‘Ready Player One’ Trailer: The Saccharine Novel Seems Surprisingly Dystopic In Its Adaptation

First trailer for Ready Player One is here! And! It’s…okay? Maybe it was my own reading of RPO, or maybe it’s just an early trailer, but the first look at the movie casts Cline’s source material in a far more dystopic, gritty light than I pictured when reading the novel. I definitely pictured a more bubbly, 1980s, Hughes-esque vibe. You know, a coming-of-age-with-positivity-despite-staggering-adversity type world.

The Verge:

Today at San Diego Comic Con, Warner Bros. released the first trailer for its upcoming film Ready Player One, and like the novel it’s based on, it’s loaded down with references to everything geek culture loves.

The trailer begins with Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) describing his life in the Stacks. He’s a part of a lost generation, but he and those around him found solace in a virtual world known as OASIS.

The movie is based on the debut novel from Fanboys screenwriter Ernie Cline, which is set in a near-future where virtual reality is commonplace. Wade Watts joins an international scavenger hunt in the virtual world to track down three clues left behind by OASIS’s founder. Whoever finds the three easter eggs gets control of the system itself. The book, ladened with references to everything from classic science fiction novels to video games to 1980s movies, became a huge fan favorite and bestselling novel.

The film will star Tye Sheridan (The Tree of Life / X-Men: Apocalypse) as Wade, while Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel) will play Art3mis. Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One), Mark Rylance (Dunkirk), Simon Pegg (Star Trek, Shaun of the Dead), T.J. Miller (Silicon Valley), Hannah John-Kamen (Killjoys) also star.

Ready Player One hits theaters on March 30th, 2018.