Amid the onslaught of trailers released at Comic Con this weekend, two clips appeared to share a special affinity. The trailers for this year’s Stranger Things sequel and next year’s Ready Player One adaptation both managed to conjure up the golden glow of Amblin-era Spielberg like no other. But even though Ready Player One is a Steven Spielberg project and Stranger Things is not, it’s worth asking which looks more Spielbergian. Let’s apply some analysis.
Setting
Ready Player One: Columbus, Ohio, in 2045.
Stranger Things: Hawkins, Indiana, in 1984.
When you think of golden-era Spielberg, you think of wide-open rural Americana, not a dystopian shanty town hellscape. Even though the Ready Player One trailer contains plenty of Goonies-style bodged-together gadgets, it still can’t hold a candle to the purity of Stranger Things.
Winner: Stranger Things.
Lead characters
Ready Player One: An excitable yet lonely kid in a backpack who uses the fantastical escapades of another world to escape the reality of his humdrum life.
Stranger Things: Several excitable yet lonely kids in backpacks who use the fantastical escapades of another world to escape the reality of their humdrum lives.
Ready Player One contains one stereotypically Spielbergian character. Stranger Things, meanwhile, is full of them.
Winner: Stranger Things.
Number of bicycles
Ready Player One: None.
Stranger Things: Three.
Sorry, Ready Player One, but this is a numbers game. The Amblin logo is literally a bicycle, and you are entirely sans-bike, so you lose again.
Winner: Stranger Things.
Overtly nostalgic pop culture references
Ready Player One: The Iron Giant, Back to the Future, Freddy Krueger, Akira, Atari, Harley Quinn, Deathstroke, Tron, Willy Wonka.
Stranger Things: Dragon’s Lair, Pac-Man, Galaga, Asteroids, Thriller, Ronald Reagan, Ghostbusters.
I make that 9-7 in favour of Ready Player One. And, credit where it’s due, you have to get out of bed early in the morning if you’re going to beat Stranger Things at cynical appropriation of route-one nostalgia.
Winner: Ready Player One.
Hyperbole
Ready Player One: “From Warner Bros Pictures and cinematic game-changer Steven Spielberg comes Ernest Cline’s holy grail of pop culture. Are you ready?”
Stranger Things: “On October 27.”
Two completely differing results here. On one hand, Ready Player One seems convinced that it’s a work of biblical importance. Spielberg is presented as a living legend, and the source material is a rarefied artefact rather than what’s basically a Wreck-It Ralph novelisation. On the other hand, Stranger Things can’t even muster up a proper sentence. It never really stood a chance.
Winner: Ready Player One.
Final result
It’s a close call, but Stranger Things has just about edged it as the defining Spielbergian work of the next 12 months. Better luck next time, Steven!
