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The sequel to Wreck-It Ralph is called Ralph Breaks the Internet. In it, Ralph and Venellope travel to the Internet to buy a replacement controller for Sugar Rush.

Why is it called Ralph Breaks the Internet, though? Wouldn't it make more sense to name it Ralph Wrecks the Internet?

I'm aware that in the trailer, they say it's because it "sounds cooler", but... do we have any actual evidence for an answer for why this title was chosen?

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    Without the "wreck", in the title, I wouldn't have known it was a sequel, save for this question.
    – YetAnotherRandomUser
    Dec 19, 2018 at 14:03

4 Answers 4

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"Break the internet" is a common phrase that's used to describe something that has become immensely popular in a short time, while "wreck the internet" is not a commonly used phrase (compare 1.2B Google hits for the former, and only 73M for the latter). Breaking the internet is seen as something positive for whatever broke it, while wrecking doesn't have that ironically positive connotation. It seems they did not want to mess with the set phrase.

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    I don't get the downvotes, I think this is the correct answer! Currently the most upvoted is about "why there's no 'wreck-it ralph' as a prefix", while this one explains why they didn't use "wreck the internet". Maybe some source could help this answer stand out? is Urban Dictionary a valid source for a "common phrase" ?
    – Simone Chelo
    Dec 17, 2018 at 15:43
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    I think this is the correct answer too, at least until there's an official answer of why they chose "Breaks the Internet" over "Wrecks the Internet" (which have the same syllables so length would have nothing to do with it).
    – DeeV
    Dec 17, 2018 at 16:03
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    When someone says "I broke the Internet" I assume they mean they can't access the Internet. I have never heard this positive usage of the phrase. The urban dictionary entry only has 150 upvotes, which makes me believe it is not widely used.
    – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
    Dec 17, 2018 at 18:50
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    @BlueRaja It's reasonably common with highly-shared video clips. Maybe you need to read more comments under cat videos. ;)
    – Graham
    Dec 17, 2018 at 19:35
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    I believe the phrase was particularly associated with a 2014 magazine article featuring Kim Kardashian in a number of naked and semi-dressed photos.
    – ConMan
    Dec 17, 2018 at 22:29
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According to an interview that Post Crescent had with Phil Johnston, the director of the film, it actually is because of "breaking the internet" being "a thing":

In one of the trailers there's a scene where characters talk about "Ralph Wrecks the Internet" versus "Ralph Breaks the Internet". Was that basically a conversation you guys had at some point?

Oh yeah. Of course. That one we were very well aware of, that people were saying "Why isn't it called 'Ralph Wrecks the Internet'", and wrote that as a response to that. That is an example of public opinion affecting our content, however those very conversations we had internally as well, why isn't it Ralph Wrecks the Internet? Oh cause you know breaking the internet is a thing, you know, that whole thing, yeah... we had those conversations in house as well.

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From LRM:

“Johnston: Well, it was a really cumbersome title to have Wreck It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks The Internet so I think from the get go we were like, ‘oh, that’s a little long. Can we just pick one or the other?’

I definitely see where he’s coming from there, but apparently, the trigger for this came from the editor-in-chief of the news site Collider.

Moore: We should give a shoutout to one of your fellow journalists, Steven Weintraub. He stopped us at D23 Expo after we showed the princess sequence two years ago and he was all, I want it to be Super Wreck It Ralph, that’s always what they called follow-up games in Nintendo. Super Mario or Super … ‘Well, it’s not gonna be like that, Steve,’ and he was like, ‘but Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck It Ralph 2, it’s so long! Think of us poor journalists that have to write that.’
(emphasis added)

So they dropped the "Wreck-It Ralph" part to keep the name shorter.

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    The "Super" portion of Nintendo game titles conveyed that it was on the Super NES console. Nintendo has continued this tradition by tacking on 64, DS, Wii, Wii U, and Switch to various titles. Oddly they didn't do this with the GameCube, but I guess it's not as simple a name as their other systems.
    – GreySage
    Dec 17, 2018 at 22:20
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    @GreySage That is true of later titles, but the first and best-known instance of this pattern (Super Mario Bros.) predates the SNES significantly. Note also that several other publishers released "Super" sequels on the original NES, most notably Super C from Konami.
    – Tim Sparkles
    Dec 18, 2018 at 1:35
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Maybe the number one reason (which others have hinted at, and I'll go ahead and say) for "breaks the internet" is since "breaks" is a well established phrase, Disney wants their movie to jump to the top of google searches for "breaks the internet". As Nuclear Wang said above: "(compare 1.2B Google hits for the former, and only 73M for the latter)". Disney knows that popular movies are very highly weighted in search results, so they want a large slice of that juicy traffic basically for free. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's a savvy SEO (search engine optimization) move.

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