NERD RAGE: Super Mario Bros. (The Movie)

[MissionGeekTrent]

Hello All!

As Mission:Geek's resident Film & Gaming Culture Buff, I decided a while ago to take a hard look at video game feature-film adaptations and how they tend to deviate from their original source material.

Naturally, Super Mario Bros. (The Movie) was the first of many titles I had in mind to cover. A representative of this site reached out to me about reposting my in-depth article here due to the active community of fans.

http://missiongeek.com/articles/2012/1/13/nerd-rage-super-mario-bros-the-movie.html

While I found the film to be a misrepresentation of the franchise and overall rather frustrating, it should be noted that I take a 'to each their own' approach to the audience that saw something they liked in the film.

It's fans of cult classics like 'Super Mario Bros.' that stop Hollywood from only producing safe, derivative, and mainstream films.

For that I am thankful.

Trent Seely
missiongeek.com

[Redstar]

Thanks for re-posting the article, Trent. We enjoy reading new and different perspectives on the film, so it's always a pleasure to be able to discuss them further. The film just has so much going for it that you really can't cover it all in one take.

There are a few things I'd like to comment on, so I'll quote the relevant bits below and respond right after. Feel free to respond back.

So why does the big screen adaptation of this 8-bit classic come off like the red-headed love-child of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Blade Runner?

The directors had in mind more of a "Beetlejuice meets Blade Runner," though the original writers were going for "Ghostbusters." Can't say why the film ended up the way it did, though it is interesting to point out that both TMNT and SMB were shot in Wilmington, NC while David Snyder was the art director on Blade Runner and the production designer on Super Mario Bros. Everyone had a vision for the concept.

Luigi may actually be Mario’s adoptive son

Common misconception and one no doubt exacerbated by The Nostalgia Critic. Luigi is simply Mario's much younger brother from their father's second wife; after their parents died Mario took him in and raised him from infancy. Mario did held some resentment against Luigi for that, but this was seen in a subplot filmed yet cut.

Continuing the trend of screwing with everything the video game previously established, Goombas are 8-feet tall and act like high-functioning alcoholics, the actual King of the Dinosaurs is a massive fungus

It should be noted that the Goombas in the original Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World are twice as tall as 'regular' Mario and equal in height to 'Super' Mario. Being 8-feet tall in the film isn't much of a stretch.

Likewise, the King being de-evolved into a fungus is a reference to the kings in Super Mario Bros. 3 being transformed into various plants/animals by Bowser's children.

The audience is simply left with a pervasive series of questions upon conclusion. Why did this disaster deviate so far away from its already well-developed source material?

It's a long and fascinating story, but one that can best be summed up by saying that the original fantasy production for the film was much more faithful, but the director departed and the producers struggled to find a replacement. After 6 months of searching only Rocky and Annabel were willing to come on, but they had a new vision. And here we are.

Did the film makers actually think that King Koopa was a T-Rex?

They didn't think he was an actual representation of a dinosaur, but they did explain their thought-process of why they translated a dragon into one in the book MicroChips to Movie Stars:

Morton: "Annabel and I tried to visualize the game as a story, and the first question that came up in our minds was, Who is Koopa?"

"Who is Koopa? was an interesting question, since the answer--a dragon--was the spark that was needed to develop the story."

Annabel: "There are some theories that perhaps dragons are a thought left over from mankind's early recollections of dinosaurs."

Why are they trying to save Princess Daisy and not Peach?

Because Princess "Peach" didn't exist until 1996's Super Mario 64. Before then, the princess was known only as "Toadstool." Daisy was the closest to an actual name they had in available canon.

Didn’t the directors know that a meteorite likely would have completely burned-up in the atmosphere before striking Earth and killing all of the dinosaurs?

It's pretty much a known fact that a meteorite triggered the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. Yes, it did burn-up when entering our atmosphere, but it was still large enough to cause utter catastrophe.

If the Dinosaur dimension has no natural resources where did they get steamed vegetables?

The parallel world does have some resources, but it's strictly rationed. Koopa, being a dictator, has access to as much food as he wants.

If they can go through the portal between Earth and the dinosaur dimension freely why are they trying to merge the realms?

How would you conquer our world through a tiny portal located underground? One person at a time? Merging the two worlds is much quicker and efficient; plus, Koopa is a megalomaniac.

While the film does have its fair share of problems, I think a lot of its poor reception has more to do with misunderstanding what the filmmakers were attempting and even more what they accomplished. You just need to look at it in the right way to really appreciate it.

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Continuing the trend of screwing with everything the video game previously established, Goombas are 8-feet tall and act like high-functioning alcoholics, the actual King of the Dinosaurs is a massive fungus

It should be noted that the Goombas in the original Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World are twice as tall as 'regular' Mario and equal in height to 'Super' Mario. Being 8-feet tall in the film isn't much of a stretch.

Actually, they were roughly equal in height to regular Mario, who's about five feet tall in the games...

And a few of my own...

As these ‘dinosaurs’ are plotting nasty things in their unnamed land of stupidity

Dinohattan.

Mario Mario and Luigi Mario (seriously, those were the were the last names they were given)

There was a precedent for this before the movie: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, starring Captain Lou Albano. The Venn diagram of people who saw that show, watched the movie, and decided to write an article about it seems to be amazingly small.

A proverbial clusterf*ck of overacting, terrible jokes and poor screenwriting generate something that even the most hardcore of Mario fans have a trouble trying to love.

I'm not about to try to quantify my Mario Madness against others, but I rather enjoy it.

As for Nintendo, I thought I'd read that they really didn't have much control over this at all.

On a personal note, I was completely unfamiliar with Dennis Hopper prior to this movie, and I think that seeing him here increased my interest in seeing Speed.

[Serum]

I'm one of the few people who doesn't have a problem with the Mario Brothers surname being "Mario." Because that's why they're the Super MARIO Brothers-- if their last name was Leone, they'd be the Super Leone Bros. And that just doesn't sound right.