On Ready Player One

CGI has meant cinema can explore stories it previously could not. George Lucas once said that he had not imagined being able to make (and some wish he never had) Star Wars Episodes I, II and III before he saw Jurassic Park (1993). As it was only then that he saw the technology had caught up with his vision. The Matrix (1999) and Avatar (2009) provide other key moments in American cinema’s use of CGI. In these examples there are those that mix CGI with actual locations and those that create entire CGI worlds. Some do both in the same film. Ready Player One may be another key moment, where CGI combines with that other creator of imaginary worlds, the games industry. Unlike Avatar, which espouses technology over story, Ready Player One comes from the master of American childhood and a cult novel by Ernest Cline and therefore the, at times, relentless CGI matched with an almost impossible rate of 80s referencing is anchored by a story that is timeless and delivered with absolute skill. Ready Player One is sometimes hard to absorb. It’s big, busy and loud and so full of detail that it is hard to consume. But this world is only one part of Ready Player One, the virtual reality world. The other world, ours, this one, but in the future has gone in a direction that feels very possible and therefore a desire to escape is not only believable but understandable. All of this gives the CGI world weight. There is a strong story here about growing up, about our future and, despite its reliance on technology, on the dangers of losing ourselves to it. It may not look like it, but this is a film that balances story and technology perfectly.