Hacker Cinema
Wreck-It Ralph
2012 · Film · 101 min
Part of Wreck-It Ralph Collection
Directed by Rich Moore
FamilyAnimationComedyAdventure
Wreck-It Ralph is the 9-foot-tall, 643-pound villain of an arcade video game named Fix-It Felix Jr., in which the game's titular hero fixes buildings that Ralph destroys. Wanting to prove he can be a good guy and not just a villain, Ralph escapes his game and lands in Hero's Duty, a first-person shooter where he helps the game's hero battle against alien invaders. He later enters Sugar Rush, a kart racing game set on tracks made of candies, cookies and other sweets. There, Ralph meets Vanellope von Schweetz who has learned that her game is faced with a dire threat that could affect the entire arcade, and one that Ralph may have inadvertently started.
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23 comments on Hacker News
Movies I think I truly great I usually only watch once, sometimes twice. If a movie ends and I just sit there thinking to myself… “wow”… I will probably never watch it again.
Movies I watch over and over again are movies that I relate to in some way or find comforting. These are ones I’ve watched at least 5 times, and some I’d bet more than 30 times.
- Back to the Future
- Home Alone
- What About Bob?
- It Could Happen to You
- Matilda
- As Good as It Gets
- Office Space
- Cruel Intentions
- Boiler Room
- Finding Forrester
- Training Day
- Super Troopers
- 8 Mile
- The Transporter
- Elf
- Bad Santa
- Mean Girls
- Saved!
- Garden State
- V for Vendetta
- Thank You for Smoking
- Stick It
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Idiocracy
- Hot Rod
- Run Fatboy Run
- The Other Guys
- Wreck-It Ralph
To name a few.
> So PBR has become the default in the industry since starting around 2009 but really took off around 2013 - 2014
I think Disney's publication of their Wreck-it-Ralph movie + papers, showcasing that a singular shader created all the different characters of that one film, really took PBR to the mainstream.
https://media.disneyanimation.com/uploads/production/publication_asset/48/asset/s2012_pbs_disney_brdf_notes_v3.pdf
A highly popular movie that showcased the methodology, as well as published papers on the subject to scientific journals really hammered the point home. This was a new paradigm shift and far easier to think about than earlier models.
> We deployed our “Principled Layers” shader on Wreck-It Ralph and used it on virtually every material except for hair (which still uses the model developed for Tangled).
A statement like this from Disney is truly a mic-drop moment. Especially given how impressively diverse the characters were from Wreck-It-Ralph.
Wreck-It-Ralph was 2012. So pretty close to your timeline. (Especially if we consider that it takes time for people to see the movie, read the papers, think about the situation and realize that a paradigm shift just happened).
Staggered how? They have averaged a movie a year for the last 40 years. The Disney live action movies have almost nothing to do with the release schedule of Disney Animation movies, nor have they impacted how many get made. They are completely different studios.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Animation_Studios_films
Their 3D movies in order are Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Tangled, (Pooh), Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Frozen II, Raya, Encanto, Strange Worlds. That’s 15 movies in 17 years, and Princess and the Frog makes 16.
Bolt, Tangled, Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, Moana was an excellent run. (Disney acquired Pixar during production of Meet the Robinsons, and about 60% of the movie was remade, every movie since was produced by Pixar descendants.)
And Tangled is better than Frozen, even if it didn’t have the zeitgeist. (Tangled is the highest rated of any movie I listed on Letterboxd, followed by Big Hero 6, Moana, and Zootopia, so I’m not unique in that opinion. Not sure what the Letterboxd community has against Bolt.) Outside of Chicken Little, there’s really not a bad movie on that list (I haven’t seen Strange World yet.)
If anything, acquiring Pixar doubled their animation output.
Disney Animation Studios rarely get a mention next to Pixar, but their 3D films are equally as good. Bolt, Tangled, Wreck-it Ralph, Big Hero 6, Zootopia...
> You can look at all the Disney movies for kids: all men are stupid, liars, stealer, and when you hit them it’s funny. On the opposite the feminine is often perfect, manage it all on the first try.
A few counterexamples: Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Zootopia, Raya and the Last Dragon, Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatoullie, Up, The Good Dinosaur, Onward, Soul, and Luca.
Yup. Even if you only look within a relatively small category of films one per year can miss a bunch. For example, consider the category of animated feature length films released after 2000 in the US, and pick one per year by picking the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
In 2001 you'd miss Monsters, Inc. because of Shrek.
In 2002 you'd miss Lilo & Stitch because of Spirited Away.
In 2004 you'd miss Shrek 2 because of The Incredibles.
In 2005 you'd miss Howl's Moving Castle and Corpse Bride because of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
In 2008, no Kung Fu Panda because of WALL-E.
In 2009, no Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox because of Up.
In 2010 you'd miss How to Train Your Dragon because of Toy Story 3.
In 2011 no Kung Fu Panda 2 because of Rango.
In 2012 no Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, or Wreck-it Ralph because of Brave.
In 2014 no How to Train Your Dragon 2 because of Big Hero 6.
2015 no Shaun the Sheep Movie because of Inside Out.
2016 you miss Kubo and the Two Strings and Moana because of Zootopia.
2019 No How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World because of Toy Story 4.
2021 you'd miss Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca because of Encanto.
Most of the winners are good...but if you just put all the above mentioned films in a pool and asked most people to pick their top 14, most would have a lot of films on their list that were not among the winners of the aforementioned years.
> They're still making good ones: Frozen, Moana, Encanto. Just watch those and pretend the rest doesn't exist.
Probably the most objective way to view this is to actually look at the list of films from any given decade and see how many flops they had [1]. There's a bias at play here: the only movies we remember Disney making a decade+ ago are the hits. We don't often remember the misses.
Apparently Disney's "Renaissance" ended with Tarzan in 1999; but here are a list of movies that have come out since the end of this golden era:
- Monsters, Inc.
- Lilo and Stitch
- Treasure Planet (a personal favorite)
- Finding Nemo
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- The Incredibles
- Ratatouille
- WALL-E
- Up
- Tangled
- Brave
- Wreck-It Ralph
- Frozen
- Inside Out
- Encanto
I'm sure there's many great ones that you might love that I'm missing. But I'd say this lineup is potentially better than the list of movies spanning The Little Mermaid to Tarzan. To the author's credit, I will say there's part of me that's nostalgic for the traditional style of 2d character animation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Walt_Disney_Pictures_films
Pure Harberger taxes aren't a perfect fit for copyright--7 initial years free* is what one fan of the original paper proposed--but I can't see how, compared to existing copyright law, they encourage dishonesty, get messy, or require new industry (a sufficiently large IP company might shift some spending from lawyers to valuation and risk assessment).
> A competitor to Disney could wait until they announce a new movie and then forcibly buy up enough rights to make the movie illegal to release.
In a de novo work like Toy Story, or a fully licensed work like Wreck-It Ralph, Disney owns the rights and knows their value when they announce the upcoming film. The problem only occurs in cases like Lion King, where an existing folk story gets Disneyfied, with no compensation, and often no credit, to the cultural originator of the story.
I'm ok with Disney needing to pay extra money while their competitors pay extra taxes, in cases like this.
* https://ristret.com/s/ftmbkg/harberger_taxation_has_elegant
Wreck-it-Ralph kind of cheated, but... how many different styles of 3D animation did you see in that film alone? (Wreck-it-Ralph is sort of the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" of this generation, so it makes sense. No one will say that Betty Boop has a similar drawing style to Woody Woodpecker, even if both are characters in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit")
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Thanos (Avengers: Endgame), Shrek, Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean), the Na'vi (Avatar), Spiderman (Into the Spiderverse), and the recreation of Princess Leia (Rogue One) are all 3d animation. Would you argue that they're the same style?
10 years is a lot of time, and "worth saving" is a very low barrier.
I'd classify Kubo And The Two Strings, and Inside Out as must-watch films. Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse set new boundaries for what's possible with animation.
Moana, Zootopia, Big Hero 6, Wreck-it Ralph, The Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory are all pretty good films, and definitely tick all the boxes you listed.
I'm not even looking at Anomalisa, Isle of Dogs, and other such more adult-oriented animated films.
I don't think it's the same thing for Disney to create fantastic to CG animation, and Disney to buy Pixar.
They are doing both (creating and buying). They bought Pixar, but are also making movies internally that are comparable in quality like Frozen, Big Hero 6, Moana, and Wreck it Ralph.
What you see as sequelitis, others see as brand new stories, using the guise of existing characters and settings to bring in an audience. Or in other words, what artists have been doing for centuries. Shakespeare was notorious for it...and yet is regarded as the best playwright in history.
What matters is what's underneath the surface. Winter Solder, examined the role of covert operations, the military-industrial complex, and nationalism. Civil War was about the motivations for regulation, patriotism, and even terrorism. Black Panther examined the role of fathers and environment on the black community. Antman satirized the situation of released convicts and the drives of divorced fathers. Spiderman Homecoming took a dive into the lives and drives of teenagers, showing how teenage conflicts were just as meaningful (to teenagers) as the Avengers and Captain America stuff was to adults. Infinity War examined the extremes of authoritarianism and conservationism and the costs of all-out conflict. Wreck-It Ralph was about chasing the American Dream. Each Toy Story movie has examined a different phase of its characters lives over the course of decades, and has explored the topics of inclusion, purpose, death, family, and commercialism.
You say rut? I say that we are in a glorious age of movies...as long as you can look beneath the surface to what the movies are really about.
I think calling Wreck-It Ralph a video game movie (at least in the context of this discussion) is a bit of a stretch.
Wreck-it Ralph is a good movie. And so was the first Resident Evil movie.
I don't think wreck-it-ralph is a video game movie in the sense that we are talking about (unless it's based upon a video game I've not heard of).
Yeah, there's no real story here, is there? Pixar is now a Disney brand, charged with keeping its existing properties chugging along happily. Meanwhile, the original Pixar team has spread out and created stuff like Tomorrowland (far from perfect, but way more interesting than the average movie) and Frozen (which it's fashionable to hate on but is actually as good as its receipts). Wreck It Ralph and Zootopia _are_ Pixar movies, they just don't have the brand.
Wreck it Ralph puts the love interest relationship between Felix and Calhoun (and subverts it all over the place).
Those are all quite recent, while the historical Disney films all fall into the traditional template of male and female lead falling for each other. To the extent that Enchanted can assume the audience knows the formula that they're parodying.
There is indeed a recognition and a policy change that stories don't have to be made to fit that formula any more. And it seems that the films are exploring other affectionate relationships, such as the sisters in Frozen. Wreck it Ralph clearly has affection between Ralph and Vanellope, but it's more a parental/big-brother-little-sister thing than a romance. Brave focuses on mother/daughter. And so on.
The science behind the movie was very clever. What has disappointed me is that Disney/Pixar keep on pushing the sexism gambit in their movies. This movie wasn't as bad as some of their others, but they are Consistently failing to address gender in a balanced way. Does anyone male in this movie do/say anything good? What about Frozen? The stupid (Wessleton) and nasty (Hans) are only male. Brave? Same thread. The kings/Princes are all obnoxious and/or stupid. Wreck-it-Ralph : Kowalski strikes Ralph across the face as a show of might and it's meant to be funny (ie. The modern assertive woman who bashes men as "humour") Several of the tinkerbell movies where ratchet & clank are the typical stupid males (and in most of them, they are almost the only males). To be fair. They do portray the southern belle as a dimwitted hick too, which is the stupid southerner prejudice emanating from the U.S. civil war. However, they did a great job with Tangled and Princess and the frog - there's a much better gender balance in those movies. It's a shame. You take your kids to see a supposedly family friendly movie and you cringe at the sexism that is pushed by the writers and directors. Do you just shrug it off, wondering if this prejudice won't rub off on your kids - or do you highlight the sexism to your kids and ask how a large studio could be so consistent in their bias, despite their deep attention to the science. I can't help feel there is more sexism and more conscious sexism than there has ever been. It really makes me sad.
That was so refreshing to watch. Maybe someone needs to make a movie about Mario leaving his world and visiting others, like Wreck It Ralph. You could do the whole movie inside UR4.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I've listened to hours of YC-related videos on YouTube and it is not clear that this is the case. It is good to hear, and I am happy to spread the word as I know many women and entrepreneurs of color feel discouraged because they are not "from central casting" or don't "pattern match." I've watched trends change and believe disrupted patterns, like the glitch in the movie, "Wreck it Ralph," are full of potential.
The strategy of speaking at Historically Black Colleges (HSBUs) is encouraging. I'm happy to reach out with other ideas and have blogged about suggestions:
http://timesnewromanempire.blogspot.com/2014/07/debugging-diversity-in-tech.html
http://timesnewromanempire.blogspot.com/2014/08/smoke-and-mirrors-reflections-on.html
In the latter, I reference attending events for:
MESA http://mesa.ucop.edu/
NSBE http://www.nsbe.org/home.aspx
& Grace Hopper http://gracehopper.org/
May I suggest that in pioneering in diversity, the term "race" be retired as there is only one human race. Most thought leaders in ethnic & cultural studies concur. The terms "ethnic" and "culture" are more accurate and less divisive.
I happen to be mixed. When situations call for classification of sorts, I prefer "multi-ethnic," "multi-cultural," "Black" "Black-American" or "of African descent" (my daughter - whose father is African, is "African-American"). Terms like "bi-racial" and "mulatto" make me cringe. I know "race" is commonly used, so my suggestion is not to place blame, but to work towards a better framework for discussing diversity and reducing racial rhetoric.
You will, indeed, find me among the pool of applicants. Thank you, again, for addressing the question, and positing solutions. I am also interested to hear more about solo founders. Hard things don't intimidate me at all.
The movie Wreck It Ralph rather centrally featured the fictional game Candy Rush -- prior to the release of Candy Crush.
Might even be where King got the idea for the name of their game.
Anecdotal evidence on movies and games :). Mostly based on reviews.
StarCraft II was one of the most silliest examples of this. The characters are one-dimensional to the point of being laughable. This is a game which had almost unlimited budget, and they just fail horrible at having an original story. I dare people to watch the cinematics say that the male roles are typical of the human male population.
But the more telling part, is that I would have to dig into the indy scene if I even wanted a bit originality in the story. I can't find a single AAA game that have original and well fleshed out characters, and a interesting story. At best, one would have to look at the walking dead which copies that from the TV-show.
Movies... pre-2000, we had a bunch of james bond copies. After that, we got the expendable? The new die hard? Any of the teenage vampire movies?
The one with good story and good character looks to be mostly remakes of older movies or comic/book made-movie, or animations. Wreck-It Ralph is a clear example of good characters.
It's not usually this bad, we've had a lot more releases lining up with the US release dates. A number of friends have already resorted to piracy to view Wreck-It-Ralph and the studios wonder why? With such an interconnected world (and particularly with Digital distribution with the cinema chains) there is no longer the excuses for such a difference in release dates. If they really wanted to combat the piracy issue they need to make it easier to consume the content legally.