Ready Player One

Get ready for the feel, the feel of real. X1.

No pain, no gain.

Pizza, guys.

Whoo-hoo!

Hello, Wade.

Hello, Mrs. Gilmore.

What's the matter? Life getting you down?

I was born in 2027.

After the Corn Syrup Droughts, after the Bandwidth Riots.

After people stopped trying to fix problems

and just tried to outlive them.

My parents, they didn't make it through those times,

so I live here in Columbus, Ohio, with my Aunt Alice.

In 2045, Columbus is the fastest-growing city on Earth.

It's where Halliday and Morrow started Gregarious Games.

These days, reality is a bummer.

Everyone is looking for a way to escape,

and that's why Halliday...

That's why he was such a hero to us.

He showed us that we could go somewhere without going anywhere at all.

You don't need a destination

when you're running on an omnidirectional treadmill

with quadraphonic, pressure-sensitive underlay.

James Halliday saw the future.

And then he built it.

He gave us a place to go.

A place called

the OASIS.

This is the OASIS.

It's a place where the limits of reality are your own imagination.

- You can do anything... - (CROWD CHEERING)

...go anywhere.

Like the vacation planet.

Surf a 50-foot monster wave in Hawaii.

- You can ski down the pyramids. - (SKIERS WHOOPING)

You can climb Mount Everest

with Batman.

Check out this place. It's a casino the size of a planet.

You can lose your money there.

You can get married. You can get divorced.

You can... You can go in there.

People come to the OASIS for all the things they can do,

but they stay because of all the things they can be.

Tall, beautiful, scary, a different sex,

a different species, live-action, cartoon.

It's all your call.

Yeah, that's me. Well, that's my avatar.

At least, until I feel like changing it.

Except for eating, sleeping, and bathroom breaks,

whatever people wanna do, they do it in the OASIS.

And since everyone is here, this is where we meet each other.

It's where we make friends.

Locate Aech.

- (BEEPING) Locating Aech.

Aech located.

Sector 12. Planet Doom.

Planet Doom, the most dangerous place in the OASIS,

and a pretty great place to pick up coin.

Figures Aech would be there.

Aech is my best friend in the OASIS.

He's my best friend, period.

Even though I've never actually met him in the real world.

What's up, Aech? - Hey, what up, Z?

Next race is in 20 minutes, and I can't do the late one.

What the hell are you up to?

Man, gettin' my kills on, bro.

Is that Daito?

Daito and Sho.

This an artifact hunt?

Yup. Gregarious 120.

Turn into any giant robot for two minutes. That's rad.

Artifacts.

Those were key.

Halliday made sure the OASIS was littered

with enough randomly powerful stuff

that anyone could win if they had the skills.

Death matches and artifact hunts are a good way to coin-snatch,

but depending on your level of armor, they're risky.

You see, everyone starts the same,

but the more coin you make...

- Mom! Mom! - ...the more you level up.

If you get killed, your avatar can come back to life...

Go get your dad!

...but you lose all your stuff.

Everything you've ever worked for.

All your money.

Your clothes.

Your weapons.

Since people spend most of their time in the OASIS...

...losing your shit means...

Well, losing your shit.

Aech, 10 minutes until the race starts.

Okay, Mom, I heard you.

You see, the OASIS was the brainchild of James Halliday.

He and his partner, Ogden Morrow, released the first OASIS build in 2025.

It was an instant success, and it made them both very rich.

But Morrow was out of the picture after a few years. And Halliday?

He wasn't just the owner of the world's biggest company.

He was like a god. People loved him.

They worshiped him as much as his creation.

Maybe we should stop talking about it

and start, uh, showing it.

If you all wanna reach under your seats,

you'll find that there's nothing there.

- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING) - But we're each gonna bring you one now.

And then, on January 7, 2040...

He died.

- (ORGAN MUSIC PLAYING) - And what he left behind

changed everything.

Hello. I am James Halliday.

If you're watching this, I'm dead.

Before I died, I created what we in the biz call an "Easter egg."

A hidden object in a game that gives special powers to whoever discovers it.

The first person to find the egg

I've hidden somewhere inside the OASIS

will inherit my stock in Gregarious Games,

currently valued in excess of half a million...

Uh, half a trillion dollars' worth,

and total control of the OASIS itself.

In the form of my avatar, Anorak the All-Knowing,

I created three keys.

Three hidden challenges test for worthy traits

revealing three hidden keys to three magic gates.

And those with the skill to survive these straits

will reach the end, where the prize awaits.

Off you go, keys.

The keys aren't just laying around under a rock somewhere.

I suppose you could say they're invisible,

hidden in a dark room that's at the center of a maze

that's located somewhere

up here.

Let the hunt for Halliday's Easter egg

begin.

The challenge is to find three keys,

but in five years, no one has even gotten one key.

And the big scoreboard? Still empty.

Some long-forgotten gunter cracked the first clue

and found the first challenge.

Then, this portal appeared.

But the challenge to win the first key was a race designed by Halliday

that was so hard, no one had ever finished it.

The only ones still trying are the gunters, as in "egg hunters,"

like me and Sho and Daito, and my best friend, Aech.

Oh, and of course, the Sixers.

The Sixers work for IOI...

Sixers!

...Innovative Online Industries.

They're the second-largest company in the world

with designs on becoming the first.

Which is why they're putting everything they got

into winning Halliday's contest.

Buckle up!

Sit in!

We call 'em "Sixers" 'cause that's the company rule.

No name, just numbers.

They have a support team made up of Halliday scholars.

Like me, they spend all their time studying pop culture

that Halliday was obsessed with,

trying to find clues to solve the contest.

They're just following the orders of the head of IOI,

this dickweed named Nolan Sorrento.

How'd you get here before me?

Well, I didn't make a pit stop at the hair salon.

- What up, Z? - What's up, Aech?

Saved you a spot.

Thanks, bro.

I gotta go to the back.

Ugh. So you can skim coins from crashed cars?

- That's just sad, man. - Fuel's low.

Oh, but you still had enough to pay for that Something About Mary hairdo.

First to the key.

First to the egg!

Aech, are you seeing this?

Yeah, I see it. That's Kaneda's bike from Akira.

It's a licensed skin over a standard frame.

No, not the bike. Forget the bike.

The girl, I think it's Art3mis.

The Art3mis? The Sixer Fixer?

I've seen all her walk-throughs, her Twitch streams.

It's her. It's definitely her.

Go, go, go! Get there! Come on!

You got it, you got it!