The Ready Player One poster where Tye Sheridan's leg seems extremely stretched-out may not be as inaccurate as the backlash suggests. In the latest film from Stephen Spielberg, Sheridan plays Wade Owen Watts, a teenager who spends most of his life in the VR land known as the Oasis. As the trailer shows, it's a world full of incredible, nostalgic wonders, although the tease also highlights the more rundown land of 2045 Columbus, Ohio.
This is the focus on the new poster, which became an instant sensation over the weekend. In it, Sheridan is shown climbing a ladder, but due to some strange photoshopping his leg is absurdly long. Or is it? It turns out this faux pas may not be as bad as some thought.
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Alan Melikdjanian, more widely known as Captain Disillusion, posted a Twitter thread providing proof that the poster's design holds up. The thread turned out to be an insightful look into how artists think about proportions when depicting the human body. Check it out below (or view the full Moment here):
If we connect opposite corners of the box with straight lines, they will cross at the center, a.k.a. the crotch. pic.twitter.com/A9Ot2VExSP— Captain Disillusion (@CDisillusion) December 10, 2017
Well, what do you know? The half-way point, as dictated by the rules of perspective, lands squarely on his crotch! The part of the body below the crotch, a.k.a. the leg, appears to take the amount of space in the bounding box it's typically supposed to. pic.twitter.com/zNooHFgEXD— Captain Disillusion (@CDisillusion) December 10, 2017
Melikdjanian's YouTube channel analyzes unusual videos to determine whether they are genuine or fake. His mission, in this case, was a bit different but fit into his habit of debunking popular topics of fascination. After going to the trouble of formulating an artistic argument in favor of the poster, however, Captain Disillusion acknowledged that the perception of something being off still matters. He wrote that, "In art, when something is technically correct, but still looks aesthetically 'off', the artist should probably go with what feels aesthetically better, rules be damned." It's also worth noting that while the leg length is in proportion, that doesn't take into account the positioning of Sheridan's knee, which leads to much longer calves than is normal.
The poster for Ready Player One was accompanied with a trailer that gave a better taste of the plot - Wade is hunting for the ultimate Easter Egg in the Oasis - as well as many of the film's pop culture cameos. The film is based on a 2011 novel by Ernest Cline of the same name. Recently, Cline confirmed that he's working on a sequel to Ready Player One, raising the possibility that the series could become a longer-term project for Warner Bros.
While this is an odd step for Ready Player One's marketing, it surely won't hurt it too much given the trailer's quality and high expectations thanks to the book's notoriety and Spielberg's involvement.
Source: Captain Disillusion
Next: Every Reference & Cameo In Ready Player One's SDCC Trailer
