BACKGROUND
Disney had only made two other theatrically-released animated sequels before Ralph Breaks the Internet in 2018: Fantasia 2000 (1999) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990).
Sequels aren’t something Disney tend to consider, at least not ones that aren’t released direct-to-video as many were in the 1990s and early 2000s. Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the directors of Ralph Breaks the Internet weren’t even going to make a sequel, after Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Not unless they could find a good enough reason, and a good enough story, to do it.
After some consideration, Moore and Johnston decided that Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship was not finished being explored, especially as Ralph’s final words in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) show that he only doesn’t consider himself to be a bad guy because Vanellope calls him a friend[1]. This paved the way for an opportunity to bring conflict into this relationship, and for each of the two to learn just how friendships can, and do, change.
I watched Ralph Breaks the Internet at the cinema, and was much more interested in watching it than when I first saw Wreck-It Ralph, probably because I already knew the characters and it is based in the Internet, something that the majority of people know plenty about. I thought the whole movie was clever, much like the first movie, because it looked behind-the-scenes of the online world, and came up with concepts for how the people inside the Internet, like Vanellope and Ralph, would see a typical real-world user, and what the users would be seeing.
Though I like the overall concept and feel that this movie delves deeper into emotions and relationships, I do not like it as much as the original Wreck-It Ralph movie. It’s possibly because I have a love-hate relationship with the online world. It doesn’t boil down to much, other than I don’t care for social media, and I don’t want to stare at my phone all day.
PLOT
Ralph Breaks the Internet picks up six years after the events of the first movie. Vanellope and Ralph are still best friends, but Vanellope has become bored with her life and Sugar Rush. One day, a new “game” called “WIFI”, gets plugged in. Surge, the Security Guard, warns all the arcade characters not to enter with Sonic the Hedgehog explaining the basics of Wi-Fi to the others. Vanellope wants to go in, but Ralph doesn’t, and as he knows Vanellope is feeling bored, he decides to build her a new section of track in Sugar Rush. Whilst Vanellope is about to finish a race for an arcade-goer, she spots this new track and goes over to do it, much to the confusion of the real-world player, who tries to move the game’s steering wheel, but it comes off in the process and Vanellope crashes. The arcade-goers tell Litwak about the wheel, but as Litwak tries to force it back onto the console, it breaks in half. The kids find a new steering wheel on eBay – but it’s $200; Litwak can’t afford that. He unplugs the game, but luckily the characters have been watching from the screen, so manage to evacuate to Game Central Station, but they are now all game less.
Many of the Sugar Rush characters find new homes, including all fifteen racers who are adopted by Calhoun and Felix in a surprising move! Ralph is excited to get to spend more time with Vanellope, but Vanellope becomes depressed at not having a purpose without her game. Ralph expects to meet her at Tapper’s later, but she doesn’t come. Felix does though, stressed at having suddenly become a father of fifteen in the last few minutes! He makes a strange noise like “eee-oh boy”, which reminds Ralph of “eboy”, that site the kids were talking about that has the spare part for Sugar Rush. He thinks that if they can get the wheel, then Sugar Rush will be fixed and Vanellope won’t be sad anymore. They both head in to “WIFI”, like they would any other arcade game, but find a boring grey space and nothing else. When Litwak logs on to his Wi-Fi, suddenly the space illuminates in green and a mini Mr. Litwak, his avatar, appears and he goes into a tunnel. Vanellope excitedly follows, and Ralph reluctantly chases after her. They see a huge metropolis, full of skyscrapers, futuristic vehicles, and shiny surfaces.
Not knowing where to go in this Internet world, they meet KnowsMore first, the search engine, who finds their Sugar Rush steering wheel, sending them off to eBay. There, they find many users bidding on items. Vanellope and Ralph figure that all they need to do is come up with a number higher than the other person competing for the part. Instead of jumping up by normal auction amounts like in jumps of $10-$25, the duo just shouts random numbers, so the price rockets from $250 to $1000 to $27,001 – the amount Vanellope and Ralph win it for. But as they head to the cashier, they don’t realise that they need to pay with actual money, which they obviously don’t have. The cashier says they have 24 hours to settle the amount, or they will lose the steering wheel. Vanellope and Ralph encounter a pop-up, called J. P. Spamley, who sends them to his office to learn how to make money from video games. He gives them an assignment to get Shank’s car from the game Slaughter Race. If they can get it, they’ll be paid $40,000 – plenty to cover the cost of the Sugar Rush part. The two head in to Slaughter Race, to find a dirty, rundown city setting. They eventually find Shank’s car in a warehouse. Ralph wants to turn back and forget this whole assignment, after seeing Shank and her crew, but Vanellope comes up with a plan: she will steal the car and Ralph will distract them, pretending to be from the Department of Noise. It works, and Vanellope drives the car off, picking up Ralph on the way out of the game. They come close but Vanellope gets distracted and has to stop to avoid crashing into a bus; the crew surround her and the two are stopped. But though Shank won’t give them her car just to get this part, she is impressed with Vanellope as a racer and comes up with a new idea. She takes a video of Ralph having a leaf-blower shoved in his face and puts it on BuzzzTube, before sending them to meet Yesss, the Head Algorithm who will help them make some money.
With only eight hours to pay eBay for the wheel, Ralph and Vanellope quickly head over to BuzzzTube, where Yesss tells them both that if they can put up enough videos and get enough hearts, those will be converted into real-life money. Ralph starts making videos of just about every trend that we all see on YouTube: make-up tutorials, unboxings, the chilli challenge, screaming goats, that sort of thing. Yesss sends out a whole pop-up army to help the two get enough hearts, with Vanellope wanting to help. Though Ralph doesn’t want to be apart from her, she goes to Oh My Disney to be a pop-up. She does well, but is soon chased away by Storm Troopers for being “unauthorised clickbait”. She takes refuge in a room, and finds she is surrounded by all the Disney Princesses, who don’t like this intruder, until Vanellope assures them she is a princess too, though she doesn’t quite fit into their criteria as she hasn’t been poisoned, imprisoned, enslaved or cursed. The Princesses, after making lounge wear like Vanellope is wearing so they can get out of those restrictive, tight dresses, tell Vanellope that if she wants to figure out her dream, she needs to find “important water” and she’ll start singing, as Vanellope has realised she doesn’t just want this steering wheel.
With thirty minutes left to pay, Ralph can’t get his final video to upload, so goes out on to the BuzzzTube floor to get some more hearts from the users stood there. He succeeds, but also looks at the Comments Section, which has a mixture of positive and negative comments about him. Ralph is visibly upset, but carries on, and though he now has enough hearts, he knows the only important heart is the hero’s medal Vanellope gave him in the first movie. Yesss tells him never to read the comments but also that they now have over $30,000 so Ralph gets over to eBay to pay for the item, calling Vanellope to meet him. Vanellope is sad about going home, and while staring into a puddle, she starts to sing about her love for Slaughter Race, and how she wants to stay there as it feels like home. Vanellope explains how she feels to Shank, but accidentally dials Ralph, who overhears that Vanellope plans to stay in Slaughter Race.
Ralph is upset and sees Spamley again. He asks him if there is anything he can do to cause Slaughter Race to slow down, so Vanellope won’t find it fun anymore. Spamley takes Ralph to Double Dan, within the “dark web”. He gives Ralph a virus, which will find any insecurities in Slaughter Race and multiply them; Dan also tells Ralph that the virus must stay within that game. Ralph sets the virus lose, with the virus multiplying Vanellope’s “glitch” across the game. Shank tells her to get out as the game is about to reboot and as she is not part of the game, she will be deleted. Ralph helps get her out, and Vanellope is upset to have damaged her game, thinking it’s all her fault. Ralph tells her that he is to blame for putting the virus in. Vanellope is furious, feeling betrayed by Ralph, saying she never wants to see him again. She throws his medal down to the bottom of the web. At the same time, the virus has escaped the Slaughter Race game and witnessed this spectacle. The virus multiplies Ralph’s emotional insecurities, making a whole army of needy Ralphs who chase after Vanellope as Ralph is retrieving his medal; the medal has broken in half.
Vanellope sees one of the needy Ralphs and tells him to go away, as she thinks it’s real Ralph. Soon, many Ralphs chase after her, with real Ralph coming to save her. Yesss also comes to the rescue, telling them they need to lead the clones to the Anti-Virus gates to be deleted. This seems to go well, until the Ralphs hit Yesss’s cruiser and it crashes. The Ralphs then create a big Godzilla-King Kong-like monster. Real Ralph tries to stop it by punching it, but it doesn’t work and he is caught. As Real Ralph is about to be crushed to death, Vanellope surrenders herself to the monster, so that it will release Ralph, promising to stay with it for ever. Ralph is horrified, and tells the Ralph monster that it can’t treat its friends like this and that it needs to let Vanellope go for her to be happy; something Ralph is also learning for himself. The Ralph clones are healed and are deleted. As Ralph was still in its hand though, he falls down, looking like he will hit the bottom and die. Until the Disney Princesses swoop in to save “a big, strong man in need of rescuing”! Ralph is safe, and urges Vanellope to start her new life in Slaughter Race, where Shank has now added her to the game’s code. The two have a tearful goodbye, but they both know it’s for the best.
The movie ends with Ralph now having a healthier life with more purpose, like joining a book club, and having a Friday night meet-up at a different arcade game every week. Sugar Rush has also been saved, with those characters having homes again, although it turns out Felix and Calhoun have been very good parents and managed to sort out the Sugar Rush racers’ ego problems, so they are much nicer! Ralph and Vanellope still call each other often, with Vanellope coming to visit Ralph soon during a scheduled upgrade at her game. The two are both moving forward in their lives, but have remained good friends.
CHARACTERS & CAST
Ralph ends Wreck-It Ralph by saying that he is happy being who he is because Vanellope is his friend so he can’t be such a bad guy. That sounds like a nice idea; however, the directors went back to that ending and found that actually Ralph shouldn’t be basing his self-worth on how his friend sees him. This has led to an unhealthy friendship where Ralph has become quite clingy, needing constant reassurance from Vanellope that he is good enough and that they are still friends. Ralph becomes jealous of Vanellope’s friendship with Shank and annoyed that she would even think about leaving him. The team at Disney didn’t want to put a surprise villain into this movie, so they made Ralph the actual villain this time, as well as being the protagonist. The army of clones weren’t a big enough metaphor of danger, so looking at fire ants, they came up with the idea of the clones bunching up together to form a bigger entity, which is how ‘Ralphzilla’ was made. It was Ralph’s insecure emotions being personified as a monster. This idea came in quite late into production so it was a big hurdle for the animators to overcome to get the monster looking just right, but they managed to do it successfully, and made a monster that was both scary for his huge presence, and pathetic for his emotional response! It is great that Ralph finally sees the error of his ways, and tells ‘Ralphzilla’ that he has to stop threatening Vanellope and making her choose between him and what she wants in life; he has to let her go and know that their friendship will survive. It’s a touching moment.
Vanellope starts off the movie wanting to find some adventure in her life as she has become bored with her life in Sugar Rush, having found every bonus level and won every race; she wants something new. Vanellope is excited by this inclusion of “WIFI” to the arcade. Once her game is unplugged, despite being bored, she doesn’t know what she’ll be if she’s not a racer. Once Vanellope enters the Internet and sees all these new possibilities, she realises that she isn’t happy in the arcade, but knows she’d be happy racing in a game like Slaughter Race. Vanellope is scared to hurt Ralph so doesn’t tell him about it, kind of resigning herself to going back to her game initially and then trying to keep her love of Slaughter Race a secret until she can figure out how to tell him. It doesn’t go well, and Ralph feels hurt by her. Once Vanellope sees Slaughter Race glitching from the virus, she feels like she broke the game, but when Ralph tells her he did it out of fear of losing her, she is furious. Despite this, as Ralph is about to be squeezed to death by his own clones, Vanellope sacrifices herself and her happiness to save him, which tells Ralph all he needs to that he has to let her go and by happy, even if that’s not with him. The goodbye the two share is very touching and incredibly relatable as life is full of multiple “hellos” and “goodbyes”. Vanellope and Ralph try extra hard to keep their friendship going, even though it is more difficult long-distance, but they settle into a routine, making sure they find time for each other, to either chat or visit. It’s shows how much the characters grow within this movie. Sarah Silverman and John C. Reilly both return to reprise their voice roles.
Shank is the fearless female lead racer of Slaughter Race. She is cool, strong, and tough. Shank was originally going to be a background gangster, but then it was decided that she should be a role model to Vanellope and therefore becomes a threat to Vanellope and Ralph’s friendship. Shank is a solid and wise character, with a soft side and warmth to her. She tells Vanellope, quite rightly, that she is welcome to race in Slaughter Race with her and her gang, and that there is no reason why her and Ralph can’t still be friends if she chooses to join them. Shank also has her crew of four other members, who aren’t just a thug-like gang, but actually have discussions about whether or not they should be letting players win, and appreciating how much hard-work some of them put into that game. Despite Slaughter Race looking like a horrible place full of crime, the characters with in it are actually surprisingly nice! Shank is voiced by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who shot to international fame with her role as Gisele Yashar in the Fast and Furious franchise. She currently portrays Wonder Woman within the DC Universe film franchise.
There is a distinction within Ralph Breaks the Internet of the two main types of characters: Netizens, which include Ralph and Vanellope, and Net Users. Net Users are basically the avatars of the real-world Internet users. They stand in for humans, but are not treated as such, which is good because Ralph throws stuff on top of some of the net users, or throws them off their routes. Luckily, they don’t die; it’s just how people get disconnected from the Internet! The Netizens are the workers who help the Net Users, such as the cashiers, or the pop-up people. As the Net Users aren’t part of the story and cannot interact with the Netizens as they would with humans, Ralph and Vanellope can only interact with Netizens, of which there are plenty.
For example, we have J.P. Spamley. He is a Netizen working in “clickbait”. He is the one to direct Vanellope and Ralph to the site where they can earn money by finding video game items for real-world users. He is also the one to lead Ralph into the “dark net” to speak to Double Dan about putting a virus into Slaughter Race. Spamley doesn’t appear too much in Ralph Breaks the Internet, but he seems to me like a Netizen who isn’t sure he’s chosen the right path in life! He is ignored regularly, and is scared of the “dark net”, despite working in that area most of the time! Spamley and his assistant, Gord, do try to save Ralph at the end of the movie, which shows he is a nice guy really, even though Ralph falls straight through Spamley’s car due to his weight! Spamley is voiced by American comedic actor Bill Hader, best known for voicing Fear in Inside Out (2015), starring in Saturday Night Live (2005-13), as well as writing and performing as the title character in hit TV series Barry (2018-present).
KnowsMore is another Netizen who doesn’t feature too much in the movie, though he makes an impact. KnowsMore was originally going to be a broken search engine, getting every fourth answer wrong, but in the end, he is a search engine with an aggressive autofill! He warms to Vanellope who is polite to him, but is annoyed at Ralph for his brusque attitude, not understanding how to properly complete a search. Disney designed KnowsMore to look quite cartoony and not overally complex, though his eyes are actually hand-drawn, therefore being a combination of 2D and 3D animation. Alan Tudyk, the voice of King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph, was asked to return to voice a character in Ralph Breaks the Internet, and they felt he’d be perfect for KnowsMore. He needed very little direction and came up with the voice himself.
Yesss is the Head Algorithm of BuzzzTube. She is glamourous, fabulous and big deal on the Internet! She is incredibly helpful to Ralph and Vanellope, by helping them get hearts, even sending out a whole pop-up army to help them. She puts a lot of effort into these two, wanting Ralph to boost his online profile but be able to complete their mission of getting the steering wheel for Sugar Rush so they can go home. Yesss is also instrumental in helping them try to delete the Ralph clones at the Anti-Virus software hub, though this doesn’t end up going to plan. Yesss had many iterations before the version we see today, with them wanting a bold, larger-than-life Kanye West-type of character, before settling on more of an agent vibe. Yesss is voiced by Taraji P. Henson who had a lead role in Empire (2015-20) as Cookie Lyon, as well as starring as Katherine Johnson in the biopic Hidden Figures (2016).
As I’ve mentioned, eBay was created to look like an auction house, with each item having its own auctioneer. Real auctioneers were used to voice these characters, such as Brian Curless, who had won the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship in 2017[2].
Unfortunately, two characters from the original movie who do not get enough time on screen in this movie are Felix and Calhoun. They have been married for six years at this point and then decide to adopt the fifteen Sugar Rush racers. Other than that, the two feature at the end of the movie, showing how they’ve become such good parents to the racers that they are no longer egotistical and narcissistic, but kind and caring towards each other whether they win or lose. Felix and Calhoun are explaining the secret to parenting to Surge, the security officer at Game Central Station, but cleverly timed cars racing by mean that we will never know what that is! It is a shame because I love those two characters. They were going to feature in a scene that had to be cut to keep the pace of the main storyline between Vanellope and Ralph. It would’ve been a scene checking in on how Felix and Calhoun were doing, while Ralph and Vanellope were in BuzzzTube. It featured a dinner with the whole family, including the fifteen “kids”. One of them wouldn’t want to eat their vegetables, another didn’t want to drink their milk, and it would essentially have ended in a food fight! Felix and Calhoun would go to their room to get away from them, stating that parenting is awful and hoping that Ralph would get back soon with that steering wheel so the racers could go home[3]! Jane Lynch and Jack McBrayer reprise their voice roles.
For the most popular scene in the whole movie, the Disney Princess one, Pamela Ribon, who had previously worked on Moana (2016) had an idea to have the Disney Princesses be in some sort of sorority, and then have this movie make fun of their Disney past. Ribon never believed that Disney executives would sign-off on this sort of scene, so she wrote whatever she wanted to at first. Ribon had wanted this scene to properly induct Vanellope into the Disney Princess sisterhood, as she is a princess that many people can relate to: she isn’t perfect and girly, like most of the others. Ribon was very surprised to find that the directors were happy with this, as they felt that Disney were best placed to do this kind of satire and mockery of their own movies, and as you can go anywhere on the Internet, then why not have Vanellope head to Oh My Disney? This scene ended up being a huge success so I hope Ribon is proud of it. The majority of the original voice actors of the Disney Princesses came back to reprise their roles and were very happy to do so[4]. The funniest voice, though, is probably Kelly MacDonald voicing Merida from Brave (2012) as she speaks with such a strong Scottish accent that nobody can understand her, not even the Disney Princesses who blame it on the fact she is from “the other studio”, i.e., Pixar. It was a clever move. The original voice actors of Cinderella, Aurora, and Snow White had to be replaced as Ilene Woods and Adriana Caselotti, the voices of Cinderella and Snow White, had passed away in 2010 and 1997 respectively. Mary Costa, voice of Aurora, has retired. Any 2D animated princesses had to be digitally updated to fit in with the new CG animation style being used by Disney today. This was not always easy to achieve. At the 2017 D23 Expo, where a first-look was shown, there were comments stating that Tiana’s skin looked lighter, so Disney went back and amended it. It was not an exact science as CG models of 2D characters will naturally look different[5].
PRODUCTION
This movie would not have been able to have been made even in 2012, the time of Wreck-It Ralph’s release as the landscapes are so detailed and huge that it needed a new type of technology. Thankfully, for the production of Big Hero 6 (2014), the in-house rendering software, Hyperion, was developed, allowing huge, detailed cityscapes to be created. Hyperion helped Ralph Breaks the Internet to create environments that looked real and vibrant, and allowed for big shots with lots of characters.
There was never a plan to make a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph as Rich Moore, the director of both movies, felt that Ralph and Vanellope’s story had been wrapped up nicely in the finale of the first movie, so Moore had moved on to other Disney productions. During work on Zootopia (2016), Rich Moore, who directed the film, worked alongside screenwriter Phil Johnston and they decided that after making a movie like Zootopia, which delves into themes around societal prejudice, that maybe they could use a sequel to Wreck-It Ralph to explore Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship in a new setting, with new characters that potentially could create conflict between the two. They also felt that actually, as Ralph states in the ending to Wreck-It Ralph that he only sees himself as a good guy because Vanellope likes him, then that’s not a healthy relationship to have with yourself or with someone else, so they wanted to resolve that. Phil Johnston joined as both co-director and screenwriter[6].
The setting for the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph was never disputed – it was always going to take place in the Internet so instead of being sent on an exotic research trip to somewhere like Norway or the South Pacific Islands as the teams at Disney did for Frozen (2013) and Moana (2016), instead the team on Ralph Breaks the Internet got to open up different technology to have a look at the circuitry and go to One Wilshire Boulevard data centre, which houses the internet connections for the West Coast. It may not have been somewhere particularly exciting but it was still inspiring. An initial concept for their Internet setting was for it to be floating on clouds, referring to the metaphor of everything being “on the cloud”, but this wasn’t deemed the best move forward to show the audience what the Internet might actually look like.
When looking closer at the inner workings of tech items, the animators found that it looked a lot like a city, so that is the concept they went with. Their initial visual test was actually very similar to the final movie. When talking to technology pioneers, they also came up with the idea of new ideas just being stacked on top of the old, so having to go vertical, with all the skyscraper-type buildings. This is because nothing from the past actually goes away; it may be unsupported or not function correctly, but it’s still there. This concept is used when Ralph is trying to find the hero’s medal necklace that Vanellope threw away, as it lands in this old, dusty, unloved area right at the bottom of the Internet, with things like GeoCities and Dial-Up. Real websites were used to ground the world, and were able to be used as it was deemed to be within “fair use” of copyright law, and make it relatable to the audience, with new creations added in to add in that “Disney touch”. This is exactly what they did with the Arcade world in the original movie, by having new characters and references to older video games with those original characters[7].
Some original scenes and concepts were cut from Ralph Breaks the Internet. An early version of the scene of entering the router to see what “WIFI” is would’ve seen most of the arcade characters go into it, with Q*bert accidentally entering the Internet, and returning traumatised. The arcade characters decide it’s too dangerous and leave. Another would’ve seen Ralph with his own BuzzzTube page, where he had gone to Double Dan to get a stamp to duplicate hearts, and inflate his online popularity. Ralph would be sad without Vanellope, who had been annoyed with his new “prima donna” attitude, and use the stamp on himself to create a clone to be his friend. The clone would be left alone with the stamp, and duplicate himself numerous times, leading into the ending with all the Ralph clones. Another scene that was a favourite of the directors that was cut would’ve seen Shank recruiting real-world players to defeat the Ralph clones, with Shank accidentally recruiting one of the Slaughter Race players’ grandmothers. The grandma would be looking forward to kicking some butt and be all up for it! It was almost a fully finished scene before being cut[8].
For the new site of Slaughter Race, it was designed to look both amazing and dangerous. It’s set in a dusty, rundown city, with sort of dystopian elements to it, such as the brown-orange colour of the majority of the area, and the sense that the air quality there is not great, partly from industry, crime and all that racing! The team at Disney looked at game designs of similar games, such as Grand Theft Auto. For the driving aspect, some of the animators were sent to a race track for a day to do crazy moves, such as 180-degree spins, and drifting to keep the driving accurate to both gaming and real-life. Having the animators feel what it was like to be in the car also helped with their animation, so they could put that exhilaration that Vanellope is feeling when racing Shank’s car through the city into the character.
During production on the movie, in November 2017, John Lasseter was forced to step down from his role as Chief Creative Office at both Disney and Pixar Animation over allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”. The Ralph Breaks the Internet team were unsure what would happen next, and whether or not he would return, but they had to carry on as normal. Jennifer Lee, who had been a writer on Wreck-It Ralph, and had been in the same Film Program at Columbia University as Phil Johnstone, was named the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios in June 2018[9]. Jennifer Lee is also known for being the writer and co-director with Chris Buck of Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), where Lee became the first female director of a Disney Animated film.
MUSIC
Henry Jackman returned to the Disney Studios to compose the score for Ralph Breaks the Internet. Jackman was very happy to come back to do the music for the sequel, as he was very proud of his work in the original movie, but this time he could experiment with what the Internet sounds like compared to an arcade. He ended up mixing classical orchestral sounds, along with a more modern element with synth and electronic notes to match the Internet. The orchestral sound was used for the inspiring and uplifting moments to suit the characters’ inner feelings. Some of the themes from the original movie were re-harmonised, to fit into the new realm of the Internet, which can be heard in the instrumentals “Best Friends” and “Comfort Zone”, featuring at the start and end of the movie. One of the best tracks from Henry Jackman has to be “A Big Strong Man in Need of Rescuing” as it features snippets of many of the best Disney Princess songs as they all come together to rescue Ralph, such as music from Frozen (2013), Brave (2012), and Mulan (1998).
This time round, there is an actual song sung by Vanellope called “A Place Called Slaughter Race”. She was told by the Disney Princesses that if you didn’t know what she wanted from life, then Vanellope needed to stare into some “important water” and the song would come to her. Sure enough, after staring into a random puddle, Vanellope bursts into song unexpectedly, which lovingly mocks the “I Want” songs of the Disney Princesses’ movies. Alan Menken, the famed songwriter for many of the Disney “Renaissance Era” movies, was brought in to write the music for the song, to give it that real “princess” feeling, despite the lyrics and the setting being of the morally ambiguous world of Slaughter Race! Sarah Silverman sang the song live with the orchestra, where she said it was a magical moment for her. Gal Gadot, the voice of Shank, also joins in with the singing, which was out of her comfort zone but she loved it. Phil Johnstone and Tom MacDougall wrote the lyrics to this song, as well as the pop reimagining that is performed by Julia Michaels as the second song in the End Credits, with the song renamed to “In This Place”, and some lyrics being changed. The first End Credits song comes from Imagine Dragons, who wrote the song “Zero” for the movie. It looks at Ralph’s vulnerability and how he feels like a “zero” at times. It has a very cinematic and upbeat feel to it, whilst also matching the overall message of the movie[10].
RECEPTION
Ralph Breaks the Internet was released in November 2018, six years after Wreck-It Ralph. It made almost $530 million at the box office, with a budget of $175 million. Much like the first movie, it did very well in its first weekend. In terms of critical success, both movies received similar reviews. For Ralph Breaks the Internet, the stand-out mention by many critics was how much they loved the scenes with the Disney Princesses. They found it to be both nostalgic and hilarious, as Disney took aim at their own characters. Though this is not technically new, as Disney’s Enchanted (2007) does something very similar to its fairy-tale musical movies! Other positive critiques were that it there was an impressive amount of detail and creativity put into the design of the Internet, and that it was surprisingly poignant and deep in places, comparing it to Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), for its similar view. However, on the more negative side, some reviews commented on the number of brands placed into the movie, feeling that the “product placement” would likely annoy some viewers. I think most people enjoy seeing those as it helps us to feel connected to this Internet that Ralph and Vanellope are seeing for the first time, as it is recognisable to us, so instead of the audience spending time trying to work out what’s what, and what Disney was parodying with that site, it allows the viewer to simply focus on what is going on with Ralph and Vanellope and to fully immerse ourselves in the new, original sites.
Ralph Breaks the Internet unfortunately did not win as many awards as Wreck-It Ralph, but was still nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, the Annie Awards and the Critics’ Choice Awards, though it lost all four awards to the underdog movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). The only award Ralph Breaks the Internet did win was the Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Animated Effects, but it won less awards at the Annie Awards than Wreck-It Ralph did, but I don’t think that it has anything to do with Ralph Breaks the Internet, and more to do with the fact that animation seems to have had a major revival in recent years, meaning it faced much more competition than just those from Pixar!
The teaser trailer for Ralph Breaks the Internet did a good job of interesting us in the movie, however, it also featured a very funny scene that was missing from the main trailer and the final movie, for some reason. But for those at the cinema that were willing to wait until the end of the full credits, a girl that looks very much like Moana comments on the fact there was a scene missing from the movie, featuring a game where you have to feed a kitty milkshakes and a bunny pancakes. Ralph comes into this game that the little girl is playing, and ends up over-feeding the bunny until it bursts! We don’t see this explosion but the little girl does, and she screams her little head off! If you waited until the very end of the credits, you were also told you’d be seeing a sneak peek of Frozen 2, which would be released the following November in 2019 – but then you’d be “rick-rolled” by Ralph. I loved this as I love Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up” and the fact that “rick-rolling” was even a thing! Both of these scenes are still shown during the End Credits of home releases and on Disney+. A different trailer also featured a comment on the fact the movie was not named Ralph Wrecks the Internet, to match Ralph’s arcade game character name, but called Ralph Breaks the Internet; many people did comment on the movie’s name when the title was announced! It is simply that “breaking the Internet” is a real thing, unlike “wrecking the Internet”, which is what Yesss explains to Ralph and Vanellope, though I have to agree with Ralph that “wrecks the Internet” does sound much better!
LEGACY
Director Rich Moore has apparently mentioned the possibility of making a spin-off film based on the princesses should the audience want it and if they can make a good story out of it. Although, having said that, the directors had also said at the time of the release of Ralph Breaks the Internet, that there were no plans for a sequel but maybe if they thought about it for long enough, they could come up with a story[11]! Judging by that response, I’m assuming they’d rather leave the characters where they are, knowing that they did a good job continuing and ending Ralph and Vanellope’s stories here.
I’ve already mentioned places related to the Wreck-It Ralph movie specifically at the Disney Parks in my review of that film, but what about Ralph Breaks the Internet? Well, you used to be able to meet Vanellope at the ImageWorks area in Epcot at the exit to Journey into Imagination with Figment, at Walt Disney World Resort. She even came out of her portal to the Internet, called “The Link”, to continue the story of Ralph Breaks the Internet. Ralph met there with Vanellope for a time, but after Walt Disney World Resort reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic, it was just Vanellope on her own. On 19th August 2023, Vanellope’s meet-and-greet location was permanently closed, to make way for the much-anticipated and hugely popular meet-and-greet with Figment, which opened on 10th September 2023. So now, there are no permanent meet-and-greet locations at any of the Disney Parks for Vanellope or Ralph, and even less chance of a specific reference to Ralph Breaks the Internet. But the two should still appear at special events, and some of the music or clips from both movies may show up in certain parades, nighttime shows, or fireworks shows.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Whether or not the audience believe this movie is a satire, or whether they buy-in to Disney’s idea of the Internet, Ralph Breaks the Internet is one of the few good sequels that Disney has made, but it can also stand alone. It is another example of Disney pushing the boundaries of their story-telling, by choosing a story outside of their regular format, which is something they are continuing to do today. Ralph Breaks the Internet is an entertaining and clever movie, full of Easter Eggs and interesting ideas. It is both comedic and thought-provoking, with highly relatable emotional moments.
Wreck-It Ralph taught us to accept ourselves as we are but, Ralph Breaks the Internet reminds us that it’s never too late to realise your dreams or change your ways. It also tells us that, like the ever-changing online world, we are also always changing, with there being opportunities to grow as people every day, if we choose to; to become the best version of ourselves and to become someone we are proud to be.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Disney, ‘A Behind-the-scenes Look at Ralph Breaks the Internet’, Disney.co.uk, date unknown.
[2] Credit: Disney, “How We Broke the Internet” “Surfing for Easter Eggs”, from Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Blu-Ray 2-Movie Collection (2018).
[3] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Blu-Ray 2-Movie Collection (2018).
[4] Credit: Michael Cavna, ‘How ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ spoofs the Disney Princess industrial complex’, The Washington Post (online), 20th November 2018.
[5] Credit: Carolyn Giardina, ‘Making of ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’: How Disney Turned eBay and Amazon Into Cartoons’, The Hollywood Reporter (online), 13th December 2018.
[6] Credit: John Hazelton, ‘’Ralph Breaks The Internet’ filmmakers: ‘we could not have made this six years ago’, Screen Daily (online), 27th November 2018.
[7] Credit: Disney, “How We Broke the Internet”, from Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Blu-Ray 2-Movie Collection (2018).
[8] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Blu-Ray 2-Movie Collection (2018).
[9] Credit: Carolyn Giardina, ‘Making of ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’: How Disney Turned eBay and Amazon Into Cartoons’, The Hollywood Reporter (online), 13th December 2018.
[10] Credit: Disney, “The Music of Ralph Breaks the Internet”, from Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Blu-Ray 2-Movie Collection (2018).
[11] Credit: John Hazelton, ‘’Ralph Breaks The Internet’ filmmakers: ‘we could not have made this six years ago’, Screen Daily (online), 27th November 2018.
The Disney Purist 