The Mass Effect Movie!

Sorry for the late post ... will the fact that it's twice as long make it better?

Anyway, today, let us take a brief break and investigate the Mass Effect movie.

What? No, not Paragon Lost. The real actual factual Mass Effect movie.

What? Of course there was a Mass Effect movie! Weren't you paying attention? It came out last year!

Fun story: my totes BFF Tracey and I were born seven days apart. ... seven days and two years, but hush. Anyway, every year come November, we pick out something to do together.

The Mass Effect movie came out on November 2, and my birthday is November 1. How the hell could I say no? It was like Pixar gave me my very own birthday present! I fucking PLEADED to go see the Mass Effect movie!

So of course, since this is a very serious art blog, and since we are lovingly recording Bioware's Magnum Opus with incredible accuracy, let us now visit this Mass Effect movie.

The Mass Effect movie begins, as any good video game movie does, in an arcade. ... I mean, Mass Effect isn't an arcade game, so that's weird, but that's how the movie goes.

Our opening scene starts with a meeting of Bad Anon, a meeting place for video game bad guys.

... yeah, hey, April Fools, I'm doing Wreck it Ralph. Come on, if I had done this on Monday you would have caught on.

more like april fools i think i can mspaint a pixar film why don't i just go home

I'm going to continue, and I pinky swear that I won't spoil any of the major plot twists or surprises. In return, I'll put the rest of the entry under a jump, if you PROMISE you'll remember that MSPixel isn't for kids, and keep them away from the content under the jump.

Wreck it Ralph is, of course, copywright Pixar.

So our rosy nosed protagonist, Ralph, has been living in his arcade game, Fix it Felix, for 30 years. The basic mechanics:

There's a building, right? And Ralph comes along and smashes shit up.

But that's cool, because his counterpoint, Fix it Felix Jr. has this magic hammer that can fix things. He got the hammer from his dad. It's all a wonderful metaphor for the 99%, but this is a video game blog, I'll let someone else handle that issue.

Once Felix gets to the top, he gets a hero's medal, and the residents of the building pitch Ralph off the top floor. Which, ain't no fun for 30 years straight.

(We're all in on the joke here, right? We all get that Ralph is Donkey Kong and Felix is Mario? And this is the original Super Mario Brothers? Just checking.)

Ralph, however, is sick of being the bad guy. He wants to fix his life, which is why he showed up to Bad Anon.

That's Zangeif, by the way, from Street Fighter, spewing the movie's central theme there. I've honestly never played Street Fighter, husbando~ had to tell me who that was.

This movie got a shit ton of attention when it came out because Pixar was able to use real video game characters. Did you weep openly when you saw how I butchered both Bowser and Dr. Robotnik?

(Hey, if you've seen this movie ... who is the purple rhino at Bad Anon? He even makes the damn cover art, but no one I know can figure out who he is.)

The Bad Anon folk talk a lot about self acceptance, but Ralph would rather hear about self improvement, which pisses tumblr right the fuck off. He wants a hero's medal! But, nothing to do but go back to his game for the night, I guess.

An important mechanic in the movie is that the game characters can move from game to game by traveling through power cables. They travel in little carts through train stations covered in video game trivia grafiti:

You know what? Come at me. I don't care if Square went back on it, it's A-e-r-i-s.

Anyway, they travel in their little trolleys to the power strip, known to them as Game Central Station. Game Central Station also gets a lot of attention because Pixar stuffed as many famous video game characters as they could into the scenery. The pong paddles show up. The pong paddles show up.

Shit, I can't draw Sonic. ... that's okay, the rest of the Internet can't either.

Ralph goes back to his game, only to find everyone having a party in Felix's condo without him. He tries to join in, but all the residents are assholes to him. He decides to go off and get his hero's medal to show the residents that he's hot shit.

Ralph goes to Tapper's bar to see if anyone can help. There, he meets a soldier from a brand new game called Hero's Duty. The soldier starts going on about how he's trying to get a hero's medal, so Ralph dupes him, steals his armor, and suits up to go see what's up in that game.

Huh. I can't put my finger on it ... have I seen that armor somewhere?

Okay, so let's travel to Hero's Duty. Do the other characters know what the game is about?

If you didn't see that joke nine miles out, I don't know what to do with you.

When art first started coming out on the Internet for Wreck it Ralph, a debate broke out in this house as to who the lead character of Hero's Duty, Sargent Calhoun, was actually supposed to be. My husband was sure that she was Samus and Hero's Duty was supposed to be legally distinct Metroid.

But NAY! I say, for I remain sure that we're looking at Pixar's take on Mass Effect.

First of all, remember that Wreck it Ralph came out months after Mass Effect 3, so ME3 was still popular, and ME2 was a popular game during Ralph's design period. Second, look at Calhoun. Fucking look at her. If she were supposed to be Samus, she'd be green or some shit, not red and black. Watch when she puts her helmet on, that's Shepard's fucking helmet.

... actually, Hero's Duty highlights that we're in an interesting point in video game history -- we're just starting to develop archetypes. Shepard owes quite a bit to Samus for being the first Tough Ass Space Lady. Wreck it Ralph knew it couldn't get away with being a movie about video game history while ignoring the current generation North American first person shooter.

There's some other paralells that we'll get to, but for now, let me remind you that Sargent Calhoun's initials are Commander Shepard's initials flipped.

Anyway, I guess I'll really draw Calhoun in now.

Ahem.

Ralph goes out with the other soldiers, but it doesn't go so hot.

calhoun gets renegade interrupts but that's okay because this totally isn't mass effect you guys

Yeah, hey, I won't spoil the ME3 side of this, but if you've played ME3, did the beacon in Wreck it Ralph not look exactly like that thing on Tuchanka? You know the one?

Of course, if all you have to go on is my art, it just kind of looks like a big penis.

... wait, did Calhoun say a hero's medal?

Back at Ralph's original game, since he's not there to wreck shit, the game doesn't work right. The arcade owner declares the game out of order.

If the game isn't working tomorrow, the arcade owner says he intends to unplug the game. Fuck! Felix goes off to find Ralph to try and fix everything.

Meanwhile, in Hero's Duty, Ralph manages to climb the tower and wreck his way inside. Inside, someone's ready and waiting to give him a hero's medal!

... okay, it's not ACTUALLY Anderson. I feel like "black guy mentor" pops up in enough North American shooters that we can call it an archetype, but at the same time, the only two I can name are Anderson and Sarge (from Halo). Someone help me out, either there's more instances of this that I'm missing or the Pixar folk are huge Bioware nerds.

I'm not going to lie, though, I fell out of my fucking seat at the theater.

Ralph manages to trip, get his feet in a bind, and he and a collector cybug land in an escape pod and catapult themselves to Pixar's very smartly placed send off to Japanese games, Sugar Rush Mountain.

Well? You'd have to be nuts to deny Japan's place in video game history. You'd have to either be nuts, my husband who refuses to put his fingerprints on any game even vaguely Japanese, or my mother, who (perhaps correctly) thinks that the only thing that comes out of Japan is pornography.

Sugar Rush Mountain is Pixar's version of DDR. ... yes it is. If I told you about a multiplayer arcade game with bouncy music and candy colored everything where you pick which anime girl you want to be, you'd say DDR.

... okay fine YES it's also got it's roots in Mario Kart. Sugar Rush is a kart racer. a ddr themed kart racer, damnit.

Ralph finds that his medal has landed at the top of a peppermint tree.

As he climbs, he discovers our fourth antagonist.

Meet Vanellope. Vanellope is fascinating, because she's proof that Pixar found an amount of money that was high enough to get Sarah Silberman to stop talking about her vagina.

Oh, also about Vanellope:

So, you know how we're dealing with Mario, Donkey Kong and Shepard? Yeah. Vanellope's Missingno. Sure, you could argue that she's something sugar cute from a JRPG, like MOMO, Vanille, or even fucking Chu Chu, but I like Missingno so I'm going with it.

Sometimes Vanellope glitches out. We'll visit that plot point more in a bit. Let's join Felix and Calhoun, shall we?

totes metroid yall totes metroid

Vanellope steals Ralph's hero's medal and uses it to enter the qualifying race. (Of course she steals the medal, she can maneuver the peppermint trees easier. Everyone knows the girl is the better jumper!)

Get it? That's supposed to be King Candy, voiced by Alan Tudyk, who was on Firefly with Adam Baldwin, so I drew Kal'Reegar! I'm so damn funny!

Okay, I'm really not. Here's the real picture.

Ralph tries to get Vanellope back, but King Candy catches him. He escapes, but manages to get himself covered in frosting and sprinkles in the process.

The other racers corner Vanellope as her cart breaks down.

That's ... that's supposed to be Ralph all covered in frosting. I feel like I should offer a formal apology after every single image I put up, I swear.

Calhoun and Felix try to find Ralph, but get stuck in nesquik sand. Ar har har product placement.

Those are either vines or tentacles, jack. This is a Japanese game.

Calhoun manages to punch her way out of the nesquik, and by the way, she is totally not Shepard, not Shepard at all. As she pulls Felix onto the vines:

Even my husband at this point was like, "Shit on me, she's got a love interest, she really is a Bioware protagonist." Someone at Pixar likes them some Baldur's Gate and Jade Empire, s'all I'm sayin'.

Vanellope strikes a deal with Ralph: you help me get a kart, I'll win your medal back. Fair enough. Ralph smashes her into the kart factory, and they make a kart in the most wonderful send up to video game minigames.

Once Vanellope's kart is made, they use it to escape the Candy King's minions.

Vanellope leads Ralph to a deleted area in the game, Singing Mountain Diet Cola Mountain, where she spends her days sleeping in candy wrappers. Sounds a little familiar! Ralph smashes her a track and decides to teach her to race.

Some plot that I refuse to spoil happens, and Ralph goes back to his own game. ... but, since everyone's out looking for him, he's all alone. Saddened, he throws his hero medal at the screen.

... why the hell is Vanellope on the side of the Sugar Rush cabinet?

Ralph figures that he has to help Vanellope get her poop in a group, so he goes to find Felix, who's gotten himself thrown in King Candy's dungeon. Fungeon, sorry, it's a fungeon.

... can we talk about Felix for a second? Because I hate that little fucker.

He's supposed to be Mario, I get that, but more than that, he's supposed to be the ever-happy platforming protagonist: he's also Spiro, Banjo, Sonic, so on. But Felix is way too damn squeaky clean. He just sits and spouts 1950sisms. Sonic and Spiro still have the ability to get mad and say you're too slow and shit, you know?

Aside from being a poor analog (especially compared to Calhoun), he gets on my last damn nerve.

And also Ralph's.

So! We need to get racing!

... okay, that's not EXACTLY what Sugar Rush racing looks like, but it's so stinking close to Mario Kart 64 it's not funny. Mario Kart 64's one of those staple games anyway, I think most of us would certainly list it as one of the better, if not the best of the Mario Karts. It's very iconic. (I prefer DS, but I got no beef with 64.)

Even the power ups play the same. There's this ice cream bomb that functions just like a turtle shell:

And a fireball which is obviously a red turtle shell:

I promised I wouldn't spoil too much of the plot, so I'll stop here, except to say: the "final boss fight" of the movie? Looks so much like .hack//. Freals. Which is wild, because .hack// is a JRPG that's trying to look like an MMORPG, and we've set that inside a movie trying to imitate a dance game/kart game. This shit has layers like an onion.

But no, seriously, Wreck it Ralph is near and dear to my blackened little heart, and it's out on blu-ray and DVD right now. Go use some Easter money up to check it out if you haven't already.

I SWEAR we'll finish Thane next time.