After my particularly traumatic experience with a VR headset, Ready Player One just seems insensitive.
I was once trapped inside a virtual reality world for 329 hours. While taking part in some market research for a new gaming device, the prototype headset became stuck to my bonce. The panicked researchers plied my temples with an entire tub of Lurpak butter in an attempt to remove it, but they were unsuccessful. A malfunction preventing the equipment from being turned off then occurred – probably because it was full of butter – and I was condemned to indefinitely roam a digital realm, my only sense of reality being my now greasy ears.
Being stuck in this virtual reality world was like some sort of nightmare. Super Mario would frequently offer me what he referred to as ‘power up’ mushrooms, I constantly had to press a button to skip dialogue with Elder Scrolls Orcs, and I would often find myself in The Sims, trapped in a burning house where all the exits had cruelly been deleted.
This traumatic experience is mostly why I find Ready Player One – Steven Spielberg’s latest film about a virtual reality game offering humanity a preferable alternative to the real world – profoundly insensitive.
What does Spielberg know about virtual reality? I bet he’s played five minutes of the Star Trek VR game and decided he’s an expert. The bridge of the USS Enterprise was practically my home for the best part of two weeks, offering me a safe place to rest after a day of killing mutant pigs with Duke Nukem.
Ready Player One should have been directed by someone who understands what it’s like to be trapped inside a virtual reality, to properly represent people like me. Instead, we got a frivolous, romanticised romp that completely failed to portray the true horror of a life confined to pixels.
During the time I was trapped inside the virtual reality, I had 257 seizures. With each fit I flailed, flopped and foamed, screaming “BAHHHHH!”, as if my brain stem had just been shocked with a cattle prod. Nothing like that happens in Ready Player One, and until Hollywood addresses the serious lack of people in the industry with a history of VR-related trauma, I will continue to be offended.