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THERE’S A LOT riding on Steven Spielberg’s latest film Ready Player One, the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated The Post.
The films couldn’t be more different: while The Post occupies a period of time in recent history, Ready Player One plunges the viewer into a dystopian future, where the earth of 2045 is a hellish place to live.
Let’s gloss over the fact that 2045 isn’t actually that far away, and concentrate on what the future is like in this 2011 book by Ernest Cline: a place where people seek solace in a virtual reality world called Oasis.
The book is set in Columbus, Ohio, where people live in stacked-up trailer parks and the world is literally crumbling around them. Oasis provides them with a way to have fun, let loose, and escape what’s going on in the world outside.
At its heart, Ready Player One is fantasy – it’s about Wade Watts (played by Tye Sheridan) and his battle to find an easter egg hidden in Oasis, and win half a trillion dollars and control over the world of Oasis itself.
That means money’s to be made – so when Wade’s avatar looks like he’s getting close to the easter egg, nefarious forces appear to try and stop him.
When news came that the cult book was to be adapted into a film, a bit of backlash occurred – as Vox put it in its explainer:
How did the consensus on a single book go from “exuberant and meaningful fun!” to “everything that is wrong with the internet!” over the span of seven years?
It turned out that the answer was Gamergate, a battle within the gaming community over race, gender and the alt-right, which as Vox says “changed the way we talk about geek culture” and meant that books about this culture would no longer be treated as harmless fun.
But what did that mean for the film? It meant that at first, everything about the project came under a microscope, including the poster artwork:
The book and the film are jam-packed full of cultural references from the 1970s, 80s and 90s. And it’s this that’s bound to be a huge draw – with a serious penchant for nostalgia these days (think Stranger Things and It) people love being reminded of what they enjoyed as they were kids.
And there’s no better director for giving us nostalgia than the legendary Steven Spielberg.
There were nine references in Ernest Cline’s novel to seminal ‘80s classics produced or directed by Spielberg – including two mentions by name – but not all will make it to the screen.
80% of the pop culture references in the script were cleared to appear in the film – including King Kong, The Joker, Mobile Suit Gundam, Gandalf, Chucky, Freddy Krueger, Lara Croft, Duke Nukem, Chun-Li, Blanka, Sagot and Ryu from Street Fighter
Notably, Spielberg says Ready Player One was the third hardest film he’s ever made, following Jaws and Saving Private Ryan. Much of that must be due to the fact that it has two worlds in it: the real world and the virtual world. It’s quite a technological feat to manage to capture both of these.
The film involved two back-to-back productions – one captured on the virtual production stage at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden and the other a traditional live action film shoot on practical sets and real locations across the UK – then stitched together by Spielberg.
Four huge sets were created by production designer Adam Stockhausen and constructed on stages and the backlot at Leavesden, including Wade Watts’s home in the Stacks, a vertical slum of trailers piled high as skyscrapers.
As for this aspect, the towers in the Columbus Stacks were built from 60 actual trailers (or caravans) hauled onto the Leavesden backlot, then piled up layer by layer on a backbone of heavy steel girders in a collaboration between Stockhausen’s art department, led by senior art director Stuart Rose, and the special effects and stunt teams.
The first reviews of the film arrived this week, and it looks like the initial fears made way for a balanced look at the highs and lows of the film. So far, it has an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 64% rating on Metacritic.
Yet Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One,” a rollicking virtual-world geekfest flooded by ’80s ephemera, doesn’t just want to wade back into the past. It wants to race into it at full throttle. For those who get their fix through pop nostalgia, “Ready Player One” is — for better or worse — an indulgent, dizzying overdose.
Lest we forget, “E.T.,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “A.I.” and “Minority Report,” to name four of the director’s achievements, sampled all sorts of established literary and screen classics. “Ready Player One” is a different and more disposable diversion. It’s like a visualization, however immersive and impressive, of movie trivia night down at the local bar. But as I say: By a whisker, Spielberg wins the race against his own material.
To be fair, the pivot from movie to film never flat-out condemns VR or pop culture as much as it points out the flaws inherent in both. But even this conceit of finding a happy balance between fantasy and reality is glaringly unearned when considering that literally everything that’s good about Ready Player One comes from the OASIS.
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Sorry seems to be the hardest word goes the song,not in this kip though.
I find it hard to believe that there are still people in Galway Council that were active in the 70s-late 90s. Anybody in an institution that was involved with the deaths and unlawful dumping of babies can apologise away. If they were not involved with this institution then the apologies are empty. Where are those guilty of these atrocities? Those that were there and turned a blind eye? Hiding away, letting others apologise…
@Oliver Walker: I recently discovered that Politicians that are around since 1981 in Galway are still active today and include Mayors and Former TDS .
@Aine Healy: What do you mean ‘do your research’?… Have you seen the report? Have you read the article? Babies remains were dumped in septic tanks…
Big leap from that to abortion.
@Oliver Walker: please see my above reply in answer to your questions.
So, did you vote yes to legalising abortion that is responsible for the deaths of 7000 “invisible and voiceless” pre born human beings it it’s first year alone? Yes?
@Aine Healy: hold up, if they weren’t ‘dumped’ in there how do you think they got there? Crawled in themselves and died?
@Helen Downey: you should also do your research Helen. No babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or anyone else. Notwithstanding the official report ( which I suggest that you actually read), where in the article above, does it state that babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank”?
It would appear that you are letting your ideological narrative get on the way of facts.
How about you Helen? Did your vote yes to the legalization of abortion which is responsible for the deaths of over 7000 Irish babies in its first year alone, most of whom actually did end up in the sewage system unlike the “Tuam babies” who did not?
@Aine Healy: I consider babies in a sewage system dumped. How else did they get there? You haven’t answered that I see.
@Helen Downey: you really should do your own homework rather than expecting others to do it for you. Why so lazy?
Again, your “consideration” does not facts make, although I acknowledge your considered opinion that aborted babies (those who are not incinerated) who end up in the sewage system as being “dumped”.
There is no written or oral documentation that evidences that babies or children who died in Tuam were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or indeed that they were “killed” by “the nuns”.
Overwhelming evidence, with detailed references, shows that coffins and shrouds were used for babies who died in the Tuam mother and baby home. The babies were placed in a crypt. Crypts are very common in Ireland. Catherine Corless herself, interviewed two carpenters families who spoke to her about how their relatives built coffins for the babies. Nor were there any pipes going to or out the structure making the claim that the remains were in a septic tank utterly ridiculous. Old maps show a cess poll ( which is different to a septic tank) within the area and Corless put two and two together, made five, of which pro abortion advocates and Catholic bigots were only to delighted to fly the flag for.
All of the babies and children’s names, ages, places of birth and causes of death (tb, measles, flu, whooping cough amongst other illnesses) were recorded.
It was in fact county council who reduced the size of the original graveyard in order to build an access road to houses that had been built on the site and also to provide a playground. They reinterred the remains of babies and children that they had dug up in the structure (known as an ossuary). “The nuns” were well gone according to the evidence that shows the structure and re interment to have occurred after 1960’s.
Again, research on your part would have led you to the facts, but again it appears that you have little interest in the truth of the matter. How tragic is that?
@Aine Healy: the remains were found in a septic tank. Disused or not it is a septic tank. Not a grave.
Ah well, that’s ok then. No worries!
@Joecantdance: considering that the majority of the members of the council weren’t even born during the majority of the time this abuse was going on, what do you really expect them to do?
Not good enough, want to hear from the county manager at the time and to hear what his reasoning behind his lack of knowledge empathy of the women , not from the present council offering a hollow apology
They will be even more sorry when sued
No good. Not accepted. No point in this. Most of not all of this on the county council has nothing to do with it.
Are their politicians and senior civil servants getting a state funded pension for the work they did years ago. Health Boards, social workers among others.
have your say