Ready Player One is the 255th episode of Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr and Dan Murrell. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies 2018 sci-fi movie Ready Player One, which was itself based on Ernest Cline's 2011 bestselling novel of the same name. It was published on July 24, 2018, to coincide with the release of the film on home video and Blu-ray. It is 5 minutes 16 seconds long. It has been viewed over 2.6 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - Ready Player One on YouTube
"So this is how imagination dies: with thunderous applause." ~ Honest Trailers - Ready Player One
Script[]
In a world where every movie is based on pre-existing books, comics, and video games, watch the snake of nerd culture devour its own tail, in a movie based on a pre-existing book (Ready Player One by Ernest Cline), based on pre-existing movies (shows the Gunters looking at a theater marquee advertising The Shining), comics (shows some OASIS players with Batgirl, Spawn, and Joker skins during the final battle), and video games. (shows the OASIS' "Minecraft World") So this is how imagination dies: with thunderous applause. (shows an IOI office loudly cheering)
Ready Player One
Enter the OASIS, a virtual world that lets you be anything you want, from a Na'vi who joined a boy band (Parzival), to the love child of David Bowie and Admiral Ackbar (Art3mis), where you can see, hear, and feel everything that happens (shows Sorrento reacting in pain as he feels Parzival kicking IOI-655321 in the groin), but since you control it by running on a treadmill in a skin-tight bodysuit, the whole experience probably smells like ass. Dude, you should really air out that van; I mean, crack a window or something. <HURK!> (shows Wade running out the back of his van)
Clan up with five Easter egg hunters, who lack the self-awareness to not call themselves "Gunters". (montage of characters saying the word "Gunters")
Wade: (narrating) --Gunters, as in "egg hunters"...
There's Parzival and Art3mis, star-crossed lovers hiding a tragic secret: that underneath their hot online avatars, they're both hot offline real people, but she's... got... a birthmark. <GASP!> A faint discoloration! On her face! And you can barely see it in most lighting?! No...! The humanity! No, look away! It's so horrible! Ugh, I'm gonna be sick. (gags) Joining them is Aech, who hides the fact that she's a girl by (in a very deep voice) talking like this...
Aech: Z, you gotta be more careful about who you meet in the OASIS.
...Daito, the Japanese martial artist who, in reality, is a Japanese martial artist; and Sho, the gamer no one can believe is an 11-year-old boy, even though everyone who's ever beat you in Halo ends up being an 11-year-old boy. So wait, you can be anything you want, and they all went with "slight exaggerations of themselves"? Come on! Be a ten-foot-tall bag of Funyuns! A talking raptor!
"Alan" Raptor (Jurassic Park III): Alan.
A cloud made of microscopic Steve Buscemis! Do something creative!
Watch out for the evil CEO Nolan Sorrento, who's got an eeevil plan to use the OASIS to make money... as opposed to the current CEO who uses the OASIS to make money.
Rick: I bought all these power-ups for this challenge, and I lost it all.
Parzival: (pointing to a hologram of a "Zemeckis Cube") I need one of those.
Aech: Okay, don't spend all your money.
Now, these... <sigh> "Gunters" must find three keys to win control of the OASIS, hidden by an awkward Willy Wonka...
Halliday: (weakly) Hooray.
...using their video game skills, pop culture knowledge...
Wade: --it's based on the best-selling book by Stephen King, who hated the movie!
...and what they probably could've guessed just by looking at him...
Art3mis: His biggest fear was kissing a girl.
...because in this world, the best people to run a trillion-dollar company are the biggest snobs at a Comic-Con.
Wade: A fanboy knows a hater...
See, Mom? I'm not wasting my life! You go to night school!
Do you like references?
Wade: Oh, yeah!
You better, 'cause this movie's got more references than a Big Bang Theory episode about the Justice League challenging the Avengers to an anime edition of Trivial Pursuit, full of obvious nerd touchstones...
Wade: (narrating) --Batman.
Sho: Holy Hand Grenade!
Toshiro: (in Japanese) I choose the form of Gundam. (shows his avatar becoming the RX-78-2 Gundam)
...oddly specific late-90's stuff...
Aech: (while being caressed by the woman in the bath in the recreation of the Overlook Hotel) Okay. All right, am I being punked? / --you still had enough to pay for that Something About Mary hairdo.
Parzival: GoldenEye.
Art3mis: Playing as?
Parzival: Oddjob.
...and an extended sequence that asks, "What if Kubrick was so hard up for cash that he sold The Shining to Universal Studios Florida?" (shows Aech, Parzival, and Art3mis getting caught in the tidal wave of blood from the elevator) Wheeeee! Now, let's go to 2001 Land! I want to ride the Space Baby!
So ride along with visionary director Steven Spielberg, as he brings his trademark wonder to a tale of an America in chaos, where we ignore our problems by using recycled pop culture as an escape, and only take action when our corporate overlords threaten to put more ads in our pay-to-win video games, while the offline world continues to slide into extreme poverty and environmental collapse. (nervously) Hahaha... Who doesn't love a good fantasy, am I right...? Good one, Steve...! (shows Halliday getting a game over while playing Gorf)
Starring: Miles Telle-- I-I Mean Ansel Elg-- I-I-No, I Mean Alden Ellenreich? I Mean, Tyler Sheridan? (Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival) Yeah? Nailed it!; Sweet Lord No! No, No, Don't Show It Again! Augh! My Eyes! It Burns! (Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis); Ben Meddlesome (Ben Mendelsohn as Nolan Sorrento/IOI-655321); H to the Izzorc (Lena Waithe as Helen Harris/Aech); "Oh Cool, T.J. Miller's in This" Said Absolutely No One (T.J. Miller as i-R0k); Arthur Slugworth (Simon Pegg as Ogden "Og" Morrow/The Curator); Come With Me and You'll Be in a World of Pop Regurgitation (Mark Rylance as James Halliday/Anorak the All-Knowing); Git Gud, Noobs (shows a Gunter falling into icy water after failing Adventure); and This Guy Staring Directly Into the Camera While He Strangles Tye Sheridan (Laurence Spellman as Lame Tattoo Guy (Reb)). That's... unsettling.
We Are VR Troopers
Honest title for Ready Player One - We Are VR Troopers. Titles designed by Robert Holtby.
Sho: (seeing Parzival pull the Holy Hand Grenade from his inventory) Holy Hand Grenade! (shows Parzival throwing the grenade)
Wait, this movie is 90% references, and you didn't count "one, two, five" before using the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?!
Wade: A fanboy knows a hater...
Trivia []
Honest Trailers Commentary - Ready Player One
- This video features the running Alan raptor gag. The raptor can be seen walking through the Oasis at 2:04.
- This video embellishes the fictional character of Epic Voice Guy significantly, revealing his mortal fear of beautiful women with faint birthmarks, and his complicated relationship with his mother who thinks he should get a real job.
- Screen Junkies have also produced Honest Trailers for several other Steven Spielberg films including Jurassic Park, Jaws and Hook. See list of Honest Trailers for more.
- Screen Junkies also produced Honest Trailers for the 1980s nostalgia TV show Stranger Things.
Watch the full commentary on YouTube
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - Ready Player One has an approval rating of 95.5% from YouTube viewers. The general consensus was that this trailer's mockery of Ready Player One was appropriately brutal. The Mary Sue wrote that this Honest Trailer was "brilliant" and "pulls no mocking punches." Similarly, Comicbook.com noted that the Honest Trailer "doesn’t really go that easy" on the film. CBR.com said Screen Junkies "really took the movie to task for its seemingly over-usage of pop culture references in favor of being creative on its own merits" and called the line 'this is how imagination dies "savage." CinemaBlend acknowledged that Ready Player One was "a somewhat divisive film when there was a backlash against its celebration of nostalgia and pop culture" and that "Honest Trailers are often the best at highlighting a movie's problems in a fun and entertaining way. "
Production credits[]
Video thumbnail for Honest Trailers - Ready Player One
Voiceover Narration by Jon Bailey
Title design by Robert Holtby
Producers - Max Dionne, Dan Murrell, Spencer Gilbert & Joe Starr
Written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr and Dan Murrell
Edited by Kevin Williamsen and TJ Nordaker
Post-Production Supervisor: Gracie Hartmann
Post-Production Coordinator: Carolyn Croce
Assistant Editor: Emin Bassavand
External links[]
- Ready Player OneHonest Trailer: “So This Is How Imagination Dies” - The Mary Sue article
- Enter the Oasis (Tentatively) in Ready Player One Honest Trailer - CBR.com article
- 'Ready Player One' Film Gets the Honest Trailers Treatment - Comicbook.com article
- Honest Trailer For READY PLAYER ONE - "So This is How Imagination Dies... With Thunderous Applause"- Geek Tyrant article
- Ready Player One's Honest Trailer Makes Fun Of The Movie's Pop Culture References - CinemaBlend article