top of page
Search
rupmatchvanningpas

Fix It Felix Jr Video Game: A Tribute to the Golden Age of Arcade Games



Whenever Litwak's Arcade closes, the various video game characters leave their in-game roles and socialize via a power strip they call Game Central Station. Wreck-It Ralph, the villain of platformer game Fix-it Felix, Jr., visits a villain support group called Bad-Anon and expresses frustration with his assigned role. When Ralph is excluded from his game's 30th-anniversary party, he decides to win a medal and earn respect. Upon overhearing that one can earn medals in a first-person shooter called Hero's Duty, Ralph sneaks in and steals one while the characters fight insectoid monsters known as Cy-Bugs. Ralph accidentally launches himself in an escape shuttle with a Cy-Bug inside and crash-lands in the confectionery-themed kart racing game Sugar Rush. With Ralph gone, his game is labeled out of order, threatening the livelihoods of everyone in Fix-it Felix Jr.. Felix, the titular protagonist, leaves the game to find Ralph, allying with Sergeant Calhoun, the heroine of Hero's Duty, as she tracks the Cy-Bug, which may become a virus.




Fix It Felix Jr Video Game



In Sugar Rush, a girl named Vanellope von Schweetz steals Ralph's medal and uses it to buy her way into the nightly race that determines which characters will be playable the next day. King Candy, the ruler of Sugar Rush's world, forbids her to race, as she has a glitch that causes her to move and teleport erratically. Vanellope promises to get the medal back if Ralph helps her win; he helps her build a new kart and teaches her to drive inside Diet Cola Mountain. Calhoun and Felix arrive in Sugar Rush, where they fall into Nesquik-sand, work together to escape, and begin to fall in love. Meanwhile, Candy hacks into Sugar Rush's source code and retrieves the medal, giving it back to Ralph. He claims that if Vanellope becomes a playable character, her glitching may lead to the game being labeled out of order and unplugged. Ralph decides he cannot allow Vanellope to race and destroys her kart. Calhoun abandons Felix when he inadvertently reminds her of her late fiancé who was killed by a Cy-Bug during their wedding, by calling her his "dynamite gal"; Felix is imprisoned by Candy's assistant, Sour Bill, while Calhoun discovers that the Cy-Bug has multiplied exponentially.


Unaware of this development, Candy attempts to ram Vanellope off the track, causing them both to glitch. Their glitching inadvertently reveals Candy to be Turbo, a video game character who secretly took over Sugar Rush after he inadvertently caused his own game, Turbotime, to be unplugged. Vanellope flees as Turbo is eaten by a Cy-Bug, which fuses with him into an insectoid monster. Everyone but Vanellope evacuates, as glitches cannot leave their games. Remembering from Hero's Duty that a beacon will draw and destroy the Cy-Bugs, Ralph battles Turbo and collapses the Mentos roof of Diet Cola Mountain, creating a glowing eruption which lures and destroys Turbo and the Cy-Bugs. Vanellope rescues Ralph and crosses the finish line. The game resets, revealing her as the true ruler of Sugar Rush, though she keeps her glitching ability, considering it an advantage.


Ralph returns to his game, content with his role as a villain and respected by his fellow characters. Felix and Calhoun marry, and Ralph watches Vanellope become Sugar Rush's favorite character.


The cast also includes the Fix-It Felix Jr. Nicelanders, Edie McClurg as Mary,[14] Raymond S. Persi as Mayor Gene,[17] Jess Harnell as Don, Rachael Harris as Deanna,[14] and Skylar Astin as Roy; Katie Lowes as Candlehead, Jamie Elman as Rancis Fluggerbutter, Josie Trinidad as Jubileena Bing-Bing, and Cymbre Walk as Crumbelina DiCaramello, racers in Sugar Rush; Phil Johnston as Surge Protector, Game Central Station security;[18] Stefanie Scott as Moppet Girl, a young arcade-game player;[14] John DiMaggio as Beard Papa, the security guard at the Sugar Rush candy-kart factory; Raymond Persi as a Zombie, Brian Kesinger as a Cyborg (based on Kano from Mortal Kombat) and Martin Jarvis as Saitine, a devil-like villain, who attends the Bad-Anon support group; Tucker Gilmore as the Sugar Rush Announcer; Brandon Scott as Kohut, a soldier in Hero's Duty; and Tim Mertens as Dr. Brad Scott, a scientist who is Sgt. Calhoun's deceased fiancé in Hero's Duty (voiced by Nick Grimshaw in the UK version but not in the UK home release).


The film features several cameos from real-world video game characters including: Tapper (Maurice LaMarche), the bartender from Tapper;[19] Sonic the Hedgehog (Roger Craig Smith);[14][18] Ryu (Kyle Hebert), Ken Masters (Reuben Langdon), M. Bison (Gerald C. Rivers), and Zangief (Rich Moore) from Street Fighter II;[1][14][20] Clyde (Kevin Deters) from Pac-Man;[21] and Yuni Verse (Jamie Sparer Roberts) from Dance Dance Revolution (specifically X2).[22]


In addition to the spoken roles, Wreck-It Ralph contains a number of other video game references, including characters and visual gags. The video game villains at the support meeting, in addition to those mentioned above, include Bowser from the Mario franchise,[1][12][20] Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog,[1][20] and Neff from Altered Beast.[24]Additionally, the game cabinet of the fictional Fix It Felix, Jr. arcade game is stylized to strongly resemble the cabinet of Nintendo's original 1981 Donkey Kong arcade game,[25] with Ralph and Felix taking similar poses as Donkey Kong and Mario, respectively. The Hero's Duty game is a reference to the hugely successful first-person shooter games Halo and Call of Duty.Characters from Q*bert are shown as "homeless" characters and later taken in by Ralph and Felix into their game (Q*bert also speaks to Felix at one point using the signature synthesized gibberish and word-balloon symbols from his game, called Q*bert-ese).[19][26] Scenes in Game Central Station and Tapper's bar include Chun-Li, Cammy and Blanka from Street Fighter,[20][27] Pac-Man, Blinky, Pinky, and Inky from Pac-Man,[19][28] the Paperboy from Paperboy,[24][29] the two paddles and the ball from Pong,[30] Dig Dug, a Pooka, and a Fygar from Dig Dug,[30] The Qix from Qix,[28] Frogger from Frogger, and Peter Pepper from BurgerTime.[31] Lara Croft and Mario are also mentioned.[32]


Additional references are based on sight gags. The residents of Niceland and the bartender from Tapper are animated using a jerky motion that spoofs the limited animation cycles of the sprites of many eight- and sixteen-bit arcade games.[33] King Candy uses the Konami Code on an NES controller to access the programming of Sugar Rush.[34] Throughout Game Central Station is graffiti that includes "Aerith lives" (referencing the character of Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII),[29][35] "All your base are belong to us" (an Engrish phrase popularized from the game Zero Wing), "Sheng Long Was Here" (referencing an April Fool's joke around a made-up character Sheng Long from Street Fighter), and "Jenkins" (a nod to the popular Leeroy Jenkins meme from World of Warcraft).[36] There is also a reference to the Metal Gear series when Ralph is searching for a medal in Tapper's Lost and found, finding first a Super Mushroom from the Mario franchise, and then Metal Gear Solid's "Exclamation point" (with the corresponding sound effect from the game).[33] Mr. Litwak wears a black and white striped referee's shirt, a nod to the iconic outfit of Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day.[33] One of the songs in the credits is an original work from Buckner and Garcia, previously famous for writing video game-themed songs in the 1980s.[33] The Walt Disney Animation Studios opening logo is animated in an 8-bit pixelated fashion,[37] whereas the Walt Disney Pictures closing production logo appears in a glitched state, a reference to the kill screen from many early arcade games such as Pac-Man.[36] The high score on the main screen of Fix-It Felix, Jr., 120501, refers to the birthdate of Walt Disney, December 5, 1901.[38]


John Lasseter, the head of Walt Disney Animation Studios and executive producer of the film, describes Wreck-It Ralph as "an 8-bit video-game bad guy who travels the length of the arcade to prove that he's a good guy."[26] In a manner similar to Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Toy Story films, Wreck-It Ralph featured cameo appearances by a number of licensed video-game characters.[26] For example, one scene from the film shows Ralph attending a support group for the arcade's various villain characters, including Clyde from Pac-Man, Doctor Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog, and Bowser from Super Mario Bros.[26] Rich Moore, the film's director, had determined that for a film about a video-game world to feel authentic, "it had to have real characters from real games in it."[41] Moore aimed to add licensed characters in a similar manner as cultural references in Looney Tunes shorts, but considered "having the right balance so a portion of the audience didn't feel they were being neglected or talked down to."[42] However, Moore avoided creating the movie around existing characters, feeling that "there's so much mythology and baggage attached to pre-existing titles that I feel someone would be disappointed," and considered this to be a reason why movies based on video game franchises typically fail.[42] Instead, for Ralph, the development of new characters representative of the 8-bit video game was "almost like virgin snow," giving them the freedom to take these characters in new directions.[42]


Before production, the existing characters were added to the story either in places they would make sense to appear or as cameos from a list of characters suggested by the film's creative team, without consideration if they would legally be able to use the characters.[41] The company then sought out the copyright holders' permissions to use the characters, as well as working with these companies to assure their characters were being represented authentically.[41] In the case of Nintendo, the writers had early on envisioned the Bad-anon meeting with Bowser as a major character within the scene; according to Moore, Nintendo was very positive towards this use, stating in Moore's own words, "If there is a group that is dedicated to helping the bad guy characters in video games then Bowser must be in that group!"[29] Nintendo had asked that the producers try to devise a scene that would be similarly appropriate for Mario for his inclusion in the film. Despite knowing they would be able to use the character, the producers could not find an appropriate scene that would let Mario be a significant character without taking away the spotlight from the main story and opted to not include the character.[29][43] Moore debunked a rumor that Mario and his brother character Luigi were not included due to Nintendo requesting too high a licensing fee, stating that the rumor grew out of a joke John C. Reilly made at Comic-Con.[32]Dr. Wily from Mega Man was going to appear but was cut from the final version of the film.[44] Overall, there are about 188 individual character models in the movie as a result of these cameo inclusions.[41] 2ff7e9595c


0 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page