Super Mario Bros the movie

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by Magus

Wha, really? I thought there were two distinct lineages going on there...like Toad becomes the one type of Goomba, whereas there are also lizard/dinosaur Goombas. Just the two types. So I thought it was a whole mushroom people v. dinosaur people thing going on.

Toad was also a lizard goomba. I'm pretty sure the king was super-de-evolved

[Osterbaum]

It's flawless!

[Premmy]

yyyyyup

[Magus]

There are clearly two types of Goombas here. Is one more devolved than the other?

[Premmy]

I'm pretty sure that's just, like, different races of the same species. It's all lizards/dinosaurs in the end and no mushrooms in sight.

[tacticslion]

AND WE NOW CUT BACK TO THE EXCITING (not really) EN MEDIA RES SCENE WHERE TACTICSLION DEFENDS AN ARGUMENT HE DOESN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT AGAINST KRYLO!! HERE WE GO!!

Krylo: no.

Originally Posted by Krylo

And which would not have worked at all in a movie format. It kept the bare skeleton of the basic plot with the goombas and the mushroom kingdom and the princess, and then rewrote everything necessary to make it work as a 1993 movie, as that a movie about some dude jumping on weird mushroom people to save a princess with no dialogue or characterization of any real sort would not have flown, and they didn't really have the technology to, say, recreate the Super Mario Super Show in live action.

Further, it's still obvious watching the movie that somebody CARED, and not just a little, either. There's a lot of love that went into it which is obvious as you watch the movie.

Except that the changes made were unnecessary and of a completely different caliber. They weren't changes to make it work as a movie, they were changes to allow Michael Bay to fetishize the military. And just... add racism for no real reason. And move the focus of the movie away from the title characters.

When people complain about the changes to the franchise in the Bay movie they have specific complaints as to what changed and why that made it a poor movie.

When people do the same for Super Mario Brothers it's just 'It's nothing like the games' which, itself, isn't really completely true, but just not a similar complaint at all except on a level so b... wait hold on:

Changes: yeah, I know. But there were other ways they could have changed things for a movie format without completely rewriting as much as they did. It came off much more as "hey, here's a movie we have, now let's make it Super Mario Brothers" (aka "square peg, round hole") than, "hey, let's make a Super Mario Brothers movie and make the necessary adaptations to movie format".

Technology: no. The movie was made in 1993. Let's look at a few films then shall we? Jurassic Park. The Crow. The Fugitive. Most notable on that list is, of course, JP, but seriously - each of those used fabulous live-action special effects. 1992 has Batman Returns and Bram Stoker's Dracula. 1991 has Hook, The Adams Family, and friggin' Terminator 2: Judgement Day. 1990 has Ghost, Back to the Future 3, Robocop 2, Total Recall (filled with mutants and strange landscapes/events), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
BUT! Let's say I give you the point that most of these films used very limited or very specific sets of absolutely excellent special effects. It's true! I mean, it's not as if anyone'd ever created a completely new and impossible fantasy world and integrated it with live action before... oh wait. The thing is, they could have done it. And could have done it well enough with effects which were, by this point, seven years old.

Love: okay, sure. Fascinatingly, however, everyone panned it at the time. It was widely negatively received. Again, for comparison, Labyrinth was not nearly so negatively received at the time (though it, too, got some mixed reviews). And Labyrinth is a mess. Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper both were very vocal about their time working on the movie - and they didn't like it. Shigeru - creator of such amazing things as the Super Mario franchise - was also displeased with the final result, indicating (strangely to me) that it tried to get "a little too close" to the games rather than " rather than being an entertaining movie in and of itself". That last part is important. These were people who, obviously, cared about the production, as they were an important part of it. All of them decried various elements of the film.

Look, as I said in the other thread - I'm not married to hating this film or anything. I'm cool with people enjoying it and liking it for itself. Heck, I like Hudson Hawk, widely regarded as one of (if not the) worst films of Bruce Willis' career! I, personally, don't like it very much because of the way it treated something I loved and it was a rather large disappointment in that regard. This was mostly my response to your response, got too big and too deraily from the other thread, so I moved it here.

[Premmy]

I think what you're forgetting here is Mario is just intrinsically kind of stupid. It's a little kid's show made into a video game. It is about as complex as Barney or My Little Pony. a feature-length film that kept to the style and "story" of Mario game would be something akin to the Where the Wild Things Are movie at best. Which was good, yes, but wasn't a kids movie so much as a movie about kids. And pretty much went in it's own direction entirely from the book.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Premmy

I think what you're forgetting here is Mario is just intrinsically kind of stupid.

Dude. I like Hudson Hawk. I'm okay with stupid and movies going together.

Originally Posted by Premmy

It's a little kid's show made into a video game. It is about as complex as Barney or My Little Pony.

At that point, it was a little less complicated than MLP, and a bit more than Barney (in some ways... I'd actually say it's more like a lateral movement). Point is, there's not a lot there to make a mistake with. Doesn't mean they didn't make a mistake with it.

Also, it's secretly a video game that was made into a little kid's show.
(And into a movie. Which is what we're discussing.)

Originally Posted by Premmy

Example: something I'd be totally okay with.

Except that's not really what this did. Which is okay. It's just not anything remotely resembling a Mario movie.

Again, to clarify, I'd probably be perfectly okay with said movie (probably think it was kind of hokey and weak, but perfectly okay with it) if it were anything other than "Super Mario Brothers". And I'm perfectly okay with people liking it.

That doesn't make it a good movie. That doesn't erase its other flaws. It's a perfectly valid movie for others to enjoy, but not a good movie. Which is fine.

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

Except that's not really what this did. Which is okay. It's just not anything remotely resembling a Mario movie.

Again, to clarify, I'd probably be perfectly okay with said movie (probably think it was kind of hokey and weak, but perfectly okay with it) if it were anything other than "Super Mario Brothers". And I'm perfectly okay with people liking it.

That doesn't make it a good movie. That doesn't erase its other flaws. It's a perfectly valid movie for others to enjoy, but not a good movie. Which is fine.

They really did. They just replaced the "Magic" with "science" but yes, they did a WTWTA on this movie and then added science.

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by Premmy

They really did. They just replaced the "Magic" with "science" but yes, they did a WTWTA on this movie and then added science.

As you like!