RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET

The Abridged Script

By Craig

FADE IN:

INT. ARCADE

In a VIDEO GAME ARCADE, JOHN C. REILLY and SARAH SILVERMAN are

VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Pac-Man.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Tron.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Um, Arkanoid? I dunno.
(sighs, checks
watch)
Is that enough? Can we stop
pretending this franchise is
still about video games? I
want to get to the internet
references already.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Yeah sure, let’s just
contrive a plot excuse.
Like, one day in my racing
game I go off course and-

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Wait, you mean disobey the
player’s commands? That’s
breaking, like, the first
and only rule of being a
player character! Why would
you ever do that?

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Cause I’m booooorrrred.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Because you’re BORED? Look
here, professionals like
Sonic the Hedgehog obey the
player when they steer them
straight into a lava pit!
Meanwhile you’re rebelling
because being ruler of a
magical candy kingdom, who
drives a racecar for a
 living, and spends her
nights wandering into whole
other worlds with their own
unique species and laws of
physics, isn’t INTERESTING
enough for you?!

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

So I’m an entitled little
jerkwad, what else is new.

SARAH does indeed GO ROGUE during her next race. The PLAYER
tries to wrestle control back, but winds up accidentally ripping
the STEERING WHEEL right out of the GAME.

PLAYER
Uh oh! Sorry, arcade owner
Ed O'Neill, I accidentally
broke your flimsy piece-of-
crap controller...

CGI ED O'NEILL
That’s a shame. I’d replace
the steering wheel, but they
don’t make this game
anymore. And I hardly think
anybody out there is going
to specifically be selling
this one disembodied
component of a random
discontinued arcade racing
game-

PLAYER
(googles)
That exact thing is on eBay
for two hundred bucks.

CGI ED O'NEILL
Well isn’t that convenient.
But either way, I can’t
justify the expense. That’s
more than this game brings
in in a year!

PLAYER
Wait, this game doesn’t even
earn two hundred measly
bucks a year? Even if you
only charge a quarter a game
- which you’re an IDIOT if
you do - then that still
means this thing barely gets
played twice a day! Why do
you even keep this hunk of
junk around?
 CGI ED O'NEILL
Kid, I still have a Tapper
machine in action. I clearly
don’t have a damn clue what
I’m doing.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Did you hear that, Sarah? We
can fix your game if we go
to the internet and visit
this “eBay” place! And by a
frankly stupid piece of
luck, TODAY just happens to
be the day that this arcade
became the last business in
the entire United States to
get the internet!

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Let’s go! Oh but uh, before
we leave, how about we have
a throw Jack McBrayer and
Jane Lynch a half-assed
subplot. They can... I
dunno, adopt the other child
racer guys from my game or
something.

CGI JACK MCBRAYER

Yes we will do that thing,
for like a scene and a half!

CGI JANE LYNCH

We are characters in this
franchise!

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Okay, that oughta hold them.
Now let’s go spend the next
few days hanging out on the
World Wide Web! Hey, didn’t
I nearly destroy my entire
world in the first movie by
wandering off for like
twenty hours? Whatever, I’m
sure this is fine.

JOHN and SARAH go and take a trip to the INTERNET!

INT. THE INTERNET

JOHN and SARAH arrive in a huge, cluttered landscape filled with

more fleeting half-glimpsed references than anybody can
reasonably be expected to take in, READY PLAYER ONE-STYLE.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

 So this is the internet!
Awesome!
(looks around,
frowns)
Wait, where’s all the por-

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

ANYWAY YEAH LET’S GO FIND
THAT STEERING WHEEL. We can
just ask Google where to go.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Uh, surely you mean ask the
popular search engine Alan
Tugle! I don’t even know
what this so-called “Google”
is.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

...It’s the thing in that
giant skyscraper just there,
that says “Google” on the
side in hundred-foot-tall
letters?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Oh. Well I guess this movie
is gonna paste real logos
all over the place but then
use fake sites anyway?
That’s kinda dumb. Oh well
let’s ask Fake Google for
directions to Actual Non-
Fake eBay DAMNIT WHAT ARE
THE RULES

They go to make enquiries of ALAN TUDYK.

CGI ALAN TUDYK

That’s right, I’m back with
a new character, and this
time I’ve switched out my
obscure Ed Wynn impression
for a hyper-MEGA-obscure
Bill Thompson impression!
When people want to search
the internet, a little Mii
version of them walks up to
me and asks a question, then
I put them in a little car
thing which drives over to
the website they wanted!

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Doesn’t that mean that just
Googling something in this
world takes several minutes,
 and therefore everybody must
have horrible sub-dialup
internet?

CGI ALAN TUDYK

Look, you don’t want to
think too hard about this
premise, man. Otherwise
you’ll start to consider a
world where there’s a
conscious, sapient being who
knows every Google search
you make. ALL OF THEM.

INT. EBAY

JOHN and SARAH head to the STEERING WHEEL SALE at EBAY.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Quick, the sale’s almost
over, we just gotta yell a
big number! TWENTY-SEVEN
THOUSAND DOLLARS!

EBAY
Sold! To the random entity
wandering around the
internet who doesn’t even
have an eBay account! This
should not have worked.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Crap, now we have to come up
with twenty-seven grand in
the next couple of days.
Maybe we should go ask Alan
how we can get in on that
whole “phishing” thing.

CGI BILL HADER

(sidling up)
I’ve got the next best
thing! Why not go into
online video games and find
in-game items to sell for
cash? For one thing, that’d
keep this movie just barely
tethered to the whole “video
game characters” premise.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Great idea! And if you
readers are expecting this
script to make some joke
here about the plausibility
of selling a virtual item
for tens of thousands of
 dollars, just look up ‘Club
Neverdie’ if you want to
lose all faith in humanity.

INT. SLAUGHTER RACE

JOHN and SARAH enter an online game called SLAUGHTER RACE.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

So what is this game,
exactly?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Okay, imagine if Grant Theft
Auto Online saw all the
money that Fortnight was
making and hastily jumped
aboard the battle royale
bandwagon. But it was also
full of overpowered NPCs who
can pop out of nowhere and
instantly kill your
character, forcing you to
constantly lose all your
progress and restart.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

So it’s DAY-Z with cars,
gotcha.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Pretty much. The item we’re
here to get is an ultra-rare
vehicle worth forty grand.
It’s the most elite,
unattainable thing in the
entire game, so let’s just
hope that in the next few
days we can somehow work out
how to find-
(glances into random
building)
Oh hey there it is.

SARAH jumps behind the wheel and steals the CAR. But then the
car’s OWNER, NPC GAL GADOT, grabs another CAR and GIVES CHASE!

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Nice try, Gal, but I bet
you’ve never had to deal
with drivers that can
straight-up break the laws
of physics!
(teleports)

CGI GAL GADOT

 Pfft, are you kidding me? I
was in three Fast and
Furious movies, kid! THREE!
(car just does
whatever she wants
it to because
physics is long
dead)

GAL and her GOONS corner JOHN and SARAH.

CGI GAL GADOT

I’ll be taking my car back,
thanks! But Sarah, since I
admire you for stealing my
property and blatantly
cheating at my game, I’m
going to advise you to
instead get your money by
doing YouTube videos.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Neat, except this movie is
calling YouTube “BuzzzTube”
and-

CGI GAL GADOT

YEAH WELL THIS SCRIPT IS
CALLING IT YOUTUBE SO SHUT
UP.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Okay, sheesh! Let’s go to
YouTube then, if this
movie’s really just gonna
keep bouncing us from place
to random place in lieu of
actual story structure.

INT. YOUTUBE

JOHN and SARAH go to YOUTUBE, where they meet TARAJI P. HENSON.

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

I’m the YouTube algorithm,
because this movie has no
sensible rules about what
can and can’t be
anthropomorphized!

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Hi, YouTube algorithm! How
do I make like thirty grand
on YouTube in the next day
and a half?

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

 You don’t. You can’t create
a channel, fill it with
content, pull a hundred
million views and get paid
thirty thousand dollars in
ad revenue that quickly.
It’s literally impossible.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Okay but say we had a movie
plot that had to progress
somehow.

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

Oh, well then I guess you
could just go out there copy
every single YouTube trend
out there. I’m sure you can
get millions of views from a
video that’s “that thing
everbody’s already seen
fifty times, but again”.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

All right then, let’s make
some content! I can’t wait
to do screaming goat videos
and the leaf blower
challenge and WOOOWWW this
movie is going to age like
goddamn ice. Seriously, in
five years this movie will
be ten times more dated than
the first one, and that one
had Q*Bert references.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Okay, while you’re doing
that I’ll go find a half-
baked excuse to go do that
Disney Princesses scene
which was pretty much the
only thing we showed in the
trailers.

INT. DISNEY WEBSITE

SARAH goes to the DISNEY WEBSITE for whatever LAZY REASON the
screenwriters came up with.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Wow, look at all these
intellectual properties!
There’s Star Wars stuff and
Marvel stuff and whatever
else Disney’s been buying up
in its terrifying bid for
 global dominance! I don’t
know about you, audience,
but I sure feel inspired to
buy large quantities of
Disney merchandise right
now!!

Then she stumbles into ALL OF THE DISNEY PRINCESSES PLUS MULAN.

CGI MOANA
Hey look everybody, Disney
Princesses! So many Disney
Princesses!! Even voiced by
their original actresses,
except for the ones who are
dead!!!

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Heh, neat. I mean computer-
animated Cinderella looks a
little messed up but
whatever, this was fun, I
should get back to-

CGI ARIEL
Now let’s discuss all the
Disney Princess tropes which
have already been pointed
out a million billion times
on the internet, but since
this time it’s Disney doing
it to themselves, it’s
supposedly fresh again!

CGI ELSA
Most of us are orphans LOL
what an original
observation!

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Oookay, way to drag it out
guys. Anyway-

CGI POCAHONTAS
Ooh, and check it out, we
can even do “woke”! Like you
ever notice how most Disney
Princesses are unfairly seen
as having been saved by some
male character?

CGI MERIDA
OMG that’s so true!!!
...Except that basically
every Disney Princess of the
past quarter century has
been strong and self-reliant
 to borderline Mary Sue
proportions.

CGI CINDERELLA
And the old-timey Disney
Princesses really WERE
passive wilting wisps of
fluff who had to leave all
the actual plot advancement
to a bunch of random mice.

CGI SNOW WHITE

Or dwarves.

CGI AURORA
Or fairies.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Oh God. This scene is never
going to end, is it? This is
my life now.

CGI TIANA
Also we all sing these
elaborate songs about our
hopes and dreams-

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

I’LL TAKE THAT AS A SEGUE!!!

SARAH goes and sings a SONG where she daydreams about living in
SLAUGHTER RACE.

CGI GAL GADOT

Are you sure that’s what you
want?

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Wait, what the hell?! I was
just imagining being in this
game, now I’m actually
physically here? How the
hell did that happen?

CGI GAL GADOT

I know, it doesn’t make the
slightest bit of sense, but
whatever. So you want to
abandon your own game and
move here? Aren’t you, like,
the president there?

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Yeah but screw my thousands
of loyal subjects. I’ve
spent a cumulative eight or
nine minutes here and I’ve
 decided to come and stay
here forever!

CGI GAL GADOT

Ugh, you’re like one of
those gap-year kids who goes
overseas for the first time,
then a week later they
announce that they’re moving
to Nepal. But fine, come
here, at least until your
flea-sized attention span
gets distracted by the next
shiny thing that comes
along.

INT. YOUTUBE

Meanwhile, JOHN has heard everything.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Oh no, I can’t lose Sarah!
What will I do without the
constant presence of that
obnoxious, self-centered
brat?

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

How did you hear her talking
to Gal?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Well I called her on the
phone to tell her we raised
all the money-

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

Oh! That thing that was the
main plotline, we resolved
that?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Yeah it just sort of
anticlimactically finished,
who cares. But she had her
phone set to silent, and in
this world silent mode means
it starts a video chat where
the person who’s calling you
is muted but can still see
and hear everything you’re
doing!

CGI TARAJI P. HENSON

Damnit, does EVERYTHING in
this movie have to be
clumsily contrived to
 agonizingly drive the plot
forward?

JOHN goes and seeks the help of BILL.

CGI BILL HADER

So you want to ruin
Slaughter Race so that Sarah
doesn’t want to be there
anymore? Why not infect it
with this virus! It’s
designed to replicate
insecurities, whatever the
hell that means.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

True, that’s a vague and
confusing explanation and I
clearly don’t understand
what this dangerous thing
does. Oh well, guess I’ll
chuck it into Slaughter Race
while Sarah’s still there
and see what happens!

He DOES THIS, and the VIRUS analyzes SARAH’S GLITCH POWER and
then zaps it into all the BUILDINGS AND STUFF in SLAUGHTER RACE,
so everything starts going all SPLOTCHY AND WEIRD. The game is
EVACUATED.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

John, you jerk! I briefly
hate you because you
followed some asshole
stranger’s advice and
destroyed a thing I care
about! So yeah, same third-
act low point as the first
movie basically.

She runs off, leaving JOHN feeling MISERABLE. Then the VIRUS
escapes SLAUGHTER RACE and analyzes JOHN’S NEUROSES and starts
REPLICATING THEM!

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

So, what, it’s zapping
buildings and making them
desperately lonely and
clingy?

CGI JOHN CLONE

REILLY
(popping into
existence)
DUR NO, INSTEAD ENTIRE
REPLICAS FROM YOU ARE BEING
CREATED FROM NOTHINGNESS
 BECAUSE GOD FORBID A SINGLE
THING IN THIS MOVIE HAVE
CONSISTENT RULES

The VIRUS starts spitting out thousands of JOHN CLONES which

start SMASHING EVERYTHING.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Oh no, additional Wreck-It
Ralphs! Why is there more
than one Wreck-It Ralph now?
It’s so unnecessary!!

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Hey, at least now that the
movie’s nearly over we’re
getting to the part where I
break the internet, i.e. the
thing that the title says is
the plot of this movie.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

But does this mean we’re
crashing banks? The stock
market? Emergency services?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Come on now, you’ve seen
this place. Did we ever come
across the website for, say,
the Edmonton City Council?
Was anybody in this movie
ever on their way to the
Ronseal website to buy some
decking oil? Clearly what
we’ve been visiting is the
FUN AND COOL internet, which
has nothing but social
media, time-wasting videos,
clickbait, memes, and
garbage.

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Oh yeah. Screw it then, let
it all burn, who gives a
crap.

The JOHN CLONES chase SARAH and GRAB HER.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

Wait, Clone Mes! You have to
find the strength to let go
of this friendship.
Especially since the travel
time between our arcade and
her new game is, what, like
fifteen minutes? I’ll
 probably be seeing her
pretty much every day
anyway, I don’t know why I’m
making such a big deal about
this.

CGI JOHN CLONES

REILLY
OH YEAH THIS WAS ALL KIND OF
A WASTE OF TIME WASN’T IT

They all VANISH FROM EXISTENCE.

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

So that was it? We pull some
monsters out of our asses
then five minutes later I
talk them into not existing
any more, and that was the
climax and now we’re done?

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Yeah, this movie was cute
and all, but it was also
kind of a rambling,
shapeless mess that never
entirely figured out what
its own plot was. Why did we
even make this movie?

CGI JOHN C. REILLY

To prove that an animated
film based entirely around
social media and internet
culture can be better than
The Emoji Movie?

CGI SARAH SILVERMAN

Well then congratulations to
us for clearing the lowest
bar ever set in the history
of cinema.

END.