Ready Player One was officially released in theaters this past Friday, March 29, though there were viewings as early as Wednesday. The Steven Spielberg directed film takes place in 2045, where much of the world escapes life by entering a virtual reality within the OASIS. The film’s plot revolves around Wade Watts (played by Tye Sheridan) and his hunt to find three keys that will give him full ownership of the OASIS after the founder dies. While the film does a good job of giving off the nostalgic feel the book does, Ready Player One missed some of the bigger components of the book that could have made the film much more meaningful.

Trying to fit a book like Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One into a two-and-a-half hour film is challenging. In Cline’s 80’s-reference filled book, the protagonist, Watts, has to do much more than win a race with King Kong chasing him for the first key. The film’s race is much more exciting the arcade game Watts has to play for the key in the book, but the book’s hunt was much more in-depth. In the book, Watts has to find a key, then a gate. Once inside the gate, Watts has to complete an arcade game, or read an entire movie script, to get the key. This would take too much time to play out in a movie, so there’s no blaming Spielberg and the producers for shortening the hunt. The Ready Player One film seems to rush through scenes, though, and nothing really seems important.

In the Ready Player One book, Cline, through the words of Watts, explains that the currency of the OASIS is much more valuable than that of the real world. This is because humans spend most of their time in the virtual reality world. The OASIS is where people communicate, learn and make a living. The film fails to show just how important the OASIS is to the world. It fails to show how an evil corporation like IOI can take advantage of the real world if they take control of the OASIS. The rebellion against IOI could have been much more powerful if the film had focused more on the huge role the OASIS plays in everyday life.

It was a small, simple aspect of the Ready Player One book that was missing from the film that could have added so much more feel to the movie. Watt’s believes his best friend in the OASIS, Aech (played by Lena Waithe) is a guy the entire time since they’ve only met in the virtual world. In the book, however, Watts finally meets Aech in the real world and sees she’s a black female, something he was not expecting. Aech (or H, short for her real name, Helen), tells Watts she had to disguise herself as a man in the OASIS because of the disadvantages a young black woman can have in the virtual world. The film-adaption fails to portray this aspect, though. We are given a short, two-second, “not what you expected” line from Aech in the film, but there could have been a much bigger message sent, especially with all that’s going on in the world today.

There were bright spots in Spielberg’s Ready Player One adaptation. The change in the first contests for the keys was fitting and added a more modern feel than the book. Eighties’ arcade games probably wouldn’t hold down a 2018 audience as much as races with Back to the Future’s DeLorean and the old Adam West Batmobile. As a whole, though, the Ready Player One could have been so much more impactful. There could have been a lot more meaning to everything that happens throughout the film. Ready Player One holds its weight as a fun, adventurous movie, there could have been a lot more depth to it, though.