Atkinson’s video essay offers a striking comparative analysis to explore pre-21^st century representations of virtual reality in cinema. Drawing on a range of Hollywood examples since the 1980s situates ongoing concepts and debates around contemporary immersive technologies through an otherwise imagined historical framework, especially concerning access, gender and technological expertise. Structured around four categories derived from gaming that define the ‘transitional’ process from reality to virtuality (or analogue to digital) further emphasizes the convergent nature of immersive technologies, blurring traditional boundaries between computer games, film, virtual realities and even time itself. As the case studies each load up their virtual worlds to show audiences their versions of the imagined future or alternative present, Atkinson deftly illustrates how they also act as records of the technological and digital past, where what were once symbolic markers of the ‘new’ are now artifacts of the old or retro aesthetics.

The exploration of the ‘jacking in’ sequences observe the visceral qualities of the transformative moment, where corporeal flesh or pain almost places many examples momentarily through motifs associated with body horror. Here the rebirthing metaphor enables a discussion of the inherent gendered accounts and encounters with digital technology where men enter and consume, and women guide and are offered for consumption. With Tron perhaps deviating most from both these aspects, this may raise questions about how these films perceive the relationship between subject matter and target audiences and how the later films of the 1990s creep further into an abject over an abstract aesthetic. The similarities between the examples examined in ‘Flying through’ articulate how little has changed in 40 years of filmic depiction of VR, and perhaps more significantly, how these narratives and representations function more widely within the cinematic environment.  As Atkinson explores, whilst the texts are often characterized by computer game aesthetics, this section reveals to us that it all too often comes back full circle to express statements about the power of the cinematic, with the inclusion of Ready Player One notable in its ability to both figuratively and literally remind us of this.

Each film showcases the wonder of the cinematically-enabled digital environment, each time pushing the boundaries of big-budget, studio-financed VFX to wow each generation of contemporary cinema audiences with the mastery of the medium. Whilst Ready Player One’s audio and visual introduction to the Oasis takes us through gaming and popular culture in its promise to take us anywhere, with its use of film past (filmic homage) and film present (cutting-edge digital technologies), ultimately where it attempts to take the audience most fervently is back into the cinema auditorium.