Video game movies remain one of the most difficult media to adapt to the big screen. This is largely because it’s tough to tell a 50-hour story in 2 hours, and even then, it’s hard to recapture the player experience. As a result, telling a logical story plays a larger role as well as capturing what it means to love the games in the first place, something Ready Player One captures well.
Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the sci-fi book by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One explores the journey of one boy living in a dystopian future, spending hours in a virtual world to find a treasure that could change his life forever. The pop culture of the movie is just the start of what becomes the perfect example of a great video game movie.
Ready Player One is a Love Letter to Pop Culture and Mainly Video Games
In Ready Player One, the OASIS is a virtual world that the human population uses to escape the sad state of affairs the real world provides. A dystopian future, the film showcases people living in rickety stacks, which are just mobile homes stacked on one another, because now, the real world is virtual.
However, on a mission to find a major Easter egg that could provide the protagonist, Wade Watts, with the chance to run the OASIS after its creator died. With a small group of friends, they hunt down the egg while going against the corporate heads, trying to find the egg to introduce ads to the system.
What makes Ready Player One work so well is how ’80s pop culture fuels the story and becomes the secret to success. Nostalgia is a tool, and it makes the film feel timeless. The best example of this is the race sequence where Wade uses Back to the Future’s DeLorean against other vehicles like the Batmobile. The pop culture nostalgia is what makes the movie special in the best ways possible.
More than that, it embraces the idea of video games as a tool to help the story with the OASIS feeling like a high-end VR chatroom where characters have vehicles in their pockets, and the genres can change from racing to horror at a moment’s notice. It understands the differences in genres as well as the communal aspect of video games. Even raiding with a group of friends honors games like World of Warcraft.
Ready Player One Embraces Why People Love Video Games
There are more than a few bad video game movies out there, and even the good ones, whether it’s Sonic the Hedgehog or The Super Mario Bros. Movie, can only go so far to give audiences the things that made the games so special. On the flip side, even the worst video game movies like Doom offered up one POV scene that felt like the game come to life. Meanwhile, the Resident Evil franchise has to move far away from the games to tell a story.
In the end, it’s hard to get people into video game movies when, in reality, they could just go home and play the games that have already proven themselves as strong stories with great gameplay. Ready Player One subverts this not by trying to bring certain video game moments to life but instead trying to remind viewers what it is that’s so fun about video games in the first place. There’s style and fun to it, but more than that, in a world where character customization is the norm in gaming, there’s self-expression.
Yes, there are countless movie references in Ready Player One, but they are all formatted like a video game. It’s often up to characters solving puzzles in mazes or winning races to obtain the Easter eggs they’re looking for. It’s similar to a game like Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, where winning is about finding patterns or even finding secret ways to knock out enemies in one punch. The Journey is just as important as completing the game, and Ready Player One understood this better than any other video game movie that has come out since.
Ready Player One is a Blueprint For What Video Game Movies Need to Be Like
There is no clear answer for what video game movies need to be to succeed. It’s not about how it looks or which has the best story separately. Both have to work in order to deliver a great story, and that’s what makes Ready Player One such an obvious win. It gives future filmmakers an idea of what needs to be explored when telling a story inspired by a video game.
More than anything, it’s about honoring those small moments in a way that feels organic. The best example of this in Ready Player One is when the Gundam appears and strikes a pose from the anime. It’s small but feels real in the moment and proves for many fans that a Gundam movie or show could work. However, for gaming fans, this is only just being explored now.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has a completely original story, but those game moments are what fuel it from platforming scenes to Mario fighting Donkey Kong like it’s Super Smash Bros. There’s a lot of homage that enhances the story and has made it such a smash hit that spawned an equally fun and Easter egg-heavy sequel. In hindsight, it’s hard not to consider how Ready Player One used this as well to great success.
Steven Spielberg is a legendary director, and that goes without saying. He has impacted genres time and again, and to see him take on a movie like this is amazing because it feels both perfect for him but also out of his wheelhouse. Just like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Ready Player One feels like a dream come true, but this time in the digital space. Nevertheless, in classic Spielberg fashion, he managed to show viewers the importance of video games and the importance of using the right techniques to bring those stories to life.
- Release Date
-
March 29, 2018
-
Olivia Cooke
Art3mis / Samantha
-
Tye Sheridan
Parzival / Wade
-
-
