New images have emerged today from the set of Ready Player One which show us exactly how the film adaptation will depict the enticement of gamer characters into its futuristic VR world. We’re talking about the pop-culture, savvy, easter-egg hunting heroes (and villians) known as “Gunters.”
Various different fans in Birmingham have posted a clutch of photos online showing local streets transformed into the run-down dystopian future of 2044. In the novel, scores of trailers and other cars are stacked on top of each other to form makeshift houses for the economically impoverished portions of the population, including the books’ protagonist, Wade. The new set photos seem to reflect that dilapidated atheistic, though we don’t see any vehicles actually stacked on top of each other just yet.
However, if you look closely, you can spot one very plot-specific detail among these photos: a billboard for what looks to be “Gunter” recruitment.
In the future of Ready Player One, a kind of VR social media world called OASIS dominates a good amount of everyone’s time, which partially explains the crappy state of the real world. Designed by two guys obsessed with the 1980’s — James Donovan Halliday and Ogden Morrow — OASIS has certain “easter eggs” buried in the program, which if discovered, would give the winner untold power over the entire virtual world. Essentially, imagine if Mark Zuckerberg were to tell everyone on Facebook that they could control all of Facebook and have his money if they discovered some hidden messages somewhere across the network. So, “The Gunters” are the people in Ready Player One obsessed with cracking the easter egg hunt.
The nifty poster looks to depict the IRL recruitment of Gunters with the words “Join The Quest,” next to a giant letter “O” which can only stand for the OASIS. This poster is also noticeably defaced with graffiti, indicating that in the reality of the film, it’s been there for awhile. This idea checks with the novel, because in Wade’s time, being a Gunter, or being interested Halliday at all is considered lame or passé. Meaning, these new set photos prove Spielberg’s big screen adaptation of Ready Player One is shaping-up to be totally faithful to the Ernest Cline book, down to even minor details.
Ready Player One hits theaters on March 30th, 2018.
