrating’ the geek, you can imagine that this would either be seen as the best thing ever or the worst thing to walk this earth.

Ready Player One was published in 2011 and quickly received a great deal of praise for its world-building and 80s pop culture references that made up the plot. However, in more recent years, especially after the highly public events of Gamergate, the book has undergone a lot of criticism, with some calling the language and depictions in the book as evidence of gatekeeping and misogyny, particularly in the gaming world.

I personally was recommended this book before hearing any of these criticisms and when I read it, I enjoyed it. I didn’t get all the references but I liked the story. And it seemed obvious that it would eventually be made into a film. I certainly understand and recognise the criticisms surrounding it. There are many issues with the plot and characters but I’ll leave other, more competent, individuals to discuss those areas and focus on the film alone.

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The story centres on Wade Watts, a teenager who lives in an area known as ‘The Stacks’. Life isn’t great for him or the world in general and he, like many others, finds solace in ‘The OASIS’, a massively multiplayer online role-playing virtual reality. Think World of Warcraft, but requiring more physical activity. This virtual reality was created by James Halliday who, upon his death, announced that he had hidden an Easter Egg within the OASIS that would allow one person to inherit his entire fortune. Winning requires three keys which can be found using an in-depth knowledge of his life and interests. Playing as his avatar ‘Parzival’, Wade becomes the first Egg Hunter (or Gunter) to locate the first key after five years of searching. But a corporation known as IOI, run by the ruthless Nolan Sorrento, also seek the Egg in order to take over the OASIS and change it from the escapist haven it’s been, to a profit-driven device that only a few would be able to afford. It’s up to Wade and his friends in the OASIS to get there first.

I’ll start off with the good points for this film. It has a competent cast. Every single character is well played by their actors, both in terms of their avatars and their ‘real-life’ selves. Mark Rylance as Halliday in particular deserves a mention here, slipping between the socially awkward Halliday and his more confident avatar Anorak. Tye Sheridan as Wade and Olivia Cooke as Art3mis also do good jobs at making you understand the worlds they inhabit without making the exposition dumps too frustrating. My only regret is that there are some very talented individuals involved who do not get as much focus as I think they should have.

There are a number of exposition dumps in the film, particularly surrounding Halliday himself, but the large ones are shared via a clip show stored in the OASIS that Parzival and co. can view and replay to find clues about the Egg, a unique and refreshing change for the shift in medium. However, that shift does come at the expense of character. In order for the clips to make sense to us as the viewer, they need to be contextualised and this is usually handled by having characters explain pieces of Halliday’s life to each other which, considering how much the clues rely on that knowledge in order to be solved, seems a little confusing.

The OASIS itself is great to look at and the textures on the avatars provide them with a unique look that fits in with the fantastical aspects of the OASIS. The exception to this would be the Sixers whose ulitarian look and synched actions, both in-world and outside it, is definitely intimidating against the brighter colours of the other avatars. Sadly, we don’t get to interact a great deal with this online world or the people playing beyond our main characters. The majority of the avatars are in the background or are jumped past so quickly that we don’t really get to see them or the world they inhabit. Beyond the introductory scene we don’t even get to see that many new avatars, which is a real pity.

Regarding the OASIS as whole, I liked the idea of it but not so much the execution. We are given a bit of information about how it is an escape and how many people use it daily at the expense of Real Life, but we are never really given a reason for why this game is so immersing. The film constantly reminds us that the OASIS is a game, moving from a shot of Parzival doing something to showing us Wade in his gear which can often reduce big moments to ridiculous actions. There’s several quiet or serious moments in the OASIS, which are interrupted by cutaways like this and take away from the impact of the scene. Even the characters don’t seem to be immersed in this world, constantly flipping up their visors up and generally breaking the illusion.

Ready Player One very much tries to push the message that, in a world full of distractions and methods of entertainment, we need to engage with Reality. There’s a particular scene where Art3mis tells Wade that his interactions with her have been calculated so that he only sees and hears what she chooses to tell him. An important point as both Wade and the audience live in a world where relationships can be made without people ever being in the same room and where we can struggle to balance meaningful interactions with healthy caution. But the film then cheapens this by hurrying to place the characters together in Reality, while never allowing time to process the consequences of this meeting or who we’ve now met.

Choose your protagonist...

All in all, the film itself is nice to look at and generally fun though underutilised in parts and the overall message is muddled. Fans of the book should also be aware that this is a very different product to the original story, although it is debatable how much of that was a deliberate choice and how much was down to rights issues.

Overall, you might enjoy it but I doubt you’d remember it for long.

Some additional points, comments and questions:

• For a film based around the concept of a computer game, I question some of the mechanics involved. Someone explain the bike repair scene to me!
• Why are there people on the street wearing visors? That can’t be safe.
• I know we needed some additional scenes to counterbalance the loss of first person perspective but why does I-R0k exist in this film?
•  How does Sorrento’s gaming rig work? Or Aech’s?
• Does no one on the marketing staff of this film understand the concept of Plot Twists?