By Amira Sahba
After saving the entire arcade world in 2012 from a dire threat in “Wreck-It Ralph”, Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) become best friends. The film was officially announced by Walt Disney Animation Studios on June 30, 2018, and had been in development for about two and a half years by the time of its announcement. Six years later, after directing “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Zootopia,” Phil Johnston and Rich Moore served as the directors again for “Ralph Breaks the Internet.”
Disney Animation Studios starts every movie with research. For this movie, they traveled to the One Wilshire building in Los Angeles which is the most highly connected Internet point in the western U.S. to see how the wiring looks in a data center. This was integral to the film as Ralph and Vanellope leave the comfort of their arcade and head into the internet.
After the steering wheel breaks on Sugar Rush, Vanellope says to Ralph “I can’t believe I don’t have a game anymore. If I am not a racer anymore then what I am?” In order to save Sugar Rush, Ralph and Vanellope travel to the internet to find eBay and a new wheel.
There are multiple new characters in “Ralph Breaks the Internet.” One of them is Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), the entrepreneur that serves as the head algorithm of BuzzzTube. Another new character is Knowsmore (Alan Tudyk), the know-it-all netizen that powers The Searchbar. His character design was inspired by 50s and 60s animation styles. For the movie, they also created Net Users, which are regular people, and the Netizens, who are citizens of the internet.
To help visualize eBay in the internet world, Disney made it seem like an auction for every item sold. Ralph and Vanellope do everything they can to get the wheel including bidding an amount of money they don’t have.
Yesss sends Vanellope to Oh My Disney to share Ralph videos. When she starts getting chased by Stormtroopers, Vanellope uses her glitch to hide in the Disney Princesses room and ends up connecting with them.
For the movie, part of that process was getting all the original actors for each princess to return to voice their characters with the exception of Snow White, whose original voice actor, Adriana Caselotti, passed away in 1997. Another huge undertaking was making sure that the animation team updated the Disney princesses for the world of “Wreck-It Ralph” and changing many of them from 2D to 3D. To make sure the essence of each character was unharmed in the process they brought in Mark Henn to help the team figure out how the princesses should sit, move, and operate in their big scene. He was the original supervising animator on Belle in “Beauty & The Beast”, Ariel in “The Little Mermaid”, Princess Jasmine in “Aladdin”, Mulan in “Mulan”, and Tiana in “Princess & The Frog.”
Laughs and heart-felt moments will sure to be aplenty in “Ralph Breaks the Internet” so be sure to see it in theaters premiering November 21, 2018.
