From the moment I first watched the trailer for Ready Player One, I knew that it would be an epic event upon its release, I would never have guessed how obsessed I would become with it. But I am not alone. There is an entire subculture of people just like me who have been at this since 2011, when Ernest Cline’s masterpiece was first published. Allow me to explain the allure.
MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS
In the book the upcoming film is based on, the main character Wade Watts, aka Parzival, is a “gunter,” or egg-hunter; egg as in a metaphorical easter egg hidden in a virtual reality called the Oasis. The prize for discovering the egg: the VR creator’s, James Halliday’s, empire and fortune, billions of dollars in a crumbling dystopian future. The stakes are high, and the challenges are near impossible. These aspects of the story alone make for an epic tale of adventure, but there is so much more. The story itself hides its own secrets.
By the way, I highly recommend reading the book if you haven’t. It’s a very quick read, and it won’t ruin the movie for you, I promise. And if you’re a fan of the 80’s, bonus!
The trailer for Ready Player One is full of easter eggs and references. I won’t list them all here, but to name the more obvious: the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Iron Giant, Akira’s motorcycle, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke, the Bigfoot monster truck, Freddy Krueger, etc. Some of the references in the trailer can be traced back to the book, but it has yet to be widespread knowledge as of their importance. One particularly intriguing easter egg in the trailer is the QR code hidden on the hood of one of the cars (which leads to a website landing page (which leads to some social accounts (which leads to the movie website containing an empty scoreboard))). The scoreboard is an especially important reference because it reveals who has made the most progress towards finding the big secret.
Back to the book, the scoreboard was part of the first clue Halliday gave. It was a virtual reminder that the contest in the Oasis was real. Other clues he gave were that he hid 3 keys, 3 gates, and an egg which signified the end of the contest and the reward. Those were the only clues he gave in the book, and it took the characters years to find the first key. Wade spent all his time researching Halliday’s interests, his life story, Anorak’s Almanac (kind of Halliday’s journal), and anything and everything that could possibly lead him to the first key. So, in essence, there are 4 important elements in play: the contest, the prize, the clues, and the scoreboard.
I’m not the first to theorize that there could be a secret contest that Ernest Cline hid in the pages of his book. In fact, if you visit www.anoraksalmanac.com you will find a secret game that he developed about a year after the book was released, which I think was secretly referenced somewhere in his book. If there is a new contest in real-life in conjunction with the movie, I don’t think it’s been officially announced yet. I don’t think they even hinted at one in the Comic Con panel. And if there’s no contest, there’s no prize. But then why a scoreboard? There is one interview that I found online that describes Cline’s vision for a Oasis type game (around 11:30), and in it he describes how he wishes he could create an Oasis type game with similar secret challenges and whatnot. Ernest also loves contests, and gave away a DeLorean to a fan for getting the high score in Joust, something also referenced in the trailer and the book. He is clearly putting clues in the trailer, but so far no one really knows where they are supposed to lead, other than advertising for the movie. Many movies have come out with similar marketing techniques in the past, but not to the scale of what happened in the book.
So basically my theory is that Ernest Cline is hatching something, no pun intended, and it will somehow be announced in conjunction with the movie release. We’ve only seen the release of one single trailer so far, and studios usually put out 2-3 trailers before a movie hits theaters, and we are seven-ish months away from that happening. Needless to say, I’m keeping my eyes open, my fingers crossed, and my wallet ready for those movie tickets.