In defense of Wreck-It Ralph 2 · 3:38pm Jun 6th, 2018
Just recently, a found a YouTube video by one YouTuber complaining about the new Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailer. If you haven’t seen the trailer he’s talking about, here’s a link. While I disagree with him on this one (real thoughts: “I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THIS”), I do understand where he’s coming from. All this product placement can easily date the movie as well as become obnoxious. Of course, while I do trust Disney to pull of a blatantly marketable movie like this better than Sony, I won’t deny that it might backfire on them.
But with that said, I do have three counter arguments to his complaints:
(1) One of the reasons why people were so dismissive about the Emoji Movie trailers was because it featured products that were recent and were probably going to be gone after a while. The Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailers, however, only features products that have been around for decades, so it is fair to assume that many if not all of these products will be around for a long time to come. As such, I don’t believe the movie will be as dated as he thinks it will.
(2) The Emoji Movie was also criticized because it was about something the audience didn’t care about. Nobody asked to see Emojis playing Candy Crush, but seeing all the Disney princesses in one movie, now that is something audiences can get invested in, and it has far more comedic potential.
(3) And finally (I know this is a clichéd argument, but I feel it’s appropriate here), there are ways of making a movie full of product placement fun. Just look at the LEGO movies or the Toy Story movies. Those movies have lots of product placement, but when we watch them, we don’t see products, we see three dimensional characters. Or movies like Ready Player One or Who Framed Roger Rabbit are fun little nods to nostalgia. I see no reason why Wreck-It Ralph 2 can’t live up to those movies
Me personally, I liked the trailers. I laughed so hard at the pancake/milkshake gag, the gags about pop ups, eBay, and auto fill were amusing, and I thought having Vanellope interacting with Disney princesses was hilarious. But what do you guys think? Are you excited for Wreck-It Ralph 2 or were you turned off by the product placement too?
