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81scorp · 4 years

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My thoughts on Wreck-it Ralph 2

(Originally posted on Deviantart June 27, 2018)

I know what you`re thinking. Isn`t it too early to talk about a movie that hasn`t even come out yet and that we`ve only seen two trailers of so far?* Yes, yes it is. But I`m gonna do it anyway. And technically, by internet standard I`m not too early. More than a few people before me have already published editorials or videos or other form of reactions where they`ve picked apart, nitpicked, overreacted or in other ways jumped to conclusions about things they don`t know enough about. By internet standard I`m pretty late to the party. Grin like a moron and giggle like an idiot Not gonna lie, part of... ("part of?" Oh who am I kidding?) The reason I`m writing this is because of the scene where Vanellope meets the Disney Princesses. Like most of you I read about this online and it became this movie`s "too fun to miss" thing for me. When the first Wreck-it Ralph movie came out I was on the fence about seeing it, but then I saw a pic from the Bad anon meeting and I felt that a movie with a scene where several famous videogame badguys (like M. Bison, Eggman and Bowser) go to a support group seemed too fun to miss. I had a similar thing with Guardians of the Galaxy where the idea of a talking, machinegun-wielding racoon in a Marvel movie was the "too fun to miss" thing. After that the next movie with a "too fun to miss" thing was Moana, because I did not want to miss the chance of seeing Dwayne Johnson in a Disney musical. Not gonna lie, when I first read that the Disney Princesses where gonna show up together in Wreck-it Ralph 2 I grinned like a moron and giggled like an idiot. One comment I`ve heard somewhere about this scene is that what it does is not very new or original since Enchanted did the whole "Disney poking fun at itself" first, years ago. Another comment is that people have been making Disney crossovers in fanfics and fan art for years and that Disney themselves are pretty damn late when it comes to doing it themselves. Yeah, and? First: People seem to think that something has to be new or original to be good. While originality is a good thing it is not always necessary. Something that is not original can be good if you do something interesting and creative with it. Before Toy story there was a tv movie where toys came to life. It also had a protagonist, who was the favorite toy, that had to deal with a newcomer who was a sci-fi action-figure who didn`t know that they, themself were a toy. It`s called The Christmas toy, made by Eric Till and Jim Henson. It came out 1986 and it`s existence does not make Toy story worse. Toy story does more with the "living toys" idea than The Christmas toy did and it was funnier. Second: Yeah, it`s a little late. But better late than never. Press start button for hero`s journey As much as the princess scene is the biggest reason I want to see this movie, my common sense told me that this is only gonna be one scene that most likely will only take two minutes max of the movie`s runtime. And no, I`m not one of those who wonders "Where`s Kida? Where`s Meg? Where`s Eilonwy?" Because I`m reasonable. You can`t put everyone who has two X chromosomes in the Princess lineup. But Moana`s in the room with the other princesses and she`s not in the official lineup. Most likely because animated movies take a long time to make and the filmmakers probably assumed that she would be included in the lineup by the time the first trailer premiered. Personally I don`t mind, because Moana`s awesome. But it would be fun if Kida, Meg and Eilonwy at least got a small cameo, like Chun Li and Cammy got in the first movie. It would be a nice way for the filmmakers to show that they remember the little ones. But this is not a movie about Ralph and Vanellope meeting the princesses, it`s a movie about Ralph and Vanellope travelling the internet and doing so for a reason. If you`ve read the plot synopsis you know that someting in Vanellope`s game breaks down and they can only get a replacement for it somewhere on the internet. I have a few predictions (most of them will probably be wrong) and a few hopes (most of them will probably not happen) about where this film is going. This film may take inspiration from Homer`s The Odyssey and the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Both are stories where the protagonist goes on a challenging journey filled with obstacles and dangers. And, since it is implied in the title that there will be some degree of destruction: National Lampoon`s European Vacation. Maybe the movie will have some commentary about internet culture and how much time we spend online? Maybe. These are the thoughts I had before the release of the second trailer. Here are the thoughts I had after I saw it. When princesses attack or: How I learned to stop worrying too much and be OK with what I saw I have to admit that I like the Disney Princesses scene... But I also have mixed feelings about it. Part of it is the design, I would have preferred it if they had been closer to their original design. I`m not saying that the 2D princesses should have been in 2D but I would have liked if their 3D form had been more directly translated from their original versions. I can however understand why they changed it. The "real life" humans in this world don`t look very close to us in their design, they are slightly stylized and caricatured. To put a fictional character that looks closer to us in their world would make them stand out a little. However, there are only two of the princesses that are made to look as close to real people as possible in the princess lineup: Snowwhite and Cinderella. So maybe you could tweak their design a little while leaving the rest of the 2D princesses the same (just translated to 3D) and leave the 3D princesses untouched. But then again, changing only two characters from their iconic look that the public is used to and leave the rest with their iconic looks unchanged would probably create a feeling of inconsistency. Their classic looks, while not drawn by the same artist and therefor not very consistent in artstyle, are familiar to us and we like familiarity so we overlook the inconsistency. And technically, Disney has kinda built their brand on familiarity. Personally I believe that it could have been funnier if they had looked closer to their original designs while acting like they did in the trailer. It`s similar to David Zucker`s first rule of comedy: deliver a funny line with a serious face. I wouldn`t mind if they had compromised and gone 50/50 between the classical designs and the WiR 2 designs. Another option is to keep the WiR2 designs and only change one thing: Cinderella`s hair. They have kept the most distinguishing features from the old classics in their new designs so that you can recognize them despite the new look, except Cinderella`s hair. In the classic version her hair was more of (for lack of a better word to discribe it) a curve. Here it`s just an ordinary hairbun, not as iconic or recognizable. She can keep her ears but don`t lose the hair curve. *** It`s similar to the Doctor`s Tardis in Dr Who, sure, it`s an old look but it makes it more recognizable and timeless. And While we`re on the subject: yes, they made Merida`s eyes a little too big. And then the jokes. The jokes were fine. I especially found it funny when Punzie and Belle asked Vanellope with great interest if she`d ever been kidnapped or enslaved and Vanellope wondered if she should call the police. About this line from the trailer: Rapunzel: Do people assume all your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up? Vanellope: Yes! What is up with that? It`s technically not bad, it`s just that the feminist commentary in he trailer to The Lego Movie 2 was funnier. Sweet Mayhem: This guy was a fierce warrior? Wyldstyle: Okay, well, technically, *I* did the warrior stuff, but... Sweet Mayhem: So you fought, and master built, and kicked butt, and then the hapless male was the leader. Wyldstyle: He, uh... Well... The commentary in WiR 2 just felt like, exactly that, a commentary. One that was very light on the funny. But what if you don`t compare it to lines from other movies? What if you just focus on how it works in it`s own? Still not as good as Vanellope`s "Should I call the police?" line. But does it have to be funny? Not necessarily, but things being funny in a comedy is always appreciated. Oh well, at least it`s better than the forced strawfeminist commentary from the Emoji movie. People on the net have brought up complaints like: "It`s just a bunch of product placement!" and "The Disney princesses are out of character!" First: Yes, but the first movie had product placement too. Remember "Nesquiksand"? or "Oreo, Oreeo". Then again: In the first one the product placement was cleverly delivered in joke form. What we`ve seen so far from the trailer, when it comes to product placement, the jokey delivery is very light to pretty much absent. Second: Yes, the princesses are out of character, you know who else is? Ralph. He`s the bad guy in his game but when he`s not on the clock he`s a nice guy. Can`t the princesses be similar? Kind and gentle in their own movies but capable of being mean in the "real world"? They are fictional characters with self awareness after all. Then again: The princess jokes in the trailer felt a bit generalizing and seemed at times almost close to Shrek humor. Mel Brooks once said: "You have to love the thing you parody". Shrek was built on Jeffrey Katzenberg`s hate towards Michael Eisner (The CEO of Disney at the time.) and many of the jokes were meant to be a big middlefinger to Disney. Poking fun at Disney is fine but don`t try to be Shrek. But isn`t all this just nitpicking? Yes, yes it is. But I like nitpicking! I guess I expected it to be something more, something bigger. But why did I do that? Is it because The filmmakers themselves made such a big deal about it on the D23 expo? "Guess what, in our next movie we`re gonna have all the Disney princesses interact with Vanellope! We even have all the original living voice actresses coming back to reprise their roles! Isn`t that awesome?! Let`s have them all come up on stage! Come on! Big applause!" Maybe it is or maybe it`s because I heard about the scene but never saw it and it made me create many possible scenarios in my mind of how it could play out. It`s like that feeling you get when you watch a movie based on a book you like and feel that this is not how you imagined it. Or maybe I`m just spoiled by Kingdom Hearts and Pocket Princesses.** First I wondered if it was such a good idea to show the princess scene in the second trailer but in hindsight I realize that it is. By releasing the scene six months before the movie comes out, all those grumpy people that complain about their design will have had enough time to get used to it by the time it premieres. At least if they are reasonable grumpy people. Lies, damn lies and movie trailers Mark Twain is rumored to be one of the people to have said that there are three kinds of lies: "Lies, damn lies, and statistics". But you can also add "movie trailer" to that list. One of the best ways to give people the wrong idea of what your movie`s gonna be about is to be very selective with what you show in the trailer. One example is Tangled: The trailer made it look passable and filled with nothing but slapstick, but the movie itself turned out to be genuinely good. Another example is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The trailer made it look cool and badass but the movie as a whole was just uninspired, rushed and disappointing. The phrases "What we`ve seen so far from the trailer" and "The princess jokes in the trailer" are there for me to remind myself (and others) that we don`t know the whole picture yet. The princess jokes we haven`t seen yet could be funnier than those we have seen. (...Or they could be worse.) It`s possible that they`ve shown most of the movie`s product placement in the trailers already. And the product placement that`s left could be delivered in a jokey way or not be very intrusive or important to the plot. I think that the filmmakers (most of the time at least) knew what they were doing, otherwise they would have had Ralph and Vanellope ask a real life search engine, like Google, for directions instead of Knowsmore. Speaking of that scene: Disney is not a stranger to altering scenes in their trailers to fool us. Once again an example from Tangled: the scene from one of the trailers where Eugene sneaks into Rapunzel`s tower and has a fight with her hair was not in the movie. So the scene with Knowsmore could go something like this: A: Vanellope doesn`t ask him to take them to a crazy fun place but instead to a place where they can find the missing piece to her game. B: Vanellope asks him to take them to a crazy fun place and he directs them to Buzztube where they meet Yesss. There are of course more possibilities but those two were the only ones I could think of. I`m cautiously optimistic about this movie. I think that`s all I had to say. Now, if you excuse me, I just finished making one hundred pancakes and I`m gonna feed them all to my pet bunny. Feel free to disagree but try to keep it civil. *At least by the time I`m writing this **Kingdom Hearts because they do more faithful 2D to 3D translations and Pocket princesses because it has better characterbased Disney Princess jokes.

***After repeated viewings of this scene I saw that they technically did try to preserve as much as possible of her hair curve in the new design. It just looked like an ordinary hair bun in the offical stills. My mistake.

#81scorp

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