Picture it, Cookeville, 1993. I open up the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and learn that they're making a Super Mario Bros movie. I'm both excited and wary. Movies based on video games were almost unheard of. There were a few game-adjacent movies, like Tron, Cloak & Dagger, and The Wizard. But as far as I know (and Wikipedia agrees), there hadn't been a theatrical film directly based on an existing video game.
It sounded like a bad idea. It wasn't like the SMB games had very deep plots. But if it did well, it would open the door for better game-based movies. Like Legend of Zelda, or dare I hope... Metroid?
The movie came out in May of 1993, and it was seven kinds of awful. Arguably it was "so bad it's good," but that kind of thing varies from person to person. It was very goofy. Half the time it tried way too hard to include elements from the games, like giving them jumping shoes. But it also changed too much from the games, like making the goombas lizards.
Anyway, some people my age have fuzzy nostalgic feelings for the 1993 movie, but objectively it's pretty bad. It's not faithful enough to the games to appeal to gamers, and non-gamers would just find it a confusing waste of film. But given the source material, if you'd asked me at the time, I would have thought it was impossible to make a good SMB movie.
In 2023 they released an animated SMB movie. I thought it was okay. Harmless and forgettable, but there were a few good laughs in there. There was some controversy at the time about casting Chris Pratt as Mario, but I thought he did an okay job. Overall I'm glad I saw it, but it didn't rock my world.
Today I saw The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It was really fun. It had lots - I mean lots- of references and Easter eggs, some pretty obscure. I don't think there's a single Mario game that doesn't get some sort of nod. There's direct references to SMB2, Super Mario Odyssey, Yoshi's Island, even Super Mario Maker. And then there's peripherals like R.O.B. and the Super Scope 6. And there's references to other games like StarFox and Metroid. With all these references, it's almost like a Nintendo version of Ready Player One.
The movie is getting its share of hate, but I'm not sure why. Sure it's kind of shallow, but the last thing I want is a deep Mario movie. Some are complaining that it messes up the canon by (spoiler alert) making Peach and Rosalina sisters. But Nintendo has declared numerous times that the Mario games don't have a canon. Mario and company are merely digital actors, which explains why Bowser's trying to kill Mario one week, then playing tennis with him the next. If you're looking for continuity in Mario games, you're paying too much attention.
Bottom line is, Super Mario Galaxy is a great time if you're a Nintendo fan. It's fun for kids, with lots of nostalgia points for video game geezers like me.
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