A key Ready Player One scene was inspired by Last Action Hero

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

*SPOILERS FOR READY PLAYER ONE*

Like every other movie that’s based on a book, READY PLAYER ONE underwent some changes from the page to the screen. But, in the case of RPO, there were, in fact, some major changes that no doubt seriously surprised fans of the book. One of the changes involves the characters entering the movie THE SHINING, which writer Zak Penn says was a change inspired by the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie LAST ACTION HERO.

During a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Penn talked about when it came time to write the scene involving Parzival (Tye Sheridan) getting the second key he and the book’s author (Ernest Cline, who co-wrote the script) decided to go a different direction than the book did, which instead involved the character working within the movie WARGAMES.

[SEE MORE]

In the book, it's more like a karaoke thing that you do, and Ernie's a big fan of Last Action Hero. One of the big changes was you walk through and have to repeat the lines from the movie [WARGAMES], I said 'No, let's do Last Action Hero. Let's throw you into the movie!' Wouldn't it be better, no matter what movie it is, if there was an adventure in the movie? Ernie was like 'Totally. Absolutely.'

In the book, the character has to act out the movie WARGAMES (Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy) to perfection (much like karaoke) in order to get the Jade Key. In the movie, the writers decided to have Parzival and his crew enter the Overlook Hotel from THE SHINING and have a more independent adventure that allowed them to explore the hotel. This, of course, borrows from LAST ACTION HERO, which finds a young boy being sucked into the world of a movie starring an actor named Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger).

Penn also said in the interview that the scene was originally intended to have the gang sucked into a different movie – BLADE RUNNER – but given that BLADE RUNNER 2049 was in the works when this was being written made them decide to go another way. Plus, then we would have to see the RPO characters interacting with a CGI Rutger Hauer, and that sounds nightmarish.

[SEE MORE]

For those who have read the book and seen the movie know that the first task was also heavily changed for the movie, and I can certainly see the reason for the shift with both of these pivotal moments. Though the two parts of the book are drenched in pop culture and make for awesome reading, they aren’t especially cinematic. Seeing Parzival act out WARGAMES may sound cool on paper, but it doesn’t look near as awesome as the characters getting caught in a flood of elevator blood.  

READY PLAYER ONE is in theaters now!