The upcoming Ralph Breaks the Internet will see the titular hero journeying online, so perhaps it only figures that the film almost made like a disgruntled social media user and took a shot at the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy.
In an interview with IGN, co-director Rich Moore mentioned that the Wreck-It Ralph follow-up was originally going to mock the villainous Kylo Ren from the ongoing space saga, but their friends at Lucasfilm weren’t too keen on the idea.
“At one point we had a joke about Kylo Ren being kind of a spoiled child. We went to Lucasfilm and said, here’s what we’re doing. And they said, ‘Well, we’d prefer that you don’t show him as a spoiled child. You know, he is our villain, and we’d prefer you don’t do that.’ So we were respectful of that.”
Honestly, this exclusion seems pretty unnecessary, seeing how the Star Wars movies have endured plenty of parodies over the years, from Spaceballs to Robot Chicken, and many of these spoofs have proved even more appealing to fans than detractors. And based on the trailers we’ve seen for Ralph Breaks the Internet, Kylo would hardly be the only Disney character who’s subject to a little mockery.
What makes Lucasfilm’s objections to this joke especially strange is that their own films have often deliberately painted Kylo as a childish and weak-minded figure, perhaps the most obvious evidence of this being his tantrums in The Force Awakens – all of which, may we remind you, are played for laughs.
It remains one of the many divisive elements of the recent Star Wars releases that Kylo is very much not the commanding and composed badass that Darth Vader was, but a more psychologically messy character who often doesn’t seem in control of himself or his situation. To some viewers, this is off-putting, while to others, these flaws make him fascinating. But either way, surely Kylo can withstand a joke or two.
In any case, you can see the parts of Ralph Breaks the Internet that did make the cut when the film hits theaters on November 21st. After that, we’ll find out how Lucasfilm plans to conclude the arc of its latest villain when Star Wars: Episode IX comes out on December 20th, 2019.
