D23 2011 : Planes & Wreck-It Ralph Revealed

Day two of Disney's massive D23 Expo began with me shoving Steve and Chelsea in a seat for three hours plus for a look at every movie (animated or otherwise) on Disney's slate got some sort of mention, clip or general introduction by cast and crew. Here's the vitals on "Planes" and "Wreck-It Ralph to get things started...

Steve: We got there an hour before hand to make sure we got a good press spot. The line outside went around the building. It was like a scene of Hall H from SDCC.

Me: yea i heard a lot of people were turned away?

Steve: Yes, a lot did. They say the arena holds 4,000 but I don't believe that. Could only imagine what it would be like if SDCC moved there. The presentation started out with a Walt Disney Studio Montage and then Rich Ross, Chairman of Walt Disney Studios came out. Rich said "I'm like you! I'm one of Disney's biggest fans!" The presentation starts with Disney Animation films in the works as Rich said a quote from Walt Disney "Animation is our bread & butter!" Then John Lasseter was introduced to the stage. (For those who still don't know who he is..he was the director of Toy Story/ Toy Story 2/ Cars and is Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Studios & Pixar Studios. The first film he talked about was "Planes". The film takes place in the cars universe...well actually above the cars universe which they use as the tag line in the teaser clip they showed.










Me: I think it's creepy the cars can go inside of bigger living vehicles....it's just weird...but we don't talk about the "Cars" universe among friends. It just raises too many questions...

Steve: Me too, but I'll still go see this!

Me: Me too!

Steve: The story follows a small crop duster name Dusty Crop Duster (naturally), a single engine plane who is orange and white and voiced by Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer. When brought out on stage he said "I was so geeked out when I got asked to do a 'plane session'! To be a part of the cars universe is ridiculous. I must say that if you have a chance to do it, do it!" They showed a teaser trailer which had music from White Zombie- "More Human then Human", which I thought was weird for Disney. It was like a scene from Top Gun, on an aircraft carrier in sea, F-14 and F-18s were taking off the run away and Stealth Bombers flying high in the sky. Then a small single engine plane is brought up on the flight deck and the music stops and we see Dusty, who looks so excited to be there with the big jets, but he quickly turns to a puddle of nervousness when he is about to take off. He flys off the air craft carrier and we over-hear him screaming off camera as two F-14 planes are watching what is happening. One of them asks the other "Think he will be ok?" The camera then cuts to Dusty writing "COOL!" really big in the sky with his awesome cloud making skills. END OF CLIP

The next movie they brought up was "Wreck-It Ralph". Ralph is a 8 bit video game bad guy who travels to different arcade games to try and prove that he is a good guy.

Me: ....That rules

Steve: It does! John C. Reilly voices Ralph and Sarah Silverman voices Vanellope von Shweetz. Rich Moore, the director of the film, comes out. He also worked on The Simpsons & Futurama so I cheered really hard for him! They showed the first 4 mins of the film which is mostly storyboards and unfinished work but still cool. Ralph is a big guy who is only good at smashing stuff with his big arms. He climbs up the side of the building like the classic video game "Rampage" and stands at the top on the road and smashes down and dances like "Donkey Kong" in the classic DK video game. Then enters Fix-it Felix who looks a lot like Mario but wears blue instead of Red. Fix-it-Felix is the character that kids control in the game at the arcade. He is the hero who jumps around with a magic wrench which he somehow got from his father that...you guessed it...fixes the damages that Ralph causes to the building. The arcade closes and when all is clear (no humans around), the characters in the arcade get to be themselves. The animation then switches from 8 bit style to classic Pixar style! All the residents of the apartment cheer on Fix-It Felix and then go home to their apartments while poor Ralph has to go sleep in his "home", which is a huge pile of trash. After Ralph tucks himself in with a pile of bricks he stares off at Fix-It Felix in the apartment complex as everyone gathers around him to hear his heroic tales. Ralph talks to himself about how he wishes he could be that good guy and people would like him. The next scene is Ralph at a Bad Guy Help group which looks like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a circle of bad guy characters sitting on folding chairs at a community meeting center. A ghost from Pacman was in the group! One of the bad guys was talking and said "The other day I pulled a leg off some guy and I was bashing his leg over his head and I said to myself why am I doing this? I'm not a bad guy inside.. but then it hit me, someone has to be the bad guy in the video game!" Ralph talks about how he wishes he wasn't a bad guy. Then a zombie cuts him off by saying that being bad isn't shameful when suddenly a character that looks a lot like Kano from Mortal Kombat rips out the zombie's heart and the group laughs. The group ends their meeting with them all holding hands and says the Bad Guy Oath. Thats the end of the clip! The director brings Sarah Silverman and Jack McBrayer (who voices Fix-It Felix) onto the stage. They talk about how Ralph goes to the Central Station, which is a way he can travel from one arcade game to another. The first game he travels to looks just like Halo with all the characters wearing something similar to Spartan armor. That is wear Ralph meets Sgt CAlhoun (Jane Lynch from Glee). Ralph then travels to Sugar Kush, which is a car racing game and finds out a plan is in works to end all the arcade games for good and must SAVE THE DAY!









The Director asks Jack if he ever thought he would do a voice for a Disney film and he answered "My Own voice irritates me, so I never imaged doing a voice for a Disney cartoon!" Sarah was asked what she thought of Pixar movies and she remarked "I have a love hate relationship with Pixar films because I hate how they remind me of my inner feelings of love and stuff like that, but they are so entertaining that I always go see them all."

We are going to break this off right here as Steve has a MASSIVE pile of notes and hell..it is 2am when we are writing all this up. Sleep calls! Tonight we will have more so check back often!

CLICK HERE to dive into our Flickr where there are already pics of the rest of the presentations including the stars of Brave, Monsters University. The Muppets and THE AVENGERS!

The CLICK HERE to browse the rest of the show!

Special Thanks to Steve and Chelsea of level27media.com!