{"id":138516,"date":"2020-12-21T20:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/"},"modified":"2020-12-21T20:00:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T17:00:47","slug":"21st-century-spielberg-film-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/","title":{"rendered":"#21st Century Spielberg \u2013 \/Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a379bed2e4af\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a379bed2e4af\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Part_7_Digital_Dreams_%E2%80%93_The_BFG_and_Ready_Player_One\" >Part 7: Digital Dreams \u2013 The BFG\u00a0and Ready Player One<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Dreaming_For_a_Living\" >Dreaming For a Living\u00a0<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Reunions_and_Fart_Jokes\" >Reunions and Fart Jokes<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Escape_Into_the_World_of_Dreams\" >Escape Into the World of Dreams<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#A_Creator_Who_Hates_His_Own_Creation\" >A Creator Who Hates His Own Creation<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Desperately_Seeking_Escape\" >Desperately Seeking Escape<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Reality_is_Real\" >Reality is Real<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/21st-century-spielberg-film-2\/#Exhausted_and_Enthralled\" >Exhausted and Enthralled<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#21st Century Spielberg \u2013 \/Film<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>                            <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/21st-century-spielberg-the-bfg-ready-player-one.jpg\"><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-649994\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/21st-century-spielberg-the-bfg-ready-player-one-700x300.jpg\" alt=\"21st century spielberg the bfg ready player one\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/21st-century-spielberg-the-bfg-ready-player-one.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/21st-century-spielberg-the-bfg-ready-player-one-360x154.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>(Welcome to\u00a0<\/em><strong>21st Century Spielberg<\/strong><em>, an ongoing column and podcast that examines the challenging, sometimes misunderstood 21st-century filmography of one of our greatest living filmmakers,\u00a0<strong>Steven Spielberg<\/strong>. In this edition: <strong>The BFG\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>and\u00a0<em><strong>Ready Player One<\/strong><\/em><em>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/17268479\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/forward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/000000\/\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>What do you think of when you think of a<strong> Steven Spielberg<\/strong> movie? There are a variety of answers, but \u201cblockbuster\u201d tends to be at the top of the list. After all, it was Spielberg\u2019s\u00a0<em>Jaws<\/em> that gave birth to the idea of the summer blockbuster, and ever since then, he\u2019s been riding that high. Steven Spielberg is a man who makes big <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a>. Big spectacles. Big special effects. Big emotions. Everything is\u00a0<em>big<\/em>,\u00a0<em>big<\/em>,\u00a0<em>big<\/em>. And yet, in the 21st century, Spielberg adapted. He entered the new century riding high off of finally scoring multiple Oscars for titles like\u00a0<em>Schindler\u2019s List<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Saving Private Ryan.\u00a0<\/em><br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post -->After decades of being thought of as nothing more than a creator of harmless pop entertainment who made oodles of money, it could no longer be denied that Steven Spielberg was a\u00a0<em>real artist<\/em>. And he parlayed that into the films he would make in the 2000s. He kicked things off with the special-effects heavy\u00a0<em>A.I.<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Minority Report<\/em>, but after that, he would begin turning out smaller things. Well, smaller for Spielberg, at least. He was crafting historical dramas and character-driven stories. He was showing us all that he had more on his mind than T-Rexes and killer sharks.<\/p>\n<p>Now and again he would return to his roots, bringing back Indiana Jones for\u00a0<em>Kingdom of the Crystal Skull<\/em>, and finally making the\u00a0<em>Tin Tin<\/em> movie he had been dreaming about for years. But mostly, Spielberg seemed content to try new things. And then something h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ened. He got that old itch to\u00a0<em>entertain<\/em>. To summon up a\u00a0<em>spectacle<\/em>. To fire up as much digital effects trickery as he could manage and forge entire digital worlds where nothing is real. It was nothing he couldn\u2019t handle, right? Steven Spielberg is a filmmaker who knows all about technological advances in movies just as he knows all about crafting big, loud, popcorn entertainment. In other words, he knows how to give the audience what they want. As\u00a0Robert Kolker wrote in\u00a0<em>A Cinema of Loneliness<\/em>, \u201cThe frequency, success, and influence of [Spielberg\u2019s] films over three decades have made them a kind of encyclopedia of desire, a locus of representations into which audiences wished to be called.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With effects-heavy titles\u00a0<strong><em>The BFG <\/em><\/strong>and\u00a0<strong><em>Ready Player One<\/em><\/strong>, Steven Spielberg was coming home. He was returning to his roots. He was giving the audience what they wanted.\u00a0What could go wrong?<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Part_7_Digital_Dreams_%E2%80%93_The_BFG_and_Ready_Player_One\"><\/span><b>Part 7: Digital Dreams \u2013 <i>The BFG<\/i>\u00a0and <i>Ready Player One<\/i><\/b><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"232\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" title=\"Spotify Embed: The BFG &amp; Ready Player One\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed-podcast\/episode\/3rETdjRRL7wVLpoKGFKWDm?si=YoJoCmuPTQKAVmhZoVFykQ\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_2 --><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-649988\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-behind-the-scenes-1.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Dreaming_For_a_Living\"><\/span><strong>Dreaming For a Living\u00a0<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Loneliness is something on display in many a Steven Spielberg film. His child characters are lonely. His adult characters are lonely. His fantastical creatures can be lonely, too. Sometimes the loneliness is self-inflicted \u2013 characters will push others away out of fear, or discomfort. But overall, the worlds of Steven Spielberg can be lonely places.<\/p>\n<p>By all accounts, Steven Spielberg was a lonely kid. And that loneliness didn\u2019t just go away when he got older. \u201cLoneliness is a place that is familiar to me, and a place that I always try to escape from,\u201d he said. \u201cI sometimes just have to fill my own life with enough dreams so that I can pretend that I\u2019m not lonely.\u201d Dreams are Spielberg\u2019s escape from all that loneliness. \u201cI don\u2019t dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I\u2019m dreaming for a living,\u201d he said once.<\/p>\n<p>With all of that in mind, it\u2019s easy to see what drew him to\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em>, his first real honest-to-gosh Disney movie (he had made movies for the Disney distribution label Touchstone Pictures, but never an actual movie with the official Disney logo proudly proceeding the picture). <em>The BFG is\u00a0<\/em>a story about both loneliness and dreams. The titular BFG \u2013 the Big Friendly Giant \u2013 has a job bottling up dreams and unleashing them on the public. But it wasn\u2019t the BFG that Spielberg related to in this story. It was Sophie, the\u00a010-year-old orphan who becomes the BFG\u2019s unlikely companion. \u201cI related to Sophie, pretty much throughout the whole story,\u201d the filmmaker said. \u201cSophie was my spiritual guide through the process of telling this story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And yet, in a completely separate interview, Spielberg offered a conflicting take. \u201cIt was very easy to tell The BFG\u2019s story, because I came from the same place that he came from,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have the feistiness or the tenacity of the character of Sophie, who is able to tell off a 25-foot-tall giant, but it\u2019s a great theme in Dahl\u2019s story too because, in a sense, there are two orphans in this story. The BFG is orphaned from his brothers, just by the fact that they\u2019re all bullies. They abuse him and take advantage of him, and Sophie is the unfortunate orphan of bad circumstances. So when these two orphans meet, they form a life together. That\u2019s the core essence of the film. I remember what it was like to really feel isolated and alone; I was that way when I was younger before having children, and before getting married\u2026before all of that.\u201d<br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_3 -->As\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em> begins, we\u2019re introduced to Sophie (<strong>Ruby Barnhill<\/strong>), an orphan who wanders around her orphanage late at night, unable to sleep. Like most lonely people, she\u2019s fond of talking to herself, and pouring over the pages of books, using them as a kind of doorway to another, less lonely world. But she\u2019s soon thrust into a real unordinary world when she happens to spot a 25-foot-tall giant, played by\u00a0<strong>Mark Rylance<\/strong>, stalking the streets of London. The giant spots her, too, and whisks her away. It\u2019s a little risky to start off your sweet family film with a kidnapping, but so it goes.<\/p>\n<p>These opening scenes allow Spielberg to blend the real with the unreal \u2013 Rylance\u2019s BFG is a\u00a0performance-capture creation, entirely digital and yet somehow able to convey Rylance\u2019s actual performance. In his review of the film for <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/the-bfg-2016#:~:text=It's%20about%20a%20London%20orphan,there%20are%20other%20giants%20here.\">RogerEbert.com<\/a>, critic Matt Zoller Seitz called Rylance\u2019s work here \u201cthe first motion-capture performance to equal Andy Serkis\u2019 best\u201d in the\u00a0<em>Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy, and he\u2019s not wrong. Rylance\u2019s warmth comes through this fantastical character, and a lot of work went into getting the eyes right \u2013 they\u00a0<em>look<\/em> like Rylance\u2019s own eyes. There\u2019s no uncanny valley here. When shooting Rylance\u2019s performance, Spielberg and company relied on a two-story scaffolding structure where the actor could stand with a performance-capture camera directly in front of his face to capture that genuine eye contact. It works, and it works exceedingly well.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is Spielberg able to help bring fully-realized digital characters into the world here, but he\u2019s also able to have fun. When the BFG whisks Sophie away, Spielberg\u2019s camera is constantly on the move, whizzing through the dark London streets as the BFG uses an impossibly large cloak to cleverly hide from prying eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, Sophie and the BFG end up back in Giant Country, where, as the name suggests, there\u2019s more than one giant lurking about. And unfortunately, while the BFG is ultimately a nice guy, the giants around him \u2013 all of whom are much, much bigger \u2013 are bullying cannibals who would eat Sophie up if they discovered she was in their world.<\/p>\n<p>And then, uh, not much happens.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-649989\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-corgis.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Reunions_and_Fart_Jokes\"><\/span><strong>Reunions and Fart Jokes <\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_4 --><em>The BFG<\/em> reunited Spielberg with screenwriter <strong>Melissa Mathison<\/strong>, who penned one of the filmmaker\u2019s finest works, <em>E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial<\/em>. The idea of Spielberg and Mathison reteaming for another family-friendly adventure sounds too good to ignore, and much of the press material for the film played up the Spielberg\/Mathison connection.\u00a0\u201cMelissa was there on the <em>E.T.<\/em>\u00a0set every day, and every day on <em>The BFG<\/em>,\u201d Spielberg said. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been very fortunate to bookend our relationship with two stories that came from her heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Mathison had a problem: there just wasn\u2019t much story to be told. \u201cIn a strange way, not much happens in the book because it really is about their relationship,\u201d Mathison said. \u201cThere\u2019s no dramatic drive to it. Their decision to try and get rid of the giants happens pretty easily and quickly, and there was an episodic quality to the chapters. It wasn\u2019t as story-driven, so we needed to create a narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And yet, Mathison\u2019s script remains surprisingly faithful to the\u00a0Roald Dahl book that inspired it. And that\u2019s the problem \u2013 it\u2019s\u00a0<em>too<\/em> faithful. The script pads things out with extended action sequences, but the narrative here is painfully light. Perhaps that\u2019s a feature, not a bug \u2013 it\u2019s a whistful little fairy tale, after all. But Spielberg is trying to fill up 117 minutes here, and the lack of story hurts things considerably.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, a vague plot thread takes form, where Sophie and the BFG turn to the Queen of England to help get rid of the bad giants. It\u2019s silly, and that\u2019s okay \u2013 Spielberg leans into the silliness. He even creates his first big-screen fart joke, and it\u2019s dynamite. Humor based on flatulence is crude, and often bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. But Spielberg, ever the pro, isn\u2019t going for a cheap laugh here. No, he makes sure to create an elaborate, multi-tiered fart joke. After the BFG meets the queen he offers her, her staff, and a group of military men who have been called in to help with the bad giants a drink of \u201cfrobscottle,\u201d a carbonated green drink with bubbles that run down instead of up. Everyone drinks up and sure enough, it launches multiple gass-passings \u2013 the Queen\u2019s butler farts and blows down a breakfast cart; the Queen farts and causes a tablecloth to billow; the military men fart and are launched into the air as if they had jetpacks; even the Queen\u2019s Corgis get in on the action, farting their way out of the room as if propelled by a great wind (which I guess they are, technically speaking). It\u2019s not so much that there\u2019s farting going on here that makes this scene hilarious; it\u2019s the way Spielberg builds it up, with everyone downing their drinks and then slowly raising their heads, eyes widening, as they realize what\u2019s about to happen.<\/p>\n<p>But the movie isn\u2019t\u00a0<em>just<\/em> fart jokes. It\u2019s also lovely little moments like when the BFG shows Sophie how he catches dreams \u2013 dreams being represented by flitting, flying bursts of color that the BFG can capture in jars like butterflies. He then takes Sophie out into civilization and literally gives the dreams to other people. Like Spielberg, the BFG\u2019s entire occupation is about delivering dreams; flights of fancy that can take the dreamer to unexpected, wonderful places. But there are also bad dreams lurking about, and there\u2019s a real melancholy blanketing\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em>. The giant is still haunted by the fact that he once had a human child companion like Sophie in the past \u2013 and his fellow giants ended up\u00a0<em>eating the kid<\/em>. That\u2019s dark stuff, and it\u2019s to Spielberg and Mathison\u2019s credit that they don\u2019t shy away from that darkness.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, this would be the final collaboration between filmmaker and screenwriter. Mathison died in 2015, a year before the film was released. \u201cI have not had a chance to mourn Melissa,\u201d Spielberg said, \u201cbecause she\u2019s been so vibrant and real to me, in the cutting room, on the scoring stage, in the dubbing room \u2014 she\u2019s just always been there with me, so because of that, it\u2019s going to be hard when I have to let <em>The BFG<\/em>\u00a0go, because then I have to let Melissa go, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-649990\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/bfg-cast.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Escape_Into_the_World_of_Dreams\"><\/span>Escape Into the World of Dreams<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As a technical exercise,\u00a0<em>The BFG\u00a0<\/em>is a success. Spielberg has become famous for embracing cinematic <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a>, and this is no exception. The secret seems to be finding ways to treat the new like the old and find familiar ground. For\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em>, Spielberg first gathered his creative team and a group of production assistants in his garage (and remember, this is Steven Spielberg we\u2019re talking about, so it was probably a bigger-than-normal garage) and there he blocked the entire film using the PAs as actor stand-ins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt became my prototype for the film and helped me to realize the story and determine the best way to tell the story,\u201d Spielberg said. \u201cIt was one of the most valuable rehearsal exercises I have ever put myself through, and it helped me to understand the deepest, deepest DNA of the story.\u201d And it shows: for all the digital trickery on display here, none of it ever distracts. It\u2019s not exactly\u00a0<em>realistic<\/em>, but it doesn\u2019t have to be \u2013 it\u2019s a fantasy, after all. And all of those giants have real weight when they move about, just as much weight as any dinosaur lumbering around\u00a0<em>Jurassic Park<\/em>. Spielberg also worked with longtime cinematographer <strong>Janusz Kaminski<\/strong> again, and Kaminski was in charge of lighting both the physical sets and the virtual sets to make sure it all looked evenly balanced.<\/p>\n<p>And it all looks so lovely. The way the BFG blocks out a streetlamp with his hand to hide in the shadows; the way the BFG and Sophie jump into a body of water and emerge in its reflection; the over-the-top scene where the BFG dines with the Queen, sitting down at a make-shift table and using a grand piano as a seat while using a rake and shovel as a fork and spoon; the interior of the BFG\u2019s house-cave, where he sleeps in a bed made from a boat. It\u2019s all so whimsical, and Rylance and\u00a0Barnhill (who, oddly enough, hasn\u2019t done a live-action film since this) are perfect together.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, all of that only goes so far, and ultimately,\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em> is sleight. It\u2019s Spielberg at his lightest, and while that\u2019s not entirely a bad thing,\u00a0<em>E.T.<\/em> this is not. It\u2019s hard to imagine anyone revisiting this the way they revisit\u00a0<em>E.T.\u00a0<\/em>It\u2019s a fun, amusing, sweet little film that tends to slip out of your mind the minute it ends, like a dream that collapses the minute you open your eyes. And audiences just didn\u2019t seem to care\u00a0 \u2013 it was a rare box office bomb for Spielberg.<\/p>\n<p>But it also enabled Spielberg to embrace the fantastical again. \u201cI think the number of historical movies that I\u2019ve been making \u2014 films like <em>Lincoln<\/em>, <em>Bridge of Spies,<\/em>\u00a0and then going further back to films like <em>Amistad<\/em>\u00a0and <em>Schindler\u2019s List\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 have kept me fettered to the accuracy of telling a historical story,\u201d Spielberg said. \u201cSo being able to escape into the world of dreams and imaginations has been a dream in itself. That makes <em>The BFG<\/em>\u00a0special, because it was my escape into what I think I kind of do best, which is just let my imagination run away with itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And he wasn\u2019t done yet. He still had another fantastical world to escape to. It would result in a huge box office hit \u2013 and one of his worst movies.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-649992\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"ready player one spielberg\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-spielberg.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_Creator_Who_Hates_His_Own_Creation\"><\/span><strong>A Creator Who Hates His Own Creation <\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Does Steven Spielberg regret his career? That sounds like a stupid question \u2013 he\u2019s world-famous, incredibly wealthy, and wields the type of power other filmmakers can only dream of. And yet\u2026there has always been a kind of shadow hanging over Spielberg\u2019s worth. Audiences may embrace what he does, but critics haven\u2019t always been so kind. Many were ready to write Spielberg off as a fad even as\u00a0<em>Jaws<\/em> was blowing up the box office. And for most of his career, there\u2019s been the sense that the filmmaker has been chasing legitimacy \u2013 longing to be seen as a real artist, not just the creator of forgettable fluff. Remember: this is the guy who hired a film crew to film him watching the 48th Academy Awards nominations being announced, so sure that he would score himself a Best Director nod (he didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n<p>So much of Spielberg\u2019s 21st-century work was devoted to bucking tradition and trying new things. He had finally proven himself as a serious artist, and yet\u2026all anyone seemed to want was another\u00a0<em>Jurassic Park<\/em>. Another\u00a0<em>Jaws<\/em>. Another\u00a0<em>E.T.\u00a0<\/em>One can easily imagine Spielberg\u2019s frustration \u2013 he fought so hard to prove he could make serious movies for serious people, but all his fans wanted was more spectacle. And that brings us to\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em>, arguably the worst film Spielberg has ever made.<\/p>\n<p>The marketing for\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em> was all about how Steven Spielberg was returning to the world of big, loud, effects-driven movies. The guy who invented the blockbuster was finally making a blockbuster again. And not just any blockbuster, oh no \u2013 it was a blockbuster about\u00a0<em>nostalgia<\/em>. And not just any nostalgia! But nostalgia for the 1980s, the era where Spielberg started to become his most-powerful. The story is as much a tribute to Amblin Entertainment as it is \u201980s pop culture as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love huge, great adventure stories,\u201d Spielberg said when promoting the flick. \u201cI haven\u2019t made an adventure movie in a long time, a movie that is basically for the audience, not so much for me as much as it is me wanting to give the audience everything they want and perhaps more.\u201d Spielberg raised eyebrows when, during\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em>\u2018s premiere at SXSW, he said that this wasn\u2019t going to be a\u00a0<em>film<\/em> \u2013 it was a\u00a0<em>movie<\/em>. The implication was clear:\u00a0<em>films<\/em> are for art snobs,\u00a0<em>movies<\/em> are for everyone. This was going to be Steven Spielberg\u2019s big comeback! A return to populist filmmaking! Er, make that moviemaking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just put my audience hat on when I made this film,\u201d the director said. \u201cI had a blast going back to those years when I was making films just for audiences. Then, always saying what would the audience want? What surprise would the audience like at this moment? How can the audience be ahead of us until they\u2019re no longer [ahead], and then we\u2019re ahead of them, and play that leapfrog with an audience? I hadn\u2019t been in that kind of arena for years. That\u2019s why I enjoyed the process so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Spielberg really did enjoy working on\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em>, it doesn\u2019t show in the finished film \u2013 a loud, cold, messy blitz where everything is fake. The only scene that works comes at the end, when all the pop culture regurgitation has stopped, and a lonely artist \u2013 Mark Rylance playing video <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a> genius\u00a0James Halliday \u2013 admits that he always had trouble fitting into the real world. That he was a lonely guy who found escape in dreams \u2013 noticing a recurring theme here? \u2013 only to realize in the end that as much as you might want to, you can\u2019t spend your entire life in a dream. You need to come back to reality.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a haunting message and it\u2019s easy to see Spielberg in Halliday \u2013 a man who built up an entire pop culture universe only to see it grow beyond his control and become something crass. Once upon a time, Steven Spielberg was part of the movie brat generation that came rolling into Hollywood and blew up the studio system. His colleagues like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, and\u00a0John Milius were trying to make films that were subversive; films that bucked the norms. But Spielberg was the opposite. He was an old school Hollywood guy, and what he wanted to do was take the tricks he learned from old masters like\u00a0William Wyler,\u00a0Victor Fleming, Frank Capra, and so on, and repurpose it all through an exciting new lens.<\/p>\n<p>The results gave birth to the blockbuster as we knew it, and a curious thing happened \u2013 Hollywood, not always open to change, embraced what Spielberg was selling. He was a moneymaker, and his big spectacle films \u2013 along with those of his buddy George Lucas \u2013 were what made that money. One can draw a clear line from what Spielberg did at the start of his career to the current film landscape we\u2019re in now, where smaller, adult-driven films barely get play and studios want more and more superhero stories. Films with $300 million budgets that have to blow the roof off the box office or be deemed failures.\u00a0And now, with\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em>, Spielberg was returning to the blockbuster and perhaps asking \u2013 what have I done?<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-650185\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"ready player one wade boring\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-wade-boring.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Desperately_Seeking_Escape\"><\/span><strong>Desperately Seeking Escape<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Adapted from the popular novel by <strong>Ernest Cline<\/strong>,\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em> is set in 2045, after events like \u201cthe corn syrup droughts\u201d and the \u201cbandwidth riots,\u201d according to our narrator, the painfully boring Wade Watts, played by a painfully boring\u00a0<strong>Tye Sheridan<\/strong>. The most inert of all of Spielberg\u2019s protagonists, Wade is uninteresting and lacking an arc \u2013 he learns absolutely nothing throughout the entire film. He starts and ends the film loving video games, and the only thing that\u2019s changed is he goes from a poor kid to an obscenely wealthy kid. Oh and he gets a girlfriend. Wow, cool.<\/p>\n<p>In the future, life has gotten so shitty that everyone escapes to the\u00a0OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation), a vast virtual reality choked with pop culture references. A lot of those references are from the 1980s, the favorite decade of now-deceased OASIS creator\u00a0James Halliday. But there\u2019s plenty of other stuff, too, from films, TV shows, and video games of the 1990s and beyond. Basically, nothing before the 1980s exists in the OASIS, but everything from that decade and beyond is represented via flashy special effects.<\/p>\n<p>Cline\u2019s book was loaded with references to Spielberg\u2019s own films, and when Spielberg took the director\u2019s gig he made a big deal about removing as much Spielbergian nostalgia as he could. \u201cWhen I was first given the script by Warner Bros., I said, if I determine to take the leap, I\u2019m going to have to cut out at least 70 percent of my own cultural references,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause otherwise it\u2019s going to be like primping in front of a mirror, and I\u2019m just not going to let myself do that. I pride myself on my modesty. But I was part of the \u201980s and I know that. I\u2019m objective enough about my own work and about the past to know that it would be a sin to cut out the DeLorean [from <em>Back to the Future<\/em>, which Spielberg produced] and the T. Rex [from <em>Jurassic Park<\/em>] and maybe a few other things that came from my movies. So I left about 20 percent of them in from the book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not only is the OASIS full of references to everything from\u00a0<em>Buckaroo Banzai<\/em> to\u00a0<em>The Iron Giant<\/em>, but it\u2019s also home to a massive game that no one has been able to beat. Before Halliday died he hid a golden Easter Egg somewhere within the OASIS, and a bunch of clues to find it. In a\u00a0<em>Willy Wonka<\/em>-like scenario, whomever eventually finds the Easter Egg will become the rightful, legal owner of the OASIS. And because Wade is our boring hero, he wants that prize, damn it!<\/p>\n<p>Wade isn\u2019t the only one after the Egg. There\u2019s a whole bunch of players who want in, and they call themselves\u00a0Gunters, like Easter Egg Hunters. And if you think that\u2019s eye-rollingly bad, don\u2019t worry \u2013 all of the characters say \u201cGunter\u201d\u00a0<em>a lot<\/em> in this movie. In the video game world, Wade goes by the avatar\u00a0Parzival, who looks kind of like an alien who just discovered emo music. It\u2019s an odd choice \u2013 you can look like anything and anyone in the OASIS, but this wispy blue-skinned figure with severe bangs is what Wade wanted.<\/p>\n<p>In his quest for the Egg, Wade meets\u00a0Art3mis (<strong>Olivia Cooke<\/strong>), and it\u2019s only a matter of time before Wade is head over heels in love with her. There\u2019s an interesting idea here \u2013 Wade doesn\u2019t meet the\u00a0<em>real<\/em>\u00a0Art3mis (who is revealed to be named\u00a0Samantha Cook) until late in the movie. So, is he in love with the real Samantha or her avatar? Or is there really no difference? The movie dances around this idea and then forgets about it because there\u2019s just no time \u2013 we have to get to all the action.<\/p>\n<p>While Wade, Samantha, and Wade\u2019s friends\u2019 quest for the Egg is seen as pure and noble \u2013 because they\u2019re\u00a0<em>true<\/em> gamers, after all \u2013 there\u2019s another party jockeying for control. It\u2019s the evil\u00a0Innovative Online Industries (IOI), run by the evil\u00a0Nolan Sorrento, played by fantastic actor\u00a0<strong>Ben Mendelsohn<\/strong>, who is oddly saddled with weird, distracting, oversized fake teeth for this part.<\/p>\n<p>One has to wonder: does Spielberg see himself in Wade and his pals? Does he look at them and think of his fellow movie brats, blowing into Hollywood and taking down the big studio system? Would that make Nolan and IOI stand-ins for the studios? It\u2019s a fun idea, and certainly makes the film more personal-seeming for Spielberg \u2013 but again, the film has no time to linger on these things.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not to say Spielberg doesn\u2019t have a personal connection to this film at all. Once again, just like with\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em>, the idea of escaping from the loneliness of the world into dreams seems to be what caught his eye. \u201c<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You know, desperately seeking escape is not nostalgia,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019re all familiar with. Escapism is something, especially today, that people are craving more than ever before just to get out of the desperately depressing <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> cycle. There have been desperately depressing news cycles in every decade from time to time, but it\u2019s pretty profound now. And so I thought, \u2018This is is the right time for this.&#8217;\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-650186\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-iron-giant.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Reality_is_Real\"><\/span><strong>Reality is Real<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>And yet, for all his talk of escapism, and for all of\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em>\u2018s digital bells and whistles, it\u2019s the quiet moments that actually work. They are few and far between, but every now and then, Spielberg checks in on the real world. In trying to find clues to find the Egg, Wade watches archival recreations of Halliday\u2019s life, where we see Halliday in the real world, being an awkward, funny weirdo. Rylance shines in these moments \u2013 sure, the voice he chooses for Halliday is just a little\u00a0<em>too<\/em> weird, but he captures the character\u2019s humanity and <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> anxiety. In these flashbacks, we see Halliday interact with his friend and partner\u00a0Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg), who helped him build the OASIS. It\u2019s eventually revealed that before Morrow married his wife Karen, she went on a date with Halliday. Halliday was unable to tell her how she really felt and she moved on, but he remained obsessed with her. It\u2019s sad, lonely stuff \u2013 and more than a little uncomfortable. We\u2019re dipping into incel territory here, although I don\u2019t think Spielberg sees the character that way.<\/p>\n<p>These clues lead Wade and the gang into the film\u2019s most impressive set-piece \u2013 a recreation of the Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Shining<\/em>. Spielberg and his team used actual footage from Kubrick\u2019s film as well as digital recreations to render an Overlook that appears nearly identical to how it did in Kubrick\u2019s Stephen King adaptation. It\u2019s stunning stuff, but even this brief moment of glory fades as the OASIS version of the Overlook starts throwing in CGI ghouls wielding axes and an entire ballroom of waltzing green glowing ghosts that would look more at home in\u00a0<em>Ghostbusters<\/em> than\u00a0<em>The Shining<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Spielberg loved Kubrick and had a friendship with the man, so he clearly approached recreating some of Kubrick\u2019s work with care \u2013 at first. Why then does it all descend into goofy chaos? Is\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em> making a point to say that so many people these days consume pop culture without actually understanding it? A case for this can certainly be made later in the film, when Wade\u2019s friend\u00a0Aech (<strong>Lena Waithe<\/strong>) pilots an avatar of <em>The Iron Giant<\/em> into battle. Sure, it\u00a0<em>looks<\/em> cool to see the Iron Giant lumbering around and blowing shit up \u2013 but it\u2019s also a complete betrayal of what\u00a0<em>The Iron Giant<\/em> was actually about. Writer-director Brad Bird wrote\u00a0<em>The Iron Giant<\/em> in the wake of tragedy \u2013 his sister was shot and killed. The pitch for the film, as Bird told it, became: \u201cWhat if a gun had a soul, and didn\u2019t want to be a gun?\u201d The actual\u00a0<em>Iron Giant<\/em>\u2018s whole purpose is to\u00a0<em>not<\/em> become the killing machine\u00a0<em>Ready Player One<\/em> turns him into.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, there\u2019s a huge climactic battle where nearly every single inch of the frame is clogged with some sort of character you may or may not have heard of. You could probably pause every frame of the last act of this film and spend weeks identifying everyone and everything in the frame \u2013 but please, don\u2019t. Wade triumphs \u2013 but so what? It\u2019s hard to care that Wade has now won full access to the OASIS, even if he tacks on a disclaimer at the end where he says that they now shut the OASIS down two days a week so everyone is forced to live in the real world \u2013 the real world that\u2019s presumably still very terrible, what with\u00a0the corn syrup droughts and bandwidth riots.<\/p>\n<p>The maddening thing is that there\u2019s a much more interesting protagonist alongside Wade who unfortunately gets delegated to being just \u201cthe girlfriend character.\u201d We learn that\u00a0Art3mis, aka Samantha, has a personal motive for wanting to stop IOI, a company that sells much of the gear people use in the OASIS. Samantha\u2019s father kept purchasing video game gear from IOI on credit, building up debt. In the dystopian future of this film, IOI is able to buy people\u2019s debts and turn them into virtual slaves, locking them away in little pods where they\u2019re forced to work in virtual reality. The idea is they\u2019ll work until they pay off debt, but it\u2019s nearly impossible to ever work off all that money \u2013 and sure enough, Samantha\u2019s father ended up dying locked away in IOI\u2019s so-called Loyalty Centers. It\u2019s a bleak story, and even in digital form, Olivia Cooke sells it beautifully. We can feel her heartbreak when she tells this story. And it just makes us wish she was the main character \u2013 I\u2019m much more interested in the story of Samantha bringing down the evil corporation that crushed her penniless father than Wade Watts, a boring dope who wants to win because it\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p>A lot went into the world-building of <em>Ready Player One<\/em>, and I have nothing but respect for the hard work put in by the many artists working on this project. But for all this talk of escape, it can\u2019t be denied that much of the OASIS is kind of, well, hideous. An early race scene on a virtual New York City street is a stunner and full of autumnal color, but so much of the other locations are washed in a corpse-like gray-blue light. It\u2019s an incredibly cold world, and entirely uninviting.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings us back to the film\u2019s best scene: when all of this\u00a0<em>stops<\/em>, when all of the digital trickery fades away, and Wade as a heart-to-heart with a virtual Halliday. The scene unfolds in a version of Halliday\u2019s childhood bedroom, and not only is the adult Halliday there, but his child counterpart is on hand as well. Halliday looks upon his younger self with a dreamy sadness, and it\u2019s a painfully human moment at the tail-end of a film that lacks real humanity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world,\u201d Halliday says. \u201cI just didn\u2019t know how to connect with people there. I was afraid for all my life, right up until the day I knew my life was ending. And that was when I realized that\u2026as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it\u2019s also the only place that you can get a decent meal. Because, reality\u2026is real.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a wonderful little moment that sadly doesn\u2019t make up for everything that came before it. And it\u2019s further hampered by a very weird beat where, back in the real world, Wade meets Ogdon Morrow and tells him that Halliday\u2019s biggest regret was \u201closing his only friend.\u201d Was it?! Because that\u2019s not articulated in any way, shape, or form in the film itself. Did a scene end up on the cutting room floor? Is Wade just telling Morrow that to be nice? It\u2019s baffling.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-650188\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes-700x321.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes-700x321.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes-360x165.jpg 360w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes-768x352.jpg 768w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/ready-player-one-behind-the-scenes.jpg 948w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Exhausted_and_Enthralled\"><\/span><strong>Exhausted and Enthralled<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When asked why, after so many adult-driven stories, he was returning to a big adventure movie with <em>Ready Player One<\/em>, Spielberg replied: \u201cBecause I love history and I\u2019ve been preoccupied with telling stories that are true stories\u2026I made a choice to make a lot of movies about biographical subjects or historical occurrences, and that\u2019s been a real fulfillment for me. As I\u2019ve gotten older, I\u2019ve tended to want to tell more of that kind of story. This is like a real return to my youth, which is why I felt good about allowing this movie to take me back several decades.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The statement seems curious. Spielberg is saying <em>Ready Player One<\/em> is like a return to his youth, but he\u2019s also not saying\u00a0<em>why<\/em> he really wanted to do this movie.\u00a0According to Spielberg, the shoot was challenging. \u201cI just saw how hard this was going to be,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the third-hardest movie I\u2019ve ever made behind <em>Jaws<\/em> and <em>Saving Private Ryan<\/em>, in that order. I was exhausted thinking about what was ahead of me if I committed to it, and I thought, \u2018Well, maybe a director in their twenties wouldn\u2019t be as intimidated because they would have no experience to intimidate them.\u2019 Yet I was so enthralled by the possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that\u2019s the real explanation \u2013 Spielberg wanted a challenge.\u00a0And if I were even more cynical than I already am, I\u2019d also say that Spielberg maybe, just maybe, wanted another hit under his belt.\u00a0<em>The BFG<\/em> was a box office disappointment, and while the more grown-up\u00a0<em>The Post<\/em> did well, it wasn\u2019t a\u00a0<em>blockbuster<\/em>. Spielberg hadn\u2019t really made a\u00a0<em>blockbuster<\/em> in a while. And now, here was his chance.<\/p>\n<p>And you know what? He was right. The film made\u00a0$582.9 million worldwide, making it his <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/steven-spielbergs-10-biggest-blockbusters-on-his-73rd-birthday-2019-12-18\">sixth-biggest<\/a> film at the worldwide box office. If he was trying to prove a point \u2013 that he could still blow the roof off the multiplex \u2013 he succeeded. But at what cost? After spending the bulk of his 21st-century career trying new things and creating some wonderful, challenging movies, he took a step back to deliver a piece of bright, shiny junk. A very\u00a0<em>successful<\/em> piece of bright, shiny junk, but junk all the same.<\/p>\n<p>As for the future, Spielberg already has a remake of\u00a0<em>West Side Story<\/em> in the can. The filmmaker has spent nearly his entire career expressing a desire to make a musical, and now, he has. Whatever you think of the material, the idea of Spielberg \u2013 the director who understands the grammar of film better than almost anyone \u2013 making a musical is exciting. But then what? At one point, the filmmaker was going to direct a fifth and final\u00a0<em>Indiana Jones<\/em>, but has since handed that over to James Mangold. Spielberg\u2019s had the drama\u00a0<em>The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara<\/em> on the backburner for a while. He may or may not direct\u00a0<em>It\u2019s What I Do<\/em> with Jennifer Lawrence playing\u00a0photojournalist Lynsey Addario. In 2018, it was announced Spielberg would be directing an adaptation of the DC comic book series <em>Blackhawk.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>None of these projects exactly scream out at us. They don\u2019t sound, well,\u00a0<em>Spielbergian<\/em>. But then again, what does? If there\u2019s anything this series has revealed, it\u2019s that there\u2019s more than one way to make a Spielberg film. In the 21st century, Steven Spielberg set out to prove he had more on his mind than big explosions and big spectacle. Who knows what he\u2019ll do next?<\/p>\n<p>                            <strong>Cool Posts From Around the Web:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>                            <!-- \/post -->\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/21st-century-spielberg-podcast-the-bfg-and-ready-player-one\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#21st Century Spielberg \u2013 \/Film&#8221; (Welcome to\u00a021st Century Spielberg, an ongoing column and podcast that examines the challenging, sometimes misunderstood 21st-century filmography of one of our greatest living filmmakers,\u00a0Steven Spielberg. In this edition: The BFG\u00a0and\u00a0Ready Player One.) What do you think of when you think of a Steven Spielberg movie? There are a variety of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/21st-century-spielberg-the-bfg-ready-player-one.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1568,8866,1570,23498,35301,8868,87325],"class_list":["post-138516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-featured-stories-sidebar","tag-21st-century-spielberg","tag-features","tag-podcasts","tag-ready-player-one","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-the-bfg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}