Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
A sequel to the 2012 Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph.
Six years after the events of Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph and Vanellope have stayed best friends, hanging out after work in Litwak's Arcade. Ralph is content with their life, but Vanellope longs for excitement and expresses how bored she has become of Sugar Rush's predictability. To please her, Ralph sneaks into her game and makes a secret road as a detour from the intended track while a player is actively playing as Vanellope. An excited Vanellope fights the arcade player's control to test the secret track resulting in the cabinet's steering wheel breaking. As the company that made Sugar Rush is defunct, and the cost of a replacement wheel on eBay is too high, Litwak decides to scrap Sugar Rush and unplugs the game, leaving its citizens homeless. The Surge Protector finds homes for all Sugar Rush's citizens as a short-term measure as they figure out how to save the game, with Felix and Calhoun adopting the racers. Remembering eBay, Ralph and Vanellope travel through Litwak's new Wi-Fi router to the Internet, a place where websites are represented as buildings in a sprawling city, avatars represent users, and programs are people.
The search engine KnowsMore directs them to eBay, where they win the auction for the steering wheel by unintentionally spiking the price to US$27,001 only to find they have just 24 hours to raise the funds, or they will forfeit the bid and lose the wheel. On the way out, they run into clickbait salesman J. P. Spamley, who brokers items obtained from video games and offers them a lucrative job of stealing a car from Shank, the lead character in the popular racing-centered battle royale game Slaughter Race. They steal Shank's car, but she stops them before they can leave the game with it. Suggesting another way to make money on the Internet, she proceeds to make a viral video of Ralph and uploads it to video-sharing site BuzzzTube. She directs them to BuzzzTube's head algorithm, Yesss, who capitalizes on Ralph's video popularity.
Ralph’s video quicken loses popularity and with 8 hours left to raise the funds, Ralph decides to make more videos based on popular trends, which will earn them the money for the wheel if they attract enough views. Yesss quickly moves to phase 2 of the plan by sending out pop-ups to attract even more views. Vanellope offers to help advertise the videos, and Ralph has Yesss send her to a fansite called OhMyDisney.com. There, while being chased by Stormtroopers for advertising on the site, Vanellope befriends the Disney Princesses (and Pixar), being encouraged by them to discuss her sense of un-fulfillment and reaching an epiphany in the form of an "I Want" song on the subject after staring into a form of “important water”. With 30 minutes left to raise the funds, Ralph attempts to generate views but stumbles upon the comments section which includes negative comments that anger him and reminds him that he only cares about what Vanellope thinks of him. Ralph makes enough money to buy the wheel and heads to eBay to purchase the wheel, telling Vanellope to meet him there. Vanellope reflects and finds her “I Want” song (“A Place Called Slaughter Race”). Ralph purchases the wheel and waits for Vanellope who doesn’t show up. He calls her on a cellphone that Yesss provided and overhears Vanellope talking with Shank about how she wants to stay in Slaughter Race, having felt at home there due to its relative novelty and unpredictability compared to Sugar Rush.
Worried of losing his friend forever, Ralph asks Spamley for a way to draw Vanellope out of the game and is brought to the dark web vendor Double Dan, who provides Ralph with a virus, Arthur, that feeds off insecurities and replicates them. When Ralph unleashes Arthur into Slaughter Race, it replicates Vanellope's glitch, triggering a server reboot. Ralph, Shank, and the others help Vanellope escape before the game resets. Vanellope blames herself for the crash, but Ralph confesses to her that the crash was actually his fault. Outraged by this reveal, an argument breaks out, culminating in Vanellope throwing away Ralph's cookie medal and running off. Arthur, having escaped Slaughter Race finds Ralph and copies his insecurities and begins making duplicates of Ralph.
As a guilt-ridden Ralph finds his now-cracked-in-half medal, the clones (deemed the “Wreck-It Ralph virus”) overrun the Internet in a global DoS (denial-of-service) attack, all chasing after Vanellope to keep her for themselves. Ralph saves her and attempts to lure the clones into a firewall, but they form a giant Ralph monster (Ralphzilla) that seizes them both. Ralph comes to accept that Vanellope can make her own choices, letting go of his insecurities. This also causes the giant Ralph monster and the clones to disappear, and Ralph and Vanellope reconcile. Ralph gives half of the broken medal to Vanellope and they bid each other a heartfelt farewell as Shank has arranged for Vanellope to respawn in Slaughter Race.
Back in the arcade, Sugar Rush is repaired, and Ralph partakes in social activities with the other arcade characters as he stays in touch with Vanellope over video chat, feeling content with his newfound ability to be independent (“Zero”).
A post-credit scene features Ralph hi-jacking a popular mobile game called Pancake Milkshake where he inadvertently overfeeds a bunny and scars a young child (“In This Place”).
TRIVIA
Visual Style
KnowsMore was based on 1950s and 1960s Disney Animation, a very limited animation style that is still cartoon-y and very expressive; there’s only what needs to be there to communicate. His eyes are animated in 2D and essentially animated within his frames.
The animators visited a race track with racecar instructors to learn car driving and tricks to help animate the action scenes in Slaughter Race.
The animators made a series of cat videos as early research and exploration for the world of the internet.
For the ebay site, they had the winner of the 2017 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship, Brian Curless, come in to do lines.
Technology
The animation of Ralphzilla involved a simulation of multiple Ralphs called Mosh Pit.
Deleted Scenes
A deleted scene features Shank recruiting players to fight the Ralph clones, specifically the grandma of a Slaughter Race player named Jimmy who we met earlier in the film.
A deleted scene features Felix and Calhoun attempting to raise the Sugar Rush racers who are wearing down on their nerves.