That movie was bad enough to give people nightmares
4 years ago by covert333 · 640 Likes · 14 comments · Popular
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parisqeen
· 4 years ago
· FIRST
That movie was a fever dream I spent 12 years thinking I made up
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guest_
· 4 years ago
To be fair- the Mario Brothers movie didn’t exactly turn the game into a movie. The short version is that the team they picked to direct and develop the film didn’t want to make a Mario movie. They wanted to make a cyberpunk film- but figured they needed a bigger budget than they could get- which a Mario franchise film would bring- was needed.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
It could have been awesome too. Or not. We won’t know. All that (as a kid and for a Mario film) Odd sexuality in the movie- the latex, nightclubs, the tones of domination and some of the sort of darkness of the film- were MUCH darker. The studio and Nintendo had obvious problems with a film about video games (at the time still largely a market for kids and teens) that was deep on the way to a hard R. Plus they wanted... Mario. So script rewrites were happening daily- with filming being paused on set at times to rush out new pages- and creative control kept shifting. The directors were co directors (uh oh..) and stories abound about who was or wasn’t to blame- but the stars and the directors had MAJOR issues working together and didn’t get along personally or professionally. For entire scenes of the film Mario and Luigi are drunk. Most people who worked on the film didn’t have good things to say about the experience- at least at the time and for years after.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
So the 90’s DID get many terrible (some lovably terrible- but as adaptations certainly not faithful) video game movies like double dragon, Mario brothers, street fighter, Mortal Combat, Wing Commander... the early 2000’s was pretty bad too with Doom, Tomb Raider, etc. etc. Many are cult classics or nostalgia favorites. I saw Wing Commander in theaters and was very upset with it- but now I enjoy watching it once in awhile.
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Edited 4 years ago
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guest_
· 4 years ago
In general though the 90’s and earlier weren’t great times for ports (with some notable exceptions like Tron etc)- games to film- film to game, comic/novel to film or novel/comic to film (or replace film with cartoon.) They didn’t put a lot of effort in when it came to especially cartoon, comic, and game adaptations because these were not only still a relative niche market, but were largely seen as for kids (who would buy anything that had their favorite brand... or so they thought at the time...)
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guest_
· 4 years ago
The budgets weren’t there and hit games really didn’t have the plots and lore and crafting of modern properties for the most part. Super Mario doesn’t lend itself well to live action- especially in the days where CGI was woefully expensive and not nearly as capable as it is today- and the source material didn’t really offer a huge amount of help in crafting a story because games were more task based and play based than story and character based. Mario was a plumber- he liked a princess- he rescued her from lizards. That’s more or less all he was in the 1990’s.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
The games didn’t carry a message of brotherhood or teamwork or any real moralizations or themes other than going world to world stomping enemies. That was true of many games of the time- especially those popular in the “mainstream” because videogames were still relatively new in most households in the early 90’s. Players didn’t by and large have the attention for complexities. Older complex and deep games exist- I remember sitting at my Commodore with a notepad making maps by hand and puzzling out complex problems and such- you basically had to in order to play certain games at all. That level of “hardcore gaming” was hard for most folks to get into.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
So home systems and arcades tended to favor games people could just pick right up and play- that you didn’t need to spend hours or days of thinking and work and frustration to play. Many classics are games that had these brutal difficulties- but few of those classics were huge widely popular titles at the time. Games like Mario, Tetris, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong, Galaga etc etc that basically anyone could just start playing- and if you wanted to you could master and find secrets were more popular. Puzzlers and RPG’s were more a niche- Final Fantasy- especially 7- REALLY brought RPGS to the mainstream popularity
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guest_
· 4 years ago
But before that introducing elements of RPGs to adventure and platform games like Legend of Zelda games and Metroid games helped get players ready to accept such titles. Games like Spyro and Toomba, crash Badnicoot and later 90’s Mario games helped pave the way with their move involved gameplay and RPG like elements. A trend we see today- with many top titles offering RPG light skills, equipment, character customization and dialog- but stripping down some of the complexities of hardcore RPG games.
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guest_
· 4 years ago
So it’s interconnected. Game and Film and the technologies weren’t as developed or polished as they are today- but neither were audiences. You can see in the 90’s that genre films of the time tended towards a certain style of writing and production- with heavy stunts and nonsensical action sequences with over the top effects- that audiences were conditioned too. Some movies held as classic from the 90’s were well regarded at the time- some weren’t appreciated until later- but when you look at the films 90’s audiences went to see the most- that made the most at the box office- you’ll see a lot of just... crap movies. So we cant entirely blame studios for not taking certain types of films seriously or giving them A list treatment- that was the norm. Even things like LOTR didn’t get the best treatment on screen until there was a mainstream money based incentive to invest heavily in the quality of these films.
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joshary
· 4 years ago
Word count: 969
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guest_
· 4 years ago
Nice.
funkmasterrex
· 4 years ago
Oh god. Never bring that fucking movie up.
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garlog
· 4 years ago
I still don't understand why they have fur like a plush-toy.
