Ready Player One

Maybe that's because sometimes a grid of windows is just a grid of windows. My impression was that Spielberg wanted to minimise references to his own films anyway (think the closest you really get is a T-rex and even then you can write that off as just a T-rex instead of a reference to Jurassic Park specifically). As such, I do think it's debatable how much these windows are meant to be a deliberate reference to Close Encounters.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Nice catch!

I liked Ready Player One but it felt a bit stale: "oh yeah, another Spielberg adventure movie, like all his other movies". It reminds me of The Irishman, which is well made but feels like "another Scorsese movie"