The following contains SPOILERS for Ready Player One.
Ready Player One had a solid opening weekend and is getting equally solid reviews for being an enjoyable adventure movie that fans of pop culture will especially enjoy. The ride is certainly an enjoyable one, but that doesn't mean it is entirely without bumps.
The film had a lot of ground to cover in its two and a half hour runtime, and in order to do so, it moves at a pretty fast clip. As such, the movie leaves a handful of questions unanswered by the end. Some of these are intentional mysteries, but others just feel like dangling threads. Here are some questions we have about Ready Player One.
Who Discovered The Race?
At the beginning of Ready Player One, we learn that the first clue had already been deciphered and that it led to a race that, thus far, nobody had been able to complete. We're told that the identity of the person who solved it was unknown, but how can that be? The hunt had only been going on for five years. It's not like this stuff was lost to the ages. Was finding the race seriously worth zero points on the scoreboard? Did the avatar really decide to remain anonymous? There would have been no harm in making yourself known, at least inside the OASIS. Unless, of course, the puzzle had never actually been solved, and the race just opened on its own in order to get things moving, perhaps as a fail-safe instituted by James Halliday himself?
What's The Deal With The Resistance?
When Wade gets grabbed shortly after his aunt's trailer explodes, he finds out that he's actually been rescued by a friend, Art3mis. Samantha, as we learn is her real name, welcomes Wade to "the Resistance," but we never really learn what that means. We see lots of people wandering around the building our characters are in and we see a lot of tents, implying people are living there, but that's about all. She refers to the person who grabbed Wade as "her guy," implying she has some position of authority within this organization, but we never receive any details. It seems like this group is all working together to try and beat IOI to the egg, but that's never made clear. How did this group come together? How big is it? We don't know. We also assume many of them ended up in the loyalty center with Samantha, but she doesn't do anything to help rescue them when she escapes.
How Did Art3mis Know How To Contact Aech, Diato And Shoto?
When Wade escapes after IOI raids "the Resistance," he gets picked up by a trio of friends he's never met in person. Aech, Daito and Sho tell Wade that Samantha sent them a message to pick Wade up. How exactly did this happen? Are these three part of the Resistance?. It's clear that Samantha has never met any of them in person, and at the beginning of the movie, Aech doesn't appear to know Ar3mis beyond reputation. How did she have their contact info in her phone? Also, did she know the three of them traveled together? Nobody else seemed to know that, so how did she get this info?
How Did Sorrento Not Know He Was Still Logged In?
At a key point in the story, our heroes get the drop on Nolan Sorrento because the guy keeps his password written down, therefore they are able to hack his OASIS rig. That's fine as far as it goes, but does it really make sense that he wouldn't know he was still in the OASIS? He was physically sitting in a chair with a pair of oversized sunglasses on his face. The OASIS may be a completely realistic simulation, but are we really supposed to believe it's so realistic you literally forget you're physically wearing the hardware? This isn't The Matrix, it's a VR video game.
What's The Deal With Halliday/Anorak?
After Parzival/Wade has successfully obtained the egg, he has a conversation with an image of James Halliday. Halliday impresses upon Wade the importance of living in reality and as he does, Parzival suggests that whatever he's talking to is not a game avatar. The image of Halliday confirms that he's not an avatar, but also that he's not actually Halliday. Perhaps the answer to this one is just semantic: an avatar is controlled by a person, while an NPC is just a computer program, but the scene seems to be hinting that there's something mysterious about how Halliday is appearing inside the OASIS. Is this potential sequel bait if Ready Player One does well enough to warrant one? It's not clear what is being suggested or if it matters.
How Was Morrow The Curator The Whole Time?
The final big reveal of Ready Player One is that Halliday's former best friend Ogden Morrow had actually been closely involved with the Hunt the entire time. He was the curator of Halliday's Archives, the one who gave Parzival an extra life for winning a bet with him. Except the indication was that the curator was actually an NPC, something which would have almost certainly been necessary at least some of the time. While the archives may not have been as popular as they once were, surely Gunters wandered in at all hours. Was Morrow on call 24/7? Did he ever sleep? Would Parzival have won his extra life if Morrow had been going to the bathroom at that particular moment and was AFK?
