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spiderbraids(2022 update: After finishing up on reposting my Big Hero 6 recap, I noticed the tag for my reposts had one fewer post than the original... and after checking it turns out I must have been impatient to get to the Tudyk that I forgot to post the actual 2nd part for Wreck-it Ralph, and mis-posted part 3 as part 2 and so on... So here's the actual 2nd part :-))
It's a beautiful morning outside Litwak's Family Fun Center, as the proprietor switches on the Open sign and opens the door for his young patrons (plus one adult ;-)) while over in Hero's Duty, the soldiers and Ralph arrive in a sleek train, with a "quarter alert" sign flashing in the BG. Ralph's excited about getting his ginormous hands on that shiny medal...
...as we cut to the arcade, where we see a hand insert a couple quarters and hit the start button. In a bit of a break from the norm, it's a girl (who could pass for a younger and slightly dorkier Honey Lemon :-)) who's playing today. Dennis "the Allstate guy" Haysbert provides narration as the machine releases a bit of fog for atmosphere (seriously???): "On a planet with no name, a top secret experiment has gone horribly wrong. You are humanity's last hope." Said experiment resulted in monstrous insects being created. Huh.
In the game Ralph trips over a step and drops his gun, but recovers quickly, as a female drill sergeant (!) gives a peptalk: "Fear is a four letter word, ladies. If you wanna go pee-pee in your big boy slacks, keep it to yourself! It’s make-your-mamas-proud time!" And who better to give a speech like that than Glee's Sue Sylvester herself, Jane Lynch? ;-) We don't get a namedrop for her until the epilogue, so we'll just name her right here: Sergeant Calhoun is about as tough as she is attractive :-) Plus, her outfit manages to keep her gorgeous AND still be practical at the same time (try saying that about most real games ;-))
Anyways, a robodrone representing the First Person Shooter rolls into the waiting area, as Calhoun puts on her helmet to greet Not!Honey and explain the mission: "Destroy all Cybugs." Ralph's enthusiasm drops like a lead balloon when he sees what he's up against: a desolate bug-infested landscape that's a Farcry (;-)) from his usual Felix surroundings, also with some really big Cybugs on the prowl to watch out for. Hilarity (and a Skrillex jam) ensues, as Ralph runs around blindly while Calhoun gives the player a running tutorial, which also doubles as important exposition for the viewers: "These monsters become what they eat." Case in point: Cybug eats Ralph's gun, Cybug sprouts guns, Cybug chases Ralph with guns :-) Ralph is also icked out by a Cybug laying its eggs ("Something's coming out of their bottoms" :-D) and getting splattered by their slime after the FPS shoots those eggs... and Not!Honey seems slightly bewildered by his reactions, as we find out that Ralph pilfered his outfit from a guy named Markowski (not entirely coincidentally, the name of the guy who storyboarded this sequence) as Calhoun nudges him back into formation :-D
Anyways, Calhoun tells the FPS that the lab entrance is straight ahead, prompting Ralph to pull a Leroy Jenkins and rush in, claiming sanctuary (a la Hunchback of Notre Dame... pretty odd choice of movie to kinda reference, eh?) and then he sees another wave of bugs rushing at him :-D Ralph grabs the FPS drone and hilariously laments at its screen: "I thought this was going to be like Centipede! When did video games become so violent and scary?" prompting a utterly befuddled look from Not!Honey :-D Ralph then basically shoves the FPS into an incoming Cybug, bringing Not!Honey's game to a swift end :-D
Ralph continues to tussle with a Cybug for a while after the end of the game, until a large beam of light appears above the big tower, attracting the Cybugs to their demise (a really huge bug light zapper, basically). After the respawning of the fallen soldiers and the FPS (who seems a bit ticked off at Ralph), Calhoun walks over to "Markowski", gives him a good slapping, and tells him about the first rule of Hero's Duty, and it's not you do not talk about Hero's Duty ;-) "Never interfere with the first person shooter. Our job is to get the gamers to the top of that building so they can get a medal, and that’s it." As Calhoun and her posse head back to the starting position, Ralph eyes the tower...
...as we cut back to Not!Honey eyeing Sugar Rush, with its bright colors, J-Pop theme music, and new racers daily. We'll be spending a good amount of time in this game, but for now, two boys knock her quarter off the machine with a big roll of quarters, saying they're planning to play with all 9 racers today, because if a girl can play an FPS, what's stopping boys from playing a girl-oriented racing game? ;-)
This moment of gender-bending in gaming brought to you by Subway :-)
(Disney Screencaps)
She notices the Felix cabinet and decides to play that instead... Clink-clink... Building goes up, Nicelanders go in... and the "I’M GONNA WRECK IT!" word balloon pops up above Ralph's usual spot. Mary finds it quite contrary to the norm that Ralph's nit here to do the wrecking, but Gene has everyone stick to the program. Felix is confounded by the lack of wreckage, as Not!Honey makes him jump to various windows and try to fix non-existent damage. Eventually, Felix decides to take matters into his own hands and climbs off the building (making the joystick on the machine move on its own) and totters off screen to look for Ralph at the dump without success. Not!Honey informs the proprietor, the eponymous Litwak (things I never noticed in standard definition: his name tag giving his first name as Stan :-)), about the problem, and he sees the Nicelanders running around like mad. "Looks like the game’s gone cuckoo...like my Nana." After refunding her a quarter, he decides he's going to have someone look at it tomorrow, before plastering an Out of Order sign over the screen, ominously casting an orange hue all over the game.
This prompts the Nicelanders to panic, but Felix thinks Ralph "probably fell asleep in the washing room at Tapper's again" :-D Felix hears the train trolley arriving at the station, so they head over to the station and encounter Q*Bert. Felix's Q*Bertese is a little rusty, but he realizes that Ralph's jumped ship... or as the in-story jargon calls it, Gone Turbo :-0
Back in Hero's Duty, Ralph is out of Markowski's armor and climbing to the top of the tower on the outside, spotting the medal on the topmost floor: "Ooh, shiny..." Back on the ground, we hear an announcement that the arcade is closed, and Calhoun's posse is talking about Markowski when she hears a distinctive electronic bouncing noise, mistakes it for being a Cybug and opens fire. Felix jumps out of the way of the gunshots right into Calhoun's posse, and she promptly kicks him down. Felix introduces himself, and he's amazed at the high definition of Calhoun's face :-D So anyways, Felix states his business about looking for Ralph, but Calhoun asserts "Nothing gets past me." Considering how generally dark the game is (not just in tone, but in lighting as well), you'd think it'd be hard for Calhoun to notice things... Sure enough, they hear a thud coming from the tower...
Ralph punches through the top floor window, revealing a floor full of Cybug eggs. Ralph tiptoes through the eggs (not an easy feat considering how big his feet are) before arriving at the center and triggering a holographic image of Dennis Haysbert's general congratulating him and bestowing him with the Medal of Heroes. Ralph imagines his life with the medal, which includes cake, dancing in Gene's penthouse, and Gene getting evicted to the dump :-D As Haysbert goes on a spiel about heroics and Ralph is walking past a row of holographic soldiers saluting him, he accidentally steps on and hatches a Cybug egg, leading to the hilarious juxtaposing of Haysbert talking about grace under pressure... and Ralph blindly (I mean literally blindly, since the bug's attached himself to his face) running around the top floor :-D until eventually stumbling into an escape pod. Pod flies off and in slow motion, we see it fly past Felix and Calhoun on its way out of Hero's Duty. Felix is concerned about Ralph, but what's worrying Calhoun is the Cybug stowaway...
So anyways, Ralph and the Cybug fight in the escape pod as it bounces around Game Central Station (much to the surprise of the surge protector and Q*Bert's gang) until eventually flying into Sugar Rush (knocking over Sonic on the way) and ultimately crashing on a cliff covered in frosting. Ralph and the Cybug get ejected from the pod into a forest of candy cane trees, with the Cybug falling and sinking into a pool of green goo ("Sayonara sucker!" :-D) Ralph checks out his surroundings and realizes that a) he's in "that candy go-kart game over by the whack a mole", and b) his medal is missing. He quickly finds it hanging on top of another tree in the middle of another pool of green goo, so he jumps across a conveniently placed row of gumdrops and starts climbing the tree... until he's suddenly startled by the voice of Sarah Silverman and slides down the tree :-D
Ralph looks around and sees a girl in an aqua green hoodie with candy in her ponytailed black hair. "You scared me, kid! I nearly soiled myself!" Ralph introduces himself, and comes up with the cover story that he's from the candy tree department to do maintenance. In an amusing bit of foreshadowing, Ralph climbs past the girl, only to suddenly see and hear her from a completely different direction on another branch, asking "Are you a hobo?" The girl soon starts mimicking Ralph and Ralph gets tired of it and continues climbing, and soon outs himself as not being from the candy tree department when he grabs a double stripe branch, which suddenly breaks, making him fall a couple branches. "Double stripes break, ga-doi :-)" Girl notices Ralph's big hands and asks "Why are your hands so freakishly big?" Ralph: "I don't know, why are you so freakishly annoying?" :-D The girl then suddenly notices the medal and decides to race Ralph to the top of the tree for it, leading to a hilariously wacky chase between the two, which ends with the medal ending up in the girl's possession and Ralph hanging from the bottommost branch of the tree.
Ralph comes clean about not being from the candy tree department and the girl chides him for lying to a child while polishing the medal. Ralph: "But I wasn't lying about the medal. That is my medal. That’s why I was climbing the tree. It’s mine. It’s precious to me. That thing’s my ticket to a better life." The girl responds that it's hers now, but as she's doing so she briefly breaks up into cubes like a bad DTV reception, bewildering Ralph. Oh, and the branch Ralph is hanging from is also a double stripe, so he ends up falling into the green goo, as the girl heads off with Ralph's medal...
Coming up: Enter the Tudyk :-)
(2022 update: Right here :-))
It's a beautiful morning outside Litwak's Family Fun Center, as the proprietor switches on the Open sign and opens the door for his young patrons (plus one adult ;-)) while over in Hero's Duty, the soldiers and Ralph arrive in a sleek train, with a "quarter alert" sign flashing in the BG. Ralph's excited about getting his ginormous hands on that shiny medal...
...as we cut to the arcade, where we see a hand insert a couple quarters and hit the start button. In a bit of a break from the norm, it's a girl (who could pass for a younger and slightly dorkier Honey Lemon :-)) who's playing today. Dennis "the Allstate guy" Haysbert provides narration as the machine releases a bit of fog for atmosphere (seriously???): "On a planet with no name, a top secret experiment has gone horribly wrong. You are humanity's last hope." Said experiment resulted in monstrous insects being created. Huh.
In the game Ralph trips over a step and drops his gun, but recovers quickly, as a female drill sergeant (!) gives a peptalk: "Fear is a four letter word, ladies. If you wanna go pee-pee in your big boy slacks, keep it to yourself! It’s make-your-mamas-proud time!" And who better to give a speech like that than Glee's Sue Sylvester herself, Jane Lynch? ;-) We don't get a namedrop for her until the epilogue, so we'll just name her right here: Sergeant Calhoun is about as tough as she is attractive :-) Plus, her outfit manages to keep her gorgeous AND still be practical at the same time (try saying that about most real games ;-))
Anyways, a robodrone representing the First Person Shooter rolls into the waiting area, as Calhoun puts on her helmet to greet Not!Honey and explain the mission: "Destroy all Cybugs." Ralph's enthusiasm drops like a lead balloon when he sees what he's up against: a desolate bug-infested landscape that's a Farcry (;-)) from his usual Felix surroundings, also with some really big Cybugs on the prowl to watch out for. Hilarity (and a Skrillex jam) ensues, as Ralph runs around blindly while Calhoun gives the player a running tutorial, which also doubles as important exposition for the viewers: "These monsters become what they eat." Case in point: Cybug eats Ralph's gun, Cybug sprouts guns, Cybug chases Ralph with guns :-) Ralph is also icked out by a Cybug laying its eggs ("Something's coming out of their bottoms" :-D) and getting splattered by their slime after the FPS shoots those eggs... and Not!Honey seems slightly bewildered by his reactions, as we find out that Ralph pilfered his outfit from a guy named Markowski (not entirely coincidentally, the name of the guy who storyboarded this sequence) as Calhoun nudges him back into formation :-D
Anyways, Calhoun tells the FPS that the lab entrance is straight ahead, prompting Ralph to pull a Leroy Jenkins and rush in, claiming sanctuary (a la Hunchback of Notre Dame... pretty odd choice of movie to kinda reference, eh?) and then he sees another wave of bugs rushing at him :-D Ralph grabs the FPS drone and hilariously laments at its screen: "I thought this was going to be like Centipede! When did video games become so violent and scary?" prompting a utterly befuddled look from Not!Honey :-D Ralph then basically shoves the FPS into an incoming Cybug, bringing Not!Honey's game to a swift end :-D
Ralph continues to tussle with a Cybug for a while after the end of the game, until a large beam of light appears above the big tower, attracting the Cybugs to their demise (a really huge bug light zapper, basically). After the respawning of the fallen soldiers and the FPS (who seems a bit ticked off at Ralph), Calhoun walks over to "Markowski", gives him a good slapping, and tells him about the first rule of Hero's Duty, and it's not you do not talk about Hero's Duty ;-) "Never interfere with the first person shooter. Our job is to get the gamers to the top of that building so they can get a medal, and that’s it." As Calhoun and her posse head back to the starting position, Ralph eyes the tower...
...as we cut back to Not!Honey eyeing Sugar Rush, with its bright colors, J-Pop theme music, and new racers daily. We'll be spending a good amount of time in this game, but for now, two boys knock her quarter off the machine with a big roll of quarters, saying they're planning to play with all 9 racers today, because if a girl can play an FPS, what's stopping boys from playing a girl-oriented racing game? ;-)
This moment of gender-bending in gaming brought to you by Subway :-)
(Disney Screencaps)
She notices the Felix cabinet and decides to play that instead... Clink-clink... Building goes up, Nicelanders go in... and the "I’M GONNA WRECK IT!" word balloon pops up above Ralph's usual spot. Mary finds it quite contrary to the norm that Ralph's nit here to do the wrecking, but Gene has everyone stick to the program. Felix is confounded by the lack of wreckage, as Not!Honey makes him jump to various windows and try to fix non-existent damage. Eventually, Felix decides to take matters into his own hands and climbs off the building (making the joystick on the machine move on its own) and totters off screen to look for Ralph at the dump without success. Not!Honey informs the proprietor, the eponymous Litwak (things I never noticed in standard definition: his name tag giving his first name as Stan :-)), about the problem, and he sees the Nicelanders running around like mad. "Looks like the game’s gone cuckoo...like my Nana." After refunding her a quarter, he decides he's going to have someone look at it tomorrow, before plastering an Out of Order sign over the screen, ominously casting an orange hue all over the game.
This prompts the Nicelanders to panic, but Felix thinks Ralph "probably fell asleep in the washing room at Tapper's again" :-D Felix hears the train trolley arriving at the station, so they head over to the station and encounter Q*Bert. Felix's Q*Bertese is a little rusty, but he realizes that Ralph's jumped ship... or as the in-story jargon calls it, Gone Turbo :-0
Back in Hero's Duty, Ralph is out of Markowski's armor and climbing to the top of the tower on the outside, spotting the medal on the topmost floor: "Ooh, shiny..." Back on the ground, we hear an announcement that the arcade is closed, and Calhoun's posse is talking about Markowski when she hears a distinctive electronic bouncing noise, mistakes it for being a Cybug and opens fire. Felix jumps out of the way of the gunshots right into Calhoun's posse, and she promptly kicks him down. Felix introduces himself, and he's amazed at the high definition of Calhoun's face :-D So anyways, Felix states his business about looking for Ralph, but Calhoun asserts "Nothing gets past me." Considering how generally dark the game is (not just in tone, but in lighting as well), you'd think it'd be hard for Calhoun to notice things... Sure enough, they hear a thud coming from the tower...
Ralph punches through the top floor window, revealing a floor full of Cybug eggs. Ralph tiptoes through the eggs (not an easy feat considering how big his feet are) before arriving at the center and triggering a holographic image of Dennis Haysbert's general congratulating him and bestowing him with the Medal of Heroes. Ralph imagines his life with the medal, which includes cake, dancing in Gene's penthouse, and Gene getting evicted to the dump :-D As Haysbert goes on a spiel about heroics and Ralph is walking past a row of holographic soldiers saluting him, he accidentally steps on and hatches a Cybug egg, leading to the hilarious juxtaposing of Haysbert talking about grace under pressure... and Ralph blindly (I mean literally blindly, since the bug's attached himself to his face) running around the top floor :-D until eventually stumbling into an escape pod. Pod flies off and in slow motion, we see it fly past Felix and Calhoun on its way out of Hero's Duty. Felix is concerned about Ralph, but what's worrying Calhoun is the Cybug stowaway...
So anyways, Ralph and the Cybug fight in the escape pod as it bounces around Game Central Station (much to the surprise of the surge protector and Q*Bert's gang) until eventually flying into Sugar Rush (knocking over Sonic on the way) and ultimately crashing on a cliff covered in frosting. Ralph and the Cybug get ejected from the pod into a forest of candy cane trees, with the Cybug falling and sinking into a pool of green goo ("Sayonara sucker!" :-D) Ralph checks out his surroundings and realizes that a) he's in "that candy go-kart game over by the whack a mole", and b) his medal is missing. He quickly finds it hanging on top of another tree in the middle of another pool of green goo, so he jumps across a conveniently placed row of gumdrops and starts climbing the tree... until he's suddenly startled by the voice of Sarah Silverman and slides down the tree :-D
Ralph looks around and sees a girl in an aqua green hoodie with candy in her ponytailed black hair. "You scared me, kid! I nearly soiled myself!" Ralph introduces himself, and comes up with the cover story that he's from the candy tree department to do maintenance. In an amusing bit of foreshadowing, Ralph climbs past the girl, only to suddenly see and hear her from a completely different direction on another branch, asking "Are you a hobo?" The girl soon starts mimicking Ralph and Ralph gets tired of it and continues climbing, and soon outs himself as not being from the candy tree department when he grabs a double stripe branch, which suddenly breaks, making him fall a couple branches. "Double stripes break, ga-doi :-)" Girl notices Ralph's big hands and asks "Why are your hands so freakishly big?" Ralph: "I don't know, why are you so freakishly annoying?" :-D The girl then suddenly notices the medal and decides to race Ralph to the top of the tree for it, leading to a hilariously wacky chase between the two, which ends with the medal ending up in the girl's possession and Ralph hanging from the bottommost branch of the tree.
Ralph comes clean about not being from the candy tree department and the girl chides him for lying to a child while polishing the medal. Ralph: "But I wasn't lying about the medal. That is my medal. That’s why I was climbing the tree. It’s mine. It’s precious to me. That thing’s my ticket to a better life." The girl responds that it's hers now, but as she's doing so she briefly breaks up into cubes like a bad DTV reception, bewildering Ralph. Oh, and the branch Ralph is hanging from is also a double stripe, so he ends up falling into the green goo, as the girl heads off with Ralph's medal...
Coming up: Enter the Tudyk :-)
(2022 update: Right here :-))
