Depending on your wiring, the orgy of pop culture references teased to be layered throughout Ready Player One is either a godsend or as appealing as prehistoric dental work. Included in the recognizable fray is a splash of Star Wars and the film’s director Steven Spielberg explained where the barriers are in which movies are getting nods in the picture. Fair warning, you may need to sob into your Kylo Ren body pillow at the end of this post.
Spielberg, who knows a thing or two about the franchise, shared the philosophy the film took on which Star Wars films were the ones to pluck from. There was a bit of public confusion at SXSW on the status of the rights to use the iconography from the films, but Spielberg shared with Fandango that rights were not a factor in how Star Wars is presented inside the world of Ready Player One.
EXCLUSIVE: Contrary to reports spreading now, Disney did let Steven Spielberg use #StarWars in #ReadyPlayerOne. Here, Spielberg explains to me how they snagged IP rights from all the studios and what STAR WARS Easter Eggs to look for in the new film, in theaters 3/29 pic.twitter.com/LslVQP1iCv
— Erik Davis (@ErikDavis) March 16, 2018
“We didn’t want to use the main cultural icons from any of the Disney Star Wars films, because those are ongoing,” That’s really part of our contemporary world right now. And even though it began in the ’80s, it is so much a part of our real life today in the 21st century. So we asked for some of the smaller items, and Disney gave us everything we asked for.”
Considering that Spielberg’s E.T. gets the homage treatment in The Phantom Menace, it would be a bit strange not to have some flexibility between Spielberg and Star Wars, eh? Ready Player One is set to arrive in theaters on March 29.
(Via Fandango)