I had zero expectations about Wreck It Ralph. i first heard about it from friends who raved about it on Facebook, but the humdrum title and Disney’s lackluster track record in 3D movies didn’t really excite me. Nonetheless, last Saturday I plunged in, and boy was I treated to a spectacle of animated delight. Wreck It Ralph is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. The last movie that compelled me to write was Toy Story 3 back in 2009. Although Wreck It Ralph’s plot does not reach Pixar-level seamlessness, it has Toy Story’s fingerprints all over the movie. What’s more, it’s filled with great ideas. Here are 5 of the most interesting ones I picked up from the movie.
1. Villain as hero
The scene starts with an Alcoholics Anonymous style gathering for many of gaming’s most loved villains. The movie’s message comes across early, emphasizing that being bad is well, not so bad. It challenges us to look at outcasts and criminals not as what they do but more as who they are. Wreck-it-Ralph transcends his outcast status and ultimately proves that sometimes a villain can be the biggest hero of all.
2. Going beyond the program
The main characters in the movie, Venellope and Wreck-it-Ralph, as well as the villain of the movie Nitro, all share one common trait: they went beyond what they were programmed to do. There’s something inherently philosophical about this: the battle between destiny and free will. Finally, the events of the movie proved that with free will can be destructive as with the case of Nitro, as well as redemptive with the case of Wreck-it-Ralph.
3. Worlds within worlds
The way video game characters can move between different worlds provides an endless canvass of creativity in the movie. We get treated to landscapes and locales as diverse as the 8-bit Fix-It-Felix Jr. game, the 3D badass shooting game, and the pink fluffy world of Sugar Rush. What really struck me was Game Central, the video game paradise, the geek utopia where all the characters we love gather and roam about. There seems to be a philosophical theme beneath all this. I read this Caltech professor’s crazy idea a few weeks ago that the entire universe could just be a program. What we know as physics could just be arbitrary rules set by our otherworldly programmers. Fate, hope, love, these are all illusory concepts programmed into our lives. It’s a crazy interesting concept, and we see this come to life through the self-aware characters of Wreck-It-Ralph.
4. Video game tributes
Cameo roles are always fun, but to have Chun Li and Bowser in the same movie is just endorphin overload. The conceit resulting from this melange results again in an endless canvass of creativity for the movie’s possible sequels. The throwbacks do add texture and anchors to the story, and they make the movie magnitudes more fun to watch.
5. Engineered for maximum appeal
Disney designed it for maximum audience appeal, as the movie had the right mix of smart throwbacks to the early video games that now-adults grew up with, as well as colorful, compelling characters that have already become Disney’s trademark. The main setting of Sugar Rush also reveals a subtle effort to woo female viewers, as Disney most likely understands that the video game theme would appeal to male audiences by default. Of course, all this comes huge merchandising potential, and the video game world premise of the movie is sure to bring lots of alternative revenues through toys, theme park rides, and app downloads.
Wreck It Ralph’s magical mix of nostalgia, whimsy and philosophy really strikes a chord. Highly recommended.
1. Villain as hero
The scene starts with an Alcoholics Anonymous style gathering for many of gaming’s most loved villains. The movie’s message comes across early, emphasizing that being bad is well, not so bad. It challenges us to look at outcasts and criminals not as what they do but more as who they are. Wreck-it-Ralph transcends his outcast status and ultimately proves that sometimes a villain can be the biggest hero of all.
2. Going beyond the program
The main characters in the movie, Venellope and Wreck-it-Ralph, as well as the villain of the movie Nitro, all share one common trait: they went beyond what they were programmed to do. There’s something inherently philosophical about this: the battle between destiny and free will. Finally, the events of the movie proved that with free will can be destructive as with the case of Nitro, as well as redemptive with the case of Wreck-it-Ralph.
3. Worlds within worlds
The way video game characters can move between different worlds provides an endless canvass of creativity in the movie. We get treated to landscapes and locales as diverse as the 8-bit Fix-It-Felix Jr. game, the 3D badass shooting game, and the pink fluffy world of Sugar Rush. What really struck me was Game Central, the video game paradise, the geek utopia where all the characters we love gather and roam about. There seems to be a philosophical theme beneath all this. I read this Caltech professor’s crazy idea a few weeks ago that the entire universe could just be a program. What we know as physics could just be arbitrary rules set by our otherworldly programmers. Fate, hope, love, these are all illusory concepts programmed into our lives. It’s a crazy interesting concept, and we see this come to life through the self-aware characters of Wreck-It-Ralph.
4. Video game tributes
Cameo roles are always fun, but to have Chun Li and Bowser in the same movie is just endorphin overload. The conceit resulting from this melange results again in an endless canvass of creativity for the movie’s possible sequels. The throwbacks do add texture and anchors to the story, and they make the movie magnitudes more fun to watch.
5. Engineered for maximum appeal
Disney designed it for maximum audience appeal, as the movie had the right mix of smart throwbacks to the early video games that now-adults grew up with, as well as colorful, compelling characters that have already become Disney’s trademark. The main setting of Sugar Rush also reveals a subtle effort to woo female viewers, as Disney most likely understands that the video game theme would appeal to male audiences by default. Of course, all this comes huge merchandising potential, and the video game world premise of the movie is sure to bring lots of alternative revenues through toys, theme park rides, and app downloads.
Wreck It Ralph’s magical mix of nostalgia, whimsy and philosophy really strikes a chord. Highly recommended.
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