Ready Player One

Nostalgia galore. I don’t know if you could catch all of Ready Player One’s references even if you saw the movie every day for the rest of its run in theatres. This movie went all out.

Packed with 80s movie references

My theory is that Steven Spielberg has been waiting, maybe even saving himself for this movie. A lot of his recent movies have been films like Lincoln and The Post. Exciting, right? It’s almost like he was holding his breath in anticipation for this movie. He’s finally reaching the audience that he and the other film giants of the 80’s, reached before. He admits that he has proven to be a commendable force in pop culture, which isn’t that far from the truth. So because of his role in the past, he’s claiming to be one of the only people who has the authority to make a movie with a love of 80’s movies. It’s not like he acts like a living legend, smiting us with 80’s nostalgia and references true 80’s fans should understand. It’s more like he’s sitting next to you in the audience, nudging you and pointing while saying things like, “Did you catch that? I just had to put that in. That movie made such an impact on me at the time”. Steven is not treating himself as a higher-up, more as a fan who knows influence when he sees it. He actually goes out of his way not to put in too many references to himself. The other references in the film, besides from the 80’s movie references, are a lot of video game references that hold weight to a mass group of people and also references to pop culture characters that have proven themselves of having an impact on people.

Call it Sci Fi-Adventure

The plot is great. I don’t think it needs much more than it already has. A reason for that success is probably because, this plot structure is coincidentally similar to one of Spielberg’s most successful franchises that pioneered its own plot structure. I am of course talking about Indiana Jones. This movie also has a pairing to the plot structure of The Goonies, yet another movie Spielberg had a hand in.It just shows that it’s pretty much meant to be that Spielberg is involved in this movie, especially considering that he didn’t even write the story. Just like in Indiana Jones, these characters have to solve solve secret clues, navigate traps in order to find treasure, and they have to “read between the lines” when combing through history. The genre of the movie is definitely Sci Fi-Adventure. It’s sci fi because it has something to say about the future. Simple as that. It’s adventure too, not only because of its Indiana Jones and Goonies vibes, but because adventure movies almost feel like a ride to the audience plus they have a linear and pretty straightforward plot. Adventure movies aren’t known for their subtleties and their characters are dynamic and progressive, and Ready Player One definitely fits the bill. I would call the style of the movie paradoxical due to the stark contract that is pitted between the Oasis/the virtual world and the real world. It like you have two different movies when comparing the scenes from the real and virtual worlds.

Plenty of missed opportunities

One adjective I would have to describe this movie along with nostalgic and dynamic, is clumsy. It’s my opinion that there were a lot of missed opportunities. I had quite a lot of moments where I thought, “What a cool concept”, and then I was disappointed when these concepts weren’t developed at all. In other words, there were so many times when some really interesting concepts and ideas in the movie were left uncradled. The movie moved too quickly past them. This then leads me to three unfortunate conclusions. Firstly, more time was given to pop culture references, which don’t really help a movie’s quality, then there was time left for the movie’s themes and messages, which mean everything for a movie’s quality. Second, there wasn’t a whole lot that Spielberg wanted to tell us. He wasn’t really dying or adamant to get something off his chest. Lastly, even though I’ve never read the book, there’s a very strong chance that the book is better than the movie because it takes time in order to develop its concepts and gives a closer look at the real world, and the problems it entails. For example, I thought it was so incredibly interesting that the creator of the Oasis, James Halliday, basically asks random strangers to go through his life with a fine comb and magnifying glass. They’re going to be putting on repeat, all of his greatest failures and disappointments. He’s going to lose all of the respect people ever had for him, and his life is not only boring, it’s pathetic. He has no love life, lives in constant fear, and has a speech impairment. If you’ve seen a movie, like The Circle, where someone's life is put on display, you know that it ruins lives. So why does Halliday do this? Why does he invite people to judge him? If he was Jesus, okay, but his life is a snoozefest and full of mishaps. I so wish that this decision of Halliday's was developed. There are so many messages that can be found in this idea alone. I honestly don’t know why a sane person would want this and I wish the filmmakers of this movie would tell me. But alas, it never happens. There is a bit of vague focus on it at the end, but the movie needed to give more that.

Its not about the acting... its all about nostalgia

It seems like the movie zoomed by more than just potential messages and outlets. The acting isn’t a focus of the movie. What I mean isn’t that the acting is bad but rather, the acting isn’t relied in order to improve the quality of the movie. In fact, not much is relied on at all. The definition of a quality film is the blending of multiple mediums of art in order to get a message across. I would not call this movie quality because I don’t think it blended or got its message across clear enough. I would not call this a bad movie because there is a direction that all the film’s art forms, such as acting, set design, and the cinematography, help achieve and there is a slight message at the end, but the movie is clumsy because there were plenty of opportunities that weren’t taken in order to continue blend the art forms as well as not bringing up other questions to the audience. There was too much reliance on special effects and nostalgia. In the movie’s defense, it is an adventure movie and that genre’s goal is usually not to tell something to the audience, but it is to entertain and to give the audience an experience and Ready Player One is now a new epitome adventure movie. I was just sad because I liked this movie and I think it could’ve been a really influential film. It’s a fun movie to watch as well as being re-watchable. I recommend this movie to people who are rather fluent in pop culture and are a general fan of 80’s movies, like me. I think this is a fine movie to bring your kids to as well, but the references might go over their heads and there is a mild horror movie sequence.