Atlantis 3: Wreck-It Ralph

Atlantis 3: Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated family-action comedy film produced by Aardman Animations and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 52nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film was directed by Rich Moore, who has directed episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama, and the screenplay was written by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston from a story by Moore, Johnston and Jim Reardon.

Plot
At night, when Litwak's Arcade closes, the various video game characters congregate in Game Central Station, through the power cables. In the game Fix-It Felix, Jr., the characters celebrate the game’s titular hero, but shun its villain, Wreck-It Ralph. At a support group for video game villains, Ralph reveals he doesn’t want to be a bad guy anymore. Returning to his own game, Ralph finds the other characters celebrating their game’s anniversary and that he was not invited. Felix reluctantly invites Ralph to join them, but the others shun him, saying he’d have to win a medal, just as Felix does. While visiting Tapper, Ralph meets Markowski, a soldier from the first-person shooter game Hero's Duty, who tells him the game’s winner receives a medal. Ralph enters the game, and encounters Sergeant Calhoun, its no-nonsense leader. Between games, Ralph climbs the game’s central beacon, which happened to be filled with the eggs of Cy-Bugs (bug-like enemies), and collects the medal. However, he accidentally hatches a Cy-Bug that clings to him. During his panic to get the Cy-Bug larva off, he stumbles into a nearby escape pod that launches him out of the game. Meanwhile, Ralph’s absence has not gone unnoticed, as a girl outside the game tells Mr. Litwak that Fix-It Felix, Jr. is malfunctioning, he puts an out of order sign onto the game’s screen. Q*bert travels to Fix-It Felix, Jr., and tells him about the dark turn of events. This causes alarm for Felix, because if a game becomes broken, Litwak will have to unplug the game, leaving any characters in the game homeless. So, Felix sets out to find Ralph.

Ralph crash-lands in Sugar Rush, a kart-racing game. As he searches for his medal, he meets Vanellope von Schweetz, a glitchy character who makes off with the medal, planning to use it to buy entry into an after-hours race. However, King Candy and the other racers refuse to let Vanellope participate, saying she’s not really part of the game. The other racers pay her a visit while she is building her own cart and destroy it, disabling her from racing. Ralph witnesses this and scares the racers off. Ralph than berates her, but she insults him right back. This angers him to the point that he smashes a jaw-breaker in half. Because of his amazing strength, Vanellope gets an idea. She explains to Ralph that the medal can be won back if she gets first place in a race. She then offers to make a pact that if he can help her win, she’ll give Ralph the medal back. Ralph reluctantly accepts her offer. After making said pact, they head off to the cart bakery, where the racers make their carts, and they build a cart together. However, a security guard notices the unauthorized activity, and the authorities are sent out, along with King Candy. After a long chase, they give King Candy’s party the slip by hiding in Diet Cola Mountain, an incomplete extra race track. It is discovered that this is Vanellope’s home. From there, Ralph teaches Vanellope how to drive her new cart.

Back in Hero’s Duty, Felix meets Sergeant Calhoun, who explains that the Cy-Bugs can control any game, and can then destroy everything in said game. As the two search for Ralph and the Cy-Bug in Sugar Rush, Felix explains that he is searching for Ralph, who had probably “gone Turbo.” When Calhoun asked Felix about this term, he then explains that a long time ago, there was an old racing game called “TurboTime” starring a self-obsessed racer named Turbo. One day, a RoadBlasters arcade cabinet entered the arcade and gained more popularity than TurboTime. Out of jealousy, Turbo interrupted the game. He traveled to the other game and crashed into the main player of the new racing game. By doing so, he crashed both games, which led to both of them being unplugged. As Felix and Calhoun progress, they fix the pod Ralph was in and fly off to search for the lone Cy-Bug. Felix later falls in love with Calhoun. However, Calhoun’s past comes back to haunt her when Felix refers to her as a “dynamite gal”, something that her fiancé, who was murdered by a Cy-Bug on their wedding day, would call her. Distraught, she forces Felix to leave her ship. A heartbroken Felix walks to King Candy’s castle and meets Sour Bill, King Candy’s assistant. He locks up Felix after he realizes he should have locked up Ralph. After a long search, Calhoun soon discovers the Cy-Bug has laid hundreds of eggs underground.

Before the race, King Candy finds Ralph in the absence of Vanellope and offers Ralph his medal, which King Candy has dug into the game’s code to retrieve (through the use of the “Konami Code”). The only condition was that Vanellope couldn’t race. When Ralph asks why King Candy and the other racers hate her so much, he explains he really doesn’t. Vanellope is a glitch, and so, this would cause her to act abnormally (such as teleporting and jumping around, sometimes through objects). If she won the race, she would become an official part of the racing roster. He goes on to explain that her glitching would give gamers the impression that the game was broken, and the game would be unplugged. While everyone else could be evacuated from the game, Vanellope could not leave, as she is a glitch. As a result, she would die along with the program. So King Candy leaves Ralph with that, and exits. When Vanellope returns and give Ralph a medal that say “You’re my hero”, he explains to Vanellope that she cannot race for her own good. But she notices that Ralph has the Medal of Heroes and doesn’t believe him, threatening to race on her own. Ralph stops her and hangs her by her jacket on a nearby lollipop tree. He then reluctantly proceeds to destroy her kart into pieces. Vanellope tries to stop Ralph, but it was no use. She falls off, says “You really are a bad guy!” and runs away, sobbing.

Ralph goes back to Fix-It Felix, Jr., and sees that the entire game is deserted, save for one lone citizen, Gene. Gene explains that the game was set to be unplugged in the morning, and that everyone has evacuated. He then gives Ralph the keys to Felix’s old penthouse after Ralph explains that he didn’t want to live in the garbage dump that he lived in before. Alone, Ralph goes to the balcony and throws his medal at the screen that sits above the game. This causes the poster that previously covered the screen to un-stick and start to fall off, revealing the side of the Sugar Rush arcade cabinet in front of Ralph’s game. He discovers that Vanellope is on the cabinet and wonders why she is on the machine’s artwork if she is a glitch. Ralph suspects something foul at play and returns to Sugar Rush.

He comes across Sour Bill and places him in his mouth as a form of torture until he confesses. Sour Bill explains that King Candy changed Vanellope’s code on purpose. When Ralph asks about his motives, Sour Bill says he doesn’t know why, and in fact, no one knows why. He explains it is like this because King Candy locked up all the characters’ memories. Upon locating Felix, Ralph begs Felix to fix the wrecked kart so Vanellope can race. He agrees to do so after discovering how hard of a life Ralph has had. After also freeing and making amends with Vanellope, they start the race, and as the race proceeds, the hatched Cy-Bugs attack Sugar Rush. Felix, Calhoun, and Ralph then battle them. Vanellope catches up to King Candy mid-race, but Candy tries to ram Vanellope off the track. When Vanellope tries to escape, King Candy instantly gets impatient and viciously attacks her with his cane. Vanellope’s glitching interferes with King Candy’s code, and reveals that King Candy is actually Turbo in disguise, having somehow escaped his game before it was unplugged. Turbo rams his car into Vanellope’s, causing her to be dragged in front of the car while approaching a walled fork in the road. Vanellope finally takes control of her glitching to escape from Turbo, and drives away, yelling at her victory. An enraged Turbo tries to pursue, but suddenly, a Cy-bug appears on the track and devours him alive.

The group attempts to flee the doomed game, but Vanellope cannot pass through the exit due to her status as a glitch. Calhoun says the game can’t be saved because there is no beacon in the game; the beacon in Hero’s Duty attracts and kills the Cy-Bugs. Ralph, in a last-ditch effort, heads to Diet Cola Mountain, where he plans on collapsing its Mentos stalactites into the cola at the bottom, causing an eruption that would attract the bugs. While on top of the mountain, he pounds the mentos into the diet cola below from the top. However, before he can finish, Turbo, fused with the Cy-Bug that devoured him, arrives and stops him. Turbo declares that he has become “the most powerful virus in the arcade” and plans to take over all the other games using his new powers, but not before getting revenge on Ralph. Ralph and Turbo battle, but Turbo quickly overpowers Ralph, carrying him above the mountain and sadistically forcing him to watch Cy-Bugs close in on Vanellope. Ralph breaks free and dives toward the mountain, hoping his impact will start the eruption. Seeing Ralph dive towards the mountain, Vanellope in turn uses her glitching abilities with the goal of catching Ralph. Ralph breaks through the roof of the mountain, but before he is killed in the eruption, Vanellope catches him in Crumbelina’s cart. The eruption shines a bright light, which in turn draws most the Cy-Bugs, to their destruction. Turbo, being more powerful then the others, is able to resist for a short time, but his Cy-Bug programming overwhelms him and he flies into the lava as well, killing him. Because video game characters who die outside their own game are unable to regenerate ever, this means that the Cy-Bugs and Turbo die permanently.

After Turbo and the Cy-Bugs are defeated, Felix restores the finish line, and Vanellope crosses it, restoring her memory as the game’s lead character, and restoring the ruins of Sugar Rush. The gamers favor her as a character, despite her glitches (it’s likely her ability to teleport short distances is perceived by gamers as a special power, rather than a glitch), Turbo had been destroyed forever (Sour Bill, Wynchel and Duncan and the Sugar Rush Racers, never again heard about him).

Felix and Ralph return to Fix-It Felix, Jr. in time to show Litwak the game works, and they also give Q*bert and Co. a new opportunity to work with Ralph and crew in a “bonus level,” sparing it and also giving its characters a new respect for Ralph’s work as the villain. Felix later marries Calhoun, with Ralph being the best man and Vanellope as the maid of honor.

Voice Cast

 * John C. Reilly: Wreck-It Ralph
 * Sarah Silverman: Vanellope von Schweetz
 * Jack McBrayer: Fix-It Felix, Jr.
 * Jane Lynch: Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun
 * Alan Tudyk: King Candy/Turbo
 * Raymond Persi: Mayor Gene / Cyril The Zombie
 * Mindy Kaling: Taffyta Muttonfudge
 * Joe Lo Truglio: Markowski
 * Ed O'Neill: Mr. Litwak
 * Dennis Haysbert: General Hologram
 * Edie McClurg: Mary
 * Jess Harnell: Don
 * Rachael Harris: Deanna
 * Skylar Astin: Roy
 * Adam Carolla: Wynnchel
 * Horatio Sanz: Duncan
 * Maurice LaMarche: Root Beer Tapper
 * Stefanie Scott: Moppet Girl
 * John Di Maggio: Beard Papa
 * Rich Moore: Sour Bill / Zangief
 * Katie Lowes: Candlehead
 * Jamie Elman: Rancis Fluggerbutter
 * Josie Trinidad: Jubileena Bing-Bing
 * Cymbre Walk: Crumbelina DiCaramello
 * Brandon Scott: Kohut
 * Tim Mertens / Nick Grimshaw: Dr. Brad Scott
 * Kevin Deters: Clyde
 * Gerald C. Rivers: M. Bison
 * Martin Jarvis: Satine
 * Brian Kesinger: Cyborg
 * Roger Craig Smith: Sonic The Hedgehog
 * Phil Johnston: Surge Protector
 * Kyle Hebert: Ryu
 * Reuben Langdon: Ken Masters
 * Jamie Sparer Roberts: Yuni Verse
 * Kevin Michael Richardson: Oreo Guard
 * Jim Cummings: Game Over (Voice)

Production
The concept of Wreck-It Ralph was first developed at Disney in the late 1980s, under the working title High Score. Since then, it was redeveloped and reconsidered several times: In the late 1990s, it took on the working title Joe Jump, then in the mid-2000s as Reboot Ralph. John Lasseter, the head of Walt Disney Animation Studios and executive producer of the film, describes Wreck-It Ralph as "an 8-bit video game bad guy who travels the length of the arcade to prove that he’s a good guy". In a manner similar to Disney's 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and all 3 Toy Story films, Wreck-It Ralph features cameo appearances by a number of licensed video game characters. For example, one scene from the film's first theatrical trailer shows Ralph attending a support group for the arcade's various villain characters, including Clyde the orange ghost from Pac-Man, Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog and Bowser from Super Mario Bros. Rich Moore, the film's director, had determined that for a film about a video game world to feel authentic, "it had to have real characters from real games in it".

Before production, the existing characters were added to the story either in places they would make sense to appear, or as cameos from a list of characters suggested by the film's creative team, without consideration if they would legally be able to use the characters. The company then sought out the copyright holders' permissions to use the characters, as well as working with these companies to assure their characters were being represented authentically. In the case of Nintendo, the writers has early on envisioned the Bad-anon meeting with Bowser as a major character within the scene; according to Moore, Nintendo was very positive towards this use, stating in Moore's own words, "If there is a group that is dedicated to helping the bad guy characters in video games then Bowser must be in that group!"Nintendo had asked that the producers try to device a scene that would be similarly appropriate for Mario for his inclusion in the film. Despite knowing they would be able to use the character, the producers could not find an appropriate scene that would let Mario be a significant character or take away the spotlight on the main story, and opted to not include the character. Moore debunked a rumor that Mario and his brother character Luigi were not included due to Nintendo requesting too high a licensing fee, stating that the rumor grew out of a joke John C. Reilly made at Comic-Con. Dr. Wily from Mega Man was going to appear, but was cut from the final version of the film. Overall, there are about 188 individual character models in the movie as a result of these cameo inclusions.

Moore aimed to add licensed characters in a similar manner as cultural references in Looney Tunes shorts, but considered "having the right balance so a portion of the audience didn't feel they were being neglected or talked down to". However, Moore avoided creating the movie around existing characters, feeling that "there’s so much mythology and baggage attached to pre-existing titles that I feel someone would be disappointed", and considered this to be a reason why movies based on video game franchises typically fail. Instead, for Ralph, the development of new characters representative of the 8-bit video game was "almost like virgin snow", giving them the freedom to take these characters in new directions.

The film introduced Disney's new bidirectional reflectance distribution functions, with more realistic reflections on surfaces, and new virtual cinematography Camera Capture system which makes it possible to go through the scenes in real-time. . To research the Sugar Rush segment of the film, the visual development group traveled to trade fair ISM Cologne, a See's Candy factory, and other manufacturing facilities. The group also brought in food photographers, to demonstrate techniques to make food appear appealing. Special effects, including from "smoke or dust", looks distinct in each of the segments.

Trivia

 * Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. (Mario and Luigi) were intended to have cameo appearances in this film.
 * Since the producers of the movie were unable to put Luigi into the plot, and they didn't want to make him make a cameo, he was not included.
 * Mario is cameoed and mentioned by Felix during the party scene as being "fashionably late as usual."
 * It has been promised by the director that they will return for Wreck-It Ralph 2.
 * The Royal Raceway track is also the name of a race track in the 1997 Nintendo 64 game Mario Kart 64.
 * Only this one is comprised of candies and sweet foods instead of just a regular landscape and Princess Peach's castle.
 * The DVD/Blu-Ray main menu are both the Fix-It Felix, Jr. game in its attract mode.
 * The high score is 110,212 — an unpunctuated short American format rendition of the movie's US release date.