Super Mario Bros the movie

[Osterbaum]

Monkey!

[Kim]

I really like Koopa's cleanliness obsession.

[stefan]

the number koopa puts on the wanted posters is still a valid phone number in the US.

[Doc ock rokc]

The movie wasn't worse then the drivel that we normally watched during that time. It wasn't that bad and had a few moments and good character changes. there was however moments and ideas that I think were just retarded. but then again there is hardly a time I go to the movies and not cringe when something stupid happens.

[tacticslion]

First, I have no problem with people liking this film. As in, at all. I, however, really don't, and I'll clarify why below.

The real problem with this movie (for me) lies not in the fact that the movie is bad, per se (after all, I enjoy Hudson Hawk, a film I'm relatively sure that the Willis ranch is actively attempting to destroy all copies of*), but rather because of the simple fact that: it's the Super Mario Brothers movie and it got absolutely everything wrong about Super Mario Brothers, except for the casting of Bob Hopkins as Mario and Yoshi's basic "look". And that's... pretty terrible.

Like, I don't hate the film based on it's merits as a film. It's pretty bad, but that does not make it non-enjoyable. What makes it so frustrating is the complete alteration from anything resembling the Mario franchise, aside from a few names thrown about rather randomly.

Examples:
* King Koopa the Dragon Turtle: reduced to a sleezy guy in a suit prior to de-evolution... then reduced into a mindless T-Rex.

* Luigi: pretty much everything about him is incorrect in most ways. (Save his connection to Daisy... and that's iffy because, at the time, only Mario had any interaction with Daisy)

* Methods of transportation: a meteor and techno-boots are not in Mario.* (Well, they sort of are in certain games, but in such a different way that it's unrelatable to the ones in the movie)

* Effects/nature of the Mushrooms (and lacking in fire flowers and stars, trading them for flame throwers and... devolution guns?)

* Goombas: pretty much everything

* Everything else: pretty much all of it

* Mario's girlfriend (wrong name, look, and personality - even if they were going for Paula, the one he left behind in the "real" world), her friend, and Mario's alternate "girlfriend" (the dino-descendent)

It's really funny because, according to wikipedia, Shigeru Miyamoto said...

Originally Posted by Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's creator stated, "[In] the end, it was a very fun project that they put a lot of effort into," but also said, "The one thing that I still have some regrets about is that the movie may have tried to get a little too close to what the Mario Bros. video games were. And in that sense, it became a movie that was about a video game, rather than being an entertaining movie in and of itself."

... which I think is completely wrong. It didn't try to get "a little too close" to the game. It tried to (badly) imitate and ape things from the game, but give them "scientific" explanations (which they really, really didn't need) and make the whole thing more "real" (which, again, it really, really didn't need).

As a kid I walked away convincing myself that I liked it. I remember the feelings of confusion and disappointment in the theater, but telling my self that it's Mario, so of course it's good. I couldn't maintain that feeling, however, and the more I thought of it, the more I disparaged it. If it wasn't attached to the Mario franchise? I'd probably be okay with it. I might even enjoy it a great deal. I also might have never seen it. Which is probably the reason it was attached to the Mario franchise: it seems (to me) that it was a completely different script that was attached to the Mario names only after the fact. That might be me being cynical... I might be completely wrong. It just feels all kind of wrong, and it gave a lot of my non-gamer friends even more reason to feel video games (and those who played them) were really strange and not interesting at all.

So is it pretty much just nerdrage? Yeah. But it's nerdrage because it actually made video games (and those who play them) less popular.

And that's terrible*.

* Warning: that's tvtropes. Click at your own risk!

[Magus]

It's a good movie, although with some plot holes (like the Bob-Omb and King Toadstool's constant interventions were pure Deus Ex Machina). But overall a good movie. Just not a good Super Mario Bros. movie.

I mean it's better than all the shitty video game movies that were also shitty movies in and of themselves.

Bed-ice-pipe-slide scene is still the best. Oh, and "the Goombas are dancing again". HAHAHA. Oh. Classic.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Magus

It's a good movie, although with some plot holes (like the Bob-Omb and King Toadstool's constant interventions were pure Deus Ex Machina). But overall a good movie. Just not a good Super Mario Bros. movie.

I mean it's better than all the shitty video game movies that were also shitty movies in and of themselves.

Bed-ice-pipe-slide scene is still the best. Oh, and "the Goombas are dancing again". HAHAHA. Oh. Classic.

So, I'mma gonna pretend that my entire post was Magus' and his entire post was mine. 'Cause I like the way he phrased it better.

[DarkDrgon]

I dunno, the description bowser gave for the goombas was pretty accurate.

[Ecks]

Did anyone catch the Game Informer article looking into the origins of this waste of film? I watched it once. Only thing I liked out of it was getting Mario and Luigi action figures.

[Magus]

Don't you regret all the things we didn't get out of it, though? Like citywide bumper-car grids to power our cars, or fireball guns for the police to use in high speed chases? Or jetjump shoes?