THE DIRECTORS

Rich Moore has directed some of Disney Animations most recent hits, such as Wreck-It Ralph and Zootopia. His latest work is Ralph Breaks the Internet, a direct sequel to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph. Phil Johnston was one of the writers who worked on the original movie and is now a co-director on the film.

WHY A SEQUEL?

The original movie seemed to leave Ralph and Vanellope in a good place. When asked if they were satisfied with the original ending and why they felt the need to revisit the characters, director Rich Moore said, “We did. Until we looked at the very last line of the first movie. Where Ralph says– after going friendless for the whole movie and then finally making a friend. He’s back home and says, ‘If that little kid likes me, how bad can I be?’ And it seemed at the time, it’s so sweet. It’s a wonderful sentiment.”

Moore continued, “But then as we continued to kind of pick at it, we said, that’s really, really dysfunctional. That this guy is defining himself by what his best friend thinks. And it’s a great best friend. But what if she were not to like him someday? What would that lead to?”

 

Ralph Breaks the Internet co-director Phil Johnston added, “And so knowing that he still had quite a bit of insecurity, he still had farther to go in his journey. Then we had only known Vanellope for like 35 minutes or 40 minutes. So, she has a whole other story. We had to keep going with these characters.”

THE INTERNET

In Ralph Breaks the Internet, the Internet is a vast city Ralph and Vanellope visit. Talking about visualizing the Internet, Phil Johnston said, “The simplest comp is, after several horrible ideas that didn’t really make sense, we finally landed on something where we thought of it like an old city like Rome or Istanbul. Where the ancient city is buried deep beneath. Then they build a new version on top of that and a new version on top of that like that. And that’s kind of actually what the Internet is. You go down to the guts of it and you find.”

Johnston finished, “But that’s how we envisioned it. Like a city that is multi-multi layered with the newest, biggest websites are up on top. Then the old forgotten stuff is down at the bottom.”