Shanthanu Chandavarkar
Finally, the San Diego Comic Con trailer drought ended, upon the release of the trailers of Thor Ragnarok, the Justice League movie, and the brilliant advertisement-esque trailer for Pacific Rim Uprising. But, one trailer, in particular, caught my attention. And after watching it, I was genuinely excited to watch the movie. It intrigued me more, than the trailers of Thor, Justice League, AND Star Wars Episode 8, combined.
It was the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s upcoming movie, ‘Ready Player One’. And here are the five reasons you should be excited for it too.
1. The concept
The concept of the novel involves a virtual reality headset, by means of which the characters enter The Oasis, the digital world, as represented in the novel. The last time Virtual Reality was used as an effective means of driving the plot, was in the Wachowski siblings’ masterpiece, The Matrix. Every movie that came after that, and tried to ape its concepts, failed. And failed miserably. But now, in 2017, with VR making its way into this generation’s zeitgeist, Ready Player One seems to be taking notes from The matrix, and by the looks of it, it’s doing a pretty fine job.
2. The team working on it
It is a movie produced by Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg’s production company, and this company has produced some of the most well-regarded movies of all time (E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, the list goes on). And the last dystopian movie they produced was 2002’s Minority Report, which can easily be considered one of Steven Spielberg’s best. The crew, of both the movies, have a lot in common. Janusz Kaminski, the cinematographer, Michael Kahn, the editor, and of course, Spielberg himself.
3. Steven Spielberg
Honestly, I could just leave it at that.
The man has a near-flawless filmography. His last great movie was 2015’s Bridge of Spies. Last year’s The BFG was a rather hit-or-miss movie, receiving some mixed responses. But, despite a few stinkers (1941 being one of them), he has cemented his status, as one of this generation’s greatest living directors. Between this, and The Papers, it most certainly is a great time for us fans to be alive.
4. An adaptation
To be completely honest, I haven’t read Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, upon which this movie is based. But, after watching the trailer, I have made my mind to immediately do so. From what I know and have looked up, it deals with an entrepreneur, who, upon his death, leaves clues for others to find. The clues point to his hidden fortune, and the inheritance of his company. It also involves a teenager, who decides to embark on this hunt.
It may sound mediocre, or even bland, but the kicker is, the clues are hidden inside a virtual reality, called The Oasis, and the clues are in the form of pop culture Easter eggs.
Speaking of which,
5. The references
I don’t think I have ever seen a trailer, so full of pop culture references. As a movie and video game geek, the trailer made me giddy with excitement. The trailer makes references to Harley Quinn and Deathstroke, Freddy Krueger, Duke Nukem, Halo, Lara Croft, Mad Max, Akira, and Back to the Future, and is set to the tune of Tom Sawyer by Rush. Any movie trailer featuring all these just cannot be ignored. And it probably is the strongest reason to go watch this movie.
‘Ready Player One’ releases on March 30th next year, and it’s sad that we have to wait for such a long time, after having seen what this movie has in store, for us.
The protagonist’s face at the end of the trailer nicely sums up our reactions, upon viewing it.
This most certainly is an unusual essay, but, we owe it to ourselves, as film, and pop culture, nerds, to give this trailer a watch. Here it is:
