The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
Saw it today and enjoyed it. Heard comments about it before but I think it sits in a positive space. I think Sonic 2 was a better movie as a movie while this was a better "Mario" experience. It did go through references in a breakneck pace that makes me wonder if it would be overwhelming to people with less Mario exposure. Was shocked by things that seemed to vaguely reference the '93 movie but pleasantly surprised at things that referenced the American cartoons.

I liked the fact that the movie played up Mario as an athletic determinator who is handy with tools (though Luigi was the one carrying them in the beginning of the movie). I wasn't bothered by Pratt due to growing with the American cartoons. Likewise, as someone who grew up with those cartoons, a competent Peach was a non surprise. Sure, she wasn't as superficially dainty as in the games but mid invasion isn't exactly the time to bake a cake.

With Nintendo saying they are going to make more movies, does this mean a Metroid movie will finally get out of development?
 

Sabrblade

Continuity Nutcase
Citizen
Something that could have been funny to see happen in this movie is, when Mario and Luigi reunite with their parents near the end of the movie, Mario introduces them and Peach to each other, and when they see her in a wedding dress, they could have mistakenly questioned if Mario had just run off and got married with this woman, with Mario and Peach having to hastily and awkwardly answer that didn't happen at all and try to explain why she's in a wedding dress.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Heh.

One thing I would have liked to see (haven't actually seen the movie yet, but from the previews alone I can tell they didn't do it) is Mario being accidentally responsible for naming goombas, since it's an Italian term equivalent to calling someone a rube or a chump. Like maybe he encounters a group of them waddling around, gets attacked by one after initially mistaking them for friendly, takes the lot of them out in retaliation, and then offhandedly calls them a "buncha goombahs". And since whoever he's with has never seen them before or heard that term, it sticks.
 

Zamuel

Pittied fools.
Citizen
A random curiosity I have is if this will have a Mortal Kombat effect and the movie will affect game lore. The comparison to MK feels odd at face value but a number of things from the first game that got ported back to the game's canon. Granted, that might not happen by sheer virtue of the Mario games avoiding having canon at all.
 

LBD "Nytetrayn"

Broke the Matrix
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
A random curiosity I have is if this will have a Mortal Kombat effect and the movie will affect game lore. The comparison to MK feels odd at face value but a number of things from the first game that got ported back to the game's canon. Granted, that might not happen by sheer virtue of the Mario games avoiding having canon at all.
Oh wow, I sure hope so.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
I have now seen the thing.

What the hell did I just watch? Was this even a movie? It felt like one right up until they arrived in the Mushroom Kingdom, and after that it was like reading some eight-year-old's fanfiction where every single sentence is "And then Mario did so-and-so just like in the video game." There were a couple moments where something happened that was clearly meant to be a reference to one of the games I haven't seen, and instead of being entertained I was just like "Oh, is that something that happens in one of the games? OK, I guess." I can only imagine that the whole movie was like that for anyone who's even less familiar with the games than I am. Making a world that works 1:1 like a video game is not good worldbuilding or storytelling. Even the writers of Wreck-It Ralph, that was set literally inside a bunch of actual video games, knew that. Nor is adhering so rigidly to the way things work in the source material how you're supposed to do an adaptation. In fact, out of all the bad video game movies out there, I'm not aware of any of them having this particular problem.

And what's extra weird is that, again, while they were still in Brooklyn, it felt like it was going somewhere decent. The references were clever and used well. The sequence where they went through a construction site and it was like a 2D Mario level, complete with a pole and "castle" at the end was corny but so well-executed I had to laugh. The scene where he game-overs in Kid Icarus and the "I'M FINISHED" is clearly meant to echo what he's thinking about his career? Brilliant. (It reminded me of that one scene from Megamind where he says "I can explain!" just as the NO YOU CAN'T poster is in the background.) I was genuinely shocked to learn that this movie has only one credited writer.

I've heard that, as loose as Mario's canon is and how little regard Miyamoto has for storytelling in games, he also has this laundry list of arbitrary rules that all the games have to follow, and that it leads to clashes with the writers and designers of the RPG spinoff games. I wonder if that was partly the problem here too, or if it was mostly a lack of imagination on Illumination's part—who, as I've mentioned before, are generally not good at making movies.

What I will blame on Illumination is how little time Mario gets to actually interact with anything in the Mushroom Kingdom proper. Instead we get the most uninteresting travel montage I've ever seen and then, boom, we're in Donkey Kong Country instead. And then Rainbow Road. (And by the way, how the hell do you make a Super Mario Bros. movie where Mario's sole interaction with any of the enemies from the games is during a go-karting scene?) And then we're already at Bowser's Castle. Bowser's "invasion", for that matter, barely amounts to anything either; he just sets up shop somewhere on the outskirts (I guess? It's not really clear where his castle came from; I guess he had his minions remodel the Penguins'?) and then more or less waits for Mario and Peach to come to him.

And yeah, Peach's reaction to his proposal was awkward and unnatural. The proper response to being proposed to by a seven-foot turtle monster who just invaded your kingdom is something more like "......WHAT????"

Oh, and Hollywood really needs to stop pretending that Jack Black is a good songwriter. He was amusing during that brief period when it was refreshing to hear any sort of novelty songs written by a guy not named Yankovic, and when that someone being a real Hollywood celebrity posting material on the internet (OMG he's a nerd just like us!) was doubly shocking. Yes, we get it, he can be funny and carry a tune and play an instrument; that doesn't mean we need to shoehorn whatever ditty he improv'd during the recording session into the movie and then build a whole marketing campaign out of it.
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
Well, to be fair about the Mario Kart scene... The best selling Mario game of all time is Mario Kart 8 so you COULD argue that more people know Mario from the kart racing games than the platformers, as much as that kind of saddens me.
 

Caldwin

Woobie Destroyer of Worlds
Citizen
So I got this digitally a while ago. But my brother gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday. So I got this and a couple other movies I probably would've never gotten otherwise. It should arrive sometime today.

Anyway, the bluray comes with a digital code. Since I already have it digitally, someone else can have the code if they want it. Any takers?
 

Deathy G1

Active member
Citizen
We rented this from Redbox last night after we found a gift card while cleaning. Fantastic movie on all fronts. I really enjoyed Jack Black's take on Bowser and the absolute love every aspect of the production had for the games and Mario's history in general.

@Caldwin if you've still got that code, I'm sure my family will get good use out of it.
 

Caldwin

Woobie Destroyer of Worlds
Citizen

I posted a picture of it here. Not sure if anyone's used it yet or not. Good luck!
 


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