The world is dead, gone, rotten, ruined. Nothing to do but retreat into VR realms which are much more robust, dimensional and rich with possibility. Better to live in a gleaming digital universe, full of boundless adventure and blah-dee-blah, than to face the dystopian nothingness.

This is how your typical gamer lives today, of course. Reality is for sleeping, working, inhaling junk food, exploring states of sedentary squatfuckitude and avoiding news sites, organic-world relationships and most of all exercise. Because the real “living” is done within.

Steven Spielberg‘s adaptation of Ernest Cline‘s 2011 best-selling sci-fi novel is a fantasy about dying qnd retreating — a futuristic tale about Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a dystopian-era gamer who spends most of his time in the Oasis, which is where he “joins a hunt for valuable easter egg left by the game’s now-deceased creator” — Mark Rylance — “who intends to give away his entire fortune (including the rights to the Oasis) to the first person who can find the hidden object,” blah blah.

Ready Player One opens on 3.30.18. Put a bullet in my head.