Ready Player One’s new character is basically Boba Fett, actor says

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One will usher in a little bit of Star Wars spirit with its own version of Boba Fett, according to actor T.J. Miller.

Miller, best known for his work on HBO’s Silicon Valley, told Fandango that his character, i-Rok, shares quite a few similarities with Star Wars’ famous bounty hunter. Miller said that i-Rok idolizes Fett, who made his main series debut in Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, much like the actor himself. Unlike the majority of the characters in the movie, however, Miller’s i-Rok isn’t actually in the book the film is based on.

Ready Player One, published in 2011, follows a teenager named Wade Watts who flocks to the virtual, MMO-inspired world of Oasis to escape his dreary life. When he learns about an Easter egg in the game — left by its founder James Halliday and promises an enormous amount of wealth upon discovery — Watts devotes his time to finding it before other, more nefarious people do.

Miller’s i-Rok is a “mildly amusing,” Boba Fett-inspired elite bounty hunter who is paid handsomely to either kill people in real life or make them starve in Oasis, according to the actor. Not only is he good at his job, but Miller said the character is also one of the best players in the game.

“In the OASIS, I am a better player than Aech or Daito or any of those guys,” Miller said. “I am sort of unequivocally the best bounty hunter, but I work freelance. While all the Sixers work for IOI and Sorrento, he has to commission me and I get an incredibly high fee to either find people and kill them or make them starve in the game.”

Ready Player One jumps back and forth between the real world Watts exists in and the Oasis. Miller said it’s during those in-game moments that the Spielberg’s use of CGI and effects can really be seen, calling it a better looking game than anything on the market.

“Basically, it looks like a video game when not in the real world,” Miller said. “And because it’s Steven Spielberg, it looks better than any video game on the market. Because of his access and resources, Gears of War and fucking Call of Duty can’t even touch it. I think they’re inventing new technology for it.”

Ready Player One will be released March 30, 2018.