STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM “Wreck-It Ralph”

Ever wondered what kind of lives the characters in video games live when you’re not looking? Sometimes, they want to be considered more than what they’re designed to be.

Directed by Rich Moore, screenplay by Phil Johnston & Jennifer Lee, and story by Moore & Johnston & Jim Reardon, Wreck-It Ralph is the story of Wreck-It Ralph, the bad guy of an arcade game, Fix-It Felix. Ralph is tired of being the bad guy, so he game hops into another game to get a medal, an item that symbolizes a hero in the Fix-It Felix game.

However, he loses the medal when he ends up in another game, where it’s stolen by a character from that game, Vanellope von Schweetz, who wants to use a medal as an entry token for a race she wants to participate in. Ralph and Vanellope realize that they can help each other, forming an unlikely friendship.

Let’s talk about the concept alone. It’s freaking brilliant. Video game characters in an arcade having their own lives? They can talk to each other? They can go into each other’s games? There’s a hub where all of them can hang out like it’s Grand Central Station?

But a story is more than just its concept. How’s the story? Ralph is a character that anyone can relate to when it comes to being stuck in a role or position and no one will see otherwise. He’s very disrespected; he’s a “bad guy” and that’s all he’ll ever be. He even causes even more chaos when he tries to prove he’s more than that.

When we and Ralph first meet Vanellope, she seems to be a misfit also. She wants to be a racer, but none of the other characters thinks she’s a troublemaker capable of destroying the whole game.

Production design is very clever, using the games as a basis of what the world would look like from the character’s point of view. The hub is the electric outlet where all games’ cords are plugged in.

I was aware of the film when the trailer came out, and possibly even before then when the concept of the film was announced. It’s hard to keep this kind of film a secret when so many real video game characters make cameo appearances.

Wreck-It Ralph is a film that reaches within the gamer’s nostalgia while still telling its own story. In fact, the main focus is the story and the characters. In true Disney fashion, it manages to do drama and sets up its stakes very well.