What will ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ mean for the games of yesterday?

I was pleased to learn of the upcoming film Wreck-It Ralph when I first learned of it in June.  Finally, a family friendly movie that I can take my kids to and still want to see myself.

Seems that Disney is marketing this thing to be their big holiday season film.  That is not something I expected, but nonetheless ads are running constantly across television, including during the Olympics.  The folks working at the movie theater the other day were wearing t-shirts for the film as well, tempting me to drag one of them out back to roll them for the shirt.  Sadly, nobody there appeared to be wearing my size.

(The previous statement was a joke, not to be taken seriously.  Anyone who was about to run off to others to proclaim that PSP beats up movie theater people for fun should stop now.  They would have to have a much nicer shirt for me to seriously consider such a thing).

My oldest son is nearing his seventh birthday while my youngest just turned three years old.  Being that they are my kids, they already know what Pac-Man and Q*bert and other classics are, so they’ll get those jokes and references as they appear in the film.

I can’t imagine this is true of all kids, though.  Given that each day I see people online who think of “old school gaming” as anything that GameStop just recently stopped selling, I can’t imagine a lot of the target audience will already know all these critters or the living tribute the “Fix It Felix Jr.” cabinet is to the original Donkey Kong machines.

Perhaps this will teach them.  After all, if the King of Kong film got adults to wax nostalgic for arcade classics again, perhaps Wreck-It Ralph can get the kiddos excited, too… and without the obligatory mullet and gummy substance references.  Then again, I’m almost willing to bet there will be another kill screen joke in there somewhere.

The trailers make Q*bert and friends appear to be important figures to the story, but I can’t help but notice that the previewed toys for the film don’t include any of those characters.  Wouldn’t it be something if this film made a whole new generation of kids interested in Q*bert?

I, for one, am eager to see how well this film does and what comes of it.  It could be the biggest thing to happen to vintage arcade games since the year 1981.