From co-director Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, Ralph Breaks the Internet, the follow-up to 2012's Wreck-It Ralph, revisits the friendship between video game bad guy Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) and fellow misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (voiced by Sarah Silverman), this time following their journey as they venture outside of Litwak’s video arcade and into the uncharted and fast-paced world of the internet. In this new world that can be both exciting and overwhelming, Ralph and Vanellope realize that even though it contains endless possibilities, the internet is also vast and dangerous and can turn a friendship toxic, if you’re not careful.
At the film’s Los Angeles press day, Collider got the opportunity to chat with filmmakers Rich Moore and Phil Johnston. During the interview, they talked about living up to expectations for this sequel, what they’re most proud of with the finished film, Easter eggs, characters they wanted to include but couldn’t, what they put in that they’re surprised they got away with, what The Golden Girls have to do with it, that TRON video game scene, and getting iconic composer Alan Menken to write an original song.
Collider: After how successful the first movie was, how scary was it to do this movie? What were you most nervous about, as far as bringing these characters back and doing this sequel?
PHIL JOHNSTON: I’m a little like Ralph. I’m a little insecure about everything. Ultimately, you just want people to like it. That’s the raw, honest truth of it. You wanna honor the characters from the first movie, and we love those characters like family. I wanna do right by them and live up to the expectations, but then you also have all of these fans that have their own expectations that they put on it. So, it’s really just, are we doing justice to this and making an even better, bigger, different story, where people will still recognize the characters, but feel like they’ve been on a different journey?
When the first film came out, because it was a very different kind of movie with very different characters than what we’ve seen before, did you have a moment when you realized that people were really getting it and were loving the characters?
RICH MOORE: It was a mystery to me, how people would react to a Disney movie, where we are putting out misfit characters filled with flaws, unabashedly front and center. We thought, will this play to our audience? And it was a relief. I’ve always believed that you can make a very, very funny animated film. I had friends that I worked with on The Simpsons that said, “A big studio or animation house will never be able to hit the heights of The Simpsons or Family Guy,” and that became a challenge to me. I was like, “Well, we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna make what we think is the funniest animated film, ever made.” So, for it to be as welcomed and embraced as the first film was, was the culmination of a journey of wanting to make a very heartfelt comedy with real laughs.
Do you have moments that stand out for you, where you’ve seen people dressed up as Ralph and Vanellope?
MOORE: Yeah, when I see the cosplay, I’m so proud.
JOHNSTON: There’s a woman, named Val Sanchez, who works at our studio, and she dressed as Vanellope [for Halloween]. She looks a little like Sarah [Silverman], so it was surreal. I did a double take, but she’s shorter. I was like, “Oh, my god, Vanellope actually lives in the real world, and it’s you, Val.” It was crazy!
MOORE: I saw the pictures of her.
JOHNSTON: It’s surreal. I walked in the Disney Store the other night and saw the toys. Double Dan has a toy. This weird, crazy idea of this worm man with a vestigial twin in his neck is a toy. It’s so weird, I can’t get over it. The outcasts need toys, too.
Now that the film is finished, what are you most proud of, as far as what you were able to do with Ralph Breaks the Internet?
MOORE: The fact that the villain, or antagonist, is not your average Disney antagonist. People online were guessing, “Shank is the villain. I’m calling it right now. She’s the villain.” And for a while, there was a more traditional villain in the film, but we always went back to this idea of Ralph’s insecurity really needing to be the antagonist of this story. He had to be his own worst enemy, in destroying this friendship, from the inside. It seemed like such a heady challenge, at the beginning, that we didn’t have an answer for, but we would keep coming back to it and saying, “Okay, we tried a traditional villain. We tried an anti-viral cop that was tailing them. We’ve tried different things. It’s just not packing the punch that we really need, at this point.” So, we really grinded on that idea of how the image that we wanted, in the end, was Ralph letting Vanellope go. He’s been holding so tight to her, that the image we should see is him releasing her. In the beginning, we didn’t know how to get there, but that’s the beauty of our process. It’s like, “Okay, maybe we don’t know today, and maybe we’ll try something different tomorrow, but eventually, I think we’re gonna get there.
When you have a world as big as this one, there are endless possibilities for Easter eggs. How did you gauge how many to have, and what should people be looking for, especially the first time they see the film?
JOHNSTON: The Oh My Disney scene, in particular, is just full of them. There are probably a hundred that I could name, off of the top of my head, and there are probably 200 more Rich and I don’t even know about, that animators have dropped in there. And certainly, as you’re passing through the internet, you’ll see things that you recognize, like websites, and there will be little visual gags and sign gags, here and there. Hopefully, you can watch the movie the first time through and just follow the story and fall in love with these characters again. Then, you’ll return and pay the second time to find the Easter eggs. Then, there will be a third trip where I will provide insider tips. That’s the $100 VIP ticket. You can send that to me, and I’ll give you seven Easter eggs. And then, for the fourth viewing, Rich and I will come to your home and bring you a bean bag. That’s $1,000, also payable to me. Cash is preferred, but I’ll also take a money order. No traveler’s checks.
We get to see Nick from Zootopia, R2D2 is in there, and the little moment with Eeyore is fun. Are there any appearances that you felt like you just had to get in there?
MOORE: We had designed Chewbacca, but his fur groom was so complex that it was like, “Guys, we’ve blown it on princess gowns.”
JOHNSTON: Technical animation is hair and cloth, and Chewbacca is pure hair, so we were like, “All right, we don’t absolutely have to include that.”
MOORE: We have costume changes for 14 princesses.
JOHNSTON: You know what we desperately wanted? The Golden Girls. No joke! The Golden Girls are a huge part of Oh My Disney, for reasons beyond our understanding.
MOORE: It’s Buena Vista Television, I guess.
JOHNSTON: Rich and I were like, “We’ve gotta put Rue McClanahan and Bea Arthur in there.”
MOORE: And Estelle Getty and Betty White.
JOHNSTON: And everyone was like, “Why would you do that?”
MOORE: “Why are The Golden Girls at Oh My Disney?!” Well, look on the website.
JOHNSTON: It’s a real thing.
MOORE: They have a presence. But they were like, “I don’t think anyone’s gonna get that. I think that’s gonna create more questions than laughs.”
JOHNSTON: So, we didn’t do it.
MOORE: We were like, “Okay, we’ve gotta step away from The Golden Girls.”
Were there any cameos that you did get away with, that you were surprised that you did?
JOHNSTON: There’s a hand drawn image in the background that’s not so surprising that we got away with, but it’s just shocking that it’s there.
MOORE: We were like, “What can we do?” We were in the last months of production and we said, “We want more Easter eggs. What could we do, that we don’t have to build something for? Well, we could do some 2D stuff. What’s a good 2D, from one of the shorts?” And Kira Lehtomaki, one of our animation supervisors, was like, “Well, there’s the famous Humphrey the Bear.” We were like, “Oh, my god, I love that! Mark [Henn], could you animate that, this week?” And he said, “Yeah, I could do that.” It was really that simple. I really wanted Herbie the Love Bug, but we couldn’t put him in.
The scene in the TRON game is such a fun moment. Did you ever try to actually put TRON or Flynn in there anywhere?
MOORE: In an early iteration in storyboards, when it was just about them going into TRON and goofing off, as they are, I think we had a moment where TRON and Flynn were watching from the sidelines like, “Oh, it’s those two idiots again.”
JOHNSTON: One of my favorite lines is when they get stuck and Ralph goes, “TRON? Tronny.” I like the idea that Ralph calls TRON, “Throne Boy.”
MOORE: And that they’re familiar with each other.
JOHNSTON: That makes me laugh.
When and how did you end up with an original song by Alan Menken, that you also have Sarah Silverman and Gal Gadot singing?
JOHNSTON: It came out of the princess sequence, where we knew that that scene needed to really support the story. As it was, it was gonna be funny, and we were confident in that, but we weren’t certain that it was advancing our story, on Vanellope’s journey. So, we started talking about, “How could the princesses help Vanellope find her dream? What about a song? They all sing. Wouldn’t that be funny? We’ll do an Alan Menken kind of song.” And then, we were like, “Oh, wait, we know Alan Menken. We can have an Alan Menken song! And it can’t be anything but an Alan Menken song because it has to be earnest and real.” We did not want a comedic song. You may laugh in it, but it’s a song that should have real feeling and real heart, and it should really reflect Vanellope’s emotional state. Alan Menken is the king of that, and we were lucky.
MOORE: And Gal was actually excited. She was like, “There’s singing in this role, too? Great, I love to sing!”
JOHNSTON: Sarah and Gal are amazing singers. Sarah, in Vanellope’s voice, in particular, to hit some of those notes is no small thing. It was very cool.
We need some more of these amazing characters, so are you at least considering a Ralph 3?
JOHNSTON: We need the world to see this one.
MOORE: Yeah, we’ll let the world decide if we unleash them again.
Ralph Breaks the Internet opens in theaters on November 21st.