Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
A Disney original story.
Whenever Litwak's Arcade closes, the various video game characters leave their in-game roles and socialize via a power strip called Game Central Station. One evening, the villain of platformer game Fix-it Felix, Jr., Wreck-It Ralph, visits a villain support group called Bad-Anon and expresses frustration with his assigned role, wanting to not always be the bad guy. The others accuse him of going “Turbo”. Turbo was the racer from the game Turbo Time which was one of the most popular games at the time, however when a new game RoadBlasters came to the arcade, people stopped playing Turbo Time. This led Turbo to become jealous, abandoning him game and trying to take over RoadBlasters, leading to glitches. As a result, both Turbo Time and RoadBlasters out of order for good. The bad guys end their meeting with the Bad Guy Affirmation: “I’m bad, and that’s good. I will never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.”
When Ralph is excluded and ostracized from his game's 30th-anniversary party, he decides to win a medal and earn respect. Upon overhearing that one can earn medals in a first-person shooter called Hero's Duty, Ralph sneaks in and steals The Medal of Heroes while the characters fight insectoid monsters known as Cy-Bugs. Ralph accidentally launches himself in an escape shuttle with a baby Cy-Bug inside and crash-lands in the confectionery-themed kart racing game Sugar Rush. With Ralph gone, his game is unplayable and labeled out of order, threatening the livelihoods of everyone in Fix-it Felix, Jr.. Felix leaves the game to find Ralph, allying with Sergeant Calhoun, the heroine of Hero’s Duty, as she tracks the Cy-Bug, which will consume and multiply, becoming a virus outside the game and consume the rest of the arcade. Calhoun’s programmed back-story is revealed; the one day she didn’t do a perimeter check on her wedding day, led to her fiancé being eaten by a Cy-Bug.
In Sugar Rush, a girl named Vanellope von Schweetz steals Ralph's medal and uses it to buy her way into the nightly race that determines which characters will be playable the next day. King Candy, the ruler of Sugar Rush's world, forbids her to race, as she is a glitch that moves and teleports erratically. Ralph is captured by King Candy for ruining the race area before the race can begin. King Candy discovers that Ralph is trying to get a medal and leaves to capture Vanellope. Ralph escapes and find Vanellope being harassed by the other racers who don’t want to race with a glitch. They destroy Vanellope’s cart before Ralph drives them away. Ralph and Vanellope make a deal; Vanellope promises to get the medal back if Ralph helps her win. Meanwhile, Calhoun and Felix arrive in Sugar Rush, where they fall into a Nesquik-sand, work together to escape, and begin to fall in love. Ralph helps Vanellope build a new kart and teaches her to drive inside Diet Cola Mountain (“Shut Up and Drive”).
Calhoun abandons Felix when he inadvertently reminds her of her late fiancé by calling her a “dynamite gal”; Felix is imprisoned by Candy's assistant, Sour Bill. King Candy hacks into Sugar Rush's source code and retrieves the medal, giving it back to Ralph. He claims that if Vanellope becomes a playable character, her glitching may lead to the game being labeled out of order and unplugged. Ralph decides he cannot allow Vanellope to race and destroys her kart. A despondent Ralph returns to Fix-it Felix, Jr. and learns about the game's fate from his bully, Mayor Gene, and notices that the Sugar Rush cabinet displays Vanellope as an actual playable character. Suspecting that Candy deceived him, he returns to Sugar Rush.
He interrogates Bill, who admits that Candy erased Vanellope's code and locked away the memories of the game's characters so that nobody would know her actual role. He explains that if Vanellope completes a race, all of Candy's changes will be deleted, and the game will reset, meaning Vanellope will no longer be a glitch. Calhoun discovers that the Cy-Bug has multiplied exponentially Ralph frees Felix from Candy's prison, repairs the kart, and reconciles with Vanellope, who enters the race.
During the race, the Cy-Bugs emerge and start destroying the game; Calhoun, Felix, and Ralph help evacuate the characters. Unaware of this development, Candy attempts to ram Vanellope off the track, causing them both to glitch. Their glitching inadvertently reveals Candy to be Turbo, who secretly took over Sugar Rush after he caused his own game to be unplugged. Vanellope flees as Turbo is devoured by a Cy-Bug, which fuses with him into an insectoid monster. Everyone but Vanellope evacuates, as glitches cannot leave their games. Remembering from Hero's Duty that a beacon will draw and destroy the Cy-Bugs, Ralph battles Turbo and collapses the Mentos roof of Diet Cola Mountain, creating a glowing eruption that lures and destroys Turbo and the Cy-Bugs. Vanellope rescues Ralph and crosses the finish line. The game resets, revealing her as the true ruler of Sugar Rush, though she keeps her glitching ability, considering it an advantage.
Ralph returns to his game, content with his role as a villain and respected by his fellow characters. Felix and Calhoun marry, and Ralph watches Vanellope become Sugar Rush's favorite character (“When Can I See You Again?”).
TRIVIA
Technology
Wreck-It Ralph introduced Disney’s new bidirectional reflectance distribution functions which allowed for more realistic reflections on surfaces
The film also featured the new virtual cinematography “Camera Capture” system which makes it possible to go through scenes in real time.
Visual Style
Four different environments were created with four different animation principles:
8-bit Niceland, where everything is designed simple and pixelated
Game Central Station, based on Grand Central Station in New York
Hero’s Duty, hyper-realistic where everything is designed on the principle of triangles
Candy Rush is based on Gaudi architecture
The animation team spent many hours visiting different locations in an attempt to provide a more realistic basis for the environments found in the movie. These locations included a visit to Cologne, Germany, where they visited a bakery, candy factories, and the World Confectionery Convention. Ideas were collected from these, which inspired Sugar Rush.
Another trip featured a stop at the Ford manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan to see the entire assembly on how trucks are made, which would assist in creating a scene where Vanellope builds a car.
Real candy was used to create a model of Candy Rush which allowed the animators to determine what types of candy would be used.