Wreck-It Ralph

Theatrical release poster

***Wreck-It Ralph*** is a 2012 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Rich Moore (in his feature directorial debut) and produced by Clark Spencer, from a screenplay written by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee, and a story by Moore, Johnston, and Jim Reardon. John Lasseter served as the film’s executive producer. Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch, the film tells the story of the eponymous arcade game villain who rebels against his "bad guy" role and dreams of becoming a hero.

*Wreck-It Ralph* premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on October 29, 2012, and went into general release on November 2. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $496 million worldwide against a $165 million budget and winning the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature, as well as receiving nominations for the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. A sequel, *Ralph Breaks the Internet*, was released on November 21, 2018.

## Plot

Whenever Litwak's Arcade closes, the various video game characters leave their in-game roles and socialize via a power strip called Game Central Station. One evening, Wreck-It Ralph, the villain of platformer game *Fix-it Felix, Jr.*, visits a villain support group called Bad-Anon, expressing frustration with his assigned role. When Ralph is excluded and ostracized from his game's 30th-anniversary party, he decides to win a medal and earn respect. Upon overhearing that one can earn medals in a first-person shooter called *Hero's Duty*, Ralph sneaks in and steals one while the characters fight insectoid monsters known as Cy-Bugs. Ralph accidentally launches himself in an escape shuttle with a Cy-Bug inside and crash-lands in the confectionery-themed kart racing game *Sugar Rush*. With Ralph gone, his game is labeled "out of order" and put in danger of being unplugged. Fix-It Felix, Jr, the hero, leaves the game to find Ralph, allying with Sergeant Calhoun, the heroine of *Hero's Duty*. Calhoun is tracking the Cy-Bug, as Cy-Bugs behave as a virus once outside their game. Felix worries Ralph will meet the same fate as Turbo, the protagonist of the racing game *TurboTime*, who became jealous of a newly-installed *RoadBlasters* cabinet's success and tried to take it over, resulting in both games being unplugged.

In *Sugar Rush*, a girl named Vanellope von Schweetz steals Ralph's medal and uses it to buy her way into the nightly race that determines which characters will be playable the next day. King Candy, the ruler of *Sugar Rush*'s world, forbids her to race, as she is a glitch that teleports erratically. Vanellope promises to get the medal back if Ralph helps her win; he helps her build a new kart and teaches her to drive inside Diet Cola Mountain. Meanwhile, Calhoun and Felix arrive in *Sugar Rush*, where they fall into "Nesquik-sand", work together to escape, and begin to fall in love.

King Candy hacks into *Sugar Rush*'s source code and retrieves the medal, giving it back to Ralph. He claims that if Vanellope becomes a playable character, her glitching may lead to *Sugar Rush* being labeled out of order and unplugged. Ralph decides he cannot allow Vanellope to race, and he destroys her kart. Calhoun abandons Felix when he inadvertently reminds her of her late fiancé, who was killed by a Cy-Bug during their wedding; Felix is imprisoned by King Candy's assistant, Sour Bill, while Calhoun discovers that the Cy-Bug has multiplied exponentially.

A despondent Ralph returns to *Fix-it Felix, Jr.*, but the game has been evacuated. Ralph notices that the *Sugar Rush* cabinet displays Vanellope as an actual playable character. Realizing King Candy's deception, Ralph returns to *Sugar Rush* and interrogates Sour Bill, learning that King Candy damaged Vanellope's code. King Candy's edits to the code also have ensured no one but himself knows Vanellope's true role. However, if Vanellope completes a race, all of King Candy's changes will be deleted, as the game will reset itself. Ralph reconciles with and frees Vanellope and Felix from prison. Felix fixes the kart, and Vanellope belatedly enters the race, just before the Cy-Bugs emerge and start destroying the game. Calhoun, Felix, and Ralph help evacuate the characters.

Unaware of this development, King Candy attempts to ram Vanellope off the track, causing them both to glitch. Their glitching inadvertently reveals King Candy to be Turbo, who secretly took over *Sugar Rush* after surviving the unplugging of *TurboTime*. Vanellope flees as Turbo is devoured by a Cy-Bug, which fuses with him into an insectoid monster. Everyone but Vanellope evacuates, as glitches cannot leave their games. Remembering from *Hero's Duty* that a beacon will draw and destroy the Cy-Bugs, Ralph battles Turbo and collapses the Mentos roof of Diet Cola Mountain, creating a glowing eruption that lures and destroys Turbo and the Cy-Bugs. Vanellope rescues Ralph and crosses the finish line. The game resets, revealing her as the true ruler of *Sugar Rush*, though she keeps her glitching ability, considering it an advantage.

Ralph returns to his game, content with his role as a villain and finally respected by his fellow characters. Felix and Calhoun marry, and Ralph watches Vanellope become *Sugar Rush*'s favorite character.

## Voice cast

* John C. Reilly as Ralph, a gigantic but soft-hearted man who is the villain of the fictional arcade game *Fix-It Felix Jr.*
* Sarah Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz, a racer/glitch in *Sugar Rush*.
* Jack McBrayer as Felix, a repairman who is the hero of *Fix-It Felix Jr.*
* Jane Lynch as Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun, the lead character of *Hero's Duty*.
* Alan Tudyk as King Candy, the competitive and stubborn ruler of *Sugar Rush*. He is later revealed to be Turbo, an infamous racer from *TurboTime* who invaded and crashed *Roadblasters* out of jealousy. King Candy's vocal stylings are based on comedian Ed Wynn, and his physical mannerisms are modeled from Wynn's Mad Hatter character in *Alice in Wonderland*.
* Mindy Kaling as Taffyta Muttonfudge, a racer in *Sugar Rush* who thinks that Vanellope is a threat.
* Joe Lo Truglio as Markowski, a soldier from *Hero's Duty* that Ralph meets in *Tapper*.
* Ed O'Neill as Mr. Stan Litwak, owner of Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade.
* Dennis Haysbert as General Hologram, a holographic general in *Hero's Duty*.
* Adam Carolla as Wynnchel, a Long John who is a member of the *Sugar Rush* police department.
* Horatio Sanz as Duncan, a doughnut who is a member of the *Sugar Rush* police department.
* Rich Moore as Sour Bill, a sour ball and King Candy's assistant.

The cast also includes the *Fix-It Felix Jr.* Nicelanders, Edie McClurg as Mary, Raymond S. Persi as Mayor Gene, Jess Harnell as Don, Rachael Harris as Deanna, and Skylar Astin as Roy; Katie Lowes as Candlehead, Jamie Elman as Rancis Fluggerbutter, Josie Trinidad as Jubileena Bing-Bing, and Cymbre Walk as Crumbelina DiCaramello, racers in *Sugar Rush*; Phil Johnston as Surge Protector, Game Central Station security; Stefanie Scott as Moppet Girl, a young arcade-game player; John DiMaggio as Beard Papa, the security guard at the *Sugar Rush* candy-kart factory; Raymond Persi as a Zombie, Brian Kesinger as a Cyborg (based on Kano from *Mortal Kombat*) and Martin Jarvis as Saitine, a devil-like villain, who attends the Bad-Anon support group; Tucker Gilmore as the *Sugar Rush* Announcer; Brandon Scott as Kohut, a soldier in *Hero's Duty*; and Tim Mertens as Dr. Brad Scott, a scientist who is Sgt. Calhoun's deceased fiancé in *Hero's Duty* (voiced by Nick Grimshaw in the UK version but not in the UK home release).

The film features several cameos from real-world video game characters including: Tapper (Maurice LaMarche), the bartender from *Tapper*; Sonic the Hedgehog (Roger Craig Smith); Ryu (Kyle Hebert), Ken Masters (Reuben Langdon), M. Bison (Gerald C. Rivers), and Zangief (Rich Moore) from *Street Fighter II*; Clyde (Kevin Deters) from *Pac-Man*; and Yuni Verse (Jamie Sparer Roberts) from *Dance Dance Revolution* (specifically X2).

A character modeled after dubstep musician Skrillex makes an appearance in the fictional *Fix-It Felix Jr.* as the DJ at the anniversary party of the game.

## Video game cameos and references

In addition to the spoken roles, *Wreck-It Ralph* contains a number of other video game references, including characters and visual gags. The video game villains at the support meeting, in addition to those mentioned above, include Bowser from the *Mario* franchise, Doctor Eggman from *Sonic the Hedgehog*, and Neff from *Altered Beast*. Additionally, the game cabinet of the fictional *Fix It Felix, Jr.* arcade game is stylized to strongly resemble the cabinet of Nintendo's original 1981 *Donkey Kong* arcade game, with Ralph and Felix taking similar poses as Donkey Kong and Mario, respectively. The *Hero's Duty* game is a reference to the hugely successful first-person shooter games *Halo* and *Call of Duty*. Characters from *Q\*bert* are shown as "homeless" characters and later taken in by Ralph and Felix into their game (Q\*bert also speaks to Felix at one point using the signature synthesized gibberish and word-balloon symbols from his game, called Q\*bert-ese). Scenes in Game Central Station and Tapper's bar include Chun-Li, Cammy and Blanka from *Street Fighter*, Pac-Man, Blinky, Pinky, and Inky from *Pac-Man*, the Paperboy from *Paperboy*, the two paddles and the ball from *Pong*, Dig Dug, a Pooka, and a Fygar from *Dig Dug*, The Qix from *Qix*, Frogger from *Frogger*, and Peter Pepper from *BurgerTime*. Lara Croft and Mario are also mentioned.

Additional references are based on sight gags. The residents of Niceland and the bartender from *Tapper* are animated using a jerky motion that spoofs the limited animation cycles of the sprites of many eight- and sixteen-bit arcade games. King Candy uses the Konami Code on an NES controller to access the programming of *Sugar Rush*. Throughout Game Central Station is graffiti that includes "Aerith lives" (referencing the character of Aerith Gainsborough from *Final Fantasy VII*), "All your base are belong to us" (an English phrase popularized from the game *Zero Wing*), "Sheng Long Was Here" (referencing an April Fool's joke around a made-up character Sheng Long from *Street Fighter*), and "Jenkins" (a nod to the popular Leeroy Jenkins meme from *World of Warcraft*). There is also a reference to the *Metal Gear* series when Ralph is searching for a medal in Tapper's Lost and found, finding first a Super Mushroom from the *Mario* franchise, and then *Metal Gear Solid*'s "Exclamation point" (with the corresponding sound effect from the game). Mr. Litwak wears a black and white striped referee's shirt, a nod to the iconic outfit of Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day. One of the songs in the credits is an original work from Buckner and Garcia, previously famous for writing video game-themed songs in the 1980s. The Walt Disney Animation Studios opening logo is animated in an 8-bit pixelated fashion, whereas the Walt Disney Pictures closing production logo appears in a glitched state, a reference to the kill screen from many early arcade games such as *Pac-Man*. The high score on the main screen of *Fix-It Felix, Jr.*, 120501, refers to the birthdate of Walt Disney, December 5, 1901.