At its core, the Ready Player One story is a tale of triumph for discerning fanboys and fangirls.
Downplaying the sources of the references in Ready Player One would also go a long way towards embracing the underlying themes of the movie itself.
The entire story is predicated on the idea of locating nuggets of pop culture information hidden in plain sight.
The film can actually tap into that idea by letting viewers sift through every frame to find the Easter eggs for themselves (something that fans have gotten good at in the internet age), and it will take Ready Player One to a new layer of meta that the book couldn’t achieve.