The Super Mario Bros. Movie

CoffeeHorse

*sip*
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Neither approach feels inherently wrong. Sonic is admittedly really weird. A slow rollout worked Well. You could argue that Mario's world is also weird but if you don't get too much into game mechanics (powerups and such) the setting doesn't take that much explanation. Diving right in might be fine.
 

Shadewing

Well-known member
Citizen
Neither approach feels inherently wrong. Sonic is admittedly really weird. A slow rollout worked Well. You could argue that Mario's world is also weird but if you don't get too much into game mechanics (powerups and such) the setting doesn't take that much explanation. Diving right in might be fine.

Also completely different mediums. Mario's already tried the whole 'Live Action Movie' thing and failed hard. They aren't repeating that mistake, while Sonic shows how it can be done and not be a massive bomb the scars everyone involved for life.
 

Shadewing

Well-known member
Citizen
I need to see that movie sometime. I need to know.

HOnestly? I like it, but then I LOVE bad movies. I can find a lot fo fun in them. The interesting thing about the movie is, it actually tries a lot more then I think most people know, to incorporate game stuff into the movie, sometimes even as just background elements. It doesn't make it good, but it shows that the people working on it we actually trying and someone on staff knew the games very well. The movie's two biggest faults are the directors, and the fact that it came out in the 90's when no one really knew how to adapt games, still a very new medium, very well. Even the few good ones, the studios learned the wrong lessons from; just like what happened with Comics. The few good early Comic movies, lead to many trying to just c/p whatever liscence they got onto the face of the popular movie.

For me, the 90's Mario movie isn't the worst game to movie attempt, its better then I feel a lot give it credit for and some of that is TOTALLY on the Actors trying to make the best of a bad situation (As much as Hoskins hated every moment on set, he really does shine as Mario imo, and so does Lequizamo as Luigi); but it's still doesn't quite hit the notes its aiming for and remains average at its very best.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
The Super Mario Bros. movie did a fascinating thing that the Street Fighter movie also did but to different degrees--a genre shift. Street Fighter leaned away from martial arts tournaments and concepts of chi and instead leaned into stopping into M. Bison as a rising global dictator. It effectively became a GI Joe movie with less guns. The Mario movie is surprisingly "accurate" when you realize it's the games in the guise of a dark, sci fi dystopia. The problem being that the Mushroom Kingdom is a sunny, fantasy kingdom so the movie felt like too much of a shift. Alternately, the Sonic movie managed to realize that if Sonic's design is officially based off older cartoons, the live action portions of the movie need to have some elements of cartoony goofiness.
 

MEDdMI

Nonstop Baaka
Citizen
It actually got restored by fans: someone had an actual reel of the film, so what was once considered lost media to blurry VHS footage is now as pristine HD as you can get.

TMM & I just watched this. It was...

Well.
Things Happened.
Some blatant Mario product tie ins.
And once again, Mario doesn't get the girl.

At least the live action movie was stupid fun.
 

Haywire

Collecter of Gobots and Godzilla
Citizen
About the live action Mario movie, I've always felt it had a similar vibe to Alien From L.A. (and if you've never seen that movie, you should). Are they good movies? No, but they can be fun, and that's often more important.

The new movie looks like it could be fun; I don't know if I'll see it in theaters, but I will want to watch it some time.

EDIT: Also, I will unironically fight anyone who says Street Fighter isn't a good movie. (Yeah, it's totally a better GI Joe movie than anything else we've gotten)
 
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Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
For those interested in Alien from LA. It's the MST3K version, but that only makes it better.
 

Tuxedo Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
For those interested in Alien from LA. It's the MST3K version, but that only makes it better.
The film that gave Transformers fandom a meme!
 

Kup

Active member
Citizen
I must be the only person in the world who doesn’t like/appreciate Mario 64. The aesthetic, controls — drives me crazy. That, or I’m too old to have that nostalgia factor for the era.

Edit: to be clear, I’m not critiquing those who do like M64. My son loves it on the Switch and wants the controller. I just don’t understand it.
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
I played it when it first came out and it was a good deal better than other attempts at 3d platforming at the time in both gameplay and presentation. The later 3d Mario titles are much more refined, though. Kinda hard to go back, outside of the nostalgia factor.
 

CoffeeHorse

*sip*
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Spyro the Dragon hadn't come out yet. We didn't know how good 3d platforming could be.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Neither had Banjo-Kazooie. Mario 64 was the very first collectathon platformer anyone ever made, from a studio that had also never done anything in 3D before. It's a testament to their ingenuity that they were able to put together a decent game under those conditions, but it still turned out janky in a number of ways. A couple of the worlds have a "babby's-first-3D-level" feel to them (Whomp's Fortress, Rainbow Ride), though that's kind of on brand for a franchise whose 2D levels had been built out of literal blocks. And kicking players out as soon as they collect a star is a baffling decision, though even that might have been for a valid reason—no one had ever played a game like this before, and they might not have realized you can just leave and try some other worlds instead of powering through all five challenges in a row.
 


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