UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES- DILIMAN

A Conversation Analysis of Selected Dialogues

from the Movie “Wreck It Ralph”
Eng 208- Discourse Analysis
Marren A. Adan, M.A. Language Education
Submitted to Prof. Alexander Maximo
 Introduction

Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio which produces and

creates feature films, short films and TV shows for The Walt Disney Company. It was

founded on October 16, 1923 as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, but was incorporated

as Walt Disney Productions in 1929. The studio has produced 52 feature films so far,

from the world renowned fairytale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), and

most recently with the award- winning film “Wreck-It Ralph” (2012).

For years of creating well- loved movies, the studio was considered as the premiere

American animation studio, and developed many of the techniques which eventually

turned into standard practices of mainstream animation. Its most notable assets are the

famous characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto – such have gone

on to become popular figures in popular culture and mascots of The Walt Disney

Company.

Walt Disney Animation Studios have long created narratives and characters from

European fairy tales, folklore and myths to make feature films that connect with

contemporary audiences and reflect the contemporary context. Attempting to do

something similar with the narrative and characters of computer games is a bold and

innovative step, which recognises the importance of games in popular culture. The Walt

Disney Pictures films Tron (1982) and Tron: Legacy (2010) previously attempted to

transform gaming logic and iconography into narrative cinema, but it is the computer-

animation feature Wreck-It Ralph that demonstrates the full potential of the concept.

Not only does Wreck-It Ralph successfully adapt the style, characters and narrative of

games into a feature fiction film, but it recognizes the prevalence of gaming mythology

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and like the classic Disney fairy tale films, it engages with that mythology to reflect

specific values and serve as a morality tale.

While most animated films or movies tend to cater more on the young ages and moral

purposes seem to be explicit, most of their themes express deeper meanings when

discussed on a discourse level. The dialogues may express more implications,

philosophical values, social influences and references which are commonly presented to

language forms which word choices and phrasing adapt to a level not beyond the

children’s understanding.

This paper is an analysis of selected dialogues from the film “Wreck It Ralph”. As

conversation analysis is being employed, this study shares with its goals to provide

description and explication of the competencies that ordinary speakers use and rely on

in participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction ( Atkinson and

Heritage,1984). While conversation analysis is commonly employed to naturally

occurring dialogues, this paper will rather look into a set of dialogues from a fiction

material with a certain target audience. As animated films are commonly provided to

entertain and impart moral values to the young age, this paper will be presenting deeper

structures and meanings as influenced by social patterns and language control.

Data and Method

This study will be using the animated Walt Disney Movie “Wreck it Ralph” as the sample

data for analysis. Dialogic lines which are centered on the main protagonist are selected

for the discourse study.

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Plot of the Movie

The film “Wreck It Ralph” begins with a setting that when an arcade shop closes at

night, the various video-game characters leave their normal game roles and are free to

interact to characters from other arcade games. Within the game Fix-It Felix, Jr., the

characters celebrate his titular hero but abhors 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 showed indignation to him, vouching that 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 no-nonsense 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. The Cy-Bug 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 Litwak the arcade owner that Fix-It Felix, Jr. is

malfunctioning. Since broken games get unplugged, leaving their characters homeless,

Felix goes to find 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

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kart. At her home in Diet Cola Mountain, an unfinished racing course, he discovers that

she is a natural racer.

Back in Hero's Duty, Felix meets Calhoun, who warns that the Cy-Bugs are capable of

taking 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, Turbotime, 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.

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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 (and the other residents of Sugar

Rush's) 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.

This study will be using Conversation Analysis as the tool for its inquiry. CA’s key

structural features which include turn- taking, action formation, sequence organization,

repair, word selection and overall structural organization will be used to analysis of the

study’s sample. Less attention will be laid upon the features sequence organization and

overall structural organization as the study’s sample is literary ( a fiction) rather than

recorded natural dialogues. It’s in this regard that every points of analysis will be

accounted not necessarily on the talks of the participants but on the overall intentions of

the film’s creators.

Discussions

The researcher started the analysis by selecting dialogues from the film as a whole which

focus on its main protagonist. Dialogues were narrowed down to extracts with pre-

selected lines which consistently highlight a meaning and/or structure within the

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context of a particular scenario from the film. Three sets of extracts will be used in this

study to reveal social patterns and language control of the following dialogues.

The first extract came from the film’s first scene which presented the main character

and his sentiments towards his work as a game’s villain. The following data presents

lines from the same character as the scene opens with the character’s monologue.

Extract 1

01A: My name's Ralph,

02A: and I'm a bad guy.

03A: Uh, let's see...

04A: I'm nine feet tall,

05A: I weigh six hundred and forty three pounds,

06A: got a bit of a temper on me.

07A: My passion level's very near the surface,

08A: I guess,

09A: not gonna lie.

010A: Anyhoo,

011A: what else, uh...

012A: I'm a wrecker.

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013A: I wreck things,

014A: professionally.

015A: I mean,

016A: I'm very good at what I do.

017A: Probably the best I know.

018A: Thing is, fixing's the name of the game.

019A: Literally Fix-It Felix Jr.

020A: So yeah,

021A: naturally,

022A: the guy with the name Fix-It Felix is the good guy.

023A: He's nice enough as good guys go.

024A: Definitely fixes stuff really well.

025A: But,

026A: uh,

027A: if you got a magic hammer from your father,

028A: how hard can it be?

029A: If he was a regular contractor,

030A: carpenter guy,

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031A: I guarantee you,

032A: you will not be able to fix the damage that I do as quickly.

033A: When Felix does a good job,

034A: he gets a medal.

035A: But, are there medals for wrecking stuff really well?

036A: To that,

037A: I say,

038A: ha!

039A: And no, there aren't.

040A: For thirty years I have been doing this,

041A: and I have seen a lot of other games come and go,

042A: how sad.

043A: Think about those guys at Asteroids?

044A: Boom,

045A: gone.

046A: Centipede?

047A: Who knows where that guy is,

048A: you know?

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049A: Look,

050A: a steady arcade gig is nothing to sneeze at,

051A: I'm very lucky.

052A: It's just,

053A: I gotta say,

054A: it becomes kinda hard to love your job...

055A: when no one else seems to like you for doing it.

Line 1 explicitly presents the character by its name. It is then followed by an abrupt

description of the character- all encapsulated in a single word “bad”. Lines 04 and 05,

though presented physical descriptions, were seemed to support the description “bad”.

Line 12 further elaborated the said description by telling that he is a “wrecker” though

done for a professional purpose (the character’s work).

As the character asserted that he is a “bad” guy, he then presented the model for a “good

guy” who is another character of the game he’s working for. Line 027, however,

ironically expressed that the “good guy” impression was something inherited and not

inherently developed.

Lines 033 and 034 express that every good action amounts to getting a form of reward.

This scene is concluded through lines 054A and 55A, which expressed the unhappy state

of the main character- his abhorrence for the job his working for.

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The second extract is a “meeting” scene among the villains from different arcade games.

While most share the common thought of how a game’s villain must think about their

jobs, the main character (Wreck it Ralph) confesses his dilemma about being a “bad

guy” for thirty years.

Extract 2

01A: Sometimes I think,

02A:man,

03A: it sure must be nice being the good guy.

04B: [Bad-Anon members applaud]

05C: Nice share, Ralph.

06C: We've all felt what you're feeling and we've come to terms with it.

07A: Really?

08D: Right here.

09D: I'm Zangief,

010D: I'm bad guy.

011B: Hi Zangief.

012D: I relate to you, Ralph.

013D: When I hit bottom,

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014D: crushing man's skull like sparrow eggs between by thighs...

015D: and I think,

016D: why you have to be so bad,

017D: Zangief?

018D: Why can't you be more like good guy?

019D: Then I have moment of clarity...

020D: if Zangief is good guy,

021D: who will crush man's skull like sparrow's eggs between thighs?

022D: And I say,

023D: Zangief you are bad guy,

024D: but this does not mean you are *bad* guy.

025B: [Bad-Anon members agree]

026A: Right...

027A: I'm sorry,

028A: you lost me there.

029E: Zombie!

030E: Bad guy!

031B: Hi Zombie.
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032E: Zangief saying labels not make you happy.

033E: Good, bad, nggghhhh...

034E: you must love you.

035F: Yeah!

036F: [Performs a Heart-rip Fatality on Zombie]

037F: Inside here!

038C: Question, Ralph.

039C: We've been asking you to Bad-Anon for years now,

040C: and tonight you finally show up.

041C: Why is that?

042A: I dunno,

043A: I just felt like coming.

044A: well, today's the 30th anniversary of my game.

044G: Happy anniversary, Ralph.

045A: Thanks Satan.

046G: Uh,

047G: it's "Saitine".

048A: Got it.

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049A: But here's the thing...

050A: I don't wanna be the bad guy anymore.

051B: [the Bad-Anon members gasp]

052F: You can't mess with the program, Ralph!

053C: Ralph, Ralph, we get it.

054C: But we can't change who we are.

054C: The sooner you accept that,

055C: the better off your game and your life will be.

Line04 presents gestures while Line 05 expresses verbal words that both affirm the

message from Lines 01 to 03. The main character was further supported through Lines

06 to 025 through personal testimonies of being a “bad guy”. Lines 14D and 21D,

delivered by another character describe what it takes to be a “bad guy” through specific

actions (crushing man’s skull between the thighs).

It is interesting to note the conversation that took place from Lines 45A to 48A which

highlight an allusion to a biblical character “Satan”. Line47G ( It’s Saitine) seemed to

attempt to assuage the unpleasant impact of the name “Satan” by resorting to a different

pronunciation and incorporating a romantic French accent.

As the main character revealed his true intentions for attending the meeting

(Line050A), it was abruptly refuted by Line052F that all of them were only a part of a

program and possess a common personality beyond their control or choice.

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The third and last extract was from the last scene of the film. The film both started and

ended by having the main character’s monologue. Major changes with the main

character’s attitude towards himself and his “profession” were observed through the

lines presented below.

Extract 3

01A: Of course the job hasn’t changed but newsflash…

02A: the nicelanders have been nice to me.

03A: I’m gonna say

04A: the best part of my day

05A: is when get thrown off the roof

06A: because when the nicelanders lift me up

07A: I get a perfect view of Sugar Rush

08A: I can see Vanellope racing.

0910A: Turns out I don’t need a medal to be a good guy

010A: ‘Cause if that little kid likes me

011A: How bad can that be?

The third sample opens with a line which seemed to express disappointment on the

main character’s part (…the job hasn’t changed). Lines 02A to 011A however

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contradicted this “appeal” through messages which express now the main character’s

desire for his job or work.

Line011 (How bad it can be?) seemed to attempt consistency of emphasizing the “then

bad character” through the word choice “bad” when at this point; it now expresses

something which is good or pleasant.

Conclusion

Moral values were expressed on the presented extracts from the main data sample- an

animated film “Wreck it Ralph”. However, social patterns and language control were at

play if we look closely to turn-taking of characters and action formation.

The word “ bad” seemed to build a meaning first on one’s physical aspects. A “bad”

person should be someone who’s tall and big as portrayed by the character. This seemed

to be a social stigma of incorporating “bigness” to power.

When this character does something good, he gets a medal. Actions are then rewarded

when they seemed to please a societal way of life. When outside factors are pleased,

these will be the one to provide a reward system which every person should aim for. It’s

in this regard that everyone has to be “good” and avoid being “bad”.

People who share a common interest naturally form a group to discuss their common

beliefs and goals. In the second extract, the ways of social norms are at play. People get

applauded when they express agreement on others’ opinion and get ostracized for being

different. The character’s attempt to change himself was abruptly refuted by the group’s

shared opinion and afterwards he gets defeated when people’s opinions outnumber a

personal one. An oath is done at the end of the group’s meeting and it’s an act which

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binds the group on a single vision. All the members recite the same oath regardless the

individualistic view or choice.

Word choice is at play at the last extract when it still preferred the use of the word “bad”

to describe a pleasant emotion.

The film indeed, more than a means of disseminating lessons to its target audience,

make use and control language to be more effective. Social norms were used to acquire

familiarization among its themes and which make the embedded moral values more

“absorbable” on the audience’s part.

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REFERENCES

Gee, J.P. (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis. NY: Routledge

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the

organization of turn-taking in conversation. Language, 50, 696-735.

Wetherell, M., Taylor, S., & Yates, S.J. (2001). Discourse as data: A guide for analysis.

London: Sage.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Animation_Studios

Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1772341/

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