Movie Month: Ralph Breaks The Internet (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

If you ask me, this new format is working pretty well so far.

What Is This “Real Life” You Speak Of?

"Are we going to find the wheel here? Looks like there
are millions of items in this place!"

Ralph and Vanellope have arrived at eBay, and set about finding the Sugar Rush steering Wheel among the millions of items on the site. Checking some of the auctions around them, the two don’t seem to understand how it works. The situation presented in the film leads to a lot of funny “fish out of water” moments as these two arcade characters have run-ins with real life, in ways neither of them could have expected. They’re still game characters at their core, so they struggle to understand that some things aren’t games. I actually like this particular aspect of the film: That they’re out of their element and on a mission in a world they struggle to understand since it’s so different from their own.

"Say the biggest number you can think of?
Okay... One billion!"

The two get to the steering wheel, currently on sale at 275$, with a bidder on the scene. They try to figure out how this “game” works, and decide it’s just about saying the biggest number to win. Of course, there’s only 30 seconds left at the auction, because we need that good drama. The heroes start bidding against the user, then outbid him, then keep pumping up the number to ridiculous heights. How ridiculous? 27,001.00$. That ridiculous enough for ya?

Both Wreck-It Ralph movies can be summed up as "Ralph
makes a mistake, then makes everything worse, and
worse, and then he has to undo all of those mistakes."

Sure, they celebrate, but wait till they get to the cash register. The user who wanted the steering wheel walks away, his head hung low. Him not getting the wheel probably means there’s a Sugar Rush cabinet out there about to get unplugged due to being unplayable, for lack of wheel. But who cares about those, amirite?

The cashier lady has no chill whatsoever.
I've been a cashier. I can't blame her.

Ralph and Vanellope get to the "cash register" and are told that they have to pay. With real-life money. They don’t have a credit card! They don’t have any alternate ways to pay, either! (Though we get some foreshadowing when the “cashier” mentions Buzzzybucks.) They’re given a window of 24 hours to pay or they lose the item…

All seems lost, until Ralph remembers one of the pop-ups at the entrance to eBay, who said something about earning money by playing video games.

(Oh, by the way, on a completely unrelated side-note: Thank you very much, Disney (and Pixar), for your DVDs in the 2010s containing some sort of anti-piracy DRM that causes movies to skip and lag when watched on software like VLC Media Player. It’s very awesome to have the movie stop for a couple seconds every once in a while and then skip where it was getting to. /sarcasm because no, it’s awful, and Disney, I know you don’t want your movies copied, but for the love of Christ, find a different program that will protect your movies without killing off any enjoyment for those who watch films on the computer! Makes it Hell for me when I want to take screenshots for this review!)

Those Darn Pop-Ups!

No, don't! He probably has viruses!

The buddies go back and find the pop-up guy. He’s easy to spot; in a sea of programs on the Internet who look like cartoony humans in a single color all over, he’s the only one with clothes that make him look like a complete character. He has just been thrown to the ground by a pop-up blocker from a smart Internet user. He takes them in his own browser, in-universe a car that’s seen better days, and takes them beneath the bustling world of the Web.

Oh yeah, this place totally says "trustworthy".

His website is small, represented by a trailer. The implication is that he lives a bit into illegality, hidden below everything else. But it's not the Deep Web; If it were, it wouldn’t be accessible through a pop-up advertisement. The pop-up guy’s name is Spamley (Bill Hader), and he has a “reputable” business (big damned air quotes there!) in which he offers people to earn real-life money for grabbing rare items in online games. Spamley’s assistant Gord, a creepy round thing in a cotton shirt, hands them some examples: An amulet for 3$, a necklace for 5$, some gold shoes for 15$. I have to ask, is this really a thing? Are there spam websites that offer this service?

Gord is creepy as Heck.

If Ralph and Vanellope choose to go that route, they’ll need to gather either 9001 amulets, 5401 hammers or 1801 pairs of golden shoes. They only have 24 hours, so… yeah, no. Vanellope brings this up, so Spamley reveals one of the most expensive items he’s been asked for: The car used by Shank, a highly-important NPC, in the online game Slaughter Race. It goes for 40,000$. Holy crap, that’s more than twice the worth of my real-life car! Well, it’s not like the two have a choice, right?

Oh, they have no idea what they're getting themselves into.

Bless Spamley, he’s a likeable character (and he gets more screentime than other characters who’d deserve it more). He knows he’s shady, but he’s honest about being shady, and even warns Ralph and Vanellope on how dangerous it will be to steal Shank’s car. Then again, if you try to humanize (or anthropomorphize) something as annoying as pop-up advertisements, you’re fighting a losing battle. There will always be that nagging impression that under the nice front, the guy is doing something really wrong. It’s like being best drinking buddies with a guy who nonchalantly admits to defrauding the bank.

This Place Called Slaughter Race

A fast food place in a GTA-like game? You know what's
coming. "I'll have two number 9s..."

Cut to Slaughter Race. How to describe this game… Hm… it definitely takes inspiration from Grand Theft Auto. However, the focus seems to be on street racing, so… Ubisoft’s The Crew? Yet, there seems to be an additional edge of insanity to the whole thing, a pinch of Saints Row. I guess the closest game in tone would be Twisted Metal. I’ll say, gutsy of Disney to feature something that comes so close to the edge of PG-13 in one of their animated films.

The arcade characters walk around, and Ralph immediately fears for his friend’s safety. He can survive heavy damage; she can’t. Between cars flipping upside-down, explosions all over the place, a higher rate of criminality than in any real-life location, not to mention the angry dogs and even friggin’ SHARKS in the sewers, how can he NOT be worried?

Is the clown makeup a reference to Payday 2?

They find Shank’s car in a warehouse. Unfortunately for them, two players in typical adult game avatars have showed up, ready to take the car after 31 hours of non-stop gaming. …Okay, no, that’s not recommendable. I remember how the Nicelanders were animated in the previous film, their stilted movements reminiscent of their limited 8bit animation on the arcade cabinet screen. The player characters we see in Slaughter Race are similar, moving in erratic ways and having quick animations for actions such as pulling out a weapon. Oh, and don’t forget the usernames: DirtySocks537 and BabeRaham_Linkin. Well, those two were classy enough to not slip in a 69 or a 420 in there.

About to get WASTED.

You know she's business; she has her own title card.

However, before those players can come closer to Shank’s car, they’re ambushed by the Queen of the Road herself and her gang. The players don’t even get to say a thing before getting roasted by Pyro, the guy in Shank’s team who wields dual flamethrowers. After the corpses vanish from the warehouse to respawn who knows where, the gang has a sincere and friendly talk over their task in the game, and whether they’re making things unfairly hard for players.

Oh, I want to debate this, that’s been a long time coming.

Might as well use this to present the team.
On the left, Shank, on the right, Pyro...

Left to right: Felony, Little Debbie, and Butcher Boy.
I'm sensing a theme.

Shank’s friends argue that the players they just unceremoniously fried like chickens had worked really hard to get there and deserved the reward, or at least something, in return. If someone is willing to pay 40K$ of real-life money to get that car, it must be one-of-a-kind and borderline impossible to steal, yes. Shank, in return, argues that they can’t just let the players win, as there wouldn’t be a lesson in this sort of victory; and then adds that if the game had no challenge, it would be boring.

No. You’re wrong, Shank, and this has bothered me ever since I first saw this movie. You treat the players like they didn’t put in the effort to steal your car. They did; DirtySocks537 specifically said they gamed for 31 hours non-stop, which is some crazy dedication; it's also very unhealthy. In a multiplayer game, it sounds like your car is an item that players can only reach if they put in the work and went through damn near everything else the game contains. Yes, there has to be a challenge. Especially when there’s so much competition between players, precisely to get to that damn car.

Oh, this scene annoys me so much...

But! You and your gang didn’t even give them a fighting chance in this encounter; you ambushed them and killed them, right then and there. They didn't even take a step forward, and Fwoom! Game Over, by flamethrower to the face! How’s that fair? How can you talk about giving a challenge if you don’t even play by the rules that you’re so willing to set? Also, as a later line confirms, nobody has ever succeeded in stealing that car, and I assume that’s because you won’t play fair to anyone who comes close. Your speech does NOT work, Shank.

And it annoyed me because Shank is depicted like a reasonable figure in the film, but this makes her sound like a complete hypocrite. And part of the conflict in the film revolves around her! Oh yeah, forgot to mention that – Shank is voiced by Gal Gadot, and is given the “Simpsons Guest Star” treatment; so important, it’s like the story bows down to her words and whims when she appears. She’s a pretty good character after this scene, but this was a very bad first impression.

Vanellope finding out what it's like to drive something
really close to a real car. Bye bye candy karts!

Ace driver VS ace driver.

Ralph and Vanellope devise a plan to steam Shank’s car. Ralph distracts the gang with a baloney complaint while Vanellope climbs into the car and takes off with it, hitting Ralph on her way out to get him aboard. Hey, careful Ralph! Watch the paintjob, if you want that 40K! Shank gives chase in the first car she can find, with her gang following. The candy princess realizes that she loves driving around that world – she’s not bound by tracks, she can choose where she goes, she has no idea what will happen next! Shank also takes a liking to this chase, she’s never been challenged like this before!

Hollywood Doesn’t Understand Video-Sharing Sites And Online Monetization

Ralph is about to make a fool of himself, but it's for a
friend. He won't mind at all.

In spite of pulling some amazing stunts, Vanellope isn’t able to drive out of the game in time, as Shank’s team block the way out with a school bus. Ralph explains the situation to Shank but devolves into inelegant sobbing. That’s enough to convince Shank; she won’t let them have the car, but she will help them. She gets her friend Pyro to blow hot air in Ralph’s face and records him while he says his trademark “I’m gonna wreck it!”

Be thankful I chose this one, I could have picked a
screenshot much uglier than that.

She then uploads it to BuzzzTube. That video-sharing website is huge in this universe, much bigger than YouTube. (Allow me to weep in memory of all the video-sharing websites that had to shut down due to YouTube’s omnipresence on the market, with no real competition as a result.) Shank tells them that it’s possible to make a lot of money with viral videos online, and that she knows the head algorithm of BuzzzTube, who’s named Yesss. As Shank and her crew leave, she invites Vanellope to come back for a rematch someday.

Oh, and YouTube is two doors down, but nobody cares.

Looks like Vanellope has a new hero! But Ralph doesn’t trust her. He wants to go back to Spamley, but an actual eboy (representing notifications from ebay) shows up to tell him that there’s only eight hours left on the timer; if they haven’t paid in eight hours, bye bye wheel. A reluctant Ralph thus follows his friend to BuzzzTube. The place looks like a nightclub with screens all over the place showing the most popular videos of the moment. Ralph’s air-to-the-face video is…

I'm a bit glad for this change of color to predominant
purples. The yellow tint in Slaughter Race was getting
a bit too much.

No, wait, that’s not right. That video was made, what, an hour ago, at most? And apparently, it already has 26 million views and received over 1,312,000 hearts. Viral videos don’t get so high so fast. It doesn’t work like that. Before it gets big, a viral video has a humble start, then it spreads due to word-of-mouth and reposts of the link, until it eventually reaches a meme status. The community takes it and rolls with it, and shares it further, and that’s how viral videos end up with millions of views. This takes MUCH longer than an hour. Or eight.

Our stars get free drinks.
They don't visit very often, after all.

Like all denizens of the Web who are programs, the algorithm Yesss (Taraji P. Hansen) has a predominant color; she’s blue. Da ba dee da ba dye. She’s also constantly looking for the next big thing, but can’t find anything interesting. Hey Yesss! Can you tell your buddy, YouTube’s content algorithm, to stop recommending conspiracy theory videos to people? That’d be nice. She’s at first dismissive of that big guy and the girl with candy in her hair who just walked into her office, until she’s told that the big guy is in a BuzzzTube video that’s gathered over a million hearts. Now she’s treating him like a star!

"Here, have some free hearts! It's on the house."

Yesss explains that, in BuzzzTube’s system, the hearts a video gets are turned into money. Let’s compare with YouTube, shall we? Content producers on YouTube make money on their videos by monetizing them, which means including advertisements before or during the video. In all fairness, they can still be punished by YouTube’s algorithm pushing their videos out of people's recommendations, which makes monetization a problem. That’s why most content creators have turned to Patreon in order to receive a constant stream of revenue from fans willingly paying them, as it’s a more stable way to earn money through content production. Now, if YouTube didn’t change its goddamn rules every year, maybe it’d be easier to earn a decent living through it! And yes, there’s also the issue of ad blockers. Recently, you might have noticed content creators having paid sponsorships, which involves them slipping an ad directly into their video, so it’ll slip past ad blockers. There’s a reason Raid Shadow Legends has become a meme. These sponsorships are sufficiently lucrative that many creators will jump at the opportunity to have them. Oh, and a YouTube video’s thumb-ups and thumb-downs have absolutely nothing to do with monetization.

"I hope you've got energy, because you're about to make
dozens of videos in a very short timespan."

BuzzzTube seems to be a platform for short and simple content, or at least this seems to be what’s pushed forward the most. BuzzzTube relies entirely on a video’s hearts (its Likes) for monetization. It doesn’t seem to have a thumb down (or Dislike) option, either. Much like YouTube, videos have a comments section in which people can discuss. This is the only place where viewers can voice their discontent with a video. Do you know why YouTube doesn’t monetize videos based on thumb-ups? Because the number of people leaving thumb-ups is a small portion of all the viewers. It’s also very easy to game the system and have lots of people massively thumb-down videos out of spite. Monetizing videos from Likes wouldn't be a viable idea.

tl;dr BuzzzTube’s system sucks, and is proof that Hollywood doesn’t understand how viral content and online video monetization work.

Yesss hands Ralph and Vanellope little portable computers that double as phones; these things also show that Ralph’s video has earned him 43$. Encouraging, but not enough. Let’s calculate! This is about to get nerdy.

Ralph’s 43.00$ comes from a video that had gathered, at that moment, over 1,312,000 hearts. Dividing the latter by the former to get an approximate hearts-to-cents ratio, it means that Ralph earns roughly one cent for every 305 hearts he got on a video.

That video also had 26,240,742 views at that moment. Meaning that roughly 4.99% of viewers leave a heart on a video, or almost 1 out of 20.

In order to earn 27001$ out of this, Ralph needs to obtain 823,867,689 hearts. You’ve read that right; hundreds of millions. Taking into account that 1 person out of 20 leaves a heart, it means that his videos would need to accumulate a total of… 16,509,909,120 views. Or, in short, over 16.5 billion views.

Oh, and like I said; this would have to be done in less than 8 HOURS.

Yesss's assistant showing Ralph a "taste"...
...of his near future.

This part has been way too long, so I’m gonna end here: The duo explains that they need to collect 27,001$. Yesss says that Ralph’s video is already passé, so Ralph decides he’s gonna copy everything that’s popular, do every meme, every challenge, every single thing that’s ever been popular on the platform, to gather the hearts and, thus, the money. Yesss decides to help him with her… studio, I guess? And her army of pop-up advertisements redirecting everyone on the Internet to Ralph’s videos.

To Part 3!