Let's Watch the Long-Awaited Ready Player One Trailer, a Story About VR Directed by Someone With Trepidations About VR

Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-written by Ernest Cline (who wrote the bestselling novel it's based on, partly inspired by his visits to Second Life), here's the long-awaited first glimpse of Ready Player One. And though Snowcrash first coined the concept, it's the first major Hollywood movie to depict the metaverse -- a place (as the protagonist puts it in dialog that could have been lifted from a Second Life ad), "A world where the limits of reality are your own imagination."

It's funny to read excited online reactions to the trailer from VR enthusiasts, with the top comment in the Oculus' subreddit being, "This movie will cause a lot of interest into VR if it's a success." But who wants to live in a future of mobile homes stacked on top of each other, where the OASIS is desirable only because "It's the only place that feels like I mean anything"? And Spielberg himself has expressed much trepidation for a future defined by VR. He believes it'll threaten filmmaking:

“I think we’re moving into a dangerous medium with virtual reality,” he said. “The only reason I say it is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look. “I just hope it doesn’t forget the story when it starts enveloping us in a world that we can see all around us and make our own choices to look at,” added Spielberg.

And also worries about how VR will impact us as a society:

Spielberg told USA Today he sees the film as “a crystal ball into exactly what is going to be happening not in 30 or 40 years but in between 5 and 10 years from now, where a virtual world becomes almost like a drug of choice and where we are spending more time in a nonorganic space than we are breathing and eating and interacting in real life... This movie is going to show why it’s interesting not living in the real world but what we’re missing by not,” Spielberg said. “It’s a cautionary tale but it’s also a big rockin’ adventure movie, too."

So if anything, I think it's likely the movie will cause more moral hangwringing over VR, than increased consumer interest in it.

Comments

[Patchouli Woollahra]

There should be a law about this, really:

"The Au Hypothesis states that the success of Virtual Reality is predicated on it being a useful adjunct to reality... or reality being far, far worse than it is even compared to today."

We should get it into a academic text. it would certainly get a lot more mileage than the books you've authored alone xD

[metacam oh]

Read the book after hearing about it on this blog and loved it. Movie looks epic. They had me at Back to the Future Delorean

[Flashing Merlin]

The reason I like SL is because my SL experience is nothing like this movie, which seems more like World of Warcraft.

Sorry, all that mindless mayhem seems totally boring to me. I wouldn't go see the movie unless other trailers showed something more human to the story.

Interesting Spielberg said, "I say it is dangerous is because it gives the viewer a lot of latitude not to take direction from the storytellers but make their own choices of where to look," showing it's dangerous for him because he's clueless about how to tap VR's potential.

Therefore I agree with Hamlet, "So if anything, I think it's likely the movie will cause more moral hangwringing over VR, than increased consumer interest in it."

[sirhc deSantis]

Its 2045 and still have to strap on a naff piece of kit to play. Yep, that bit at least is probably prophetic.
However - the film looks like a hoot (and rife for the tie ins what with all the references) and had me at Tom Sawyer. Plus Columbus looks nice. Seriously, lived in worse :) Ok a hand wringette - the holy grail of pop culture? Coo...

[melponeme_k]

"Spielberg told USA Today he sees the film as “a crystal ball into exactly what is going to be happening not in 30 or 40 years but in between 5 and 10 years from now,"

This man is part of the Bilderberg crowd, HE KNOWS EXACTLY what is going to happen and what the elites will push on us.

When it was announced that Spielberg was going to direct this I knew right away we were going to get what was in that trailer. It isn't going to be bad, but it won't really be any good either. The man is just collecting a paycheck now, his best years are long past.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

mel:

I dunno. Extant was a pretty good effort by Spielberg. The increasing cost of failure in modern blockbuster creation has stifled efforts to be unusual or creative.

Spielberg's moving on to smaller-screen storytelling is reflective of his refusal to kowtow to market pressures totally as much as it is a graceful fading away. Do remember that these days, the best stories are told on television, not a movie theater - lower budgets but longer runtimes mean less emphasis on VFX except as a adjunct in telling the story.