Ready Player One’s Stacks Scene is Still Its Most Powerful Scene

by

Released in 2018, this Steven Spielberg film is often overlooked. It’s a science fiction story set in 2045, where most people escape a difficult reality by spending time in a virtual world called the OASIS. The film centers on Wade Watts, a teenage orphan, and his friends as they compete in a contest to win control of the OASIS, fearing that if they lose, it will fall into the wrong hands.

I just finished watching Ready Player One, and honestly, it really stuck with me. It paints a pretty bleak picture of where the world is heading, but it does it with a whole lot of energy. The movie is absolutely packed with nods to pop culture, especially video games – it’s a total nostalgia trip! It’s so visually stunning and moves at a breakneck pace, you can easily get lost in all the spectacle. But for me, the opening sequence is the film’s strongest moment; it really sets the stage and packs an emotional punch that lingers throughout.

Ready Player One Takes Place in “The Stacks”

The novel Ready Player One begins with Wade Watts venturing out from his home in The Stacks, a desperately poor area of Columbus, Ohio. The name ‘The Stacks’ doesn’t fully capture how bad things are. It’s a precarious place built from piled-up scaffolding, creating unstable and dangerous platforms where people stack trailers and makeshift homes.

The housing units are built by simply stacking levels on top of each other, creating incredibly tall and precarious structures. Wade lives way up high in one of these stacks, and the story begins with him making a risky journey down to the ground. He has to navigate between the buildings using poles, ropes, and careful jumps, because a single mistake could be fatal.

As Wade descends through the levels, we catch glimpses of a disturbing reality: people crammed on top of each other in filthy, unsafe conditions. There’s no privacy – you can see into everyone else’s lives. What’s most unsettling is that the residents don’t seem bothered by the overcrowding or the lack of security, as if they’ve simply accepted this way of life.

The documentary shows people living in extremely poor conditions, with mobile homes dangerously piled on top of each other. We even see a family forced to live in a van parked beside a house. Pizza is delivered by drones because the area is too unsafe for traditional delivery drivers. This also highlights how automation is replacing jobs, limiting opportunities for people.

It really hit me when Wade finally made it back to the surface. Seeing the state of things… it was awful. The garbage piled up everywhere showed just how bad things had gotten. It wasn’t just about overpopulation anymore; it felt like the Stacks were built to literally cover up all the waste we created. There’s clearly no one left to deal with the trash, or places to even put it. It was a really powerful, and depressing, sight.

The Stacks vividly depict the harsh realities of extreme overcrowding and poverty, and it’s a deeply unsettling image. For many already facing financial hardship, it’s a frighteningly relatable scenario. Unless things improve, The Stacks feel like a possible future we could see soon.

The Stacks Explains Why the OASIS is So Important in Ready Player One

Watching The Stacks can be really difficult. While there are some funny scenes, like a woman pole dancing at home, even those moments hint at deeper problems. This woman prefers escaping into virtual reality to facing her real life, and another character’s attempt at a joke falls flat, reflecting the general sense of unhappiness everyone seems to be experiencing.

While navigating The Stacks, Wade shares a heartbreaking speech about the world’s condition. A series of terrible events has left people feeling hopeless. They’ve stopped trying to improve things, simply accepting their circumstances and focusing on just getting by.

I just finished watching Ready Player One, and it paints a pretty bleak picture of 2045. Basically, the real world has gotten so tough that people are escaping into virtual reality. The main character, Wade, spends most of his time in something called the OASIS – it’s an incredibly immersive game where you can be anyone and do anything, all you need is a VR headset. It’s how he, and a lot of others, cope with a pretty rough existence.

Wade isn’t alone in using the OASIS to avoid real life. In fact, the movie quickly shows many people choosing the virtual world over their actual lives – within the first three minutes, no less. The OASIS provides a level of escape that’s simply impossible elsewhere. While some might see this as a negative trend – people abandoning reality for fantasy – Ready Player One actually highlights the importance of escapism and why it resonates with so many.

Although we don’t yet have a virtual world like the OASIS, people still regularly escape reality to cope with stress or boredom. Things like playing video games, watching movies, or even binge-watching a favorite show are all ways to do this.

Escapism—daydreaming or losing yourself in entertainment—is a common way people cope with stress and difficult situations. It’s perfectly normal to use it to relax, feel connected to others, or simply take a break from everyday problems. While it’s possible to rely on escapism too much, it’s generally a helpful and powerful way to unwind and feel better.

The movie Ready Player One doesn’t criticize people for wanting to escape into virtual worlds like the OASIS. In fact, it suggests that these worlds are important because they make life easier for many. At the end of the film, the OASIS isn’t closed down completely—it’s only shut down for two days a week to encourage people to spend more time in the real world. Ultimately, the movie argues for finding a healthy balance between virtual and real life, rather than eliminating escapism altogether.

Read More

2026-01-03 01:38