10 Greatest Meta Sci-Fi Movies Of All Time
6. Ready Player One
Ready Player One is Spielberg at the top of his game, like it's the 80s all over again.
It's about what happens when the imagined stakes of a video game become a real word contest for wealth and the danger comes out of the game to pursue the heroes in real life. The adventure happens both inside and outside of the game, events in both spaces affecting each other in a seamless meta narrative.
The film is set in a dystopian future where corporations have too much power, as they can literally kidnap people who owe them money and put them to work. Which is specifically against the 13th amendment and requires some suspension of disbelief.
The film also succeeds in an area which might owe more to men in suits making phone calls than it does specifically to Spielberg. Because this movie manages the most insane crossover of IP ever attempted, referencing The Shining, Gundam, The Iron Giant, Batman, Godzilla, Battle Toads, Robocop - the list goes on and on.
It must have been the work of years to clear all of the rights, and thus it seems only seems fair to salute whichever studio grunt spent so much time making this awesome movie legal.