The following text content is original and first published on the WeChat public account High Cold Clinic (ID: highgossip)
"Ready Player One" should have been watched.
Too many people have done the task of counting easter eggs, so I won't mix it up.
I just want to pick one out of them.
It is the "Rosebud" (Rosebud).
The key easter egg of "Ready Player One"
Unlike popular cultural symbols such as Gundam, Iron Giant, and Godzilla, and different from visual levels such as The Shining and King Kong, "Rosebud" only appears in the lines of "Ready Player One".
In order to solve the second mystery, the hero and the heroine went to the library to look up materials. It was a conversation between the two founders of "Oasis".
Halliday told Ogden that he had an appointment with a girl named Kira to watch a movie. This might be the only date Halliday had in her life. The ending of the story is that Kira married Ogden a few years later, and the two founders of Oasis also parted ways due to different ideas.
The actor pointed out that such an important Kira only appeared once in the entire database. It must have been Halliday's obsession with her and deleted the data. From this it is concluded that Kira is the rose bud and the key to solving the Halliday puzzle.
After that, they started to check which movie Halliday and Kira watched, and from this they turned to the most exciting "The Shining" scene in the whole film.
So what exactly is a "rose bud"?
The rose bud is from the 1941 movie "Citizen Kane". At the beginning of the film, the protagonist newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane died in the luxurious manor, leaving only a puzzling "rose bud" before his death. The reporter thus launched an investigation and visited Kane’s relatives and friends before his death, trying to unravel the true meaning of this last word.
Through interviews, the reporter learned about Kane's life experience, but still didn't understand what the rosebud meant. At the end of the movie, people began to clean up Kane's incomparably complex legacy, and a large amount of worthless debris was directly burned. Kane’s childhood sleigh gradually melted in the fire, and we could see clearly that there was an unopened rose embroidered on the seat with Rosebud written on it.
The "rose bud" turned into a thick smoke and became an eternal secret, and the movie ended here.
In the decades that followed, "Citizen Kane" was regarded as the greatest movie ever, and "Rose Bud" naturally became the most important McGeffen in the history of film.
At the end of "Ready Player One", the protagonist solves Halliday's three puzzles, inherits the virtual world of "Oasis", opens the door, and greets him Ogden, the other founder of "Oasis".
The actor asked, why did you come so fast? Ogden replied, I came in a magic sled. On the surface, Ogden was comparing himself to Santa Claus and prepared a big gift. The actor immediately said, I understand, you are the rosebud, and Halliday regrets the loss of your only friend.
Having said that, I think there is no suspense for the most critical and important easter egg in "Ready Player One".
"Ready Player One" and "Citizen Kane"
The main story A of "Top Player" tells how the hero Wade and his companions complete the task of the Oasis, finally solve the puzzle to find the Easter egg, and how to grow in the process. On the surface, this is Spielberg's best juvenile adventure story.
The fullest and most three-dimensional character portrayed in "Ready Player One" is, on the contrary, the dead game tycoon Halliday. The B story he drives is essentially a "Citizen Kane", and the plot setting can be almost completely contrasted.
Similar to Kane's situation, Halliday died long before the story began, leaving a will composed of three puzzles. The hero's task is to solve these puzzles in the game, restore the mysterious technology giant from different aspects such as career, love, and friendship, and assume the same function as the reporter in "Citizen Kane".
To be a coincidence, the final foothold of Halliday's story is even going back to childhood.
When "Citizen Kane" was approaching the end, someone asked what the investigative reporter was up to. His answer was to play a jigsaw puzzle. And the process of "top player" putting together the three keys is not just completing the puzzle?
Spielberg and the rose bud
Spielberg has a strong "rosebud" complex.
Just a few days ago, Spielberg accepted an interview with the BBC. The host asked what was the best movie memorabilia he got in his career, and Steward blurted out the "rosebud" sleigh in "Citizen Kane".
Spielberg also pointed out that the movie prop he bought at auction in the mid-1980s was set up by him at home and is currently in his office.
There is a slight deviation in Spielberg's memory. He bought "Rosebud" on June 10, 1982. This is actually a day worth remembering, and the next day "ET Alien" was released in North America.
It just so happened that the "Washington Post" recorded the incident completely, and the title of the report was "Rosebud Legacy." The editors and reporters at the time would certainly not have imagined that this young and energetic and talented director would make a film specifically for their newspaper many years later.
Orson Wells made "Citizen Kane" and made three "rosebud" sleighs for the last burning shot. When actually shooting this shot, Wells was satisfied with the second one, so there was a sleigh left, which was kept in RKO's warehouse.
"Rosebud" participated in a Sotheby's auction in New York. This prop sled is made of balsa wood and is 34 inches (about 84 cm) long. The cushion is red, and the flower buds are actually white. The initial estimate is between 15,000 and 20,000 US dollars.
Spielberg was busy with the release of "ET" in Los Angeles and did not go to the auction site. The client later said in an interview that the guide did not set a ceiling on the bid and was determined to win.
George Lucas, a good friend of St. John's, also wanted to accept this "rose bud", but was finally persuaded-Spielberg participated in the auction and eventually held this record-setting movie prop.
The auction process is still a bit nervous. Texas oil tycoon Lucien Flourney is a loyal fan of "Citizen Kane" and has participated in multiple rounds of bidding, but he has preset a psychological limit of $50,000.
As a result, "Rose Bud" was auctioned to Spielberg at a price of $55,000, and after including the commission, the final total was $60,500.
After getting the "rose bud" as he wished, Spielberg was interviewed. He said that he came into contact with "Citizen Kane" very late-only watched it when he was 18 years old in college, but this movie had a huge impact on him. He believes that no one will try to remake "Citizen Kane", and no one has enough talent and courage to desecrate Orson Welles' creation.
Stuart also revealed that the last scene of "Indiana Jones" is a tribute to "Citizen Kane". The sacred ark was eventually taken into the state. The workers pushed it into a huge warehouse. After the camera was pulled, we found the tens of thousands of wooden boxes. Perhaps each box contained mysterious treasures like the ark. .
This is exactly the same as the scene in which Kane’s legacy is counted at the end of "Citizen Kane". Everyone who has seen the movie knows that this scene ends with a close-up of "Rosebud". Spielberg admitted that the idea actually came from producer Lucas, "I told him right away, I know where it came from."
After getting the sled, Spielberg said, I just want to say that this is the symbol of the quality of the movie. "When you look at'Rosebud', you don't think of those fast-money, endless sequels and remakes. This motivates me to make better movies in my lifetime."
As the biggest bastard in Hollywood, Orson Wells naturally did not let go of this opportunity to rub hot spots. He told the media in a mischievous manner that what Mr. Si bought was actually a fake. It is said that this incident made Si very upset.
Spielberg and Wells have lunch
I wrote about Wells’s old life before . It can be said to be very downright. There is no decent job in Hollywood, let alone film investment.
On October 10, 1985, he died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles. When he died, he had a typewriter on his lap, and he was still writing scripts for movies that no one had invested in.
Many years after Wells died, his friend Henry Jaglow released a large number of recordings of their conversations and published the book "Lunch with Orson Wells."
Wells did mention Spielberg in the conversation, and he couldn't even remember the name of this junior.
At that time, Wells wrote a screenplay "The Cradle Will Rock" (The Cradle Will Rock), telling about his experience in the theater industry when he was young, and preparing to make a movie. The heroine happens to be Spielberg's girlfriend Amy Irving (Amy Irving), she will play Wells's first wife in the film.
After the "rosebud" auction, Wells invited Owen and Spielberg to the Ma Maison restaurant in West Hollywood for lunch.
This may be the only meeting between Spielberg and Wells. Wells looked down at the dinner table and asked Spielberg to help raise funds for his film, but Spielberg was more willing to ask him about various questions about "Citizen Kane."
"The Building Will Fall" ended up aborting because of no investment. What makes Wells more puzzled is that Spielberg was working on the TV series "Amazing Stories" (Amazing Stories), and he did not ask him to direct an episode. You know, Wells' last job during his lifetime was to dub the "King of the Universe" in the animated "Transformers Movie".
According to Wells's daughter, Spielberg didn't even pay for that lunch. In that year, his "ET" North American box office reached 360 million U.S. dollars, surpassing "Star Wars" to become the most-grossing movie of all time.
Later, a scholar of Wells wrote a stage script using this lunch as a material to tease the stingy Spielberg.
How much is the "rose bud" worth?
In any case, judging from the previous stories, this "rose bud" in Spielberg's hands is likely to become one of the most collectible movie props in history.
How much is the "rose bud" worth?
Wells researchers and movie fans generally believe that "Citizen Kane" produced a total of four "rosebud" sleighs.
In addition to burning the three sleighs of balsa wood needed for that scene, the crew also produced a handful of pine "rose buds" for the scene of Kane's childhood. Of course, in Wells’ carefully designed lens, you can’t see the cushion of the sled, let alone Rosebud.
This pine "rose bud" was presented at auction in 1996 and finally sold for $23,3500.
In fact, there has been a collection of "rose buds" on the market. This sled is not a prop made by RKO for shooting, but an antique from the 1840s.
There are two signed screenwriters for "Citizen Kane", except for Wells, the other is the prestigious New York playwright Herman J. Mankiewicz (Herman J. Mankiewicz). Mankiewicz has a serious alcohol addiction, and Wells specifically asked producer John Houseman to stare at him to ensure that the script could be completed on schedule.
When the film was finalized, RKO held a celebration party. Together with the famous screenwriter Ben Hecht, Hausmann gave Mankiewicz an antique sleigh, stamped with Rosebud as a commemoration. Later, this sleigh was called Mankiewicz's "rose bud".
Later, "Citizen Kane" received nine Oscar nominations, and finally only won one award for best original screenplay. Mankiewicz always insisted that it was his independent creation of the "Citizen Kane" script, and because of the imposition of the signature, he completely turned his face with Wells.
At the end of 2015, the Mankiewicz family decided to take out this heirloom and appear in Bonhams' movie auction. Mankiewicz's "Rose Bud" was finally sold for $149,000, and part of the auction proceeds was donated to a fund established by the Screenwriters Guild.
The price of Spielberg's "rose bud" is difficult to estimate. In the latest interview on the BBC, St. Stephen borrowed Indiana Jones' classic line "It belongs to the museum", implying the ultimate ownership of this collection-he intentionally donated it to the collection of the Academy Museum.
As for Steward’s personal “rose bud” complex, perhaps it is the Rosebud that never bloomed in his heart.
For the omnipotent Spielberg, "Citizen Kane" may be the kind of movie he wanted to make but couldn't make.
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