One of the most oft-quoted sections in Cline’s book concerns Wade’s obsessive deep dive into all things eighties — well, all things eighties that his hero Halliday was inspired by — which take shape as a personal education driven by Wade’s desire to bust open some clues and find the Keys (and then, of course, the Egg itself). Although Wade is aided by an online document named “Anorak’s Almanac,” the majority of his scholarship is self-started, and he completes most of it alone.
Not so in the film, which imagines that Halliday-hunting is a social activity (albeit one that has gone a bit out of fashion, thanks to the lag time between the contest being announced and anyone actually making any headway on it). Much of the hunting takes place at “Halliday’s Journals,” a massive library that replaces the “Anorak’s Almanac” of the book and can be visited by anyone inside the OASIS. Once inside, people aren’t just reading books or watching movies; they can literally visit Halliday’s memories, rendered in vivid 3D.

Does this sell Wades self education short. In the book he is doing all of the work, reading, watching movies, playing the games basically studying in vivid detail the popular culture of the 1980's America. Why do you think the film version lets the characters off so easily and just gives them the tools to use without putting in the time?