Wreck-It Ralph

**Wreck-It Ralph** is a 2012 animated film directed by Rich Moore. It is the 52nd Disney animated feature film and premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on October 29, 2012.

## Plot

Whenever Litwak's Arcade closes, the various video game characters leave their in-game roles and socialize via a power strip. At a support group, Wreck-it Ralph, the villain of Fix-it Felix, Jr., expresses frustration with his assigned role, as he is mistreated by his game's NPCs while Felix is celebrated. When Ralph is excluded from the game's thirtieth-anniversary party, he determines to win a medal and earn some respect.

Overhearing that players in the first-person shooter Hero's Duty can earn medals, Ralph sneaks in and steals one while the game's characters are fighting Cy-Bugs, an insectoid enemy. Ralph accidentally launches himself in an escape shuttle with a Cy-Bug inside and crash-lands in the candy-themed kart racing game Sugar Rush. With Ralph gone, his game is labelled out of order. Felix leaves the game to find Ralph, allying with Sergeant Calhoun, the heroine of Hero's Duty, as she tracks the Cy-Bug, which may become a virus.

In Sugar Rush, Vanellope von Schweetz steals Ralph's medal and uses it to buy her way into the nightly race that determines which characters are playable the next day. King Candy forbids her to race, as she has a glitch that causes her to move and teleport erratically. Other racers destroy her kart until Ralph intervenes. Vanellope promises to get the medal back if Ralph helps her win; he reluctantly helps her build a new kart and teaches her to drive inside Diet Cola Mountain.

Calhoun and Felix arrive in Sugar Rush, and Felix explains that long ago, the titular hero of Turbo Time became jealous of the new racing game RoadBlasters, and tried to sabotage it, causing both games to be unplugged. Felix fears Ralph might be "going Turbo", too. Calhoun and Felix fall into Nesquik-sand, work together to escape, and begin to fall in love.

Meanwhile, King Candy hacks into Sugar Rush's source code and retrieves the medal, giving it back to Ralph. He warns that, if Vanellope becomes a playable character, her glitching might cause someone to unplug the game as 'broken'. Ralph decides he cannot allow Vanellope to race and destroys her kart. She breaks down in tears and runs away, labelling Ralph a true "bad guy". Calhoun abandons Felix when he inadvertently reminds her of her late fiancé. Felix is captured at the palace by King Candy's assistant, Sour Bill, while Calhoun wanders the game alone, discovering the Cy-bug has multiplied exponentially.

Heartbroken and remorseful, Ralph returns to Fix-it Felix, Jr. and finds it abandoned. He angrily throws his medal, then notices that the Sugar Rush cabinet displays Vanellope as a playable character. Returning to Sugar Rush, Ralph interrogates Sour Bill, who admits that King Candy disconnected Vanellope's code and locked away the memories of the Sugar Rush characters so that no one knows her actual role. He explains that if Vanellope completes a race, all of King Candy's changes will be deleted and the game restored to normal.

Ralph frees Felix from King Candy's prison, fixes the kart, and reconciles with Vanellope, who enters the race. 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 her to glitch. She reveals King Candy to be Turbo, who took over Sugar Rush when his game was unplugged. Vanellope flees as Turbo is eaten 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 an eruption which 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 "villain" and respected by his fellow characters. Felix and Calhoun marry, and Ralph watches Vanellope become Sugar Rush's favourite character.

## Cast and Characters

* John C. Reilly as Wreck-It Ralph
* Sarah Silverman as Vanellope von Schweetz
* Jack McBrayer as Fix-It Felix Jr.
* Jane Lynch as Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun
* Alan Tudyk as King Candy/Turbo
* Rich Moore as Sour Bill / Zangief
* Mindy Kaling as Taffyta Muttonfudge
* Raymond S. Persi as Mayor Gene / Zombie
* Adam Carolla and Horatio Sanz as Wynnchel and Duncan
* Joe Lo Truglio as Markowski
* Ed O'Neill as Mr. Stan Litwak
* Dennis Haysbert as General Hologram
* Edie McClurg as Mary
* Jess Harnell as Don
* Rachael Harris as Deanna
* Skylar Astin as Roy
* Stefanie Scott as Moppet Girl
* John DiMaggio as Beard Papa
* Katie Lowes as Candlehead
* Jamie Elman as Rancis Fluggerbutter
* Josie Trinidad as Jubileena Bing-Bing
* Cymbre Walk as Crumbelina DiCaramello
* Brandon Scott as Kohut
* Tim Mertens as Dr. Brad Scott
* Phil Johnson as Surge Protector
* Martin Jarvis as Satan
* Kyle Hebert as Ryu
* Maurice LaMarche as Root Beer Tapper
* Reuben Langdon as Ken Masters
* Jamie Sparer Robters as Yuni Verse
* Kevin Deters as Clyde
* Gerald C. Rivers as M. Buson
* Brian Kesinger as Cyborg
* Roger Craig Smith as Sonic the Hedgehog
* Tucker Gilmore as Sugar Rush Announcer

## Production

### Concept and Story

The concept of Wreck-It Ralph was first developed at Disney, in the late 1980s, under the working title High Score. Since then, it was redeveloped and reconsidered several times: In the late 1990s, it took on the working title Joe Jump, then in the mid-2000s as Reboot Ralph.

John Lasseter, the head of Walt Disney Animation Studios and executive producer of the film, describes Wreck-It Ralph as "an 8-bit video-game bad guy who travels the length of the arcade to prove that he's a good guy." In a manner similar to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Toy Story films, Wreck-It Ralph featured cameo appearances by a number of licensed video-game characters. For example, one scene from the film shows Ralph attending a support group for the arcade's various villain characters, including Clyde from Pac-Man, Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bowser from Super Mario Bros. Rich Moore, the film's director, had determined that for a film about a video-game world to feel authentic, "it had to have real characters from real games in it." Moore aimed to add licensed characters in a similar manner as cultural references in Looney Tunes shorts, but considered "having the right balance so a portion of the audience didn't feel they were being neglected or talked down to." However, Moore avoided creating the movie around existing characters, feeling that "there's so much mythology and baggage attached to pre-existing titles that I feel someone would be disappointed," and considered this to be a reason why movies based on video game franchises typically fail. Instead, for Ralph, the development of new characters representative of the 8-bit video game was "almost like virgin snow," giving them the freedom to take these characters in new directions.

Before production, the existing characters were added to the story either in places they would make sense to appear or as cameos from a list of characters suggested by the film's creative team, without consideration if they would legally be able to use the characters. The company then sought out the copyright holders' permissions to use the characters, as well as working with these companies to assure their characters were being represented authentically. In the case of Nintendo, the writers had early on envisioned the Bad-anon meeting with Bowser as a major character within the scene; according to Moore, Nintendo was very positive towards this use, stating in Moore's own words, "If there is a group that is dedicated to helping the bad guy characters in video games then Bowser must be in that group!" Nintendo had asked that the producers try to devise a scene that would be similarly appropriate for Mario for his inclusion in the film. Despite knowing they would be able to use the character, the producers could not find an appropriate scene that would let Mario be a significant character without taking away the spotlight from the main story and opted to not include the character. Moore debunked a rumour that Mario and his brother character Luigi were not included due to Nintendo requesting too high a licensing fee, stating that the rumour grew out of a joke John C. Reilly made at Comic-Con. Dr. Wily from Mega Man was going to appear but was cut from the final version of the film. Overall, there are about 188 individual character models in the movie as a result of these cameo inclusions.

An earlier draft of the screenplay had Ralph and Vanellope spending time going around the game world to collect the pieces for her kart for Sugar Rush, and at times included Felix traveling with the pair. During these scenes, Ralph would have lied to Felix regarding his budding relationship with Calhoun, leading eventually to Ralph becoming depressed and abandoning his quest to get his medal back. At this point, a fourth game world, Extreme Easy Living 2, would have been introduced and was considered a "hedonistic place" between the social nature of The Sims and the open-world objective-less aspects of Grand Theft Auto, according to Moore. Ralph would go there too, wallowing in his depression, and would find happiness by gaining "Like It" buttons for doing acceptable actions in the party-like nature of the place. Moore stated that while it was difficult to consider dropping this new game world, they found that its introduction in the second half of the film would be too difficult a concept for the viewer to grasp. They further had trouble working out how a social game would be part of an arcade, and though they considered having the game be running on Litwak's laptop, they ultimately realized that justifying the concept would be too convoluted. Line art sketches and voice-over readings of the scene were included on the home media release of the film.

### Animation, Designs and Camera Work

The film introduced Disney's new bidirectional reflectance distribution functions, with more realistic reflections on surfaces, and new virtual cinematography Camera Capture system, which makes it possible to go through scenes in real time. To research the Sugar Rush segment of the film, the visual development group travelled to trade fair ISM Cologne, a See's Candy factory, and other manufacturing facilities. The group also brought in food photographers, to demonstrate techniques to make food appear appealing. Special effects, including from "smoke or dust," looks distinct in each of the segments.

## Release

### Theatrical

The film was originally scheduled for a release on March 22, 2013, but it was later changed to November 2, 2012, due to it being ahead of schedule. The theatrical release was accompanied by Disney's animated short film, Paperman.

### Marketing

A teaser trailer for Wreck-It Ralph was released on June 6, 2012, debuting with Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and Rock of Ages. This also coincided with the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, for which Disney constructed a mock aged arcade cabinet for the fictional Fix-It Felix Jr. game on display on the show floor. Disney also released a browser-based Flash-based version of the Fix-It Felix Jr. game as well as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone versions, with online Unity-based versions of Sugar Rush and Hero's Duty. A second trailer for the film was released on September 12, 2012, coinciding with Finding Nemo 3D and Frankenweenie, along with its final updated movie poster.

To promote the home media release of Wreck-It Ralph, director Rich Moore produced a short film titled Garlan Hulse: Where Potential Lives. Set within the movie's universe, the mockumentary film was designed as a parody of The King of Kong.

### Home Media

Wreck-It Ralph was released on Blu-ray Disc (2D and 3D) and DVD in North America on March 5, 2013, from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. The film was made available for digital download in selected regions on February 12, 2013. Wreck-It Ralph debuted at No. 1 in Blu-ray and DVD sales in the United States. Wreck It Ralph was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on November 6, 2018.

## Reception

### Critical Response

The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 87% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 189 reviews with an average score of 7.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads: "Equally entertaining for both kids and parents old enough to catch the references, Wreck-It Ralph is a clever, colourful adventure built on familiar themes and joyful nostalgia." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". The film earned an "A" from audiences polled by CinemaScore.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote, "More than in most animated films, the art design and colour palette of Wreck-It Ralph permit unlimited sets, costumes, and rules, giving the movie tireless originality and different behaviour in every different cyber world." A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote, "The movie invites a measure of cynicism, which it proceeds to obliterate with a 93-minute blast of colour, noise, ingenuity and fun." Peter Debruge of Variety stated, "With plenty to appeal to boys and girls, old and young, Walt Disney Animation Studios has a high-scoring hit on its hands in this brilliantly conceived, gorgeously executed toon, earning bonus points for backing nostalgia with genuine emotion." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times said, "The movie's subversive sensibility and old-school/new-school feel are a total kick," while Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "With a mix of retro eye-candy for grown-ups and a thrilling, approachable storyline for the tykes, the film casts a wide and beguiling net." Conversely, Christopher Orr of The Atlantic found it "over plotted and underdeveloped."

### Box Office

Wreck-It Ralph grossed $189.4 million in North America and $281.8 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $471.2 million.

In North America, the film debuted with $13.5 million, an above-average opening-day gross for an animated film released in November. During its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $49 million, making it the largest opening for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film at the time. The film fell 33% to $33 million in its second weekend, finishing second behind newcomer Skyfall.