Press Interviews
Shigeru Miyamoto - Press Interviews and Statements
Edge: What are your thoughts on the Disney Super Mario Bros. movie?
Shigeru Miyamoto: Well, when we first initiated talks about a Super Mario Bros, movie, I tried to emphasize the point that the Mario Bros. games are fun as videogames and if we were going to make a Mario Bros. movie, that movie should be entertaining as a movie, and not a translation of the videogame. I think that they tried very hard and in the end it was a very fun project that they put a lot of effort into. 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. videogames were. And in that sense, it became a movie that was about a videogame, rather than being an entertaining movie in and of its self.
Edge: Are there any particular movies or TV shows that influence your game making?
SM: I do watch a lot of movies and I’m fan of TV shows. It’s really hard for me to pinpoint one particular film or TV show that’s really influenced my work. I would say that probably on a whole, I’ve been influenced by what’s going on in film and television. I think in particular, the comedy drama and the tools that they use have been particularly influential in the work that I have done.
Edge: There’s been so much talk about the convergence of Hollywood and videogames. Where do you see the future of interactive entertainment?
SM: I think that there are a lot of commonalities between the videogame industry and Hollywood in terms of the resources they have to create the work that they are doing. In particular, when it comes to graphics, it can be a very intensive process to create videogame graphics. Similarly, the special effects and computer graphics that Hollywood is using in movies today can be a very intensive process. So I think that there is going to be a lot of opportunity for Hollywood and videogames in the creation of these intensive assets to share the resources. I think there will be more shared assets between movies and games, whether it’s a game that’s appearing as a movie or a movie that’s appearing as a game. It’s still important to understand that the composition of a videogame is very different from the composition and the structure of a movie. So being able to share those resources between two very talented directors in each of those realms is possible, but they must also work in the game world and film world so the projects can stand independently and are two entertainment pieces.
Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros. Wii
December 2, 2008 by Noel Murray, A.V. Club
AVC: Super Mario Bros. (1993)—"King Koopa"
Shigeru Miyamoto: That's why when discussion started about making it into a movie, I got really nervous. I thought: "How are they going to film blocks suspended in mid-air?" When we made the game, it would start off with a large number of blocks and Mario would go along smashing those until there was just a single block floating there. We decided that ending up with just one block floating there didn't seem to feel unnatural, and we made the game with that in mind.