Wreck-it Ralph, Roger Rabbit for video games

So Wreck-It Ralph doesn't come out till November but it looks pretty swell and since we have no other action going on in this forum I thought why not post about it?

The long and short of it is it's a Disney CGI movie with a "Reboot" style premise where the characters inside the video games are alive and play their roles like it's a job. Although the main character comes from a fictional game, it features cameos by real game characters which as a nerd makes me very excited. Check out the trailer. Zangief cracks me up.

What does everyone think? Cool idea? No?

Reboot premise? I guess, though Toy Story seems a bit more apt coming from the House of Mouse.

Also, Bioware missed a trick by not having Jane Lynch voice FemShep.

I saw Paperboy in the background of the trailer!

Though, this movie looks fantastic. The director has also worked on a whole bunch of episodes of Simpsons, The Critic, Futurama, and Drawn Together. So expect some quality stuff.

Looks like they're trying to do Toy Story for the videogaming generation?

I'm not totally sold - the concept is nice, but the trailer didn't really hit it out of the park for me. The voice acting is a little bit bland, especially for Ralph. The art is pretty, but not amazingly so, and it's not terribly varied.

Yeah, I'll forgive him for the Drawn Together part Otherwise, a solid resume.

John C. Reilly is bland??

Here? Yes. It's not helped by the not-exactly inspired dialogue though. Does the support group scene look anything like as good as the one in Small Fry? :/

Zangief saying labels not make you happy.

bland

exciting

urrrrrrrrrrrrgh

you must love you

He's British. It is there way.

Well, the best (so far unfilmed) video-game-characters-being-real story is British...

Hell, I want that film. :|

Well The Game hopping by game sprites is like what Matrix and AndrAIa were doing across the net in their quest to find Bob and return to Mainframe.

It looks pretty cool and should be pretty fun to see all the old school game characters interacting with each other.

Would everyone please STOP TALKING ABOUT REBOOT?

The only season I want to watch is the ONLY season NOT on Netflix and Geekolinks never sent my my contest winning dvds!

I find the idea of Ralph annoyed at game violence, amusing.

Donkey Kong, the very character Ralph is inspired by, was created at a time when EVERY new game was about shooting and blowing up someone/something.

Literally, Donkey Kong was a gamble because game violence was all the rage at the time. Nintendo would have been a very different company without DK and the zoo keeper Mario. He should have known all about violent games. The only thing different is that video resolutions are higher now.

Ah yes, those awful and violent video games from 1981 like Galaga and Mrs Pacman

Nope.

I'm sure the Disney people are all thinking "Toy Story of video games" but anybody who's seen Reboot can't not make that association. Although technically I suppose Tron did it first.

Saw the trailer for this when I went to watch Brave (which I would recommend against watching, unless you really dig HAIR)...

Personally, I think this is a cool premise, and caught myself guffawing at a few of the jokes... Reilly can really nail the "misunderstood schlub" feel, but he CAN be rather bland, though if the trailer is any sign, it should still be a fine movie.

I'm wondering how much money it cost Disney to get all the different licensing rights for all the characters in the show... but then again, they're richer than God, so it's probably pennies compared to what they're used to paying...

This movie was dope. Loved Jane Lynch as Shepard Calhoun, and Alan Tudyk was phenomenal. And the ending credit sequence with all the various vintage video games styles was a lot of fun.

Also the short they played was pretty fantastic too, I can't wait to see what they do next with that animation technology.

It's been getting good reviews. I'll see it as soon as I get the chance. Can't wait!

Actually, I think Movie Bob is correct in pointing out how it is like Nightmare Before Christmas: A misunderstood loner has an existential crisis and goes on a "vision quest" to figure stuff out but in doing so causes more problems than anyone could have predicted. If you like Nightmare then you'll probably love this movie.

And I too think Calhoun is the stand out. Calhoun is an example of how badly video games treat characters like that stuck into a game that doesn't seem to really need that character but when "the game changes" how such a strong character is exactly what they need.

So crazy question: Was there a simple flash/unity game for Wreck-it-Ralph?

I recall some video game where you were a monster movie type monster destroying an apartment building. Or maybe you were trying to defeat those monsters, it was a long time ago.

The Wreck-it Ralph game reminded me a lot of that.

More generally:

Very Good.

(Carefully wording around spoilers.) I was feeling betrayed by the cliche near the end and vindicated when they subverted it.

It does a good job of invoking the ambiance of various different gaming styles/eras.

I was surprised by the reveal of the villain.

It gives the usual Aesops about tolerance and outcasts, of course. I liked the homeless characters part.

Calhoun was was great as the biggest Fish Out Of Genre.

Best line: [SPOILER]


"I'm not a glitch, I just have Pixlexia, OK?"

[/SPOILER]

Captain Button, the Fix-It Felix Jr. arcade game seems to be a mash up of Rampage (that's the monster game you're thinking of) and Donkey Kong. Or I guess just Donkey Kong since the player doesn't ever control Ralph.

About the movie, it was great great fun. Unlike Brave where you could see the whole plot coming after the first scene, Wreck-It surprises you several times and makes you really grow to care about the characters.

Fun cameo stuff:
-There's graffiti in Game Central Station that reads "Aeris Lives" which hits a double nerd ref score
-The flurry of arcade games in the beginning is amazing. TMNT ARCADE!
-Sonic is a big cheese ball these days, as represented well by the PSA
-This is the biggest "Oh I so need a screen shot of that" movie since Cabin in the Woods
-The FPS is a brilliant explanation, A++


Sooo much potential for a sequel, hopefully they retain the same love that permeated this one and just smarten up the script a little, Pixar style.

I only get one ref, to Final Fantasy VII, right? Never actually played it. What is the other one?

Thanks for identifying Rampage.

The second nerd ref is that there was graffiti in the London (I think) Underground saying that "Frodo Lives" which was the precursor to the Lord of the Rings books gaining their full renowned popularity. The positioning and wording of the graffiti suggests that, while the actually graffiti itself is obviously a reference to how many players couldn't quite believe Aeris (I love the crew for using this spelling and not the bizarre "Aerith" from more recent translations) had really died for real and that they couldn't get her back.

Now that I think about it, I haven't been happy with the last few Mario Karts so I would also like to see a Sugar Rush game!

I loved it. However I do have one complaint.

IN THE END CREDITS, SONIC IS IN CHEMICAL PLANT ZONE FROM SONIC 2 BUT THE BOSS IS FROM ANGEL ISLAND ZONE FROM SONIC 3.