Sharing God’s Story with Wreck-it Ralph

• Part 1 – Community
• Part 2 – Counterfeit
• Part 3 – Cheater
• Part 4 – Purpose
• Part 5 – Savior
• Part 6 – Resurrection

This Reel Parable has major spoilers, and I mean major. Major like “did you know that Darth Vader was Luke’s dad?” major. This movie bible study assumes that you have seen Wreck-it Ralph or don’t care if we spoil it for you. We warned you…

This is part 2 of a 6 part Christian movie review of Wreck-it Ralph. You can find all of our Wreck-it Ralph content here.

Sharing God’s story with Wreck-it Ralph

Sugar Rush is a child’s dream! And why wouldn’t it be? After all it is a land made up of sugar and candy and sweets and treats and all kinds of yummy goodness.

When my 10-year-old daughter saw it for the first time she actually told me she wanted to live there! My 12-year-old son agreed and added so he could eat everything!

Sugar Rush looks amazing. But, as we soon find out, Sugar Rush is not what it seems.

It may look good on the outside, but inside is it all messed up. It may look like a confectioners dream, but it is really a counterfeit.

Counterfeit

Sugar Rush is a pink candied paradise. But it also a bad copy of what it once was.

We will talk about King Candy later, but as Ralph finds out he has done something terrible to Sugar Rush. In his desire to be King (Isaiah 14:14 anyone?) he has hacked the world of Sugar Rush so that no one remembers how great it once was or how bad it is now. King Candy is a liar and a deceiver, but more on him later.

In his desire to be King he corrupted Sugar Rush. It is now a fallen world.

It looks good. But it is not good. Ask yourself or your kids these questions:

• What did King Candy do to be King?
• What was his sin?
• Why is this bad?
• What did it do to Sugar Rush?
• What did it do to the characters in Sugar Rush?
• How did the girls treat each other?
• How did the girls treat Vanellope Von Schweetz?

Because of King Candy’s sin (hacking the game to be King) the entire “world” of Sugar Rush became a cheap counterfeit. Sugar Rush became “fallen.”

It looked good. But it was not great.

It looked good. But it was far from perfect.

This story is not new. In Genesis 3 we see the fall of man. And this fall didn’t just affect man, but it also affected the world.

Cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:17b–19

Sugar Rush is fallen. It was once a child’s sweet-toothed paradise. Now it is a bad knockoff, a bad counterfeit.

The same is true for our world. It was once a paradise where God and man had perfect fellowship and lived in a perfect community. Now it is a world full of ugly. I don’t know how old your kids are and I don’t know how much of our world they understand. My older kids (21 and 18) are starting to see just how ugly the world can be. And so are my little kids. Even as we try to protect their childhood and innocence they still hear about so much hate, violence, and junk.

The BIG questions are still the BIG questions. Why so much fear? Why so much anger? Why so much hate?

Just like in Wreck-it Ralph the answer is sin. Because King Candy sinned the whole world of Sugar Rush is now full of sin. I know it sounds silly, but how else would you explain King Candy and the way the other girls treat Vanellope?

Again, this story is not new.

So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned. Romans 5:12

Contradictions

Like the world of Sugar Rush, our world is swirling with contradictions.

Parts of our world are beautiful. The birth of a child. The fresh blossoms of Spring. A first kiss. A first love.

But parts of our world are also ugly. The child that dies. The gray death of Winter. A broken heart.

At times our world is amazingly beautiful. It is, after all, God’s creation.

But at times it is also very ugly. It is, after all, tainted by sin.

Like the world of Sugar Rush, our world looks good and is tempting, like an all you can eat candy buffet.

But like the world of Sugar Rush, our world is also under the control/influence of a Deceiver.

Vanellope knew she was made for “something better.”

We know we were made for “something better.”

My guess is our kids know they were made for “something better.”

Sugar Rush was not without hope and neither is our world!

Remember what C.S. Lewis said.

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

Before we look at what Wreck-it Ralph can teach us about “another world,” next time we will look at what King Candy can teach us about our adversary, the “devil.”

Tell your kids that someday, when God’s story unfolds, our fear will turn into joy, our anger will turn into happiness and our hate will turn into joy!

What can do this week to encourage your kids that someday our fear will turn into joy, our anger will turn into happiness and our hate will turn into joy?

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Until next time, God bless.

Simon L Smith

Sharing God’s Story with Wreck-it Ralph

• Part 1 – Community
• Part 2 – Counterfeit
• Part 3 – Cheater
• Part 4 – Purpose
• Part 5 – Savior
• Part 6 – Resurrection