Disney Era Analysis – Ralph Breaks the Internet
As mentioned in the first blog post in this series, I’ll be writing analysis content on all 60+ Disney animated feature films and their film making eras.
The seventh era is the Revival Era, which ran from 2009 to 2019 and started with The Princess and the Frog. As mentioned in a previous blog post, the Revival Era is known for: its return to the “old formula” (storytelling similar to the Renaissance Era), improved and advanced computer-generated (CG) animation, evolution in its storytelling by adapting stories from sources other than old books, and well thought-out stories paired with improved animation.
So how well did Ralph Breaks the Internet measure up to these famous features?
Return to the “old formula” (storytelling similar to the Renaissance Era):
This film is known for its “Oh My Disney” sequence, when Vanellope enters the “Oh My Disney” website and stumbles upon the dressing room of the Disney Princesses and meets them all. The Princesses then question what kind of a Princess she is, questioning if she meets the criteria of a Disney Princess, ultimately declaring that she is one.
The Princesses also talk about the famous “I Want Song” that arose during the Renaissance Era, and the film satirises it with Ariel’s brief song about her shirt and Vanellope’s first attempt of singing her own “I Want Song”. Eventually, Vanellope did find and sing her own “I Want Song”, which was composed by Alan Menken, who was responsible for many famous songs in the Renaissance Era films, such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas.
Improved and advanced computer-generated (CG) animation:
According to the film’s Wikipedia page, the film contains over 150 unique sets and includes the highest number of characters in any Disney animated feature film, with 434 individual characters with 6,752 variants.
The film’s Wikipedia page also states that the animators had to work out various techniques to take the different styles of animation into a single approach, and figure out the proportions of the characters using official figurines. As a result, the Disney Princesses that appear in the film were rendered in a more “cartoony” style with bigger eyes and ears.
Evolution in its storytelling by adapting stories from sources other than old books:
Interestingly, this is the first film of the Revival Era to be a sequel of another film within the Era, Wreck-It Ralph. Both this film and its predecessor are original stories.
Well thought-out stories paired with improved animation:
The film’s producer, Clark Spencer, stated that this film was about change and that the internet was the perfect setting to emphasise this, as the internet changes by the second.
The goal of the film’s crew when it came to the design and animation of the internet was to make it relatable on a human level, like how the power strip that the arcade games are plugged into is known as Game Central Station, with its design based on Grand Central Station. The choice to make the internet a large, cosmopolitan city, with its major players (i.e. Google, Amazon) being represented as the highest skyscrapers was a good choice, as it also shows the scale of the internet in comparison to the power strip that the individual, non-online arcade games are plugged into. According to the film’s Wikipedia page, the design of scenes within the internet were based on tours of One Wilshire in Los Angeles, as it’s one of the world’s largest telecommunications centres.
The film’s Wikipedia page also states that the film’s crew intended to showcase both the positive and negative aspects of the internet, using Zootopia indirectly tackling racism as inspiration for tackling the negative aspects of the internet and also Ralph’s character growth – Ralph learns to become a better person without actually having to solve the issue of hostility on the internet.
One stand-out feature for me when it came to the film’s improved animation and storytelling was the “Oh My Disney” sequence, and the necessity of having to re-design some of Disney’s Princesses from 2D to 3D and computer animated, as well as the animation of the Princesses’ methods in rescuing Ralph as if he is a “damsel in distress”, using their respective characters’ strong suits and films’ features.
My overall thoughts:
Overall, I felt that this film tackled the internet in an interesting way, however I felt that its exploration of the internet and the potential it had was ruined by being too fast-paced, overpacked with plot, and shallow and dated with its excessive pop culture references.
I felt that the design and exploration of the internet, with its major players represented by huge skyscrapers, eBay depicted as an auction house, Instagram depicted as an art gallery, Twitter depicted as actual birds, and adblockers depicted as aggressive security guards, was well done. I also felt it was a good update to the setting of the original film’s power strip and arcade cabinets.
In terms of being too fast-paced and overpacked with plot, I felt that the film crew was trying to pack a lot in to what I felt was a bloated run time, with some of the run time devoted to excessive pop culture references.
Speaking of the pop culture references, whilst some viewers would no doubt have fun in seeing these references onscreen, it wouldn’t resonate with everyone, with the cameo of Colleen Ballinger (aka Miranda Sings) being a good example. When I first saw the film in cinemas, I thought she was just a random woman online, I didn’t know who she was and her significance in pop and internet culture at the time, until I Googled the movie and its trivia. The pop culture references would essentially make the film feel dated straight away, due to the internet changing by the second.
Other weaknesses I felt the film had included the exposition at the beginning of the film clearly for those that would be watching this film who hadn’t seen its predecessor, as well as Felix and Calhoun’s minor subplot of being “parents” to the Sugar Rush racers, which ultimately added nothing to film and wasted their characters.
Whilst I can appreciate Disney poking fun at itself and trying to be modern, ultimately I think they tried too hard with this film, with too much of a focus on pop culture references, and not enough on the emotional substance and message it was trying to create and convey.
The next part of the Disney Era Analysis series will focus on Frozen II.
Fun Facts and Trivia (according to the film’s IMDb page):
- The Disney Princesses’ casual outfits all feature nods to their respective films.
- Ralph arrives at a sort of “dumping ground” for the internet and encounters “relics” from the internet’s past. These include an ad for the web hosting site, GeoCities, a large ship’s helm representing Netscape Navigator, and a reference to the personal chat rooms which flourished before the advent of instant messaging and texting. There’s also a “dial up” point, a stylised feature of computers from when they used telephone lines to surf the web.
- This is the first major studio film with the word “Internet” in its title.
References:
Loveday Writing 