Can we just talk a bit about the horrendous state of the Mario Movie and how this movie is objectively going to fail as a movie? 🧵
To start off, I just want to get the obvious out of the way: I don't want this movie to fail. The Super Mario franchise is spectacular, and I've grown up my whole life playing Mario, and throughout my whole childhood, I would have LOVED to see a movie with Mario in it.
However, I think it's safe to say that based off Nintendo's previous track record of movies, the time it took for Nintendo to make this movie, the whole idea of video game movies failing in the past, and much more, this movie will SUCK ASS. Here's why:
#1: The trailer fucking sucks The initial direct stalled so hard to even get to the trailer with THREE GUESTS talking, and I honestly don't blame them. The trailer was honestly lackluster and honestly left me feeling like I just wasted my time.
We only got lines from THREE major characters (the penguin and the wizard aren't going to be important, let's be real), and that's not really a good sign. It feels like they were too embarrassed to show anything about the movie, as if development is going horribly.
The two jokes from the trailer honestly fell flat, since they boiled down to "let's do the opposite of what someone else does/say!!!!!" and that's it. It's very cookie cutter humor that goes nowhere. We also know absolutely nothing about the story. It's very clear that Mario is-
a new resident of the Mushroom Kingdom, which is fine, but why? I thought it was established that in the games, Mario was always a citizen. This puts in a few plotholes that the trailer doesn't answer right off the bat that nonfans of the series would not know about.
How did Mario enter the Mushroom Kingdom? What is his reason for saving Peach? Did Luigi follow him? Will Mario live the rest of his days there? How does he start beef with Bowser? These are all questions that the movie doesn't answer, and likely never will.
In the games, it's very apparent why if we go with the narrative that Mario has always lived in the Mushroom Kingdom: Peach is his ruler. Bowser is evil. Bowser wants to fuck Peach. Mario doesn't like Bowser. These are all questions that the games answer.
In the movie, however, Bowser is going after Stars...? First off, not only do the stars give you temporary invincibility, but Bowser can't use them (Source: Mario Maker). He's also going after some ice kingdom with penguins (which will probably be sold as plushies). This goes-
against Bowser's normal motives in the games, which is have sex with Peach. This also gives Mario no real motive to stop Bowser. After all, he could simply go back into that pipe and return home. Again, this is something that the trailer never answers. Overall, not a good start.
"b-b-but it's just a teaser!!!" And? There are other teasers that do a great job at showing what they're all about and hooking in their audience. Nintendo is no stranger to this either, since they've put out some of the best teasers, such as Shin Megami Tensei V's trailer.
Right off the bat, we get a glimpse at what the story is all about. We learn that we're going to be in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo run over by demons and angels and the like. And judging by how "new messiah" is in red, it's very easy to infer that that is YOU, the player. It invites
you in with the idea that you will be the messiah of this world, something that the Mario Movie lacks storywise. It doesn't have that "new messiah" moment that connects you to the movie either as a fan of the Mario series, or as someone who has first heard of Super Mario.
#2: How Nintendo is handling this movie. Nintendo will always be Nintendo, and always make the worst decisions imaginable. Judging by the absolute catastrophe that was the last Mario Movie, Nintendo decided to be a bit more cautious this time, and let only the best work on it.
...So they got Illumination. Yeah, Illumination. The Despicable Me people. Keep in mind that they have only made one good movie; their first one, and while it is entirely possible that they could make a comeback and make Mario the magnum opus of all animated movies, I doubt it.
Illumination is more worried about selling toys and shirts of their little goblins rather than making a good movie, and frankly, I don't blame them. They have made almost double the amount of money that Despicable Me 2 made off selling Minion toys and fart blasters.
As a business, Illumination is smart. As a movie studio, however, they suck. A lot of their movies are very lackluster and bland, yet they make up for it with selling Minion shirts and Gru action figures. Now that they have Mario, they can make a shit ton of Mario dolls.
Going back to Nintendo, they're also known for being very anti-consumer, and have more often than not fucked over the fans. They have sent DMCA's to people who have leaked stuff from promotional art, all of which are just as confused as I am about the movie.
In the direct, Chris Meledandri, the CEO of Illumination, has said that the movie has been in the works for SEVEN years. That's not a good sign. Duke Nukem Forever has had double that development time, and it frankly turned out to be mediocre, and yet this is a movie. A movie
does not take seven years to make. Technology advances, and those seven years eventually become outdated, like what happened with DNF. At that point, you'd almost be silly to not scrap it. However, once again, Illumination only cares about toy sales, as we've previously seen.
For a reference, Fortnite, one of the most popular games in the world, only had five years of development, and that was riddled with delays and gameplay changes to the point that it was almost cancelled. However, due to the rapid development, it now stands as gaming's most well
known feats, still receiving high quality updates as of today. Nintendo is also a very secretive and threatening company. Most fans joke about "Nintendo ninjas" who will violently kill you if you step out of line, and it's honestly not that far off from the truth.
In an interview with Charlie Day (who plays Luigi) on Jimmy Kimmel, when asked to talk about the movie, he states: "I'd love to tell you all about it, but they are top secret with this stuff. Absolutely, this is serious stuff." This is not healthy at all when it comes to movie
production. If Day wanted to speak up against Nintendo if they mistreated him, he wouldn't be allowed to. He has also confirmed that the other actors do not record with each other, weakening the relationship between the VA's. Nintendo still has not learned anything as a company.
more coming soon, twitter won't let me type out everything i want to say
#3: VG movies have never worked. If you look up any video game movie's ratings, you'll see very awful scores. The first Mario movie? 24% on RT. Every live action RE movie? Not even above a 50%. Time and time again has shown that video game movies DO NOT WORK.
Even the two Sonic movies, which Twitter will tell you are the magnum opi of gaming movies, could not even get past a 50% on RT. They were that unbearable, and did not work as movies. In fact, the two Sonic movies had the same issue as the Mario movie currently does, in that we
knew absolutely NOTHING about how they deviated from the game material. Why is Sonic in Montana or wherever the Sonic movie took place? Why does he need to collect normal rings to teleport, when in the games, they don't even teleport him. Why does Eggman look the way he does?
This is sort of where the Twitter hate mob comes in to harass me, since they can't handle different opinions and objective truths at the same time. You criticize the Sonic movie, and they will viciously disembowel you and shit in your empty ribcage all while you're awake.
However, the numbers do not lie. The movie has a bad score. People did not like the film. I didn't like it. Simple as that. Video games movies do not work. However, why not? Well, to put it simply, while games do have narratives, they are most fun when they have things that
deviate from the story and let you do other things. This can be in the form of either side quests, or in the case of Mario games, additional collectibles. Mario games are not known for their stories, and are more gameplay focused. While there are a few games with decent stories,
they more often than not come with just as exciting gameplay and replayability. It's super fun to come back to a level and find all the coins and stars in levels that you might have missed. However, when it comes to a movie, you really can't do that. Most people only watch movies
once mostly for the story. There will be no reason to come back to a movie. Sure, movies might have hidden Easter eggs that you might have missed on your first watch, but a lot of the time, people will upload videos on YouTube showing them off. Overall, the whole idea of finding
and collecting things is gone when it becomes a movie. Mario himself isn't an interesting character, and is rather an example of an avatar. He has very little personality, and you only care about him because he is the good guy. He saves the princess. This can't work for a film.
This also did not work for the Sonic movie. We all liked Sonic because we knew he was the good guy. Sonic fights Eggman because Eggman is evil. Sonic beats Eggman, the world is saved. Not that interesting of a plot, now is it? Why did Illumination think this was a good idea?
Let's take a look at a good example of moral abiguity: Touhou 15 ~ Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom. Touhou, while known for having a lot of interesting characters, isn't well known for having the most elaborate plots, which is fine, since it's Touhou. However, LoLK has a great story.
For those that are unfamiliar, the story is that the antagonist, Junko, decides to lead an invasion on the moon in order to find the woman whose husband murdered her son, Chang'e. The Lunarians are left with a morally questionable decision of dying trying to fight back, or go and
cleanse (aka commit genocide on) all of Earth. While the Lunarians aren't the protagonists of LoLK, it's this kind of tension that the Mario movie will most likely lack, since the teaser did not show Mario having to make any tough choices. Instead, Mario is simply going to save
Peach because that's what he has to do. There will be no drama, no reasoning, no bargaining. He'll just do it, because Mario is the good guy with not a hint of a personality. Of course, they could delay the movie and fix it up, but that would hurt Illumination's sales!
Another great example of moral questioning is in both the prequel and the original Star Wars trilogies. Both Luke and Anakin are left with joining either the light side or the dark side of the Force, both of which had different outcomes. Luke became the hero of the galaxy, and
Anakin had fallen from his grace. Luke had wanted to save his father, and Anakin wanted to save the love of his life, both of which tempted them to the dark side. This kind of drama is greatly appreciated, even amongst the audience of the Mario movie, that being small children.
Kids can understand the concept of moral ambiguity, and this can help audiences learn more about themselves. And Star Wars is a franchise that made a whole bunch of money off of merch sales, proving that it's possible to make good merch and ALSO tell a good, enthralling story.
In conclusion, the Mario movie will fail as a movie, but not in the box office. With having a lackluster story, two shitty companies making it, and the reputation of gaming movies as a whole, I think it's safe to say that Mario will be a nightmare on the big screen.
All of this will be a detriment to the series as well, since without a doubt, once the movie hits shelves, a game will come alongside it, and be as linear and god awful as the movie will be. Mark my words: 2023 will be the death of everyone's favorite red plumber.
Mario fans will walk out distraught, children will be terrified of the design of the new Mario, and no one will look at Mario the same way. Mario started off as the first video game movie, and he will end in the last video game movie ever produced.
