'Ready Player One' Has Hidden Star Wars Easter Eggs

EXCLUSIVE: Contrary to reports spreading now, Disney did let Steven Spielberg use #StarWars in [...]

By Joe Schmidt

Those who have read the original novel by Ernest Cline might know what to expect from Ready Player One: pop culture references, easter eggs, and blatant product placement.

But when it comes to the big screen, some of the more popular inclusions are harder to secure given the huge companies that own each intellectual property, and the hoops that must be jumped through in order to secure them.

And yet, it sounds like Ready Player One had no problems tackling the galaxy far, far away.

During an interview with Fandango about the film's release, legendary director Steven Spielberg revealed there is a major Star Wars easter egg in the film.

"If you look very carefully, you'll see an R2-D2 somewhere," said Spielberg. "You'll see an X-Wing somewhere."

Spielberg admitted that getting all of the different references for the Warner Bros. movie was difficult because they were "greedy."

"But everybody cooperated. We got 20th Century Fox and Universal and Paramount and Sony and Disney," Spielberg said." Everybody basically came on board to help us take their IPs and allow us to create easter eggs from their own cultural phenomenons."

Spielberg also spoke about why they chose not to include any of the major Star Wars characters in Ready Player One, taking a step back due to their prominence in the current films.

"We didn't want to use the main cultural icons from any of the Disney Star Wars films because those are ongoing," Spielberg said. "That's 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."

Ready Player One is shaping up to be a visual smorgasbord for geek culture, mashing up many different references that fans haven't seen since the animated public service announcement from the '90s, "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue."

Early reactions to the film's screening at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, seem to indicate that many fans will be satisfied, while others criticize the over-reliance on pop culture references to string together a coherent narrative.

Ready Player One premieres in theaters on March 30th.

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