Ready Player One: the Sad Life of a Billionaire

I will admit that I enjoy the movie Ready Player One. I haven’t had the chance to read the book because I’ve been too busy writing, but I would like to read it at some point. Since I am a child of the 80’s, I really did enjoy all of the references back to the 80’s and 90’s. One thing that really stood out in the movie was one of the main characters from the film, James Halliday. I really don’t know if the author Ernest Cline patterned James after this glaring disorder, but I have to give him all the credit. James Halliday, in the movie, clearly was a character who had Asperger’s Syndrome and I say very, very clever! Think about it. James Halliday didn’t care about the riches and fame that he deserved. Most normal humans would not ‘act’ that way. Heck, in one scene he was cleaning up after what seemed to be like a company party. The man is a billionaire and he’s the one cleaning it up! James did a lot of remembering about how life used to be and all the fun. His whole demeanor was very anti-social. Of course we’re not sure, but he might not have been at that company party. The most clear answer on his social angst was his one and only really ‘relationship’ with the opposite sex. James Halliday couldn’t take the ‘leap’ because this was a choice; he couldn’t take the leap because his disability held him back, basically he just could not express his feelings correctly. Many people with autism have a really hard time developing and maintaining a good relationship because of general lack of communication and letting loved ones know how they felt. Things got so bad for Halliday that he eventually lost his only real friend, Ogden Morrow…which was mentioned in the end of the movie. I believe if the friend knew that Og, his best friend, had autism, he might have understood him a little better. James knew that life was ‘terrifying’ for him. So the one thing that James Halliday did understand quite well, which was also mentioned, has much as he felt more free in his made-up world; real live can never be truly substituted with a gaming world. As he said in the movie, “It’s also the only place were you can get a decent meal.” I felt so bad for the James Halliday character because I know, in real life… over all, this does happens to a lot of real good people with autism.