noiseredux's Monthly VG Movie: Once Upon Atari

[Jagosaurus]

I also agree with Noise, it was intended to go from classic to modern, from retro cabinet to FPS, from coin op machine to candy land themed game of the month.

Possible, but if so, I think it becomes very vague in the transition. While there's definitely a little of the old vs. new dynamic going on, there's probably more being read into that than is actually presented in the movie.

Ralph being an old, out dated game & becoming popular again in the end is one of the main themes of the movie.

Again, not a huge fan of the movie but that was one of the main points I got out of it. Also how Ralph was "lost" in newer games adds to it.

"I'm an analog guy in a digital world!" comes to mind.

[noiseredux]

I also thought it was funny when the king in the Candy Rush world says that the game is "play to win."

Jag, I watched this and Inside-Out this week and I really felt like this was the better movie. I *liked* Inside-Out a lot, but I loved Wreck-It Ralph.

[Jagosaurus]

Jag, I watched this and Inside-Out this week and I really felt like this was the better movie. I *liked* Inside-Out a lot, but I loved Wreck-It Ralph.

WHAT!?



Lol love that guy. I definitely laughed a lot harder in Inside Out. Can't pinpoint why but I gravitate toward the Pixar humor more than the WD Animation movies such as Frozen,Tangled, or Ralph. Those 3 are solid and all, I just find the Pixar movies more up my alley.

Forgot to mention I really liked Q*Bert in Ralph.

[noiseredux]

I *usually* prefer Pixar too. But I did love this and Frozen.

[isiolia]

Ralph being an old, out dated game & becoming popular again in the end is one of the main themes of the movie.

Again, not a huge fan of the movie but that was one of the main points I got out of it. Also how Ralph was "lost" in newer games adds to it.

"I'm an analog guy in a digital world!" comes to mind.

Sure, and obsolescence in general is a motivation for the villain, but it's predominately there to create rules for the movie to build a plot around. The characters don't want to die, or don't want their game to die. All the games being popular is the "and they lived happily ever after" for that setup. Nobody is in danger of their game getting turned off.

Little of Ralph's being lost seems due to games being modern, and more due to them being new to him. All the machines are shown being coin-op, and fairly little is done with player interaction to boot - how credits, scores, character selection, control etc would work for example. The kinds of things that would open up that kind of old vs. new dynamic to mess with.

[Jagosaurus]

Little of Ralph's being lost seems due to games being modern, and more due to them being new to him.

Circular point there



I think it's exactly what they were shooting for. Both of those.

Interesting that I didn't love (nor hate) the movie, but our points are polar opposite here on this.

@Bonez, I hear the new Pixar Dino movie isn't doing well. That'd be a first.

I also need to read through thread & see what I missed out on!

[dsheinem]

My .02 on this one from back in the day:

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) – I gushed about this quite a bit in the day after seeing it, and while my reflection has tempered my thoughts about the film some, I think that it is probably the most I’ve enjoyed an animated film since Toy Story 3. Everything about it – character development, animation, plot, score, directing, etc. – it feels like a love letter to gaming in much the way that the Toy Story films feel like a love letter to toys. All that is missing, really, is that sentimentality and tear-jerkiness of Pixar’s best efforts – this one gets close but lacks some of that multi-layered commentary and insight. I am willing to concede that my love of retrogaming probably is causing me to bump this a bit higher than it might be for others since I feel that the film was almost made for people like me, but by extension I am willing to bet it would be hard for anyone here not to find this film enjoyable.
Grade: 4/5

[isiolia]

Little of Ralph's being lost seems due to games being modern, and more due to them being new to him.

Circular point there

How so? On a general level, those are two different things. As a player, you could have a modern game you've played through six times and are intimately familiar with, and an NES game you've never seen in action before.

Within the internal logic of the movie, each game effectively has its own world, and to the characters jumping between them the actual level of detail is fairly static. Main thing would be scope - Sugar Rush is comparably huge next to Ralph's world, or Tapper's, etc.
Offhand though, none of that actually seems to matter to the characters, much less confuse them, or change what or how they can do things.

What does seem to be the case is that their knowledge is limited to personal experience with games that have been part of the arcade. For as relatively little in each game world that Ralph doesn't accept in stride or just "get", to me, it'd be a safe assumption that he could be equally as confused by a decades-old game that had never been plugged in there.

[samsonlonghair]

Wreck it Ralph was done by Walt Disney Animation Studios vs their Pixar team. I have no idea how these studios operate internally or possibly overlap but, from the outside looking in, I think the Pixar team's movies do a much better job with story, humor, & overall execution. Keeping that in mind...

Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar are two separate studios on two separate campuses. Disney also has a third studio called DisneyToon Studios which makes direct-to-video movies and sequels to more successful Disney flicks (think Planes and Return of Jafar). All three studios are under the purview of John Lasseter (who comes from Pixar).
Remember that during the time that Wreck-it Ralph was in production, Pixar was making Brave. Hypothetically speaking, would you sacrifice Brave to make Wreck-it Ralph a Pixar production instead?

Edit: By the way, I wrote this on Mach 10th, 2013 in This thread.

I saw Wreck-it Ralph in Theaters. I had a lot of fun watching this movie.

It's worth knowing before you watch this flick that a lot of the references in this movie are indirect. Sure, specific games like Q-Bert, Street Fighter II, and Sonic get referenced. Most of the references are more subtle. I like that they don't beat you over the head. Either you notice the reference to the arcade classic "tapper" or you don't, and the movie moves on without tapping you on the shoulder to make sure you got the joke. If you're a grown-up who's played Donkey Kong in the arcade, Wreck-it Ralph and Fix-it Felix are immediately recognizable characters; on the other hand, if you're a kid who has never seen the inside of an arcade, Wreck-it Ralph and Fix-it Felix still work as solid characters.

Well-played Disney, well-played.

[noiseredux]

NOW PLAYING - JANUARY 2016:

The Last Starfighter



1984, 101 Minutes, Rated PG

Trailer:

This month's Together Retro title is KOTOR, so I thought it would be appropriate if we watched a space opera. I present you with a childhood favorite of mine: The Last Starfighter.

This is the story of a teen, Alex who lives in a trailer park. He spends much of his time playing an arcade game called Starfighter and looking to the skies, dreaming that someday he'll escape that little trailer park. After setting a world record with his high score in Starfighter he's greeted by the game's creator, Centauri. Here the epic begins as we learn that the game was basically training for a huge outerspace conflict between two alien nations.

As a side note, I have always wondered if the idea of the arcade game being training for combat was inspired at all by the Polybius urban legend.

The cast includes Lance Guest (Halloween II, Jaws The Revenge), Catherine Mary Stewart (Weekend At Bernie's, Night Of The Comet) and Robert Preston (The Music Man, Victor Victoria). It was directed by Nick Castle who is actually best known for playing the role of Michael Myers in the original Halloween, along with directing The Boy Who Could Fly and co-writing Escape From New York with John Carpenter.

If you want to "play along," there are a few confusing options. While various arcade and home ports of The Last Starfighter game in the movie were planned, none (officially materialized). The Atari computer versions were eventually released under the title Star Raiders II; The 2600 version was released as Solaris. The NES game titled The Last Starfighter is actually a port of a C64 game called Uridium. Luckily a faithful freeware port of the arcade game was developed for PC in 2007.

The Last Starfighter is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. It's also up for digital rental through Vudu and Sony Entertainment.