Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

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Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by cjmcray »

Wreck-It Ralph is a new Disney movie about an old-school 8-bit game in the style of Donkey Kong. Ralph is the villain of the game, but feels misunderstood, yearning to be a hero rather than a villain. He embarks on a journey through a local arcade, traveling from game to game. Stuff like Mario Kart, Halo, Mortal Kombat, Bioshock and Donkey Kong are parodied. But what makes this even more interesting is that Disney is working with videogame companies to get actual videogame characters like Q-Bert and Pac-Man to appear in the movie, similar to how Roger Rabbit had Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse appear. I think Sonic would be a shoe-in.

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Today at the the D23 Expo in Anaheim, CA, the Walt Disney Company screened a preview of their upcoming animated feature Wreck-It Ralph. The comedy is about what happens to video game characters after the arcade closes.

What was shown was a "story reel" of the first four-and-a-half minutes of the film. Not complete by any means, it featured a combination of fully animated scenes, partly animated scenes and storyboards with full voice acting.

The story begins as an 8-bit style video game intro with the titular Ralph (played by John C. Reilly), explaining that he's the villain for the Donkey Kong-esque game "Fix-It Felix Jr." Ralph is over nine feet tall, weighs over six hundred pounds and "can't walk down the street without causing major structural damage to a building." Ralph explains that while he's the "bad guy" of the game, he doesn't perform his job with any malice. In fact, he's a pretty good guy at heart. He just so happens to sleep in a garbage dump with crushed bricks as his mattress and a tree stump as his pillow.

The other denizens of his video game shun him, though, and this makes him feel incredibly lonely. He attends a regular Bad Guys Anonymous group, lead by one of the ghosts from Pac-Man, where he and other villains talk about their feelings about their roles in their games. References to games were snuck in everywhere in this bit. Aside from the Pac-Man ghost, you could spot an analogue for BioShock's Big Daddy, Coiley from Q*bert, and even Mortal Kombat's Kano (who rips out someone's heart to help prove a point). To help Ralph feel better about his lot in life, an axe-wielding zombie dispenses advice about accepting himself for who he is. The meeting wraps up with the recitation of a credo about how even though they are bad guys they are not bad guys, and that "there's no one I'd rather be than me!" This does not seem to make Ralph feel better.

The clip ended, and the movie's director Rich Moore was introduced. Moore explained that the movie is about Ralph's search to find a game where he can fit in. To do this, he goes to Game Central Station, the transportation hub of the arcade, to try out new worlds. The first he tries is the Halo homage "Hero's Duty," where he's lead by the tough as names Sgt. Calhoun, played by Jane Lynch. Moore then showed a behind-the-scenes video of Lynch giving a rallying speech.

The next game that Ralph tries is a cart racer called "Sugar Rush," which is a world full of desserts. Moore hinted that this is where the main plot will take place, as "Sugar Rush" apparently is hiding something that could ruin the entire arcade.

Moore then brought out two members of the voice cast. The first was Jack McBrayer, who plays Ralph's nemesis Felix. The second was comedian Sarah Silverman who plays a character from "Sugar Rush" named Vanellope Von Schweetz.

Silverman was asked what it was like to be at D23.

"I always wanted to go to Anaheim but not go to Disneyland!" she quipped.

McBrayer was asked what it was like to provide a voice for the film.

"My own voice irritates even myself, but doing it for other people is awesome!" he said.

The final question posed to Silverman was how she felt about Disney and Pixar movies.

"I have a love/hate relationship with Disney movies. I hate how the make me feel!" she joked. "Then I'm glad I saw it and felt those feelings. It's hard - I have a tiny heart!"

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Source: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/d23exponews.php?id=81300

The movie features the voices of John C. Reilly, Jack Macbrayer and Sarah Silverman. It comes to theaters this November.

SO looking forward to this. A rap scene with Chop-Chop Master Onion would be the best thing ever, but I realize the chances of that happening are pretty slim.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by cjmcray »

Dinsey's
Oops. :razz:

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Post by Senbei »

The plot, at least so much as has been described, seems pretty weak. It's more like an excuse to do a gaming revue, which isn't exactly a new idea. I am minutely intrigued.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Radrappy »

a movie for us gamers? THANKS DISNEY!

I'm pretty sure this film is being made by a bunch of middle aged dudes who have never even touched a video game.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Green Gibbon! »

The premise is kind of neat and I've been keeping my eye on it on that merit alone, but I don't have any special faith in the Disney animation studio and nothing that's been shown so far looks too spectacular. "Wreck-it-Ralph" sure the hell does sound exactly like it would've been an 80's coin-op, though - they got that down pat. Nice logo, too.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Locit »

If Disney Animation Studios is behind this it'll probably be worth checking out. Tangled was damn good. I'd like to see a little footage, though.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Ritz »

I can already tell that the scope for this is going to be too narrow. I want to see something resoundingly Japanese, like a DMC clone with over-the-top action scenes or a shmup with engrish dialogue spoken with absolute confidence. Basically, it'll be great on the off-chance that anyone working on this project is actually a gamer.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Delphine »

It looks like the impression someone would get from watching games being played as opposed to actually playing them. My mom will think it's perfect.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Crisis »

Looks interesting to me, in a high hopes/low expectations kind of way. But I guess it's hard not to be cynical about these things.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by j-man »

I think it looks really charming! But then again, I am usually devastatingly optimistic.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Ritz »

So Ralph is going to be voiced by Steve Brule. I'm much more interested now!

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by j-man »

Here's another reason to be interested: cameos! And they are badass.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Green Gibbon! »

Is Zangief a villain?

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Cuckooguy »

Maybe he wants to be a villain or is sad to be mistaken as one in a lot of media

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by cjmcray »

Ritz wrote:So Ralph is going to be voiced by Steve Brule. I'm much more interested now!
There should be a scene where Ralph hands another character a heart and says: "For your healthbar."

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Radrappy »

So I can confirm that sonic himself is in fact in the film. In what capacity I have no idea.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Crowbar »

There's a trailer now. Probably the same preview that was being talked about in the OP's quotation.

http://entertainment.msn.com/video/?vid ... t_twmsnmov

It leaves me feeling a bit underwhelmed. The animation and acting look the same as in every CG movie made in the last 17 years (I feel like that face and pose Zangief makes has literally been in every Dreamworks movie), and the dialogue they showed wasn't great. Other than that, yeah Bowser and Robotnik and Bison are sitting there but so what? Unless they do things that actually make use of the crossover aspect it's pointless.

I'm aware this is just a trailer, of course, but I reserve my right to remain skeptical. It just gives the impression that the main point is this standard schmaltzy "be yourself!" story that we've seen a million times before and the cameos aren't going to be allowed to be used in a clever or funny or relevant way. It's as if they're trying to appeal to very seperate demographics, but those channels of appeal get in the way of eachother (though that seems to be par for the course for animated movies these days).

I think the thing I like best is how the artwork on the Wreck-It Ralph arcade machine is distinctly off-model compared to the in-game sprites, very similar to how the original Mario Bros. artwork was. That suggests more care and research done by the art team than I'm giving credit for.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Esrever »

I actually quite like the design for the most part! Ralph in particular has a very old-fashioned cartoony design that separates him from most other CG flicks. I think they could have pushed it further, but it's solid, and there's a pleasing balance and charm there that is often missing with CG human characters that aren't in Ratatouille.

I don't know what to make of the plot or writing. I have high hopes because the director and writer are (good era) Simpsons and Futurama alums, but I guess we'll see. None of the jokes or lines in the trailer made me bust a gut, but I thought it was kind of cute. There's a challenge with the tone of a project like this, too... the video game references really need to come off as authentic and not fake or forced. I'm curious to see if they can pull it off.

The cameos are ridiculous. I assumed some of the characters at the "bad guys support group" were generic ones, but I'm starting to doubt that. Once you realize it, you can clearly see that the purple rhino guy is absolutely, unquestionably the final boss of Altered Beast. The thing I thought was a generic alien is probably a D&D Beholder. Even the zombie looks to specifically be a zombie from House of the Dead 2. (The axes!) Obviously the cameos are just a tiny side attraction and are not going to make a good movie, but it's neat to see them reach into the realms of obscurity a little. Wily was in this scene originally, though! I wonder why they removed him.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Crowbar »

Yeah, I'm not familiar enough to recognise the Beholder and Altered Beast cameos but that's what I've seen others identify them as. Nobody seems to be able to agree on the identity of the yellow robot and the demon girl in that group, though.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Majestic Joey »

The movie looks like a cool concept with a lot of game references I like (amazing how disney got all the rights to those characters) but from what I gathered from the trailer is the story does not look that interesting or strong but it's to early to tell from a 2 minute trailer. Still it's the only 3d movie that I have been remotely interested by in a long time and will probably see it (when it comes out on dvd or netflix). It looks a lot better than other animated movies this year. Like seriously has anybody seen the comercials to Madagascar 3 and Happy Feet 2?

Also Zangief ain't evil, he is protector of Russian Sky. it'd be cool to see him super pile drive ralph in the movie.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Green Gibbon! »

I thought the Q-bertese gag was funny.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

It's really hard to tell who this movie is supposed to appeal to. Kids who are genuinely awe-struck by CGI and cross-overs? The older crowd that appreciates the references to characters they've grown up with? Both groups, I suppose? I guess enough of the latter group are parents now.

All I know is that if I were six again and this movie were coming out within a year, it'd be the greatest thing ever. Now things like that (and a lot of stuff I used to be enamored by) don't have that effect. But hey, Bowser and Eggman are finally together on the big screen!

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Esrever »

I imagine this was greenlit for the same reason the Muppets was. I have no doubt the creators have real passion for the subject matter, but from the studio's perspective, it's a family film that taps into the nostalgia of a generation now old enough to have young kids of their own. Parents love showing their kids what was REALLY cool, from back when THEY were kids.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Majestic Joey »

I hope this movie does not overshadow the future video game movie, Ready Player One. I recommend reading the book if you haven't read it. I don't want to come off as snobby hipster because the book has been getting popular and junk but honestly it was one of the best books I've read and it's about video games.

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Re: Dinsey's Wreck-It Ralph: A love-letter to videogames

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Crowbar wrote:Nobody seems to be able to agree on the identity of the yellow robot and the demon girl in that group, though.
I'm certain that that's a character from Cyborg Justice for the Megadrive/Genesis. Its primary gimmick is that your character is customizable, but its coloring suggests it's the protagonist.

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