The Potential Disaster of the Super Mario Movie

Published 2021-10-01
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In the most recent Nintendo Direct, the cast list was announced for Illumination's new Super Mario movie. Famous actors like Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor Joy and Charlie Day will be playing beloved characters like Mario, Bowser, Peach and Luigi. It was a fun announcement in the moment, but the more I thought about it, the more worried I became for this movie from the Minions animation studio.
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All Comments (21)
  • @captainmidnight
    What's your favorite Mario game? I love 64, but the camera controls are hard to go back to, so maybe Galaxy.
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  • @GenerationWest
    When I think of a Mario movie, I think of something like Wall-E. A few dialogue clips, but mainly actions... But then you have Illumination, besides Despicable Me, the films are REALLY generic, and this cast (I love the actors don't get me wrong) just reenforces their style. My man Charles Martinet just being a cameo... Hurts man.
  • @mr.moviemafia
    I’m gonna be honest, it’s not the cast that worries me, I think Anya as Peach, Black as Bowser, Key as Toad (heck, even Charlie as Luigi and Rogan as DK) could work for me. It’s the fact that Illumination are the ones making it.
  • @talldaveh
    “Good art respects their intended audience, no matter what that audience is.”
    Preach
  • @NerdMiGerd
    My ideal Mario movie is a Paper Mario one, directed by Lord and Miller in the style of the Lego Movie.
  • @mewdreamer
    Having celebrity stunt casting for a Mario movie really feels so backwards for me. You don't really need a bunch of celebrities to sell an animated Mario movie to the general public. He's been an iconic video game character for decades. There are a lot of talented people in the cast and from a business perspective, it might have been difficult to get the movie off the ground without some star power, but it does give off a bad first impression when their cast seems to be going more for name brand recognition than anything else. I don't want to judge the cast too hard when they could still work well, especially when we haven't actually seen anything from the movie yet, but it does not leave me feeling particularly optimistic for the movie.
  • This really needs clever visual comedy. More importantly, as mario celebrates the simple joys of game controls, this should really think about what the simple universal joys of the experience are, and celebrate them.
  • I have zero concern with the cast. It's obvious what they're going for: it's Illumination's attempt at a "Lego movie" kind of thing, and picking Chris Pratt is actualy logical since he was, you know, the voice of Emet Brickowski.

    I'm more worried at it being Illumination at all. They gonna have to resist making fart jokes and annoying minion-toads...
  • @coltonk.3086
    If you guys recall, when Disney approached Nintendo about putting Bowser in Wreck it Ralph, they showed them a test reel and Nintendo basically said: “He needs to be taller than Zangeif, and this is how he would HOLD HIS TEA.” That’s what gives me hope. The fact that they are this particular about how their characters are represented.
  • @GoldenSama42
    The thing is, beyond the main games themselves, there's a ton of Mario comic books/manga, as well as the Mario RPG games which absolutely are extremely story driven. There's also the fact that Nintendo is being very hands-on in this movie, unlike the last time. This could easily be a disaster, but I don't think we should assume that.
  • "The protagonist is meant to be an avatar of the player". Them not doing that is why Detective Pikachu was great. The protagonist is an insurance salesman who takes a trip to collect his dad's belongings. That's a good premise that you can build a story on. Not a personality-less character.
  • @joshuasmith6909
    This movie has all the “death on arrival” flags. My confidence is zilch.
  • I love how everyone had 0 hope for the movie and low expectations until marketing started. Now there’s a huge hype around it.
  • The disrespect to Charles Martinet by having two of the characters he’s voiced for years be played by two other people is what I do not understand.

    You have the real fucking Mario on your payroll and you don’t even care.
  • @wawer8846
    Little did he know this movie was a cinematic masterpiece toward audiences...
  • @AdriantheSpotter
    Nearing the $1 Billion mark… safe to say this movie is far from a disaster Edit: Passed the $1 billion mark and has become the second highest grossing animated movie of all time since I posted this comment
  • @ComicalRealm
    I won’t lie, this entire cast list seems like a ridiculous joke, but I’m not gonna judge a performance I haven’t seen. So go for it, Chris. Live your dream, man.
  • @exetone
    I think the casting is all good to be honest, it's just the name "illumination" being attached that makes me concerned. I'm mostly concerned that it'll be so bad that it discourages Nintendo from adapting a Zelda or Star fox or metroid movie/TV show
  • @Vinny792
    When I looked at the cast of characters announced, the biggest question I kept wondering was what sort of a role will Donkey Kong play in the film. We know he’s traditionally an antagonist for Mario, but outside of the spinoff games, DK has never had any major involvement in any of the main Mario games. Unless if they’re gonna have some flashbacks that recap the story of the DK arcade game. But I can’t imagine they would cast Seth Rogan to voice a character that only appears in flashbacks. If they intend for DK to work alongside Bowser’s plot to overtake the Mushroom Kingdom, that’ll be an odd pairing because those two have never worked together. DK’s games have an entirely separate lore, with their own antagonists The Kremlings.

    Because it’s illumination, the other big dread of concern is the idea that they would want to make Goombas and Koopa Troopas into the new Minions. Which will be forceful and annoyingly unnecessary.

    One element from the live action film and cartoon series that I do hope gets carried over is the idea of the Mario Bros being plumbers from our world. The games never fully embrace this idea, but it makes for a fun Wizard of Oz, Narnia, isekai feel of familiar storytelling that works best when translating the games into movie. Otherwise it’s just confusing if Mario and Luigi already live among the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom.