Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 American animated comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Directed by Rich Moore and written by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee, it stars the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch. The film follows Ralph (Reilly), an arcade game villain who rebels against his in-game role and dreams of becoming a hero.
The concept of Wreck-It Ralph originated in the late 1980s under the working title High Score and evolved through various iterations. Moore sought to capture an authentic video-game world by including real video game characters like Bowser, Clyde and Doctor Eggman, while focusing on creating new characters. For animation, Disney introduced new reflectance functions and a real-time virtual camera system. The team researched candy factories and food photography to inspire the design of the Sugar Rush game world. Henry Jackman composed the score and the soundtrack featured original songs by Owl City, AKB48 and Skrillex, among others.
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 in 2018.
Plot
Whenever Litwak's Arcade closes for the day, its games' characters leave their in-game roles and socialize via a power strip called Game Central Station. Wreck-It Ralph, the villain of the platformer Fix-It Felix, Jr., is frustrated with his assigned role. After being ostracized at his game's thirtieth-anniversary commemoration, Ralph decides to win a medal, believing that it will earn him respect. Upon learning that the first-person shooter Hero's Duty awards medals, Ralph sneaks into the game and obtains a medal after getting past its enemies, Cy-Bugs.
Ralph accidentally launches himself in an escape pod with a Cy-Bug inside and crash-lands in Sugar Rush, a confectionery-themed kart racing game. With Ralph gone, his game is labeled "out of order", putting it at risk of being unplugged. Fix-It Felix Jr. himself, having learned of what happened from Q*bert, leaves the game to find Ralph, allying with Hero's Duty protagonist Sergeant Calhoun, who tracks the Cy-Bug, as they behave like a computer virus once outside their game. Felix worries Ralph will meet the same fate as Turbo, protagonist of racing game, TurboTime, who grew envious of a newly-commissioned RoadBlasters success and invaded it, resulting in both games being unplugged.
In Sugar Rush, racer 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 world, forbids her from racing since she is a glitch. 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.
Candy hacks into Sugar Rush code and retrieves the medal, giving it back to Ralph. He claims that Vanellope becoming playable would be disastrous for both her and their game; Ralph decides he cannot allow Vanellope to race and destroys her kart. Meanwhile, Calhoun abandons Felix when he unintentionally reminds her of her late fiancé, who was eaten by a Cy-Bug on their wedding day. Felix is imprisoned by Candy's assistant, Sour Bill, while Calhoun discovers that the Cy-Bug has multiplied exponentially.
Upon returning to Fix-It Felix, Jr., which has been evacuated, Ralph notices a picture of Vanellope on Sugar Rush cabinet. Realizing King Candy had lied, he returns to Sugar Rush and interrogates Sour Bill, who reveals 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, the game will reset itself, deleting all of King Candy's changes. Ralph frees Vanellope and Felix from the dungeon. Felix fixes the kart, and Vanellope belatedly enters the race, but the Cy-Bugs emerge and start destroying the game. Calhoun, Felix, and Ralph help evacuate the characters.
Unaware of the Cy-Bugs, King Candy attempts to ram Vanellope off the track, but her glitching exposes him as Turbo, who secretly took over Sugar Rush after surviving the unplugging of RoadBlasters and TurboTime. Vanellope flees as Turbo is devoured by a Cy-Bug, which fuses with him into an insectoid monster. Remembering from Hero's Duty that a beacon will draw and destroy the Cy-Bugs, Ralph opposes Turbo as he collapses the Mentos roof of Diet Cola Mountain, creating an eruption that lures and destroys Turbo and the Cy-Bugs. Vanellope rescues Ralph and crosses the finish line. The game resets, restoring her as the true ruler of Sugar Rush, though she retains her glitching ability, considering it an advantage. Ralph returns to his game, content with his role as a bad guy and finally respected by his fellow characters. Felix and Calhoun marry and Vanellope gains popularity through her rightful playability.
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, the disgraced protagonist of TurboTime who infamously invaded and crashed a newly-commissioned RoadBlasters out of jealousy. The character'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 despises Vanellope. Joe Lo Truglio as Markowski, a soldier from Hero's Duty that Ralph meets in Tapper. Ed O'Neill as Stan Litwak, the owner of Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade. Dennis Haysbert as General Hologram, a holographic general in Hero's Duty. Adam Carolla as Wynnchel, an anthropomorphic Long John who is a member of the Sugar Rush police department. Horatio Sanz as Duncan, an anthropomorphic doughnut who is a member of the Sugar Rush police department. Rich Moore as Sour Bill, an anthropomorphic green sour ball and King Candy's assistant.
The cast additionally 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 the Surge Protector, Game Central Station security; Stefanie Scott as the Moppet Girl, a young arcade-game player; John DiMaggio as Beard Papa, the security guard at Sugar Rush candy-kart factory; Raymond S. 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 race announcer; Brandon Scott as Kohut, a soldier in Hero's Duty; and Tim Mertens as Doctor Brad Scott, a scientist who is Calhoun's late fiancé in the 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 the video game of the same name; Sonic the Hedgehog (Roger Craig Smith); Ryu (Kyle Hebert), Ken Masters (Reuben Langdon), M. Bison (Gerald C. Rivers) and Zangief (Rich Moore) from Capcom's Street Fighter series; Clyde (Kevin Deters) from Pac-Man; and Yuni Verse (Jamie Sparer Roberts) from Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series (specifically X2).
A character modeled after dubstep musician Skrillex makes an appearance in the fictional Fix-It Felix, Jr. as the disc jockey at the game's thirtieth-anniversary commemoration.
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 but not seen.
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 8- and 16-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 Engrish 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 the Mario franchise, and then Metal Gear Solids "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 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.
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.