We have been hearing more and more about the Metaverse recently, but it’s not a new concept in film. The ideas behind the Metaverse have been popular in movies for many years.
To understand how closely related the themes of some movies are to the Metaverse we are familiar with, we need to understand what the term actually means. It actually has a wide-ranging and somewhat vague meaning that can vary depending on context. The Metaverse can refer to virtual reality (VR), which creates persistent virtual worlds, augmented reality (AR), which combines aspects of the physical and digital worlds, and virtual worlds that can be accessed via other formats like computer games.
Various technologies combine in the Metaverse, including computer graphics, cloud computing, and high-speed Internet. The number of Metaverse users is expected to exceed 1.4 billion by 2030, and its value is expected to reach $484.8 billion in the same year. As the reach of the Metaverse expands, it becomes more familiar and impacts industries we interact with regularly, like gaming, real estate, and healthcare.
The more we learn about the Metaverse, the more we can see it reflected in many of the action movies we love, from Eggsy’s smart glasses that allow him to holographically teleconference in “Kingsman the Secret Service” to the fully customizable holographic projection Joi in “Blade Runner 2049.”
“Tron” was one of the earliest movies to reflect many aspects of the Metaverse. The 1982 movie tells the story of game developer Kevin Flynn, who is transported into a video game where he meets the security program Tron, which fights for users. The themes were revisited in 2010 with the release of “Tron: Legacy.”
After Tron came the “Matrix” movies, which featured humanity’s fall as artificial intelligence (AI) paved the way for the creation of powerful, self-aware machines. To an extent, this mirrors the warnings that we see about AI today. Hopefully, we will not see the story reflected entirely in the real world.
Arguably, the strangest film that gives a nod to Metaverse themes is “eXistenZ”. The 1999 movie directed by David Cronenberg follows various factions’ attempts to obtain the only copy of a virtual reality game after its creator is shot while demonstrating it.
1990’s “Total Recall” also has surreal moments as the main character, Douglas Quaid, apparently receives an implanted memory but then lives his alternate life in reality on Mars. The movie was inspired by “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” a short story by Philip K. Dick and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Quaid. Colin Farrell took over the role in the 2012 remake, which took place on a dystopian future Earth rather than Mars.
In 2018, “Ready Player One” brought us closer to a true reflection of what the Metaverse purports to be. The movie follows a competition that takes place after virtual reality pioneer James Halliday dies. The competition is happening in the near future as most people participate in VR entertainment, known as OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation).
Halliday created the competition, which covers three challenges. The winner’s prize is to take control of Halliday’s wealth and the OASIS Metaverse. The story of this movie, more than any other, has drawn comparisons with the actual journey of the Metaverse so far. In addition, many people have compared the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset with the headsets in the movie. A sequel to “Ready Player One” is currently in production. It will be interesting to see how this dramatic view of the Metaverse compares to reality.
It will also be interesting to see how the reality of the Metaverse develops. There are differences of opinion between experts as to whether a genuinely immersive Metaverse is possible and whether it will be as valuable as proposed if and when it happens. While there is little doubt that aspects of VR and AR are useful to the human experience and will become more so as they develop, there are concerns that online problems may worsen if Web3 development is led by the same people who developed current web platforms.
Hopefully, we will see a positive future for the Metaverse, although this is far from certain. We definitely do not want a future like the one depicted in “The Matrix,” where technology takes control. Stories like those are best kept on the big screen.
It’s been interesting to see how these movie depictions of the Metaverse and related technology have compared to the Metaverse reality so far. In the future, the technology itself may impact action films that depict Metaverse-like worlds as it allows them to become more immersive. Whether we will sit and watch fully VR movies in the future remains to be seen, but it’s certainly possible to imagine that this will be the case.