In Steven Spielberg’s latest sci-fi adventure, Ready Player One, we take a trip down nostalgia lane like no other. An adaptation of Ernest Cline’s 2011 bestselling book of the same name, the film is at once a call to the future and an ode to times gone by — a little like one of Spielberg’s earlier productions, Back to the Future.
But it doesn’t just end at a simplistic thematic similarity. In a thrilling moment right in the centre of all the action in Ready Player One, we get a grand viewing of the legendary DeLorean, hotly pursued by a T-Rex and King Kong, and we expect nerds all over the world to break into applause when the movie hits theatres this weekend.
Set in Ohio, Ready Player One takes place in the not so distant and dystopic future of the year 2045, where a large part of the population live in precariously stacked tenements in trailer parks. To escape the crippling poverty and squalor, most people spend their lives behind VR glasses as avatars in the virtual world of the Oasis — an escapist virtual reality game created by geek genius and 1980s-obsessed James Halliday (played by Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance), who kicks the bucket unexpectedly. But in his death, he bequeaths control of his creation and all of his considerable wealth to the person who can find an Easter egg hidden deep in the game.
Despite boasting big names like Rylance, Simon Pegg and Ben Mendelsohn, the weight of the film is carried by its three relatively young lead actors: the up and coming Tye Sheridan (Mud, X-Men: Apocalypse), the British import Olivia Cooke (Me, Earl and the Dying Girl), and, most importantly, Lena Waithe, who makes her big screen debut with this movie.
You remember Waithe from Master of None, for which she also won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series — the first black woman to win the coveted prize.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Spielberg succinctly explained Waithe’s aura, “She was accessible at a glance. Her honesty was glaring. And she couldn’t hit a wrong note, because she found a way to be herself on-camera. I suddenly felt like I had hit the jackpot. The magic hadn’t walked into the room until Lena did.”
Waithe, who plays an auto mechanic in the film, is quick to shower praise on the director, as well. “There’s no better way to kick off your debut feature than Steven Spielberg directing you. But he’s also just a really wonderful man. He made me feel safe and it was just fun being on the sets around him,” said the actress in a phone interview from London, where she was attending the UK premiere of the film with the rest of the cast and crew.
Cooke was effusive in her praise, too. “I think Lena Waithe said it best when she said, ‘He’s a giant who doesn’t make you feel small’. We come in with our pre-conceived notions of what it’s going to be like and so we’re very nervous. But he undercuts that with his own nervousness, and his passion for the project. He’s not only kind and generous but he’s also hugely collaborative. He puts his trust in others because he believes in what we can contribute to the film, which is incredibly confidence-instilling,” she said, adding that she felt “absolutely gobsmacked” when she heard that she had bagged a role in a Spielberg film.
TWO-STEP PRODUCTION
The actors describe a two-step method to the production process. The scenes set in the Oasis/VR world were shot first, using motion capture. “We actually had two weeks of stunt rehearsal prior to the actual shoot where we had a chance to become acclimatised to motion capture. What was wonderful about it was that it was liberating,” Cooke said.
“When you’re void of any sets or anything tangible to hook you into the scene, you’re forced to live inside your own imagination and you could just do these long sequences without stopping. It was actually really wonderful; uninhibited in a wonderful way,” she added.
The live action bits came next, shot in typical Spielberg sets, huger than you can imagine, and with meticulous attention to detail (the production budget is estimated to be at $175 million, or Dh642.66 million). Since the characters have two aspects to their personalities — their real-life selves and a digital identity — the instruction was to treat them as two separate characters.
Sheridan, who plays Wade Watts, a lone gamer on a quest to find the Easter egg, loved the opportunity to display this duality. “Steven pulled me aside on day one and said, ‘I want you to approach this character as two separate people.’ Parzival [his digital persona] is this confident person, very sure of himself inside the Oasis, like most people are when they go online. Whereas Wade Watts, who he is in the real world, is not like that at all. I thought it was beautiful and builds to the complexity of the character.”
The women attest that they got the better share of the deal. While Waithe described her character Aech/Helen as “a badass” and “someone you’re not going to expect”, Cooke said her Samantha/Artemis “is an incredibly self-less and intelligent person.”
“She is aware and conscious of the world around her and how humanity needs to be responsible for their reality,” she said.
The soul of the film, of course, lies in the ’80s. The original book is a giant throwback and love letter to the decade where pop culture really exploded, with arcade games, pop music and genre films taking over the entertainment world, a sub-culture Spielberg actually helped birth.
The film itself is the largest Easter egg hunt you’ll ever embark on, so you’re basically spending your time playing Where’s Wally?, except Wally could be anyone from Batman and Chun-Li to He-Man and Robocop. The stars of the film had their own little fanboy moments after they watched the completed film.
“I spotted Beetlejuice in there for all of two seconds and that got me so excited,” said Cooke.
Waithe, who said she was a huge video game and pop culture geek growing up and likes to keep up with it all still, cited “Chucky, Jason [Voorhees], Freddie Kruger and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” as the most exciting Easter eggs from the film.
Sheridan said, with the awe evident in his tone: “I think my most favourite one was the Iron Giant, just because I have such a sentimental relationship with that character. I’m a huge fan of [director] Brad Bird and that movie. When I watched the final version of the film and saw my avatar standing next to the Iron Giant, that was a special moment for me.”
But games aside, Sheridan insists the movie has a “deeper humanity” and that Ready Player One is both a metaphor and warning from the future of a world that’s too trapped by its technological advancements.
“Even though it takes place in a dystopic future, the film speaks to what we’re dealing with now in 2018. The Oasis stands as such a huge metaphor and symbol for social media and some digital platforms that we all have and all encounter.”
QUOTE/UNQUOTE
Tye Sheridan on never having played Atari 2600: “Although I was very familiar with ’80s arcade games, I had never actually played a video game on a console from that era. I had seen tonnes of videos of people playing, played the game online and read up on the games, and done as much research as I possibly could... So, when it was time to shoot the scene where I was playing the Atari 2600, I had to pull Steven aside and say, ‘Hey, I’ve never actually played Atari before. Can you make sure I’m holding the controller right?’”
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Ready Player One is out in UAE cinemas on March 29.