Independant Study Project - Super Mario Bros. The Movie. A success or not?

Super Mario Bros. is part of the Mario series of video games, consisting of over 200 titles that span across video game history. Nintendo's moustached-mascot is the most recognizable character in gaming, so it's no wonder that he has appeared on many forms of media, including video games, books, comics, and movies. Super Mario Bros. the movie, is the theatrical take on the Mario series of games. It is the first and last time a live action Mario film was made, largely due to negative criticism from consumers and critics alike. This was due to the many sacrifices that resulted in the adaptation of game to film. In this post, ill review the three main aspects of the film: plot, design, and the impression on critics and fans alike, how truthful the film was to its source media.

Plot

When you play a Mario game (or at least when I did) you play for the fun and addictive game play, you don't notice just how much the game makes no sense at all. I mean why is a dragon turtle king trying to kidnap a girl who princess of a kingdom on mushrooms? Why is the only one trying to save her an Italian plumber? Weirdness aside, the movie fails to create a plot in which is logical enough to be live action. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against fantasy live action movies, but the movie tried to much to follow the games, and thus when it moved to the film medium, it didn't change enough to be good in and of itself. it seemed like an imitation of the game in movie form, not a fleshed out plot for film. An example of this is how the plot is still the same as it was in the games, Mario has to save the princess. The problem is that this is the only aspect of the movie that stays true to the video games. Everything else is entirely changed to the point where it is confusing to follow and fails to resemble the games. If your going to make a movie based on a game, don't change so much that it is almost unrecognisable. The plot involves the two Mario brothers Mario and Luigi as they try to rescue Daisy, a regular human girl, who has been kidnapped into the mushroom kingdom dimension by Bowser's forces. The main problem of the plot is that there is a meteorite that is unexplained, which becomes critical later in the film. Apparently, Bowser's plot is replace one sliver of the meteorite, and when it is whole, the dimensional wall between the Mushroom Kingdom and the human world will vanish, and Bowser will rule broth dimensions. What makes even less sense is why the sliver of the meteorite is found to be the gem on Daisy's necklace, which makes her the egg baby. (the sliver was found with the egg.) With yet another of example of utter randomness in its plot, Super Mario Bros. once again cements itself as one of the most ridiculous movie plots ever. Aside from the rescue part of the plot, all the charm from the games due to fun gameplay and cool design has been lost in the transition to film. One example of this is the setting of the movie; the film begins with a girl running through Brooklyn, twenty years ago. She drops off an egg at a churn, and it hatches to reveal a human child. Not only is not explained, but how does a human child hatch from an egg? Already we have an example of random movie only material, with no context from it's game series of origin; Nothing like this ever happens in the games. The director may have made this choice to make a more simple origin story for what takes place, but instead, it comes of confusing and unexplained. The official origin story for Mario and Luigi takes place in the game Yoshi's Island, but apparently the directors never heard of that game.

(In this game, Mario and Luigi's origin is explained by being two babies in sacks carried by a stork. The stork was ambushed by Baby Bowser's forces, and Baby luigi fell out of the storks mouth and was kidnapped by Baby Bowser. Baby Mario fell down to earth to Yoshi's island, where a Yoshi carried him through the world to rescue his brother. That origin story worked just fine, Super Mario Bros. The Movie!)

Design

The lack of continuity with the series continues with the overall design of the film, many of the characters barely represent what they are supposed to. I understand that the directors had a challenge trying to emulate the Mario series in one movie, but that's is no excuse for a 48 million dollar budget movie having no real effort put into its design. The Mushroom kingdom for example is often portrayed as a lively, bright, happy place. At least until the later levels, when lava and stormy skies symbolize the nearing of the final confrontation with Bowser. In the movie however, the Mushroom kingdom is a dark, gloomy, gritty city. A towering building with a sign saying "Vote Koopa" stands in the background, the residence of Bowser himself. This is actually one of the few choices I personally like. In the games, Bowser resided in vast fortresses or castles, often situated in dark or dangerous locals. I think the city with its dark atmosphere represents the hostility of being so close to the final confrontation. For this reason, I am inclined to believe that the director may have decided to use a more stylistic or subtle approach to design since making an exact match to the series style would be hard in real life, but they should have known that to begin with. But if so many other movies like Lord of the Rings could incorporate realistic cgi into their fantasy worlds, then why didn't this one? I mean, common, how does this look like a Goomba, one of the most prevalent minions of Bowser's army?

(What Goomba's look like in Mario Bros. The Movie. Seriously.)

(Compare that to what they look like in the games.)

Lasting Impressions

In the Nintendo Power (Magazine which followed Nintendo's media, including games and movies) 20th anniversary retrospective issue, as they chronicled the games and other related releases over the magazine's life span, the film's release was listed, to which the issue stated that, while neither the film, nor its cast and crew won any awards, the fact that the film was made shows how much the game series has impacted popular culture.

Bob Hoskins has spoken critically of Super Mario Bros., saying that it "the worst thing I ever did" and "the whole experience was a fuckin' nightmare" in a 2007 interview with The Guardian. In another interview with The Guardian, Hoskins answered Super Mario Bros. to three of the questions he was asked, "What is the worst job you've done," "What has been your biggest disappointment," and "If you could edit your past, what would you change?"

Dennis Hopper was also disparaging of the production, "It was a nightmare, very honestly, that movie. It was a husband-and-wife directing team who were both control freaks and wouldn't talk before they made decisions. Anyway, I was supposed to go down there for five weeks, and I was there for 17. It was so over budget."[13]

Here is Shigeru miyamoto's opinion on the movie, and it is one that I totally agree with that pretty much sums up this film better then my entire post. I think it a great way to end this project.

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."

The end

Works Cited

Wikepedia for it's great info on the reception of the film.