Come on Ralph, you were just buying yourself a ticket to Fortnite with this.
Ralph is immediately put to work on the creation of as many viral videos as possible. The screaming goat, the ghost pepper challenge, ASMRs, makeup tutorials, dancing tutorials (including the floss – dammit, Ralph, that’s so 2018! It’s dated- Oh, right, this film came out in 2018), Bob Ross videos, commentary on videos of cute animals, cooking recipes… He even does bee puns! He’s become so big in such a short amount of time, even TV is talking about it! And, much like she promised, Yesss has put the entire program workforce of BuzzzTube to the task, her pop-ups traveling across the Internet to redirect everyone to Ralph’s content, to rack up as many views as possible. It’s a surprise Ralph even has time to take a break, with all the videos he has to make in record time.
You know, it’s strange to think about, but Ralph surprisingly doesn’t spend a lot of time in the movie metaphorically “breaking the Internet”. Something’s up.
Gotta admire how Yesss is in a different outfit in every new scene where she appears.
Vanellope thinks this looks fun and pesters Yesss to become a pop-up ad. The algorithm agrees, though unlike the regular pop-ups, she’ll be given royal treatment, using the blue lady’s own browser to reach destination. Ralph still fears for her well-being, but eventually agrees to let her do this. He does, however, chooses where she goes, moving her away from the gaming district (where Yesss originally wanted to send her), too close to Slaughter Race for the gentle giant’s tastes, and he instead redirects her to a family-friendly fansite.
Commence self-promotion!
Star Wars and Marvel definitely don't need the extra promotion. The Muppets should have gotten more.
Vanellope walks into Oh My Disney. This place is so big, it’s like visiting DisneyLand – except better. Disney’s properties coexist alongside Pixar, the Muppets, Star Wars and Marvel, all to remind you just how big and uncomfortable of a monopoly the company is starting to have over the entertainment industry (And they have acquired MORE since this film came out!). Vanellope sneaks into some of the activities to get users to click her pop-up. The “Which Princess Would Be Your BFF” quiz, the Q&A with Baby Groot…
"He's already told you three times that he was Groot. Look, this is Ralph, go check him out!"
By the way, fun fact about that one; in French, Groot says “Je s’appelle Groot”, a grammatically-incorrect phrase that would roughly translate to “I’s name is Groot”. In that segment, in the Quebec French version, Vanellope mimics Groot’s speech pattern as she gets a user to click on her pop-up, saying “I’s name is Vanellope”. I like when translations do jokes like that.
This movie is basically "Vanellope Gets Honorary Sisters: The Movie".
The girl gets in trouble with guards, so she flees through the backstage area and finds herself in the Princesses’ shared room. All fourteen of them get into attack mode, only to realize it’s just a kid. Upon the candy-haired child saying she’s a princess, the others quiz her on her experiences as a Princess. What do you know, Vanellope answers correctly to just enough questions to fit in with the group!
"I don't even have a mom!" "Neither do we!" All of these Princesses look entirely too happy about this. Vanellope's face is what sells it.
If this is what they're going to wear on their off-time, it begs the question; how do these characters get any off-time on the Internet? Their website is live... ...well, almost all the time, like all websites!
Upon noticing the kart racer’s clothes, the princesses are wowed, and set to make casual clothing for themselves to wear when they’re off-the-clock. Cinderella’s mice get to work, and… Oh, I’m so glad this movie made Casual Princesses a thing. I don’t know what it is about the change that appeals to me so much, I guess it’s because it makes all these women look like the “girl next door” type rather than the “unapproachable important person” type. (Why yes, in the Betty VS Veronica debate, I'm always Team Betty.) Ariel starts singing about these new clothes as if she had wanted them her whole life. Vanellope doesn’t get it, until the other princesses tell her to try to sing about what she really wants. That doesn’t work, but she’s told not to give up! On this, another quiz is about to start, so the princesses will have to resume work in their… er… uniforms.
We even get a Stan Lee cameo.
I’ve heard a lot of people complain that this entire segment is shameless self-promotion. Okay, I agree; it feels like an attempt to shove as many Disney properties in one place as possible, like a massive multiplayer crossover we’d never get otherwise. We get cameos from characters, both old and new, and some moments really feel like direct promotion for the company. In the story, this isn’t Disney’s website, but a highly-popular fan site. There is a little bit of payoff in the end for all this, as the Princesses show up again later, but even then, it sounds like them tooting their own horn.
Confirmed: Peter Pan's shadow is part of the cast at Oh My Disney. He probably stays in the shade.
That said, while it doesn’t take away entirely the sensation of shamelessness, Disney does use these scenes to poke fun at themselves, their fans (in a friendly manner, of course), and their most common story tropes. Like how so many Princesses don’t have moms. It also feels like the characters are, in some ways, similar to their original incarnations in previous Disney films, but also slightly different in personality and mannerisms – like I said, this is a fan site, so it’s not the actual princesses, but rather, inaccurate fandom interpretations of them.
A CGI reboot of House of Mouse this unfortunately wasn’t.
Don’t Read the Comments
"They're gonna watch MY stuff, not a dumb cat!" BTW, according to my calculations at the end of part 2, Ralph's goat video netted him about 500$.
Ralph is almost done with his task; and that’s good, as the eBoy notification shows up to tell him that his bid will expire in 30 minutes. But it’s alright, Yesss is uploading the last of his videos. A bee pun! (Yesss complains that those are popular on her site. You named your platform BuzzzTube. You brought it upon yourselves.) Yesss has tech issues and struggles to upload that video, so Ralph goes into the main area of the place to suck in a couple last hearts, even forcing people to watch his stuff.
He stumbles on an empty area and stumbles upon the comments section. Ralph reads a few positive ones, then many negative ones, and realizes that the negative outweigh the positive! Blasphemy! I’ve always wanted John C. Reilly voicing the goat that bleats like a chain smoker! To see so much spite for him on the Internet. Some of those are really nasty. It almost breaks his big heart.
There will always be complainers on the Internet, Ralph. Yes, irony duly noted that I'm one of them sometimes. But, always remember the little moments of laughter you gave to so many people with your videos.
Little piece of critique here; for the metaphor of the living Internet as a big city, websites had to be rethought as buildings, and for the most part, we saw BuzzzTube as a sort of nightclub, with the videos constantly on display. The comment sections is a separate area, away from prying eyes, with just a couple column screens showing the comments. What’s a normal video-sharing site like? The comments are below the video! That took me out of the immersion a bit. I admit that a metaphor like this has a lot of pieces that had to be accounted for, and some have to be modified to enhance the dramatic tension of the film. It would have made more sense if the comments were shown at every video in some way in the main room, but maybe that’s the only way they found to make this work.
They did get the whole “Don’t read the comments” part right, though. That’s a one-way ticket to sadness.
Even Yesss knows how rotten those can be at times.
...Well! Looks like Ralph's videos did get something like 18 billion views!
Yesss arrives and quotes that rule of the Internet verbatim, but also announces that with Ralph’s newest video, he did it – he collected the full amount of money he needed, and some extra! A grand total over 30K$! Hm, I wonder what he’s gonna do with the remaining 3,126$... Either way, he has saved Vanellope’s game, he can’t wait to tell her! Off to ebay, to pay for that wheel!
Wait, he was short on money and short on time not even four minutes ago, and in this little time he gathered more than three thousand dollars? Even with the platform’s stupid system? Let me refer you to my statement at the end of Part 2 that Hollywood doesn’t understand how video-sharing sites work, especially in regards to monetization.
Off to ebay, with eboy! If ebay ever needs a mascot...
Less Self-Promotion, More Self-Parody
"This is the only puddle I've found that reflected my image this well! Why isn't this working??"
Meanwhile, Vanellope has thought about what the Princesses of Oh My Disney have told her, and is looking at herself in a puddle, trying to figure out what she really wants. She gets a call from Ralph on the portable device they got from Yesss – this thing is nice, it emits holograms! Ralph tells her, and he looks so happy that he completed his mission. But Vanellope? She doesn’t seem so sure. Looking into the puddle again, she sees it – she finds herself in Slaughter Race. And she starts singing – a lot better than earlier.
"This is the edge I've always wanted!"
Vanellope would even have a mini-car all to herself! With candy skulls painted on!
This is the classic Disney Princess song about hopes and dreams, and Disney parodied every aspect of that borderline-tired trope of theirs in this musical number, the only one in the film. Instead of being cute, it’s set in an apocalyptic city with crime and crooks and danger everywhere. If you’ve seen enough of those “I Want” songs, you may feel that they’re… syrupy, for lack of a better word. It’s not that they sound the same, but the visuals associated to the theme tend to be very similar. The funny part is that Slaughter Race is bending over to comply with the usual images of an "I Want" song while retaining its "adult game" edge (sharks in sewers, tattoo artists, dumpsters on fire, flamethrowers, creepy clowns, actual explosions instead of fireworks… the list goes on).
For bonus points, this song was composed by Alan Menken, who did several of the great Disney songs. And as later scenes show, Vanellope isn’t just merely imagining these, either, as she drives later in the film the car that she gets during that musical number. The song ends with Vanellope seeing Ralph in the patterns of holes in the moon, and becomes unsure of what to do – she wants to stay in Slaughter Race, but knows that Ralph would disapprove.
...I might as well share the song,
No Villain?
Ah, the good old rule of drama that will lead to the inevitable fallout between friends and the Darkest Hour. Almost as inevitable in modern Disney as twist villains are.
Ralph has paid for the wheel and is ready to go home, and chats with Spamley outside of ebay for a bit. Overjoyed, he contacts Vanellope through the BuzzzTube smart devices. Her own device falls on a car seat and opens the call, but with Ralph muted – he, however, sees and hears everything. He sees Vanellope talking to Shank about her desire to stay in Slaughter Race, because she likes that she never knows what’s going to happen next and the street racing is so much more interesting. And all this, in spite of the massive amount of work Ralph put into saving her original game. (Also, wasn't it seen as a BAD thing to game-jump in the previous film?)
A heartbroken Ralph ends the call, with Spamley sympathizing at his side. However, soon, the big guy starts having an idea, one that will prove to be the worst he’s ever had; he will slow down Slaughter Race to bore Vanellope of it, so she’ll go back with him to the arcade. He remembers the virus in the TRON cabinet, and asks Spamley if he knows anyone who deals in viruses. Spamley does know someone… and thus, takes Ralph to the Dark Net.
Disney acknowledges the Dark Web as a place to buy stolen credit cards, social security numbers, and viruses. Thank God they don't talk about anything worse, like hitmen-for-hire. And there's even worse than that out there.
Oh, we’re really going there? Looks like we are. Holy crap, that's an extremely dark topic to even allude to in a Disney movie. Of course, we’re gonna skip all the really horrible stuff in the Dark Web, this highly-illegal, highly-criminal, everything-wrong-and-awful-about-humanity-can-be-received-or-requested-as-long-as-you-can-pay corner of the Internet that most people won't even see during their life. Spamley takes Ralph to Gord’s cousin Double Dan, a large slug-like creature with a second face in his neck, his “little brother”.
This guy is bigger than Ralph!
This film gets frequently mislabeled as having no villain; it does have one (and even two), it's Double Dan and his virus, if only because they are indirectly the cause of much of what happens afterwards (with Ralph being the main cause, due to what he requests of the slug guy). A villain alright, but one that doesn't directly antagonize the protagonists, nor is he connected to their story, aside from that one contribution.
I love the attention to detail: Note how "Arthur" the insecurity virus, released for demonstration, immediately fixates on Double Dan's "brother", which as we've seen makes Dan very insecure on a personal level.
Dan isn't even on-screen for five minutes, yet his role is major. I praised character designs in Part 1 of this review for a reason; I was building up to this. One thing that I love is when villains are a direct foil to the protagonist, in beliefs and in appearance. Double Dan is severely overprotective of his “little brother”, as it’s a living being that can’t defend itself or show any sort of personality or individuality, much less live on its own. A direct foil to the main conflict, in which Ralph is afraid of letting go of Vanellope, afraid that since she’s a complete individual with tastes that differ from his, they’ll grow apart.
....I kind of want a Wreck-It Ralph 3 where Double Dan is the main villain.
Ralph eventually explains his idea to Dan: Just slow the game, hurt nobody, make Slaughter Race boring. The slug-like thing has just what it takes; a worm-like virus he called Arthur. Dan explains that this is an insecurity virus; it will seek insecurities, AKA weak points in the coding, and copy it until the game is rendered unplayable, or “boring”. The big rule: Do NOT let it get out of the game. Ralph leaves with the virus, and as planned, releases it in Vanellope’s new favorite place.
Good Job, Ralph
The place is going crazy!
Vanellope was participating in a mission, aiding Shank and her gang against a gamer doing a single-player mission, when it happened. (By the way, how unfair does Vanellope make the game against human players now that Shank’s gang has TWO ace drivers?) Arthur hadn’t found any flaws in the coding until it studied Vanellope and saw her own insecurities about Ralph… which tend to trigger her glitch. It proceeds to copy Vanellope’s glitch onto buildings of the city, and over and over, to the point where even the outside of the building on the Internet is glitching. Ralph realizes this, and since the game is about to be rebooted to remove the glitches, he has a very short window of time to save his friend.
Once again, we’re given a very arbitrary time limit (60 seconds) for something that would realistically take much longer to achieve (rescuing someone). This movie has a lot of time-based problems.
Just in time! It's always just in time.
You did bad things to keep her around forever. Now you may have lost her forever. Great job, Ralph.
The big guy finds his best friend, fainted in her car, under a toppled building, and takes her out of the online game just in time. After she regains consciousness, she blames herself for glitching the game. While trying to reassure her, Ralph inadvertently admits to releasing the virus himself. They have an argument, Vanellope gets mad, snaps the little candy heart pendant (which she had made for him during the previous movie) off his neck, and tosses it to the depths of the Internet before leaving, heartbroken.
Oh, Ralph, you fucked up. Big time. Mind, the movie never tries to show him in the right, either. It's genuinely the worst thing he could have done and it's treated as such. And that’s not counting Arthur the worm virus, which has escaped Slaughter Race. It studies Ralph, sees his extreme insecurities, and starts copying them across the Internet…
Uh oh. Things are about to get horrifying. And what a coincidence, Halloween is tomorrow!
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