Wreck It Ralph is perhaps the biggest missed opportunity that Disney ever had to have something new, refreshing, not Pixar and impactful. Sadly not much has come out of that and for the most part is a dead franchise. The potential this brand had was huge. While we’ll take a look at some other things that could’ve been done, today we’ll focus on the movies, what worked and what didnt’.
Wreck It Ralph
A nice movie to watch since it feels like a nice tribute to gaming in general. The first 20 minutes or so we get so many great references and it really pays homage to the video game industry. They do an excellent job at it and showing what gaming was like especially in the early days. It’s also nice how ambitious they were and went through the trouble to get some Nintendo representation. It has so much heart and at a time when you’d’ only expect this from Pixar, not from anywhere else at Disney.
There are so many video game easter eggs and references to arcades all done well. Sega, Capcom all represented well, TMNT, NES contorller. These things do sort of stop later on in the movie which is a shame as it needed more of them halfway through. It spends too much time in Candy Crush which is not one of the most interesting worlds, It’s a good world but it makes you wish more time could’ve been spent in other games, not just Medal of Heroes.
It’s a good story with a good plot, there’s so much love poured into that first intro and world building that it leaves you wanting to fill the possibilities of storeis that could be told with all those franchises. Not even as main characters but in a Captain N type of thing. The Medal Subplot is good, pussywillows. FPS segment, Sugar Rush being a bad mobile Mario Kart clone. The concept of going Turbo and joining other games is a great twist. All the fake vidoe games worked as great parodies representing the real ones. It’s a nice Toy Story like movie for Games.
Ralph Breaks the Internet
What do theyd o with this? Wi-Fi Ralph… The idea of the internet jokes and parodies is not bad on its own, it’s also a great idea. But they already had something that could’ve been explored and they go a completely new route. A bold choice but this was a the cost of the heart of the franchise, which is less Vidya referencess and a cheap way to end the Sugar Rush Arcade umbilical plug. I actually enjoyed the trailer a lot, and went with an open mind but it really went the wrong direction.
I like those in need; the immigrants subplot could be exploited. I love stories about going inside the internet and it’s an amazing concept for a movie, perhaps even a second franchise idea with a different character, not sure why they thought Ralph was the character to do this with. The whole games shutting down is a decent plot point, but yeah the characters just didn’t fit this new world they wanted to explore. They should’ve used new characters instead and it would’ve been benefitial to the movie as well. It does feel like cheap marketing in a game a video game advertising movie advertised on screen advertising. Even the internet jokes are fun but segways between them and plot aren’t greatly matched. The second half is worse even if there’s one redeeming stuff the movie had.
They could try to fix it in a third movie but at least the ending for the second one works as a final ending to the franchise. Not a strong second movie but I feel the franchise is salvagable with a third one. Who knows if we’ll ever get a sequel.