Warner Bros has released the final trailer for its nostalgia fest Ready Player One before the movie’s release next month. While this trailer treads a lot of the same ground as previous ones, with the “Pure Imagination” cover and footage of Parzival leading a resolution in the digital OASIS, there’s also plenty of footage of Wade Watts, and certain fellow gunters, out in the real world.
The official synopsis, from Warner Bros:
Ready Player One is set in 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos and collapse. But the people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant and eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg he has hidden somewhere in the OASIS, sparking a contest that grips the entire world. When an unlikely young hero named Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.
My biggest takeaway from this final trailer concerns Lena Waithe’s character in the movie but has spoilers for the book, so I’ll white it out: Waithe plays Aech, who Parzival knows solely in the OASIS in “his” digital form, very much resembling Wade in age and race. In real life, Aech is Helen Harris, a black lesbian who is still Wade’s age. Interestingly, I don’t remember seeing Aech’s avatar at all in prior trailers, and Helen in this trailer is never identified; this is her first appearance in any of them, which times well with the latest poster, my first indication that Waithe was even part of the project. But Helen seems so much older than Wade; I wonder how they’ll play that, as well as how much of the film will be her as her avatar versus her real-life self. Also, the Iron Giant waking up gave me feels.
Ready Player One comes to theaters March 29.
