"Hello hello
Let me tell you what it's like to be a zero, zero
Let me show you what it's like to always feel, feel
Like I'm empty and there's nothing really real, real
I'm looking for a way out!"
-Imagine Dragons
Let me also tell you that I'm very glad Imagine Dragons made "Zero" part of their brand-new album the way Fall Out Boy did for "Immortals" and Big Hero 6 roughly this time four years ago, because it totally deserves album inclusion for greater exposure...but I digress. The real genius of that song, though, is how it kinda low-key spoils one of the great themes of this really long-awaited Disney sequel, except not really. Because while it does give away that this one deals with loneliness - appropriate for a movie about the internet, no? - it doesn't say which major character has to grapple with this conflict, and in different ways, it's both our movie's stars who do. And along the way, it's a fun-tastic ride through cyberspace, but not at all without a serious emotional core like the best Disney movies.
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| Oh hai, Shank. I wanna get the right threads to cosplay as you next. |
While the first film was a wonderful retro throwback, being all about sentient arcade game code, Ralph Breaks the Internet takes a big risk by jumping straight into the cyber-world. I remember when plans were first being floated around for potential sequels, the producers envisioned a trilogy in which the second movie would introduce Ralph, Vanellope, et al. to the world of console gaming, and then online gaming to follow in the third movie. It would've been a good exploration of the evolution of video games roughly following their real-world trajectory, but no, the filmmakers decided to largely skip the original plans for the second movie and go straight for the online stuff. Though they do incorporate a little bit of console gaming into this movie as well - we get glimpses of a couple of IRL (in-universe, that is) players of Slaughter Race, playing with very familiar-looking controllers and headsets and everything. So, yeah, there's a case to be made that they didn't entirely abandon the original plan, especially since a lot of console games of the last decade plus have significant online features and capability as well.
The presentation of the internet in this movie does raise a few questions, even as much as I tried to park my brain at the door. (Yeah, I think I may have lost that ability for a bit, given the mind-bogglingly high number of continuity errors in Crimes of Grindelwald.) Like, why the heck do they mention YouTube, only to have an in-universe fictional counterpart in BuzzzTube? The latter looks little different from the former, other than its graphical color scheme, and having Taraji P. Henson play its central algorithm with high energy and a slick veneer of high taste. Though given that I've never seen pop-ups for YouTube, and Yesss! employs a pretty big army of pop-up generators, maybe that's the primary difference. (On a related note, they kinda missed an opportunity by not casting Beyoncé, because then we would've had a literal interpretation of "You're gonna post THAT? On Beyoncé's internet?!") (On another related note, how much market share in search engines does Knowsmore have when Google still exists?) Also, the very fact that pretty much any and all sentient code - Yesss!, Ralph, and Vanellope especially come to mind, and hell, so does Shank - has the ability to bid for items on eBay, or create BuzzzTube accounts to monetize viral videos, entirely independent of any human operators. It makes sense in context, but it comes off as kinda creepy in hindsight of all the Russian bots and trolls that've made a living trying to sink world democracies in recent years.
But without going into spoilers, I'll say that Ralph Breaks the Internet is a beautiful A-grade movie. Not only for its lovely presentation of the internet as a rainbow-bright metropolis, the design of which takes particular inspiration from WALL·E unless I miss my guess, but also for its logical continuation of Ralph and Vanellope's stories - especially showing what happens when they suddenly get opportunities they never would have dreamed of before, and their reactions to such changes. It's also got perhaps the best twist yet on the whole "Disney does a twist villain" thing that's become so common in recent years, one that you'll be harder pressed to see coming, and one that's guaranteed to punch your feels right in the gut. But in between the tears, remember, this movie's a celebration of all things Disney - not only in terms of style, but in terms of how much all the characters from all the franchises get to interact with Ralph and/or Vanellope. (And not just those scenes from all the trailers of Vanellope glitching into the Princess dressing room, either.)
I do hope, though, that if there's a third movie, it's gonna be Shank's story. We need that, gorrammit.
Till next time, Pinecones...
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| #FeedTheRightWolf |
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| Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always. |
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