So, in blog fashion, I'm gonna quickly go through the book, chapter by chapter, and dish out the more interesting stuff the book has to offer. Hope you enjoy!
One interesting thing to note: I'm wondering how this book was put together. It seems like the bulk of information in the chapters were taken from the clips that make up the various "Making of" featurettes that we've seen. The odd thing is that a lot of the quotes from the cast and crew are longer/different in the book, so that leads me to believe that there are longer clips of all this stuff out there somewhere. The one unfortunate thing is that the book is obviously geared towards kids with little to no knowledge of the film production process, so it kind of holds your hand a little. This also means that some of the hard-edged things about the film we now know are either glossed over in this book or not mentioned at all. I'll state my thoughts with sentences, and interesting quotes from the book in quotation marks.
Having said all that, here we go:
Introduction--page 5
The book starts off with the best statement I think it could have made. It basically states that most all movies to that point had been based off of books or original screenplays, and that this concept of a video game adaptation for film is extremely new territory.
"Making a movie based on a video game is no easy task, as you will see."
Chapter One: A Good Idea--pages 5-11
For those individuals that dislike the film, I'm sure they'll get a kick out of this chapter's title.
The book first details a brief history of the Mario videogames and character, starting with Miyamoto creating Jumpman and the development of Donkey Kong.
Then there was Donkey Kong Jr. and then finally Mario Bros.--in which Luigi first appears and the Bros. are defined as plumbers by trade.
The Super Mario Bros. games are mentioned and then Super Mario World:
"The most elaborate game of all, Super Mario World, took sixteen people three years to created and introduced a new character, Yoshi the Dinosaur."
Sixteen people--think about that compared to today's massive game teams.
Now we're getting a definition of what a movie producer is--and we're introduced to Jake Eberts and Roland Joffe--who it seems are the two constants throughout the film's entire production from the very beginning.
Joffe was in Paris filming City of Joy, someone from Lightmotive (his film production company) informed him Nintendo was selling the film rights to the Mario series. Joffe's son had been playing the games on a NES
in their apartment while he was directing--and he decided to jump on the chance of acquiring the film rights.
Joffe contacts Eberts, whose production company is Allied Filmmakers. Eberts jumped at the chance to do the film because, even though it was unlike anything he'd ever produced before, he was fascinated by the games.
Joffe and Eberts traveled to Nintendo HQ in Washington to pitch their film idea.
Eberts: "We concentrated on the games' characters and the story we wanted to tell." (regarding the visit to Nintendo HQ). "Characters are everything in a film. Without good characters, you have no story."
Nintendo awarded the SMB film rights to Joffe/Eberts.
Chapter Two: Telling a Story--pages 13-19
"Perhaps the most difficult part of creating the Super Mario Bros. movie was deciding what story to tell."
Eberts: "The game doesn't have a story, and the characters don't even have characteristics. They're just names. We needed to integrate Mario and Luigi into a story that made some sense, that had a beginning, middle, and end."
Now I get the point he's trying to make here. Yes, the games provide a framework for a potential story, but there's not much beyond that. The same thing can even be said about the modern SMB games--and Miyamoto himself doesn't deny this. I disagree somewhat on the characteristics, but this is mostly on an aesthetic level.
Also interesting to note is that right after this quote in the book, the author states that "People who play the video games might disagree with Jake about the game not having a story. After all, Mario chases Koopa, who is the villain, and tries to save the princess."
"Nevertheless, Jake and Roland had to have something more than a lively chase to film, or they would have a rather boring movie."
^This exact point is something haters of the film usually don't acknowledge.
Joffe/Eberts wanted strong characters, and they started by fleshing out Mario and Luigi first, hiring Barry Morrow (screenwriter of Rain Man) to write a full backstory for the Mario Brothers.
Think about the film's screenwriting history when you read this author quote: "The lines in a backstory are not spoken by characters in the movie; a back story background information. However, because screenplays are often written, then rewritten, by more than one team of writers, having a back story helps later screenwriters understand what motivates each character."
Once Mario and Luigi's backstory was in place, they started creating the world they would inhabit.
"In the Super Mario Bros. Nintendo game, Mario and Luigi live in a world that is populated by all sorts of creatures--including dinosaurs--and the plumbers move easily between many different worlds."
^Hear that? Dinosaurs, folks. I'm not making this up.
"[Joffe], along with the film's directors, Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, began with the game and created the vision the became the story of Super Mario Bros."
^"Began with the game" isn't italicized in the book, but I just wanted to point that out.
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."
^Now, we can all argue for the rest of eternity on exactly what kind of creature Koopa/Bowser is. Now, consider the time the film was made and the games they had to work with. Even though Bowser is now widely considered a "turtle," the next most identifying characteristic for him would be a cross between a turtle and dragon. He breathes fire. Just like Yoshi and lots of other Mario game creatures, you can't really pinpoint any one creature for any of them. They're always amalgamations of other creatures into an ambiguous new one.
Having said that...
The author talks a bit about dragons being figments of human imagination and have appeared in art and literature for thousands of years and OMG! Here's a statement you can take to the bank:
Annabel observes that "There are some theories that perhaps dragons are a thought left over from mankind's early recollections of dinosaurs."
So there you have it. There's the hook that defined Morton and Jankel's take on the film. From turtle lizards to dragons and then to dinosaurs.
From there, they came up with the concept of the meteorite and the kind of world viewpoint these evolved Dinosaurs would have.
After describing the film's basic plot, the author states that "Super Mario Bros. the movie, is the story of how two plumbers from Brooklyn became superheroes--the prequel to the videogames!"
"Next, the screenplay had to be written. It took two and a half years to go from Rocky and Annabel's vision of the film to a screenplay that was ready for the actors."
The book mentions that there were previous writers on the screenplay, but only mentions Bennett, Runte, and Solomon by name.
Bennett and Runte played Nintendo and wrote until late in the evening for many months.
Runte: "We couldn't use half of the things we thought of--they just wouldn't fit ."
"The truth is, there are limits to the length of a film and the amount of money that can be spent on it."
The final script for Super Mario Bros. was 117 pages long.
Chapter Three: Casting the Characters--pages 21-25
Morton: "From the very beginning, we knew we wanted Bob Hoskins to play the role of Mario."
Jake and Roland echo these words: "He was absolutely our first choice. We were thrilled to get him."
The producers found John Leguizamo by accident. Eberts saw Leguizamo's one-man show and thought he'd be an interesting choice for Luigi.
The book gets into actor preparation for the roles they play. Apparently John Leguizamo went to a club in Brooklyn and went out to eat with a couple of guys that taught him what it's like to be from Brooklyn and told him stuff to say and how to act. He didn't use any of that in the movie, but he says it was great preparation.
Bob and John apparently worked with each other on the Mario brothers family history--the one created in the movie's back story.
Samantha Mathis went to a university and met a paleontologist and an archaeologist, and found out about their work process.
Dennis Hopper on his preparation for Koopa: "I learned to lick my upper lip and do a lot of lizard tongue movements." LOLOLOL! I'd love to see him do that interview in person...
Fiona Shaw analyzed the the character of Lena to understand how Lena felt about having descended from dinosaurs.
Chapter Four: Designing a Film--pages 27-32
"Very early in the pre-production process, Jake and Roland chose David Snyder to be the production designer for Super Mario Bros."
Snyder decided that the inhabitants of Dinohattan should have a lizarlike quality to their "humanity."
Fiona Shaw notes that Lena is a Pterodactyl by descent, while Koopa is a T-Rex. Interesting...I wonder if any of the other characters were told which dinosaur they were descended from? Toad? Iggy and Spike? Bertha? Daisy, even?
Joseph Porro's agent brought his work to Snyder--and Snyder decided that Porro was right for the job of costume designer.
Porro began to play Nintendo immediately after discovering he got the job.
Porro: "It was very important that the jumpsuits match the game. We had to use red and green--the colors of Mario and Luigi--so children would instantly recognize them."
The rest of the Mario brothers' costumes, and all the other costumes, came from Porro's imagination.
Porro: "We purchased every fabric we could find in the United States and Europe that was in a lizard pattern or that was slithery or shiny and had something to it that was real nasty looking."
Fiona Shaw had to use a leaning board for much of the film because she was literally sewed in to many of her outfits and couldn't sit down. For example, the blue dress she wears when she takes Daisy out of the room with the Brooklyn girls--it has corset steel on the outside and sitting down was impossible.
"Dennis Hopper's makeup was among the most complicated in the movie because he sometimes wore artificial prostheses--especially as he was de-evolved near the end of the movie.
^Note how that says especially, and not only. Are there potential cut scenes where Hopper is wearing some sort of prosthetics?
Dennis Hopper's Koopa hairstyle was meant to be reminiscent of dinosaur ridges.
Chapter Five: Dinohattan Comes to Life--pages 33-41
David L. Snyder on finding the perfect location to shoot the film: "The idea was to find one location where we could do all the work."
David Snyder explains, "I had to find a place large enough to build all the sets--the entire street scene of Dinohattan, the Boom Boom Bar, the police station, the interiors of the Mario brothers' apartment."
^AHA! So the Mario's apartment WAS in the cement factory. I TOLD you.
The cement factory's ramps, conveyor belts, and catwalks influenced the way David designed the sets.
Snyder: "The dinosaurs have wasted all their natural resources, and that is one of the reasons why they have to merge their world into ours. They've used everything up."
"Out of respect for the dinosaurs' ancestors, all of the cars in Dinohattan run on electricity, not gasoline."
"But in keeping with the dinosaurs' disregard for order and rules, there are no traffic lights in Dinohattan."
Snyder: "It's all done in fun. The citizens of Dinohattan like thier society; it's chaos, and they enjoy it."
"More than a hundred elements of the games are in the film--from graffiti on the streets to names of businesses--and sharp eyes will find them."
^Not without a good Blu-ray release, we won't...
Chapter Six: Creatures on the Set--pages 43-57
Eberts: "The worst part of making a movie is the day before production begins. You are committed to the project by then. A lot of money has been spent and there is no turning back. You feel as if you're in a runaway car with no brakes."
^Hit the bricks! LOL
"Like any creative project in its beginnings, no one is certain how things will turn out."
Ninety percent of the film was filmed in the factory.
An old quarry near the factory was used as the desert landscape for the desert scenes.
Paul Lombardi needed five 40-foot trailers to bring in specialized effects equipment to North Carolina for the shooting of the film.
The whole "the Goombas were so popular their roles were expanded" line occurs here too. Wish I knew exactly what those scenes were...
MEL worked off of Patrick Tatopoulous's sketches of Goombas--they made a quick prototype of a Goomba head and sent it to the producers after a few days in fear that they wouldn't get the job--but they were hired.
MEL built fifteen Goombas in ten weeks.
A full Goomba setup, including the rig and clothing, weighed about 80 pounds and was very top-heavy.
Each Goomba setup cost about $50,000 a piece.
This book also mentions Hark--the pre Toad Goomba.
Yoshi took more than five months and $500,000 to complete.
"It took nine puppeteers to control the sixty-four separate movements Yoshi is capable of."
Chapter Seven: That's a Wrap--pages 59-60
"From the time Nintendo sold the movie rights to the night Super Mario Brothers premiered, Jake and Roland spent three years and forty million dollars on the project."
"In all, 206 people worked together to make Super Mario Bros., and each one has a story to tell."
^And now, we're getting to hear some of these stories, on this very website. Hopefully, we'll be able to hear a lot more of them.
Eberts: "You absolutely don't have to be a player of the game to enjoy the movie, but playing the game will make you more familiar with some of the intriguing sources of the movie elements."
^That's one big goal of this site, and one I've been talking about for ages--getting people to actually take note of these "intriguing sources of the movie elements."
Joffe: "We're actually trying to create a symbiosis between the game and the movie. We'd like to see elements of the film showing up in future games, while elements of the new games, perhaps, would show up in future films."
Eberts earlier noted that the worst day of production is the day before filming starts, and that the best day is opening night.
Hopefully, everyone will find some of the little nuggets of info as intriguing as I did
