The movie isn't out for about a week, but I will not rush to see it, despite having enjoyed the first film a lot.
The first film, at the superficial level, was fun for all the video game cameos, and the acting was decent, but the film also had a solid philosophical core that resonates with folks of a more pragmatic persuasion.
In short, Ralph has a proverbial "mid-life crisis" because he hasn't made peace with who he is. It doesn't help that everyone he interacts with boils him down to little more than his role in life, despite that role actually being rather important. Ralph decides to make a new role for himself, and fails spectacularly, putting many other characters at terrible risk in the process. The movie finishes with Ralph finally making peace with who he really is, sacrificing himself to save others, resigned to the fate that he brought about with his own selfish blindness.
When things actually turn out well, and things are returned to normal, everybody gets a proper perspective, learns to appreciate the things that matter, and things seem to be "just right".
Now, that's not a bad message at all, and in some ways it's subversive given the cultural trends towards solipsism. When our society tells you that you can be anything you want to be, to have a movie where a main character matures by making peace with the fact he can't actually be anything he wants to be is refreshing.
A real-life example would be the trash collectors for NYC. They weren't paid a lot, went on strike, and nowadays there's a waiting list to get employed there because of the benefits and salary. Sometimes an important job is not a glamorous job, and Mike Rowe had a whole TV show meant to try and bring some honor and respect back to the folks who did these types of jobs which were critical to the function of modern society.
Anyway, as of this week there are a few trailers and clips out for Wreck it Ralph 2, and they do not excite me very much at all about the prospects of the film. Essentially, the drama they're trying to build is that Vanellope's game breaks and she and Ralph go to the internet to find a part to fix it. In the process, Vanellope finds that she likes what she has found on the internet more than what she had before, she found a new lesbian big sister figure to...and no I am not joking.
As part of the plot, they go to a game where post-apocalyptic racing occurs for money, and Vanellope bonds with the female leader of a car gang, whose most important line in all the trailers is something along the lines of "just because you're best friends doesn't mean you have to have the same dreams."
Yeah.
You know, because we're not supposed to remember the Friends flashback episodes where Ross' first wife starts bonding with a woman at the gym who plants similarly subversive thoughts and is somewhat more of a man than Ross, and how Hollywood tries to play "the serpent" off as if he's the good guy for opening up the eyes of the characters to the "real possibilities" in front of them.
This is a Disney film, and while the steam on #MeToo is now starting to run out, the final editing of this film would have been done at the height of that socially manipulative movement. Also, just look at what Disney did with Star Wars and you cannot tell me honestly that their first priority is in making a good film that makes money, as opposed to trying to sell a message, a narrative.
While Ralph and Vanellope are never presented as more than a platonic couple, other characters in the first film get married, and it would not surprise me at all for this film to end up with something like the scene from V for Vendetta, where you're supposed to feel bad for the lesbian woman because people were mean to her for just wanting to be a lesbian woman, and not because homosexuals are constantly demanding validation from everyone around them in every facet of society.
And so that's the problem, because Wreck it Ralph 2 will likely not matter outside how they decide to handle Vanellope having to "choose" between her bestest platonic male buddy and the new cool mature lady that embodies all the attributes she apparently desires for herself but never knew until the internet told her about it.
The writers haven't been shy about the implication of "two friends from a small town go to a big town and have different experiences" either. At least one article I've seen on the storyboard have indicated that's exactly the kind of story they're trying to tell.
"Which will she choose?"
And so Disney has to answer that question, and no way they do that results in everybody being happy. If they don't answer with Vanellope abandoning the "small town" to "pursue her dreams", then the movie becomes a condemnation of every feminist twat that gave up on what she had to chase what she thought she wanted. If they don't answer with Vanellope abandoning the "big city" to "enjoy the safety of home and family", then they're just selling the same "women should be free and men should be slaves to fate" bullshit that our goddess-worshiping culture loves so much.
Even if Disney tries to split the difference, that's still the goddess-worship "yes you can have it all" bullshit, which many women are only discovering is true long after they've made permanent choices that have irrevocably defined the rest of their lives.
So that's two bad answers and one good one, from my perspective. No answer won't piss someone off for not "representing" them, and with the trend of Hollywood to shit on the "small town", because they don't tend to vote for or care about "Diversity & Inclusion", I simply don't care to just "enjoy the show" if the purpose of the show is to sell degeneracy behind a cloak of animated characters and video game cameos.
It's certainly possible that they'll "do the right thing" and have Vanellope realize that chasing greener grass is fruitless, and that perhaps her character would then also mature in finding peace with what she already had, in who she already is. That would make a great sequel, because while it would have echoes of egalitarian compromise, at least they'd be telling both men and women, through the proxies of Ralph and Vanellope, that contentment is better than chasing your desires, and that the temptations that befall men and women are also different in the details but related in general nature.
That the grass isn't really greener on the other side of the fence. That there isn't "somebody better just waiting" for you. That sometimes life hands you lemons and you need to make lemonade. That working hard to manifest what you think "you deserve" will often just hurt everyone around you while you learn what your limits are the "hard way". That would make the movie another hit, especially in these polarizing times, as folks who want a wholesome message, instead of just more and more degeneracy, also tend to have worked hard enough to have the spare coin to put towards going to see a move and making it an event.
But Disney sold out Star Wars for people who didn't show up at the box office. And won't, either.
Are they going to do that with Wreck it Ralph 2?
I'll be waiting for reviews and a complete plot summary. I won't be paying to find out.
When it comes out I'll write about what I end up doing and why, so stay tuned for that to come later next week.
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