#except for the total tonal dissonance with the first arc and the fact that It Is Like That

[daisyachain]

How To Talk About Given As A Piece On Housing Precarity And Poverty And Not Sound Like A Mad Person

[uniformbravo]

hmm couldnt stop thinking abt wreck-it ralph 2 so here’s some Thoughts (things i didn’t like, things i would have changed. u know how it is)

obligatory disclaimer im not calling myself an Expert™ here im just letting off some steam ok don’t take this as a legitimate effort gnfkgn

ok so my initial thoughts after seeing this movie were that it was a complete mess, there’s a ton of clutter that doesn’t need to be there, too much random shit is introduced in the late game. but then i was like. well not totally?? regarding that last point at least; it felt like the virus was this random plot point they decided to pull in outta nowhere just to create a big dramatic climax, but the concept actually was introduced at the beginning of the movie? when ralph & vanellope are hanging out in the tron game & it glitches & they’re like well shit. this is what ralph specifically calls back to when he gets the idea to use a virus on the slaughter race game later on, so it’s not like the movie pulled this out of thin air, it did kind of lay the groundwork beforehand. kind of. except that even then it still doesn’t really feel like it

like, it’s honestly a pretty weak connection? this virus that ralph uses is kind of a Big Deal because it directly leads to his & vanellope’s fight and then the literal climax of the movie, they have to fight this thing to save the Entire Internet, but the point where the concept is introduced during the tron scene feels so easily dismissed in comparison. Like, it doesn’t feel dangerous in any way, it’s just kind of like ���aw shucks, looks like we can’t play in tron anymore, oh well” and that tonal dissonance makes for a super weak setup. i mean, fuck, ralph literally had to have dialogue reminding you that it even happened just so he could connect it to this new plot point, which is pretty fuckin bad tbh!

there’s also the fact that it wasn’t even a virus in the tron game in the first place. it was literally just a glitch, and the connection between that and this virus was “well that glitch made the game not fun so vanellope didn’t want to play it anymore, so maybe i can use a virus to get the same effect in slaughter race!” which. doesn’t even technically make it a real callback, it literally is just introducing a new element in the late game, therefore making it feel v abrupt and out of place in the story.

i think it could have been integrated better if the tron thing and the virus were actually the same thing? and there could have been more importance placed on the tron scene, like instead of just making it this throwaway little “ralph & vanellope are friends!” scene it coulda been like “oh shit watch out for viruses, they are dangerous and will fuck up your game!” which would have made ralph’s conscious decision to use one later way more impactful, since the audience would have had that association from before

now. speaking of ralph using the virus. we come to my biggest issue w/ the movie,,

i... hate how they handled the conflict between ralph & vanellope’s arcs lol. i mean, it starts with a genuinely interesting concept: ralph and vanellope are best friends. vanellope feels trapped by how small and limiting the world of her game is, she’s itching for something new and exciting to break up the monotony; she needs change. ralph is happy with the way things are to the point that he fears change and will actively work against it; he has become overbearing and clingy and needs to learn to give his friend space. this isn’t a bad premise at all, but the way it’s handled is so. oof

so, they go into the internet, right, and vanellope finds this game, slaughter race, that is the epitome of everything she loves and has been yearning for; violence, cool cars, like-minded people. she starts to hang out with the characters there, and ralph sees this as a threat to his friendship with vanellope, so he decides to infect the game with a virus to make it boring and hopefully make vanellope lose interest. again, not bad ideas for an interesting narrative! where it falls apart is in the execution

first of all, this is obviously toxic ass behavior. like, just a really shitty thing to do. vanellope found something that makes her happy, and ralph wants to drag her away from it just so she’ll spend more time with him, and not make any other friends besides him. it’s garbage behavior. this would be completely fine if the movie didn’t treat ralph like?? a victim??? rather than a person who made a shitty decision????

like okay yes they do make it clear that this was Not The Right Thing To Do, but the whole time there’s this attitude of like.... i think they’re trying really hard to push ralph as this dumb lovable guy who means well but messes up despite his good intentions, so when he does mess up & do something shitty it’s with this kind of earnest attitude that makes him still feel like The Good Guy

like when he does that to vanellope the tone is a lot more lighthearted than it should be, he’s standing there literally going “hmm how can i stop her from leaving me,., i know, i’ll take away the thing she loves so she has no choice but to come back to me! what a good idea!” like he sees absolutely Nothing wrong with that. it really rubs me the wrong way, like they’re almost trying to get you to root for ralph in this situation, like they want you to want ralph to succeed in doing this awful thing so he can succeed and “save” his friendship w/ vanellope

it would have been different if like, going off of the other idea i had about the virus, right. it’s now the same virus from the tron game, so the audience already knows about it and how dangerous it is because they were warned about it at the beginning of the movie. ralph also knows this, but he decides to use it anyway because he’s that desperate and afraid to lose vanellope. the scene where he makes this decision, rather than having him belt out the plot synopsis version of his thought process, is more dramatic, weighty. we see him really Thinking about it, weighing the options in his mind, it’s clear that he understands the consequences. 

this way there is already some guilt in the equation from the beginning so that when it blows up in his face and almost literally kills vanellope there is a real Consequence to his mistake, and it’s a harsh wakeup call as to how horrible he’s actually being. like a “i knew it was wrong and i did it anyway, so now i pay the price” kind of thing, instead of the movie’s “oh no!! i didn’t know it would be this bad!!! i thought i would just be ruining things for my best friend in a harmless way!!” like, the movie really wants to take the blame off of ralph and make him seem as innocent as possible and it’s a Real Bad Look imo.

changing things this way would also give their subsequent fight a lot more punch because instead of ralph being like “ghfnkgjsdkg i didn’t mean to!!!!1” he would be like “i did a bad thing and i’m sorry” and when vanellope feels betrayed and denounces their friendship (as she has every right to) it would feel so much more deserved and therefore painful, the Good kind of painful that this movie tried to have & desperately needed to do well

it also would have been good for ralph’s individual character development, because hmm what were some of the major themes from the first movie? being a bad guy? making an effort to do good in spite of that?? being a hero??? being mindful of your actions and the effect they have on the people around you???? not to mention the WHOLE thing about him desperately trying to break out of the box the label “bad guy” had put him in, and how now in THIS movie vanellope is essentially trying to do the same thing? how now ralph is the one literally trying to force her back into that box (in this case, her game) just so that things are easier for him??? do u see where im going here

this could be the point where ralph realizes he needs to let vanellope go & chase her own happiness because he remembers how terrible it felt being forced into a role that made him miserable. he can now see how suffocating and toxic he’s being and there’s no need for a fucking Ralph Virus to come along and tell him that to his face because he’s emotionally intelligent and capable of deep personal introspection and deserves way more credit than this movie gives him, god

eliminating the need for the ralph virus is good because 1. who thought that was a good idea, it shattered what little was left of my suspension of disbelief instantly and 2. it once again took the weight of villainy off of ralph’s shoulders by giving the movie an even Bigger Baddie to compare him to, thereby making him the lesser immediate evil (like, it pulls all his toxic behavior away from him and dumps it instead into this big “”Evil”” caricature version of ralph so that the Real ralph can be the Good Guy and take it down)

instead of that, give ralph the benefit of figuring out his own shit, and then reveal that the virus wasn’t destroyed in the slaughter race reboot and is now infecting various parts of the internet (it’s been at it this whole time, but only got noticed after it had spread too wide to contain, it’s a Real Big Problem now. also it’s just a Normal Not Ralph Virus, Just A Plain Old Good Ol’ Fashioned Monster). have him go after it on his own, to take responsibility for the thing that was His Fuckin Fault, symbolizing him acknowledging how serious and destructive his obsession with vanellope has become and trying to fix it. get vanellope involved. have them figure out their shit

the climax can play out however, just the most important things in the end are that ralph gives a real apology, shows that he really learned his lesson, maybe gives some kind of speech about it, and there’s no bullshit where vanellope realizes he was just insecure & therefore his actions are more understandable, the resolution comes from ralph apologizing honestly and expecting nothing in return and vanellope being touched by this and giving him a second chance because he is her best friend and she knows him well enough to see that he genuinely has learned from this experience and will strive to do better and she loves and trusts him and was never going to leave him behind in the first place because their bond is so strong & there’s still the thing where she gets to live in slaughter race & they keep in touch long distance now bc that was a good way to show that ralph has learned his lesson & is now giving vanellope the space she needs and both of their arcs are resolved and their friendship is stronger than ever despite (or rather because of) change, happily ever after, the end

sorry i got tired but u know, w/e; points were made, rambles were had, mission accomplished. may i never spend this much time or effort thinking about this movie again, amen