Moviefone Editorial

Tag: rich moore

  • Fictional Video Games from Hollywood

    Fictional Video Games from Hollywood

    With the release of ‘Free Guy,’ directed by Shawn Levy, Hollywood is treated once again to a video game… inside a film! But this isn’t the first time that video games have wormed their ways inside film. Now, when I say ‘video games in film’ I mean… games made for movies! Sometimes, instead of using an already existing game (and having to wrestle with licenses), producers will make their own game. Often, these movies will revolve around said game, and show a great example of the era of both gaming and film. Here are just a few!

    Tron (1982) – directed by Steven Lisberger and
    Tron: Legacy (2010) – directed by Joseph Kosinski

    Starting this list off right with the quintessential ‘game made for a movie’, Disney’s Tron and its beautiful sequel, Tron: Legacy. While the film itself does not take place in a video game, Tron sure looks like one. As the film released in the 80s, its main focus is on the arcade boom of the era. From both movies showing off different ‘gameplay’ from light cycle races to digital (deadly) disk throwing, the futuristic tone of both films captures its very obvious gaming inspiration to a tee.
    The early 80s film had effects that were groundbreaking at the time, but look limited to us now. It’s sequel, Tron: Legacy, recreates what a game world would look like, put through a beautiful lens. But that rich art style doesn’t make the video game aspect less beautiful-or deadly. Tron was one of the first films to really lean into its gaming roots, and obviously the special effects at the time were to thank. Besides, it totally comes full circle when in Legacy, the arcade game is front and center!
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    Gamer (2009) – directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor

    Going deep for this one, this Gerard Butler film combined multiple games into a single action-packed movie. Having both a battle-royal style last man standing shooter titled ‘Slayers’ (even before Fortnite blew up) and a Second Life-style simulation game called ‘Society’ where you can be and act like anyone, Gamer basically was a very intense parody about the gamer sub-culture. Showing both the ‘you can be anyone in a video game’ aspect and the idea that behind every game player behind the screen could be a little kid or not, Gamer doesn’t only use it’s in-movie video games to tell a kick-ass action movie story, but to also be a mirror to what the games industry is now. The film also is a foil for how Virtual Reality is used today, (and will be covered in another film on this list!) with them totally leaning into the ‘you really can be anyone’ in any virtual space. It also leans into the violence of gaming, and the thought of ‘so what if these characters really die?’
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    Ready Player One (2018) – directed by Steven Spielberg

    And here’s where we cover the futuristic VR adventure! Ready Player One is all about a future where we live in Virtual Reality, and post-apocalyptic-ish future aside, it’s a great example of basing a fake game off 8-where the real ones are going. We already have so many other games that allow you to be someone else (such as VR Chat on steam and the Oculus), but in the OASIS, the game part of the film, it’s like all of what we have now pushed to the extreme.
    People live in the OASIS, go to school, hang out with friends, etc. Ready Player One shows us the extremes of how far a game can go, and even a bit of a warning where it could take us if we don’t pay attention to it. While it is incredibly cool that the creator of a game hides different keys in different film and other game references to lead the whole company, it also can be used as something for us to watch out for. While VR is an amazing technology and can lead us to great things and leaps in knowledge…I really don’t think we want it to go that far!
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    Wreck-It Ralph (2012) – directed by Rich Moore

    Now for something a little lighter, and a great representation of a movie paying homage to the games it’s based its own on. There are so many games in Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, but nothing pays more thanks to the franchise it’s based off, Fix-it Felix, Jr. An obvious reference to Donkey Kong, Felix goes up against Ralph as he tries to make it to the top of the screen. Felix is a stand-in for Mario and Ralph is aping the… ape. The movie shows Ralph being tired of being the villain, and it gets a lot of mileage using other video game characters as both cheeky references and callouts to the franchises that inspired the film.

    In the sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet, we see the film even make a comment on the current gaming landscape, showing us a Mad Max-style driving game Slaughter Race, and having an incredibly badass female character at the helm. The fact that female characters are becoming more mainstream in heavy action games wasn’t lost on the filmmakers. Even for a kid’s movie about old-school video games, Wreck-it Ralph, and its sequel, used its platform to speak more on the future of representation In the industry.
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    Wargames (1983) – directed by John Badham

    We are ending with a classic! I like to think Wargames is a cautionary tale (from a time long before) of how far video games could actually go… or how gullible one can be when they don’t pay enough attention! While the film doesn’t exactly feature a video game, it does feature a government program titled “Global Thermonuclear War”, which (oops) is actually a top-secret Air Force defense program! One can even compare the ‘video game’ played in Wargames to that of a modern real-time strategy game.
    While one is not planning out a real war, like the one in the film that David gets himself tied up in, we are using our brains to plan out how battles will go and how our troops will mow down the others on the other side of the digital map. Speaking on the fear I mentioned earlier, the 1980s were… a time. For many things, but video games had received a resurgence, as well as arcades. The idea that games could be anything but fun and great for kids was thrown on its head with Wargames, with the fear that the game you think could be played could just be starting the next World War.
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    While Free Guy may cover a fake video game, it wasn’t the first. And in this list we hoped we introduced you to brand-new films to watch at the end of the day, or remind you of some favorites!

    ‘Free Guy’ is in theaters on August 13th
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  • ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ Director Rich Moore Jumps to Sony Pictures Animation

    ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ Director Rich Moore Jumps to Sony Pictures Animation

    Wreck-It Ralph
    Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

    After a string of successful Disney movies, Rich Moore is leaving the Mouse House and headed to Sony Pictures Animation.

    Moore is now set to develop, produce, and direct animated movies for SPA, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He has helmed films such as “Wreck-It Ralph” and its sequel, not to mention the Academy Award-winning “Zootopia.”

    SPA highlighted his track record as it announced the news Monday. The studio’s president, Kristine Belson, described him as a “world-class storyteller … with him a wealth of experience and a unique sensibility for story, comedy and heart.” She also noted that they look forward to working with him on “a slate of animated features that are big, bold and will take audiences by surprise.”

    Although Moore moved on from Disney Animation Studios, he made it clear he is grateful for the decade he spent there. “I remain a lifelong Disney Animation fan and look forward to the films they’ll create in the future,” he said.

    Between the two studios (plus others), we should have a lot of great animated films to look forward to.

    [via: THR]

  • ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Directors Phil Johnston on Rich Moore About How the Film Once Opened with a Funeral

    ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Directors Phil Johnston on Rich Moore About How the Film Once Opened with a Funeral

    Disney

    “Ralph Breaks the Internet” was one of the most delightful surprises of last year. The follow-up to 2014’s “Wreck-It Ralph” saw Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) transported to the Internet, where their friendship was tested and they met a bunch of Disney Princesses. It’s a hoot. We were able to sit down with directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore and producer Clark Spencer about the movie’s deeper themes, the upcoming “Zootopia” land, and how at one point the movie (an Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature) once began on a very, very different note. 

    So at one point the movie used to open like the classic Disney storybook, right?

    Johnston: Yeah.

    Moore: For about 30 seconds.

    Johnston: It could have worked, actually.

    Moore: Ralph had written his own book about their friendship. It was his book about Ralph and Vanellope. It was kind of a recap of what happened in the first movie but through Ralph’s point of view. It was a little skewed.

    Johnston: Yeah, it was arrogant. It’s as if he were the white night. I was so convinced that was going to work. I think it could have. I’m trying to remember why we took it out.

    Moore: Well, it skewed the story. He kind of looked like a jerk. It was so full of himself in that version. And it was a little confusing to people who hadn’t seen the first movie. Because it wasn’t the right story. So they would say, “Is that what happened in the first one?” No!

    It also started with a funeral at one point, right?

    Moore: Yeah. Tapper was unplugged and they were having a memorial. And Ralph and Vanellope were making the eulogy all about themselves. Then Gene got mad and started booing the eulogy.

    Johnston: That also worked!

    Disney

    Also, in the Oh My Disney scene with the princesses, there was a moment when Vanellope jumped on Dumbo’s back and got into a dogfight with some TIE fighters right?

    Johnston: She had a clickbait pop-up sign and was flying on Dumbo and bopping people on the head to force them to click on it.

    Moore: It was a little too long.

    Johnston: It made the scene too big.

    Moore: It turned more into her getting clicks. It was too much story.

    Spencer: And it was an issue of – how do we enjoy the website before she meets the princesses? But the princesses are really the scene. So we would always be balancing that. Like people wanting to see more of the website before the princesses and then we’d spend more time in it and make a big scene. And then they’d say, “Well what is this scene about?”

    Disney

    There’s a lot of great, brave subtext in “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” just like there was in “Zootopia.” This time it’s about toxic masculinity and online bullying. How important is that stuff to why you made the movie?

    Johnston: The first idea was always going to be about their friendship and that they would go to the Internet and the Internet would test their friendship in some way. Once we landed on the story of it being Vanellope falling in love with this pace on the Internet and wanting to stay there for the rest of her life, that idea of Ralph’s insecurity becoming a force of antagonism sort of fed naturally into toxic masculinity. Because so many of the traits he shows on the negative side of his personality are textbook. In the same way we didn’t want “Zootopia” to be a message movie, this is a feminist story about Vanellope finding her voice as a woman and relying on other strong women to help her along the way. Without ever going, “We must make this message movie about toxic masculinity and feminism,” that’s definitely baked into the subtext.

    Moore: While we loved the relationship and feel like this is a relationship worth fighting for, we wanted to portray it as it was broken. They had fallen into a codependent friendship that they weren’t even aware of. It was going to the Internet that exposed how weak their friendship was at that point and that they were both feeding into negative aspects of it. But it was going to the Internet that sped up bow broken this was and that if not cared to was just going to fall apart.

    Clark was this ever anything you had to fight for?

    Spencer: Well I think the great thing is that these guys push hard on their ideas and stories and how they can go further. That’s what’s nice about having a story trust that pushes on us. So there’s always a discussion of, “Have we gone as far as we can go?” And “What else can we dive into?” But I think, to their point, we felt that if we were going to go into The Internet, we have a responsibility to show the good and the bad side of it and delve into these tougher topics. I think “Zootopia” is a great example of a film that was willing to tackle racism. So I think it gave us the belief that we could do that also.

    Disney

    Speaking of “Zootopia,” Tiny Lister has been out there talking about subsequent sequels.

    Moore: I’m not sure where Tiny is getting this information from.

    Johnston: I’m going to announce right now: there is a “Zootopia 5” in the works. Not “2,” “3,” or “4.” Just jump to “5.” Kind of like “Big Hero 6.” It’s going to be huge.

    Moore: Finnick is the star. Tiny plays all the characters. It’s going to have a $3 trillion budget.

    Johnston: It’s like “My Dinner with Andre.”

    Moore: I like how Tiny Lester was throwing out numbers and everything. Where is this coming from Tiny?

    Well something that is slightly more concrete – literally — is the “Zootopia”-themed land coming to Shanghai. How excited are you for people to enter the world of “Zootopia?”

    Moore: I’m excited for me to enter the world of “Zootopia.”

    Spencer: The cool thing is that we make these movies and if we create characters the audience falls in love with, then hopefully they live on in the parks. Sometimes that’s walk-around characters, sometimes that might be an attraction.

    Moore: Or a special funnel cake!

    Spencer: But this is a land, which is amazing. I think they’ve outlined what they want to do with the land and it’ll be up to these guys to help with the characters and everything else.

    “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is out now on digital HD Blu-ray!   

  • ‘Ralph Breaks The Internet’ Review: Disney’s Much-Anticipated Sequel Is a Wild, Unpredictable Ride

    ‘Ralph Breaks The Internet’ Review: Disney’s Much-Anticipated Sequel Is a Wild, Unpredictable Ride

    Disney

    The long-awaited sequel to “Wreck-It Ralph” is titled “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” but it’s probably more accurate to say that the internet breaks him.

    After years of gameplay in the 8-bit world of “Fix-It Felix Jr.,” the character’s first foray into the weird, wild world of the Web is as cacophonous and overwhelming as you might expect. But of the many goods and services provided at the click of a button, the most dangerous for Ralph — and the most needed — is a mirror for his own behavior. John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman return as the anchors of this delightful digital journey, but for such a vivid and energetic look inside the internet, directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston offer a shrewd and surprisingly unsentimental look at the dangers of focusing on just one thing in a world full of endless opportunities to connect.

    Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph (Reilly) and Vanellope (Silverman) have settled into a familiar routine — “working” in their games by day, boozing it up at Tapper’s at night. But when the Sugar Rush game breaks in the real world, Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) shuts it down, forcing Vanellope and her fellow drivers to seek shelter elsewhere in the arcade. Ralph, determined to help his best friend, infiltrates Litwak’s newly acquired internet connection and the two venture into its new and overwhelming landscape in search of replacement parts. What they soon learn, however, is that even digital characters need money, and after inadvertently driving up the price of the part, they need lots of it.

    Crossing paths with J.P. Spamly (Bill Hader), who promises opportunities to score quick cash playing video games, Ralph and Vanellope start doing what they do best in other worlds — including Slaughter Race, a brutal Mad Max-like racing game where Vanellope meets her match, and possible new BFF, in Shank (Gal Gadot), its head driver. But when Ralph becomes threatened by Vanellope’s burgeoning curiosity about a world outside not just their respective games but the friendship he holds most dear, he begins to discover just how fickle the internet can be. Soon, he is forced to consider whether his insulated life of routine is protecting him from the rest of the world, or keeping him from exploring it.

    If you’ve seen a single pixel of footage from the movie in advertisements, then you know that the Disney princesses make an appearance — a sly and hilarious display of corporate synergy that sends up not only the internet’s bottomless reservoir of time-wasting crossovers, but also many of the bygone conventions applied to the studio’s animated heroines. Moore and Johnston don’t quite always fall on the right side of when to include a “real world” company like Google or Ebay and when to make one up, but the movie is most successful when it’s skewering not just the companies and properties that comprise our great electronic unifier but the method and rhythms of our interactions with it. Ralph’s efforts to generate “hearts” in exchange for cash is hysterical and sort of wonderfully depressing in its pandering desperation — he will literally do anything, no matter how shameless — but it connects the movie to some real and unflattering truths about the web, and via the title character, some of the folks who spend the most time on it.

    Specifically, Ralph has built himself a comfortable existence as Vanellope’s best friend, and just as he feels complete satisfaction from that dynamic, he expects her to feel the same way — and when she doesn’t is when the whole internet comes crashing down. The movie explicitly articulates some simple, important truths — “never read the comments” — but the more oblique ones are probably the most essential to heed, especially as Ralph’s determination to “protect” and “help” Vanellope manifests itself in increasingly unhealthy ways. Such lessons are of course relevant in electronic space where cruelty and kindness can be dished out carelessly and be dismissed (especially by the perpetrator) as intangible. They feel particularly necessary, however, and astute, in a real world where “finding one’s tribe” can lead easily to a sense of isolation — and marginalization.

    That this culminates in a literal 800-foot Ralph, constructed from a swirling mass of smaller Ralphs, chasing Vanellope unfortunately threatens to overshadow such messages. Few animated movies in recent memory, much less from the likes of Disney, seem to wholeheartedly embrace the outlandish and fully bizarre visual opportunities that premises like this one introduce, but indulging them also makes for a wild and unpredictable ride. But then again, that’s sort of the point of the whole film, certainly for Vanellope — if you knew what you were getting into, or you’d already gotten into it, why take the ride again? And of course, per Ralph, there’s also something to be said about the security, and the reassuring familiarity, of experiencing something that’s at least somewhat like something you’ve done before.

    But ultimately, that’s why as discordant and unconventional as it sometimes is, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” resonates powerfully — because in addition to having a healthy perspective about both the pluses and minuses of the web, it takes some significant virtual epiphanies and applies them to characters who feel truly human.

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