The following podcast contains explicit language.

I want to tell you my secret now.

I see dead people.

Silent green is people.

I need my sister and my daughter.

Rosebud.

Hello and welcome to another Slate's spoiler special podcast. I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and today we will be spoiling Ready Player 1, the new sci-fi fantasy from Steven Spielberg. Here to talk with me about the film are Slate Culture Editor Forrest Wickman. Hey Forrest. Hey, Dana. So you and I here in New York and remotely we have from

D.C. Slate copy editor Dontea Price. Hello, Dantia. Hi, Dana. And joining us from Portland on the phone is

Laura Hudson, who is the culture editor of The Verge. Hey, Laura. Hey. And just to note, if you hear any

strange crinkling or clattering noises in the background, it's because Laura is sitting in a coffee shop. So we're going to do our best to edit out that background sound and make it smooth, but you may hear the odd clattering saucer here and there. So this is a goodly group. I'm glad I have you guys gathered because I think all of you have your own perspective to bring to this. And specifically, we wanted to have Dontea and Laura on here,

because you are currently writing about the book that Ready Player 1 is based on, and you already

wrote for us here at Slate, much past about. I remember a piece about the sort of sequel to that book

or the next book by the same author. So you bring that expertise, but also you, like Dontea,

are a gamer and a woman who is a gamer, and that seems like an important

perspective to bring to this movie that is all about sort of an imagined dystopic future of

the world of online gaming. It's true. I wouldn't say that I necessarily identify with the label

of gamer, perhaps because of what that label has come to represent, but I'm absolutely a big enthusiast about

games and have played them my entire life. Right. And I think that's something that really helps in

analyzing talking about this film. Forrest, I don't know what your relationship to games is. Do you game

casually? Oh, I was a gamer big time until like 2005. So when in this movie they're talking about

you know, golden eye and sloppers only and

playing his odd job and stuff. That's totally, I feel like, kind of my generation, but I pretty

...