A place for those who "Trust the Fungus"

Ok, after reading several 1 star troll reviews from SMBMOVIE haters I got very angry. "Why are people still on Luigi not having a moustache, or Daisy being the main character and not Peach? It doesn't make sense!" So, I decided to sit back, relax and just look at the movie from their view. I finally understand why haters are making the same points over and over again, or at least trying to.

First of all, let's start with how the Bros. look. I hate to admitt it but I agree to degree on this. First of all, Mario and Luigi are icons, and they have an iconic look. Mario is short, has a moustache, and wears red and blue. Luigi is tall, wears a moustahce, and wears green and blue. By not giving the brothers these iconic features the movie heavily implies that they just picked some random actor that's marketable even though they don't look like the character their protraying. However, this doesn't utterly destroy the film. Mario and Luigi get their color coded uniforms in the film, Mario looks like Mario, hell by the climax of the film the only iconic feature missing is of course Luigi's stache so yeah. This argument is mostly nitpicking.\

However the second point is one I heavily agree with. Koopa being human. Yes I like Koopa in the movie, but that doesn't hide the fact that his design is really lazy. Turning a monster into a human only implies that filmakers were too lazy and cheap to create a cool monster suit. Again, I love Denis Hopper as Koopa, but really, not even some little prostectic to show him turning into a monster?

The argument with Daisy has some value. You guys have Peach on of the most iconic Mario characters of all time and you pick Daisy?! What the hell?! That is until you realise Peach came later in Super Mario 64 which was after SMBMOVIE.

Also I understand why some fans are pissed that SMB isn't a lot like the games. They were told they were going to watch a Mario movie, they paid to see a Mario movie, the first 3 seconds made them think they were watching a Mario movie, and what do they get? A movie with the basic Mario formula I guess, but it's filled with evolution, dinosaurs that evovled into humans, polic chases, cyber punk cities, nightclubs, flamethrowers, nazi dinos that are really mutated citizens, yyyyyyyyeah not that much in common. In ways, this movie had false advertising.

However, don't get the wrong idea, I still love this movie. For you see, a typical Mario movie would have been kind of stupid and boring. You need to add osmething unique to a movie based on Mario or else people are going to say, "Yeah, it's like the games but why bother watching something that looks like the games when I could playing the actual games?" It's a bit of a time waster. Also, the film is more faithful to the games than lots of people give it credit for. There are numerous refference in the cities, the designs in some places are like the games, again it has the same Mario formula, and it has other characters like Yoshi.

Anyway, that was my post, how do you like?

1upmushroom wrote:First of all, let's start with how the Bros. look. I hate to admitt it but I agree to degree on this. First of all, Mario and Luigi are icons, and they have an iconic look. Mario is short, has a moustache, and wears red and blue. Luigi is tall, wears a moustahce, and wears green and blue. By not giving the brothers these iconic features the movie heavily implies that they just picked some random actor that's marketable even though they don't look like the character their protraying. However, this doesn't utterly destroy the film. Mario and Luigi get their color coded uniforms in the film, Mario looks like Mario, hell by the climax of the film the only iconic feature missing is of course Luigi's stache so yeah. This argument is mostly nitpicking.

I would say that Super Mario Bros is an origin story, so having them start off as the icons would make for bad character development. So the fans who say that are really only screwing over themselves. Luigi not having a moustache is the only part of this I can buy into, because it is part of their trademark, but Bob Hoskins was 100% right as Mario. Bar Luigi's moustache, the look was spot on.

1upmushroom wrote:However the second point is one I heavily agree with. Koopa being human. Yes I like Koopa in the movie, but that doesn't hide the fact that his design is really lazy. Turning a monster into a human only implies that filmakers were too lazy and cheap to create a cool monster suit. Again, I love Denis Hopper as Koopa, but really, not even some little prostectic to show him turning into a monster?

I agree with this to some degree. After seeing some (Not filmed) made up half-human/half-dinosaur residents, it became clear to me that using some of these well made make-up effects to enhance Koopa would have been a far better way to humanise him than simply shaving his eyebrows and greasing his hair.

1upmushroom wrote:The argument with Daisy has some value. You guys have Peach on of the most iconic Mario characters of all time and you pick Daisy?! What the hell?! That is until you realise Peach came later in Super Mario 64 which was after SMBMOVIE.

Lame fan bullcrap. Any fan will say "It should be Peach!", any loyal fan will know Peach wasn't called that until SMB 64. And while Daisy looks 'wrong', that is again only on the assumption that she must be a 100% fit for the game character. Very few movies are accurate to the games, SMB had the unfortunate addition of being the first attempt and as such being the one people remember.

There was no Sarah, Mr President or Old Man the Owl in Sonic the Hedgehog, but they appeared on the OVA movie. Who gives a damn, they were cool additions for the spin-off that it was. Snively didn't exist in Sonic, nor did Scratch and Grounder (Until Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine was made to sell Puyo Pop to the west based on the franchise) but these spin-off characters are accepted by that community as an alternate.

1upmushroom wrote:Also I understand why some fans are pissed that SMB isn't a lot like the games. They were told they were going to watch a Mario movie, they paid to see a Mario movie, the first 3 seconds made them think they were watching a Mario movie, and what do they get? A movie with the basic Mario formula I guess, but it's filled with evolution, dinosaurs that evovled into humans, polic chases, cyber punk cities, nightclubs, flamethrowers, nazi dinos that are really mutated citizens, yyyyyyyyeah not that much in common. In ways, this movie had false advertising.

The unfortunate thing is, if you are a fan of something then anything not similar will be a major fail automatically. SMB The Movie is nothing like the games. But neither is Tekken (Live Action) and that's the best fighting game adaption committed to film (Mortal Kombat Legacy is better, but still not a full feature film) and that is different to it's subject matter. The only films to be totally accurate to their respective games are;

Final Fantasy: Advent Children
Resident Evil: Degeneration and
Tekken: Blood Vengeance

ALL the others are alternates/spin-offs. And these three aforementioned films are not very good to be honest. Advent Children is mega-lame in many ways, Resi Evil: Degeneration was bland and barely worthy of rental and Tekken: Blood Vengeance is only amazing by how hilariously bad it is (Sexual Harassment Panda is my joy).

Easily over-shadowed by SMB, Tekken (Live Action), Mortal Kombat Legacy, Doom, Street Fighter (Live Action). However I am not immune to this effect. I am a massive fan of Yakuza, in fact Yakuza 4 is by far my favourite game of 2011 due to it being the best storyline in any game of that year, when I got the Blu-Ray of the film (Only available in France ffs) I found it to be a bastardisation of the original game content which annoyed me. What annoyed me however wasn't the usual "It's not like the game, it sucks.", but actually the fact that they had made the story many many times worse for no good reason as the original storyline was cinematic in itself!

Indeed, they could have just done the storyline as a film and it would have worked. I'm all for making changes, but at least make them worthwhile. Bland combat, poor direction, horrendous post-production values and bad casting choices all but destroyed the majority of what's left. And the worst part is it's bland and not particularly thrilling - it's like Resi Evil: Degeneration in that it's not terrible or brilliant, but it's not very fun either.

As for "false advertising", I've been there. Star Trek 2009 burnt me with how horrendously shit a Star Trek film that was, and yet it's hailed as a masterpiece because it managed to make Star Trek accessible to chavs? What the hell is this world coming to, if that is the measure of 'quality'? Some of the best films ever made have been unsuccessful, some of the most important ones too. It's just sad that quality is overlooked in the modern industry and fanbase, just so they can get a quick fix of something far inferior.

Roareye wrote:I would say that Super Mario Bros is an origin story, so having them start off as the icons would make for bad character development. So the fans who say that are really only screwing over themselves. Luigi not having a moustache is the only part of this I can buy into, because it is part of their trademark, but Bob Hoskins was 100% right as Mario. Bar Luigi's moustache, the look was spot on.

Well not nessacarily icons, I meant more like their trademark features.

Roareye wrote:Lame fan bullcrap. Any fan will say "It should be Peach!", any loyal fan will know Peach wasn't called that until SMB 64.

Well, I don't actually mind this, I'm just stating the facts from a hater's point of view, in fact I do say Peach wasn't around until Super Mario 64.

Roareye wrote:The unfortunate thing is, if you are a fan of something then anything not similar will be a major fail automatically.

Uh, your kind of not getting this one. I'm merely trying to explain why these haters hate. The only one I really agree with is Koopa being human. I even state why a carbon copy version of the games without anything unique added to it would majorly fail. I respect your opinions but just know I was merely trying to explain why these hater's hate.

I only fully agree with about one of these arguments but I do know where the haters are coming from with their other points. Well all except Daisy.

The problem is that there really is no legitimate reason to hate the film. This isn't The Last Temptation of Christ where it was your (perceived) god-given duty to criticize the film; rather, it's an adaptation of a video game that most people had only experienced for a little as 8 years.

Even then, the character had been rebooted twice already. People just hate on the film because it didn't fit their expectations and that is the essence of being a child. They didn't get what they want and whine about it, even if what they did get was suitable in its own way.

1upmushroom wrote:However the second point is one I heavily agree with. Koopa being human. Yes I like Koopa in the movie, but that doesn't hide the fact that his design is really lazy. Turning a monster into a human only implies that filmakers were too lazy and cheap to create a cool monster suit. Again, I love Denis Hopper as Koopa, but really, not even some little prostectic to show him turning into a monster?

That doesn't imply laziness so much as just wanting to market an unhindered actor to the audience. Admittedly, they probably weren't going to hit so many kids as adults with Dennis Hopper, but I'm sure the parents wouldn't have taken him as seriously if covered up.

1upmushroom wrote:The argument with Daisy has some value. You guys have Peach on of the most iconic Mario characters of all time and you pick Daisy?! What the hell?!

It was either that or Toadstool. People need to start realizing that and be happy that we got a character named in canon rather than someone new.

Redstar wrote:The problem is that there really is no legitimate reason to hate the film. This isn't The Last Temptation of Christ where it was your (perceived) god-given duty to criticize the film; rather, it's an adaptation of a video game that most people had only experienced for a little as 8 years.

I actually liked the Last Temptation of Christ even tohugh I'm a christain and is supposed to hate it.

Ok, back on topic.

1upmushroom wrote:

Roareye wrote:Lame fan bullcrap. Any fan will say "It should be Peach!", any loyal fan will know Peach wasn't called that until SMB 64.

Well, I don't actually mind this, I'm just stating the facts from a hater's point of view, in fact I do say Peach wasn't around until Super Mario 64.

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as aggressive against you as the poster, more just aggressive against that kind of fan reaction. I admit that when I was younger I would likely have made the same stupid misconception, but it still irritates me when people state their opinion as God-given truth when they don't know even a tiny number of the facts.

1upmushroom wrote:

Roareye wrote:The unfortunate thing is, if you are a fan of something then anything not similar will be a major fail automatically.

Uh, your kind of not getting this one. I'm merely trying to explain why these haters hate. The only one I really agree with is Koopa being human. I even state why a carbon copy version of the games without anything unique added to it would majorly fail. I respect your opinions but just know I was merely trying to explain why these hater's hate.

Again to my last comment. Sorry if it seemed I was having a pop at you. I wasn't. As someone writing theatre and movie scripts (Filming my first movie this year as director too called "Imperial Nova"), I am well aware of what it takes to make a good plot, whereas people expect the impossible sometimes.

As an example I am currently writing a movie script for F-Zero, keeping it as accurate to that game's storyline as possible whilst building on it with a deep well of character development and personalities. The difficulty of limitation is a really fun one, and actually inspires you to create more inventive ideas (Whereas not having such confines leads to fantastical and unrealistic bullcrap like Dead or Alive, it didn't ground itself in any reality at all).

The storyline is accurate to the game's own storyline to please the fans, but I still know that there will be haters based on the fact that some characters (Like Captain Falcon and Pico) will have more detailed personalities and personal problems to overcome related to events mention in the game's storylines. As a racing game, F-Zero doesn't deal with the psychological or relationship issues the events of the character biographies create. They're just padding for holding the accelerate button. However another issue is that sometimes such backstories won't translate well to film, or are contradictory in themselves.

An example in the script I'm developing is that certain characters (Bearing in mind it's set around F-Zero X, so there's 30!) will become background characters and barely seen outside of races. These omitted backstories are often because what is in the game is so mind-numbing dull filmatically that I'd rather use the time to develop a strong story-arc. If your favourite character is Billy, you won't be seeing much of him - far preferable than spending 30 minutes on "Ape got smart, got car, goes to race". An example of contradictory backstories is that Super Arrow's backstory claims he was an up-and-coming but not very successful pilot in the "old F-Zero", whereas the storyline of his wife Mrs. Arrow (Monique L'amoureaux) states that he has never raced before in his life so she is helping him out. For the film to work, I had to make an amalgamation of these two things - but regardless it's a damned if I do, damned if I don't scenario. These types of fans create that scenario for writers, and that makes the prospect of working creating an accurate video game movie very very unsavory (But I'm self-destructive and adore a good challenge, so here we go :p)

I just want to apologise a third and final time, as after re-reading my original post I can see how it came across as aggression for you "daring to speak such filth!" which wasn't at all what I meant. We be bro's again? I'll be your Starman XD

1upmushroom wrote:First of all, let's start with how the Bros. look. I hate to admitt it but I agree to degree on this. First of all, Mario and Luigi are icons, and they have an iconic look. Mario is short, has a moustache, and wears red and blue. Luigi is tall, wears a moustahce, and wears green and blue. By not giving the brothers these iconic features the movie heavily implies that they just picked some random actor that's marketable even though they don't look like the character their protraying. However, this doesn't utterly destroy the film. Mario and Luigi get their color coded uniforms in the film, Mario looks like Mario, hell by the climax of the film the only iconic feature missing is of course Luigi's stache so yeah. This argument is mostly nitpicking.

John Leguizamo was not a marketable actor at the time the film was released.

The characters do get their iconic outfits eventually, and it totally works and makes sense within the context of the film.

The problem is that the film wasn't even marketed as a direct connection to the games. There were a few commercials that showed the game characters interspersed with film footage--I think they should've done more than that. They probably could've shown more scenes with the brothers in their outfits, but also think about the poster--it's kind of stylized and the colors of the suits match the logo rather than being red/green, further breaking the association with the games.

I just think that if the film was marketed better and was released farther apart from Jurassic Park, it could've been a lot more successful.

Just to play devil's advocate, they could have had Mario and Luigi use their coveralls to investigate Scapelli's tampering with the digging site, which was pretty early on, and had them wear the costumes from there. The only problem then would be the night club scene, which could probably be gotten around somehow...

But yeah, it's meant to be an origin story; Luigi's not supposed to have his mustache yet, they don't have their outfits, they aren't "Super" Mario Bros. yet, etc...

LBD_Nytetrayn wrote:Just to play devil's advocate, they could have had Mario and Luigi use their coveralls to investigate Scapelli's tampering with the digging site, which was pretty early on, and had them wear the costumes from there. The only problem then would be the night club scene, which could probably be gotten around somehow...

The pacing of the film is completely off to the point that you really don't care until they get into Dinohattan (23-minute mark). If any of the writers had been more open with completely reworking the opening rather than just tweaking what had been written before then maybe the characters could have been established better.

Perhaps, perhaps, but that's another point entirely. I'm just talking about their "iconic appearance," as the point was made, and that it could probably have been done a LOT sooner.

Personally speaking, I don't know if it's come from numerous rewatchings or just being a Mario nut, but I felt the characters were fine, like I had a pretty good grasp on them.

When it comes to the way the looked, some people dont seem to realize that films cannot look 100% like thie source material. Like for example in the X-men movie Wolverine did not have his trademark yello spandex suit from the comics.

jka12002 wrote:When it comes to the way the looked, some people dont seem to realize that films cannot look 100% like thie source material. Like for example in the X-men movie Wolverine did not have his trademark yello spandex suit from the comics.

Strangely enough, I've seen few-- if any-- complain about the outfits. I honestly get the impression that as far as some people are concerned, what they wear in the movie is the same as everywhere else. I don't get it, but that's the impression I'm left with.

LBD_Nytetrayn wrote:Perhaps, perhaps, but that's another point entirely. I'm just talking about their "iconic appearance," as the point was made, and that it could probably have been done a LOT sooner.

I'm saying that if the opening had been reworked more fully we could have possibly seen Mario and Luigi in their iconic suits earlier. As it stands, the adventure could have been a lot more relevant. We see a lot of boring moments.

jka12002 wrote:When it comes to the way the looked, some people dont seem to realize that films cannot look 100% like thie source material. Like for example in the X-men movie Wolverine did not have his trademark yello spandex suit from the comics.

That's a good comparison. Some things that look good on paper or digitally just don't look as good when depicted by real materials on real people. While a pair of overalls might've worked in some way, the jumpsuits are a good translation.

Redstar wrote:

jka12002 wrote:When it comes to the way the looked, some people dont seem to realize that films cannot look 100% like thie source material. Like for example in the X-men movie Wolverine did not have his trademark yello spandex suit from the comics.

That's a good comparison. Some things that look good on paper or digitally just don't look as good when depicted by real materials on real people. While a pair of overalls might've worked in some way, the jumpsuits are a good translation.

I brought that up in my article.

The one thing that tends to annoy me is when fans say that this movie was not true to the games, storywise. Ahem....

1. Mario and Luigi travel to another world to rescue a princess, just like the game.
2. One of the brothers falls in love with the princess, just like the game except its Luigi instead of Mario.
3. There are random pipes,pitfalls and fire hazzards through out Dinohatten, just like the areas in the games.

What more do you want?

jka12002 wrote:The one thing that tends to annoy me is when fans say that this movie was not true to the games, storywise. Ahem....

1. Mario and Luigi travel to another world to rescue a princess, just like the game.
2. One of the brothers falls in love with the princess, just like the game except its Luigi instead of Mario.
3. There are random pipes,pitfalls and fire hazzards through out Dinohatten, just like the areas in the games.

What more do you want?

Cartoons. ;P

And to further cement your point, it seems as though both Bros. have the hots for the Princess in the games, but it's typically Mario who winds up with her.

Luigi plays the field.

LBD_Nytetrayn wrote:And to further cement your point, it seems as though both Bros. have the hots for the Princess in the games, but it's typically Mario who winds up with her.

Luigi plays the field.

Well, Mario kind of HAS to let Luigi fall for the princess...Daniella's probably very good with knives (as her mama taught her).

Truly, my only beef with the movie is that Pauline is called Daniella. Other than that, it's perfection.

There were a lot of things about the movie that I didn't like which I have either come to terms with or outright embraced, such as Koopa's hair being blonde rather than red, so I can't say that there's very much left that I absolutely do not like in the film's departures from the games.