Ready Player One (2018)

3 other mistakes

★★★★☆

Starring: Simon Pegg, T.J. Miller, Olivia Cooke, Hannah John-Kamen

Other mistake: When Helen turns right to "head to the stacks" everyone in the back of the van falls to the right. Centrifugal force would push them to the left. (01:56:06)

Other mistake: After Wade gets the second clue, he's shown in his little hide away spot looking over a notebook he has wrote in with the words Clue #2, a large number 2 out next to that, and under it in quotes "A creator who hates his own creation" with a hand drawn box around creator. This sentence is highlighted and there is more under it. This is a hand written note on a spiral notebook that he just got after getting the second clue which had only now been revealed. So he sets the notebook in his lap and starts looking over the newspaper clippings and other papers on the wall about Halliday. As the camera pans over, you suddenly see the top of the same paper torn and pinned to the wall. The hand writing is exactly the same, the boxes and figures drawn exactly the same, and is only missing the orange highlights over it. The paper is wrinkled a bit and shows the holes from the spiral as it was torn out and pinned to the wall. But this is impossible as he still has the same paper in his hand, and he only just now got this clue. Somehow a duplicate is on the wall already. (00:34:20)

Quantom X ★

Other mistake: When Wade is explaining his past at the beginning, he says he was born after the corn syrup droughts, after the bandwidth riots, after people stopped trying to fix problems and just tried to outlive them. Then he says his parents didn't make it through those times. So, how was he born?

Mistakes

Plot hole: During the final battle, we see all the other players charging over the hill and running into battle. We later see that these are just players standing on the streets wearing VR visors. But unlike our hero who is dangling on wires (and used a treadmill earlier on)...nobody on the streets is using any such thing. Which means when they are charging or running, they would all be crashing into walls or any obstacles that get in their way. Certainly nothing like the film.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: How much you have to move in the real world depends on how much and what kind of haptic gear you're wearing. If you have a boot suit and an omnidirectional treadmill, for example, you do all your own walking, running, and jumping, because you have the space to do it and the haptics to respond to your movements. People with minimal gear-like those we see on the streets-might have only a visor and gloves, say, and they have to do all their "running", "fighting" etc. with signals from their hands. It's like if you don't have a joystick, you have to use the arrows on the keyboard.

Aerinah

I disagree with this. At one point during the big fight you see a group of players as Spartans running along the street, with visors on. They definitely would have run into a wall or other person at some point. I'm sure they were not the only ones. I'm sure it's possible to use something for movement control besides actual physical movements but that scene shows not everybody is using it and there should be a lot of accidents with people running into things and each other. At the start of the movie you see a mom climb upon her couch to imitate climbing up a rock in the game, physically imitating the movement. The lack of showing this disability for players on the streets might not be so big as to be a plot hole, but definitely a factual error.

lionhead

Here's a clip of the Spartans https://youtu.be/D_eZxSYRhco?t=1m36s that shows they are definitely moving in exactly the same way in the Oasis as they are in real life, so even though yes it would make perfect sense for there to be different control schemes depending on the level of technology a person has, the film appears to show that it's a one-to-one translation of movement regardless of practicality or safety.

Rosco

I don't think it's an issue. Note that several times in the movie people are also shown to be playing the game while just sitting down at a table. Case in point, the guy that dies on Planet Doom and then immediately jumps up from his work desk and tries to run to the window to jump out. He was sitting down but still playing in the PVP on planet doom. Same is true for right as Wade is telling that when you die all your money and everything you work for is gone. The scene shows Sho stabbing a person's avatar on Planet Doom that then shows the person who was playing that character falling out of a chair he was sitting in. With another person sitting across from him also in a chair.

Quantom X ★

Adding to this point, Sorento himself plays the game from a chair.

Quantom X ★

I think in the end we can all agree its a mistake in the movie but not as big as a plot hole. Some people running, some people sitting down whilst playing, could be a matter of taste, but the Spartans running across the street with a visor on is definitely not logical.

lionhead

I would agree that it seems the mistake only applies to them in particular as shown in the film. At least on that level.

Quantom X ★

The players have the ability to see the real world because the glasses of most people are transparent, Art3mis even looks at Sorrento approaching in IOI, which Wade even asks why she is looking in that direction if there is nothing there, so the players would not hit the wall when running.

Quotes

Halliday: She wanted to go dancing, so we watched a movie.

Trivia

Trivia: After Wade introduces his own avatar, it shows a line of people waiting by a portal. Just before Tracer shows up to the portal, you can see Sonic the Hedgehog standing towards the back of the line tapping his foot in the famous idle animation from the original game where he would tap his foot impatiently if the player left him standing still for too long. (00:04:55)

Quantom X ★

Questions

Question: How are you supposed to ride a motorbike at full throttle in reverse? That is what Art3mis must have done to win the first Quest and to earn her copper key. You can see her bike standing beneath the fountain while she receives the key.

Karlchen

Answer: It's a virtual reality world. Machines can do anything the programmer wants them to.

Answer: In addition, it isn't specifically stated that the vehicle must actually be traveling in reverse. It could be that all she had to do was turn the bike around and drive forward, but the opposite way of the track.

Quantom X ★

Ironically, even if Halliday stated that he doesn't want to make rules, he also says particularly to go backwards, at full throttle, not forward in the opposite direction. So I will not go with that thought of yours.

That's not exactly what he said or meant. He gave a clue, an idea to break the traditional rules. He wasn't telling people to go backwards as that's how it must be. He was seeding the idea to go against the grain.

Quantom X ★

Perhaps she turned around on the bike and rode it in backwards?

Answer: It wouldn't take too much in the OASIS to modify a motorcycle so that it could drive backwards to complete the race. Driving it would be difficult though.

More questions & answers from Ready Player One

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