Daniel Im

Moosman 3

IB Lang 11

Messages in Ready Player One

Ready Player One is a movie that Steven Spielberg directed; screenplay developed by

Ernest Cline and Zak Penn. Ready Player One is about a dystopian future where there is

migration of the poor population moving into a wasteland. It was practical hell and they used

Virtual Reality to escape this hell. This virtual reality was known as the OASIS. This “reality”

was full of references to pop-culture and easter eggs from the older years. Within the movie,

there are many scenes with much detail telling and showing the goods and bads of technology

and its impact it can have on humanity. Things in the movie like the settings, the tone of

characters, the colors scheme, and much more within the movie’s natural reality and virtual

reality that the director and screenwriter put in to hint/tell what they think about technology in

the real, physical world. Some of these benefits is how it lets us humans go beyond the

limitations of reality and helps us escape the problems of reality. However, there are also

detriments of technology that the producers are trying to say like how it causes people to neglect

and become ignorant about the real world and how it causes humans to become reliant and

dependent on technology. These are things the developer and screenwriter are trying to tell their

viewers about technology using various techniques within the movie.

To start off, one benefit the developers are saying about technology is the possibilities of

technology and how limitless they can be. In Ready Player One, people who enter the OASIS

have the freedom over their own appearance and freedom to do whatever they desire. The main
character is an example of this freedom of appearance because in real life, he is a nerdy white

male that wears a checkered over shirt with a t-shirt underneath as well as jeans, but in the

OASIS, his name is Parzival and has a completely different look. Helen Harris is another

example. She is an African American woman in real life, but in the OASIS, she is a male cyborg-

ogre-looking avatar and in our reality, stuff like this can be seen in and is something the director

is trying to point out. Technology can and will let people fulfill dreams. Yet, appearance isn’t the

only thing that is limitless in the OASIS. The activities within the OASIS as well are limitless. In

the introduction of the movie, it showed people surfing a 50-foot wave, skiing down a pyramid,

and other things that are literally impossible to do in the real world. Wade Watts also states,”

People come to the OASIS for all the things they can do. But they stay because of all the things

they can be.” Limitations in this virtual reality is limitless and this is something the producers

believed in and included as a major aspect of the movie. However, this can also be a detriment.

In the intro of the movie, it tells viewers the theme of the movie which is Columbus, Ohio in the

year 2045 in an area called ‘The Stacks.’ One of the most notable things in this intro is the state

of the world and its color scheme. The whole world looks grey and depressing and when Wade

climbed down, everyone was on their virtual reality console playing their games ignoring the

state of the world and much action to change the world wasn’t really seen throughout the movie

in general. Cline and Penn are trying to show their audience what the world will be if we let

technology consume and hypnotize us from reality. Life will turn grey and depressing and things

like global warming, deforestation, and other environment issues will grow out of control. The

screenwriters are exposing the ideas of technology and how it can both help and harm the human

race by allowing us to fulfill dreams that couldn’t be accomplished due to limitations of life

while also distracting us from real life problems.

 Another belief that the director and screenwriter present is the idea of how technology

allows us to escape the limited world we’re in. The physical world in the movie is presented as a

grey and depressing world. There is just nothing great about this place, but then you go into the

OASIS. This world is just full of colors with big and open areas. It fills viewers with joy and

excitement while the real world is just a letdown. The color scheme itself throughout the movie

is a motif, being a symbolic idea about the amount of joy and happiness that is constantly

brought up in the story. The more enjoyable something was, the more colorful it was. There is a

scene where it shows an Asian business and the color scheme was all dark and grey as well as

the shapes of building and workspaces being the shape of boxes. A lot of things in the movie are

presented as a block or square seeming like the message is that reality is full of limitations. In

today’s reality, life is full of limitations like society is stuck inside a box. A lot of building

shapes and room shapes are in a cube shape, but in the OASIS, the area is very open and there

were not many enclosed areas saying that the OASIS is full of unlimited possibilities unlike real

life. Technology allows humans to escape the limited, boxed in reality of life and allows us to go

beyond what people thought was impossible and escape the borders and problems of reality.

Nevertheless, the director does present an idea of how we humans are growing too dependent on

technology. Going back to the scene of the Asian company; an Asian man dies in the game and

ends up trying to throw himself out of the building he was working in. Luckily his coworkers

prevented him from doing this but nonetheless, this game meant a lot to him and how he was

willing to end his real life when his in-game life died. The director and screenwriters have

pointed this out because in our reality, people rely on technology as of now. People are getting

almost all their news and information from the internet and use these as a basis of their

understanding of things. Humans have grown too dependent on technology and what the director
is trying to say is that even though these devices allow us to escape the walls and pain of reality,

society is also growing too dependent on it and if we continue to trend, then regrettable choices

can be made with technology being the main influence.

So, in the end, there are many benefits of technology as well as detriments of technology.

The director and screenwriter hint and talk about these things through the lighting, color,

costumes, and other details within the movie. Technology will always have its benefits which

include things like how it allows us humans to expand beyond the limitations of reality as well as

allowing us to escape the problems of reality, letting humans escape the problems of their lives.

Nonetheless, technology doesn’t just have benefits but detriments of it exists. Some of these

detriments include how technology lets humans completely neglect the problems in the world

and how humans are becoming too attached and dependent on technology. All of these benefits

and detriments are things the directors and screenwriters are saying within the movie.

Work Cited
Spielberg, Steven, director. Ready Player One. Written by Ernest Cline and Zak Penn,

Warner Bros. Pictures, 2018.