Digital Engagement #6

I chose to watch the film Ready Player One. This film did a very good job depicting a digital future with both its dystopian and utopian features. Ready Player One has utopian features through its virtual reality world: OASIS. OASIS is filled with vibrant colors, fantastical locations/planets, and endless possibilities. However, the film is also dystopian as reality is set in 2045 Columbus Ohio, where there are dull colors, trailer-type houses stacked up high on top of each other, graffiti, junkyards, and poverty all over. The film’s dystopian elements are further showcased by the presence of Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a powerful corporation that seeks to control the OASIS. IOI operates “loyalty centers,” which are essentially prisons for those in debt, highlighting the dark side of corporate dominance in this future. The everyday use of VR headsets and advanced technology, like omnidirectional treadmills with quadraphonic pressure-sensitive underlays, provides an immersive experience to escape a dystopian reality. The use of these headsets and technology in search of utopia with OASIS was a neat film feature. The OASIS, created in 2025 by James Halliday, is a virtual world where the limits of reality are bound only by one’s imagination. Users can do anything and go anywhere, such as climbing Mount Everest with Batman or going to the Vacation Planet. In the OASIS, users create their own avatars, allowing for complete self-expression and anonymity in this digital future (unless they decide to share their real-life identities). The film’s digital future showcases many elements, such as futuristic vehicles equipped with various gadgets, advanced armor suits, railguns, antipersonnel ordinance cannons, holograms, floating dance spaces, an iron giant, and the Orb of Osuvox. Throughout the film, it is evident that digital technology has permeated every aspect of society, from entertainment and social interaction to economy and warfare. Ready Player One presents a complex depiction of a digital future, where technology offers both an escape from and a reflection of societal issues in real life.