In the future world of Ready Player One, most people in the year 2044 live the meaningful parts of their lives in the ‘1980s-themed VR/MMORPG world of the Oasis. And now, the first photo of Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of the popular book gives us a glimpse of the main character — Wade Watts — interacting with that virtual world. Though, we’re still not quite sure how the Oasis looks…yet.
On Friday, Entertainment Weekly released a photo from Ready Player One depicting Wade (Tye Sheridan) alone in one of the “stacks” of the future, clearly logged onto the Oasis. In the book, Wade uses the Oasis like everyone else, but he’s also in search of the program’s “easter eggs.” The co-creator of the Oasis, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) embeded his virtual kingdom with secrets that only people who know a shitload about the ‘80s will be able to unlock. While all of this sounds pretty frivolous, it’s not. In the reality of Ready Player One, the Oasis controls pretty much the entire economy, meaning those with trivial knowledge of old TVs, movies, and Dungeons and Dragons, really could rule the world. Doesn’t sound at all like the real internet, does it?
In addition to various junk food wrappers, and a Masters of the Universe lunchbox, Wade also has a few news clipping relevant to Halliday and the creation of the Oasis. In the back left of the photo, there’s even a “vintage” issue of Wired with a cover story featuring Halliday.
The big question at this point, is just how the film will manage to capture the VR world, which occupies basically 90% of the book’s narrative. Wade and his friends fly spaceships from Star Wars, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and even attend a rave in which R2-D2 DJs and Wade’s lady friend Art3mis turns into a mermaid. How is the movie going to pull all of this off?
Ready Player One opens March 30, 2018. And if the Millennium Falcon makes it into the Oasis, then there will be two movies( this and the Han Solo movie) out within 60 days of each other featuring people flying the famous starship.
