Transcription
Hey everybody, I'm Ryan from 2G1, and today I am back with another theory for you. And today, we are talking about Ernie Cline's Ready Player One, or rather, Ernie Cline's Ready Player Two.
Now, my theory is going to combine my knowledge of the book, as I understand it, and my knowledge of the movie, as I understand it. Now, I understand that a movie sequel and a book sequel are coming out, and some of the elements from my theory may work better, let's say, for one than the other, but that's just the way it's going to be for this theory.
Now, if you have some of the same ideas and have come to the same conclusions, congratulations! You are a forward thinker, just like me. Or maybe you're just a geek, just like me, who has things just rattling around in their head over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Now, Ready Player One, that novel is perhaps my favorite book of all time. Growing up, my favorite book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so for me, it's quite easy to see why I love this Willy Wonka meets World of Warcraft meets The Lawnmower Man novel about a kid trying to figure out how to win an unwinnable prize in a virtual reality world.
I saw the film opening weekend. To say I didn't like it is probably an understatement. I thought the film was really dumbed down for film audiences, which I found surprising since Ernie Cline had co-written the screenplay with Zack Penn. After multiple views of the film, I really changed my mind. I really find the film absolutely wonderful. It's incredible, and while I think the plot was dumbed, you know, way, way, way, way, way, way down, I really enjoy watching the film over and over again.
With repeat viewings, at the end of Ready Player One, Parzival was able to find the three keys and win the Easter egg he's been searching for, winning the Oasis for two, a world, and billions of dollars. He shares his prize with his remaining friends, H, Artemis, and Shoto, their other friend Daito having been murdered previously in the novel. For me, the novel felt pretty complete, which is why I was shocked to hear that Ernie Cline announced the sequel to the book, which currently has no name, but I'll call Ready Player Two from here on out, as most people do.
I thought it strange, only because what would happen in the sequel? Would an older Parzival hold his own contest? Was there some second contest that was secretly hidden within the Oasis? My wonder pretty much stopped in my last viewing of the Ready Player One movie, and it's such a simple fact that almost every viewer of the film has caught on to it, but never really realized exactly what was happening and what that moment actually meant. And after this last viewing, I suddenly realized what the older James Halliday in the Oasis was, and subsequently, what most of the basic plot of Ready Player Two would be.
Ready Player Two will be about Parzival, Artemis, H, and Shoto on their search for James Halliday. Why? Because James Halliday is, in fact, alive. Sort of. He's not roaming the earth aimlessly because he is literally a man without a body. He is now a subconscious living within his own video game.
I'll start my theory off with some of the end scenes from the Ready Player One film. After Parzival wins the contest and comes to find himself in Halliday's childhood room, unlike his avatar Anorak, which seems to be all-wise and all-knowing, this James Halliday seems to be just as charming and spacey as he was in the real world. There was a point where Parzival, after watching years and years of Halliday footage, realizes something and says, "You're not an avatar, are you?"
"Twitch." "Halliday." "Answer's no." "It's Halliday, really. Did ya come? What are you?" Does this mean he's an AI or an NPC? Most have thought so, but I think not at all. This just means Halliday lacks a physical body. Halliday smiles, and he and a younger Halliday, which is an NPC, leave his childhood room. As Parzival leaves the Oasis for the final moments of the film, which happen in real life.
Why does this matter? Ernie Cline's book serves as a beautiful love letter to 80s pop culture. The book is severely drenched in movies, anime, video games, and everything else that I personally loved when growing up in the 1980s. And in one of my favorite 1980s films, there is a film released by Walt Disney in 1982 that dealt with a computer programmer named Kevin Flynn, played in the film by Jeff Bridges. In the film Tron, Flynn's creations were stolen by the corporation he previously worked for, ENCOM. And with the help of two friends, Flynn sneaks into ENCOM to try and find the proof that he is the man that wrote all of these programs and games. Flynn is digitized and then thrown into ENCOM's computers, where he then has to fight in the very video games he wrote. The fight leads all the way to a Master Control Program, and only after it is defeated is Flynn able to return to the land of the living.
So, my theory is this: I postulate that during his last years in isolation, Halliday was not only building the contest to find the Easter egg but was figuring out a way to put his mind into his creation, a la Kevin Flynn. Once inside, he's able to live forever in the digital world. And of course, he also figured out a way for him to return to the land of the living, though that point will be a lot farther at the end of my theory.
Now, let's get sci-fi for just a moment. Meet Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is not an actor, but the writer of many books on computers, computer concepts, and computer theories in the future, including a book called The Singularity Is Near. Kurzweil believes that around the year 2045, we will be able to upload our entire brains to computers, an event known as the singularity, and thusly becoming digitally immortal.
Now, Ernie Cline has said the second book won't be about a contest, but rather deal with the same characters in another situation. Ernie Cline has said, "When Steven Spielberg and I were talking about that scene, he asked me, 'What do you think Anorak is?' I told him, and I told him how I thought that may play into the sequel, and I think that's why he included it in the movie. We're going to leave that a mystery and open-ended, but I will tell you that the sequel I've been working on, it flows right into that meaning, meaning that ideas in the film will come into play in Cline's sequel novel."
So, what does Anorak interact? Is Halliday in? Halliday is alive, so to speak, just like Kevin Flynn, and just like Ray Kurzweil predicted. Halliday is able to put his mind into his own video game creation, into the Oasis, to live forever, or so he thought.
Ready Player Two will be, at its core, a story of love, deceit, and redemption. All will not be well when the story begins. The four heroes, Parzival, Artemis, H, and Shoto, will not be friends, as we saw them in the end of the first book. Something will have happened, though I admit I have no clue what that may be. But the fact that something is happening in the Oasis will also be a contributing factor in the very beginning of the book. This may be a virus that's affecting the Oasis. This may be IOI's continued interference in trying to take over the Oasis. Perhaps the shifts in loyalty between the friends from the time they were gunners to the time of being multi-billionaires.
The beginning of the book will see Parzival not speaking to either H or Artemis. Which one truly depends on how Cline is writing the story, but know this right from the get-go: either H, Artemis, or Shoto will betray their friends and help the antagonists, probably IOI.
Parzival will have had some regular contact with the Anorak and/or Halliday AI, and he enjoys these interactions with the AI until the avatar completely disappears. The avatar will have been gone for quite some time until Parzival receives a message that Anorak, Halliday, or a third avatar that Halliday has become, has gone too far out into a place he has no clue how to get out of, and he needs to be saved right away. His god mode powers seem not to be working, and he has trapped the princess is in another castle.
Parzival will share this message with his friends and Ogden Morrow, who has become like a father figure to Parzival. Ogg then states what I have already said, much to the surprise of the four others, that Halliday has made clues about entering the Oasis in his final days, and that Halliday's actual mind, and not an AI, is roaming the Oasis. That avatar actually needs help, and the actual Halliday may be in big trouble.
There will be one to two main antagonists. Almost most definitely, one will be IOI, it was continuing their attempts to take over regardless of the end of the contest. The other may be some other person or rogue program who is also hunting Halliday, using more Tron references, perhaps, as a clue. As for the actual plot of this entire journey, to that, I can't say. Well, I'll leave that to Cline's imagination.
But why would one of the friends become a Benedict Arnold to the others that he's known for so long? Well, I'm just using a basic book or movie trope that is called "evil former friend." If the Sixers are still trying to take over the Oasis, they probably have an inside person. Though I doubt it's Shoto because of the events in the first novel, and I doubt it's possible. That leaves H or Artemis. Probably whoever Parzival is not talking to in the beginning of the book will actually turn out to be the ally, and whoever Parzival is talking to at the beginning of the book will end up being the traitor.
The search will be made a lot more realistic because, just as Halliday cannot use his god mode powers, Parzival, Ogg, and anyone else bestowed this amazing game feature will find that their god powers also won't work when they get to a certain section of the game. They will find they have to play as regular avatars, just like everyone else. It will be a consequence of going in to save Halliday, and it won't be easy, kind of like how the curved Neo's powers for the Matrix equals, I don't know why they won't work, but it'll make sense for the story, I'm sure.
If all this is true, then there is one thing that is for certain along this quest: Ogg will be the Obi-Wan Kenobi to this group, and it's almost most certainly that he will die. Not only will he die, but he will die at the lowest point of the adventures, most likely when the Sixers appear, or whoever the antagonist is, and the traitor goes over to that side. That's when whoever is the bad guys, probably the Sixers, will attack Ogg in the real world and kill him. This will happen at the very apex of this fight, giving our newfound threesome a severe disadvantage.
But Ready Player Two will be about love and redemption, and that focuses on Halliday himself. Whether it is not having a relationship or losing his years with Ogg. How are these years in the Oasis all about watching the contest and those participating? With the contest over, Halliday has been spending his time enjoying his creation, perhaps as a new, unrecognizable avatar. And then one day, Halliday meets a wonderful avatar, and behind that avatar, a beautiful woman, perhaps a former gunner, who loves everything that Halliday loves. I have no clue what her name is, we'll just call her Avatar MacGuffin.
So, Halliday's big regret now is spending day after day with the wonderful McKay in the Oasis and wanting to get out of the Oasis to spend his life with this woman. But then the plot happens. God mode off. How are they hunted? Driven back to a point where they are unable to escape his creation. How can Halliday actually return to the land of the living? Well, that one is of course simple. He had cloned his body before he died, as well. So if for some reason he wanted to come back, he could. So there's a Halliday clone somewhere, brainless in a test tube, waiting for Halliday's subconscious to be re-uploaded into it.
Also, because this is a story about love and redemption, Parzival may find love again by re-lighting with Artemis, if they had broken up, or maybe Parzival falls in love with a new character they meet along the way. If the book is called Ready Player Two, the meaning behind it will be no doubt focused on the MacGuffin character or the Parzival love character, whoever that may be.
In the end, the Sixers and/or baddies will be defeated. Halliday returns to the world of the living in a new body. Both will have found love and/or love lost. They will both mourn the loss of their friend Ogden Morrow, and no doubt, in some way, set up for the third and final book, end, or movie. The name of that one? Why, Game Over, of course.
If Ernie Cline is watching this video, he'll probably want to change that. He's probably cursing my name for rummaging around his brain. Seems a bit thin. Well, I guess we'll all have to wait and see. But I'll also remind you and leave you with this fact: that amongst all of the possessions and Halliday's childhood room was a movie poster for the film Tron. An Easter egg, perhaps? I guess we'll all have to see.
And Cline, if you're out there watching somewhere, I would love to see the Bodhi Orb and the Orin and a crystal shard, and why not the Family Truckster and the Jet Car thrown in, because I'm a huge fan of not only Buckaroo Banzai but the Vacation films as well. That would just be way, way cool and a great way to top off knowing everything about Ready Player Two. So thanks for watching, and I really hope you enjoy this latest 2G1 theory.
[Music] Like it goes. Gotta keep ass on you. You'll sneak up behind me. Touch me. Anthem.