The Abridged Script
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.