Monday, November 2, 2015

This Day in Disney History: Monsters, Inc & Wreck-It Ralph (11/02)

As we approach the winter months, Disney/Pixar released many of their titles to coincide with the holiday season. Some of these movies even end up having the same release dates. Case in point is the next movies to come out, Monsters, Inc. and Wreck-It Ralph, both debuting on November 2nd but obviously in different years.


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Monsters, Inc. (2001) is an American computer animated comedy film produced by Pixar, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film stars the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn and Jennifer Tilly. Randy Newman, who composed the music for Pixar's three prior films, returned to compose its fourth. Monsters, Inc. was praised by critics and proved to be a major box office success from its release generating over $562 million worldwide.

The film centers on two monsters employed at the titular Monsters, Inc.: top scarer James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman) and his one-eyed partner and best friend Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal). Monsters, Inc. employees generate their city's power by targeting and scaring children, but they are themselves afraid that the children may contaminate them; when one child enters Monstropolis, Mike and Sulley must return her.

Plot

The parallel city of Monstropolis is inhabited by monsters and powered by the screams of children in the human world. At the factory of Monsters, Inc., employees called "scarers" venture into children's bedrooms to scare them and collect their screams, using closet doors as portals. This is considered a dangerous task because the monsters believe children are toxic and that touching them would be fatal. 

However, production is falling as children are becoming harder to scare and the company's chairman Henry J. Waternoose III is determined to find a solution. The top scarer is James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, who lives with his friend and assistant Mike Wazowski and has a rivalry with the ever-determined chameleon like monster Randall Boggs. During an ordinary day's work on what is known as the "Scarefloor", another scarer accidentally brings a child's sock into the factory, causing the Child Detection Agency (CDA) to arrive and cleanse him. 2319!

Mike is frequently ridiculed by the company's clerk Roz for never completing his paperwork on time. While working late at the factory, Sulley discovers that Randall left an activated door on the scarefloor and a young girl has entered the factory, much to Sulley's horror. After a few failed attempts to put her back, he places her in his bag and hides when Randall arrives and returns the door to storage. 

Mike is at a restaurant on a date with his girlfriend Celia when Sulley comes over to him for help, but chaos erupts when the girl is discovered in the restaurant, and the CDA is called. Sulley and Mike escape the CDA and take the girl home, discovering that she isn't toxic after all. Sulley quickly grows attached to the girl and names her "Boo". 

The next day, they smuggle her into the factory and Mike attempts to return her through her door. Randall discovers that Boo is in the factory after seeing Mike in the newspaper with her. He tries to kidnap Boo, but instead kidnaps Mike by mistake.
In the basement, Randall reveals to Mike that he has built a torture machine called the Scream Extractor, which would make the company's current tactics redundant. Randall straps Mike to the chair for experimentation, but Sulley stops Randall by unplugging the machine and reports Randall to Waternoose. 

However, Waternoose is revealed to be in allegiance with Randall and exiles Mike and Sulley to the Himalayas. The two are taken in by Yeti, who tells them they can return to the factory through a nearby village. Sulley heads out, but Mike refuses to follow him out of frustration. Sulley returns to the factory and rescues Boo from the Scream Extractor. Mike returns to apologize to Sulley and inadvertently helps Sulley defeat Randall in a fight.

Randall pursues Mike and Sulley as they race through the factory and ride on the doors heading into storage, taking them into a giant vault where millions of closet doors are stored. Boo's laughter activates the doors and allows the chase to pass in and out of the human world. When Randall attempts to kill Sulley, Boo is able to defeat Randall before Sulley and Mike trap him in the human world using a door to a trailer park, where he is beaten up by a pair of hillbillies.

They are finally able to access Boo's door, but Waternoose and the CDA send it back to the Scarefloor. Mike distracts the CDA, while Sulley escapes with Boo and her door while Waternoose follows. While arguing with Sulley, Waternoose reveals that he is working with Randall to kidnap kids and build the Scream Extractor in order to keep the company from going out of business and put an end to the energy crisis. The CDA appears after hearing Waternoose's confession and arrest him. The CDA's leader is revealed to be Roz, who has been undercover for two-and-a-half years trying to expose Waternoose's plot and thanks them for the help. Sulley and Mike say goodbye to Boo and return her home; on Roz's orders Boo's door is shredded. Sulley becomes the new chairman of Monsters Inc., and thanks to his experience with Boo, he comes up with a plan to end the company's energy crisis.

Months later, Sulley's leadership has changed the company's workload. The monsters now enter children's bedrooms to make them laugh, since laughter is ten times more powerful than screams. Mike takes Sulley aside, revealing he has almost rebuilt Boo's door, requiring only one more piece which Sulley took as a memento. Sulley opens the door and you just hear Boo say "Kitty!".


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Wreck-It Ralph (2012) is an American 3D computer animated fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 52nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film features the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, and Jane Lynch, and tells the story of the eponymous arcade game villain who rebels against his role and dreams of becoming a hero. He travels between games in the arcade, and ultimately must eliminate a dire threat that could affect the entire arcade, and one that Ralph himself inadvertently started.


Wreck-It Ralph has earned $471 million in worldwide box office revenue, $189 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada; it was met with critical and commercial success, winning the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and receiving nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Plot

When Litwak's Family Fun Center & Arcade closes at night, the various video game characters leave their normal in-game roles and are free to travel to other games. Within the game Fix-It Felix, Jr., the characters celebrate its titular hero but loathe the game's villain character, Wreck-It Ralph. At a support group for video-game antagonists, Ralph reveals his desire to stop being the bad guy. Back home, Ralph finds the other characters celebrating their game's 30th anniversary without inviting him. Felix reluctantly invites Ralph to join them, but the others ostracize him, saying he would have to earn a medal, just as Felix does in their game.

At Tapper's, Ralph learns he can win a medal in the first-person shooter game Hero's Duty. Ralph enters the game and encounters Sergeant Calhoun, its leader. Between game sessions, Ralph climbs the game's central beacon and collects the medal, accidentally hatching a Cy-Bug, one of the game's enemies. It clings to Ralph as he stumbles into an escape pod that launches him out of the game. 

Meanwhile, with Ralph missing, a girl reports to arcade-owner Litwak that Fix-It Felix, Jr. is malfunctioning. Since broken games get unplugged, leaving their characters homeless, Felix searches for Ralph.

Ralph crash-lands in Sugar Rush, a kart-racing game. As he searches for his medal, he meets Vanellope von Schweetz, a glitchy character who takes the medal and uses it to buy entry into a race. King Candy and the other racers refuse to let Vanellope participate, claiming she is not really part of the game. Ralph helps Vanellope build a kart. At her home in Diet Cola Mountain, an unfinished racing course, he discovers she is a natural racer.

Back in Hero's Duty, Felix meets Calhoun, who warns that the Cy-Bugs can take over any game they enter. As the pair searches for Ralph and the Cy-Bug in Sugar Rush, they separate when Felix, enamored with Calhoun, inadvertently reminds her of her fiancé, who had been killed by a Cy-Bug in her backstory. Calhoun finds hundreds of Cy-Bug eggs underground, and Felix becomes imprisoned in King Candy's castle during his search for Ralph.

Desperate, King Candy hacks the game's code to retrieve Ralph's medal and offers it to Ralph, explaining that letting Vanellope race would be disastrous for both her and the game. Fearing for Vanellope's safety, Ralph wrecks the kart and returns to his own game, but finds that everyone has evacuated, expecting the game to be unplugged in the morning. Ralph then notices Vanellope's image on the Sugar Rush cabinet and realizes she is an intended part of the game, not a glitch.

Ralph returns to Sugar Rush, finds Felix and Vanellope, and asks Felix to fix the wrecked kart. As the race proceeds, the hatched Cy-Bugs attack and Felix, Calhoun, and Ralph battle them. When Vanellope catches up to King Candy, her glitching reveals that he is actually Turbo, a character from an old game, Turbo Time, who sabotaged a newer game out of jealousy, causing both to be unplugged. Vanellope escapes from Turbo, who is consumed by a Cy-Bug. The group flees the doomed game, but Vanellope finds she cannot pass through the exit. Calhoun says the game cannot be saved without a beacon to attract and kill the Cy-Bugs.

Ralph heads to Diet Cola Mountain, where he plans on collapsing its Mentos stalactites into the cola at the bottom, causing a blinding eruption that would attract the bugs. Before he can finish, Turbo, merged with the Cy-Bug that had consumed him, carries him away. Ralph breaks free and dives toward the mountain, intending to sacrifice himself to start the eruption on impact. 

Vanellope in turn uses her glitching abilities to save Ralph. The eruption starts and draws the Cy-Bugs to their destruction, including Turbo. Vanellope crosses the finish line, restoring her memory and status as Princess Vanellope, the game's ruler and lead character, while keeping her advantageous glitching ability. Felix and Ralph return to their game in time for Litwak to see that it still works, sparing it from being unplugged. Calhoun and Felix marry, and the characters of Fix-It Felix, Jr. gain a new respect for Ralph.


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