Are You Ready for Ready Player One?
Mix equal parts nostalgia and depression, shake once, and find yourself crying in the movie theater bathroom afterwards.
This post-viewing emotional outburst makes you even *more* upset than you were already feeling because honestly, the script isn’t *that* good — in fact, at times it is laughably bad. Certainly it isn’t moving enough to warrant tears, so why are you crying in public?
You’re annoyed because you came here tonight for some silly escapism, some of those Spielbergian thrills you remembered from childhood — a fun PG romp to take you out of your own head and remind you of happier times, before you could define all the tropes or guess everyone’s character arcs from miles away.
In other words, you were more than willing to go along for the ride, genuinely excited to revel in 80’s pop culture references and allusions to video game history. It’s all the things you love wrapped in one neat Hollywood package! The studios are doling out nostalgia one visual reference at a time, and like an addict waiting for his fix, you’re lining up to buy tickets.
So sure, you were happy to overlook some cheesy dialogue or turn a blind eye to uncanny valleys full of pixelated avatars. That’s part of the charm of the modern, family-friendly, digital hallmark movie industrial complex, right?
Except now you’re an adult and some cynical part of you couldn’t help but notice this film is trying too hard, that it’s been precisely assembled by a team of people as ruthlessly calculating as Ben Mendelsohn’s villain.
And unfortunately, no matter how many easter eggs you find, the dopamine drip no longer packs the same punch. It’s true what they say: you can’t go home again — especially when that home happens to be a future dystopian version of a midwestern town that played a complicated role in your formative years.
Because if we’re honest, those 80’s movies you liked growing up probably aren’t as good as you remember. No doubt your heroes were just as one-dimensional. But that’s ok, because — ironically — you don’t even care about the characters in Ready Player One anyway; they’re just props for the allusions of your dreams. You’re there because you crave the cultural zeitgeist of childhood flashbacks.
Because maybe you haven’t been happy for a while; in fact, maybe you can’t remember the last time you felt the sort of childlike happiness you remember growing up. You recall the sensation — like a cat sunning its belly in the window — and associate it with a sense of zen, purpose, home… Home was where you first watched those old movies or played those old games.
Meanwhile, as an adult, you’ve been seeking out happiness hits like a junkie, snorting manic ephemerality as a weekend warrior, soaking up momentary comforts or the passing company of friends — anything that might distract you from these feelings. But sadly, the hits don’t get you as high as they used to.
No, you can’t remember uncomplicated happiness, you just associate it with the cultural artifacts of your childhood, doing your best to distract yourself with them. If the monotonous depression of adulthood is a big black umbrella wrapped around your head, then momentary distractions are like poking holes with a toothpick — it feels like progress, but they’re never big enough to let any light in.
Instead, the umbrella keeps closing in, blocking off your peripheral vision, so the only place you can look is down: down at your feet, backwards in time. And sure, maybe things feel especially hard right now, maybe #adulting is hard in general, or maybe you lack the right grit or perspective from your position of entitled malaise. And to be fair, you might also need medication.
Just remember that in the end, nostalgia is a one-way street with diminishing returns. Years of positive memories can be wiped out in a single event. Fond memories are commercial fodder. Hollywood can always make another reboot, another sequel. Joyous recognition and commercial pandering are two sides of the same coin.
So what were you expecting? Did you hope to find some original ideas in a film about culture inspired by games inspired by films? Did you hope a 3-D viewing would pull you out of the Oasis of your own memories?
Even Spielberg can‘t save you from yourself.
…But I’ll be honest, that James Halliday mind-palace created to help people pick apart his fears and learn from his mistakes?
That one got me right in the feels.
