An odd couple returns in 'Ralph Breaks the Internet'

Time moves differently inside video games. A character can look like anything, but how old is Q*bert? Mario? Sonic the Hedgehog?

It's not an idle question, but one that the makers of the animated sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet," opening Wednesday, Nov. 21, had to think about. While grown man Ralph and little girl Vanellope were forced by circumstances to team up in "Wreck-It Ralph" (2012), they're still hanging out together and best friends in the new film, which finds them venturing from the video arcade that houses their respective games and out into the internet in search of a crucial game part.

"We'd talk about this sometimes," reflects Phil Johnston, who codirected with Rich Moore and coscripted with Pamela Ribon, based on a story by those three and two others. "And John [C. Reilly, who voices Ralph] would say, 'I think of them as 11-year-olds.' Even though Ralph is 27 years older [than Vanellope] based on when his game was created, they don't age and in many ways she's the more mature of the two."

"The movies we would reference in our own minds," says Moore, "would be like 'The Bad News Bears' [1976] or 'Paper Moon' [1973], where there's sort of a curmudgeonly older guy or a big-brother type of character. We're certainly aware that, 'Oh, that's a bit odd that a grown man is traveling around with a child,' but basically they're both a couple of kids."

So, in a way, are Johnston and Moore, who take an endearingly childlike delight in being asked what gags or scenes didn't make it into the movie.

"There are so many!" enthuses Johnston. "At one point, early in our process, we opened the movie with Tapper's funeral," referring to the proprietor of Tapper's root-beer bar. "His game had been unplugged, so he's gone and they're having a wake for him. Ralph and Vanellope are giving a eulogy and it was them talking about themselves and, like, burping the alphabet, and they got booed at the eulogy. And everyone's wadding up the programs and throwing them — it almost turned into a food fight! Then Tapper's ghost came back and was kind of the Ghost of Christmas Past, and warning Ralph about his future. And then it left the rails and we figured, we'd better think of something else!"