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| The Super Mario Movie was anticipated by just about everyone. The 1993 movie was pretty much panned, with a quite legendarily disastrous production history. There are some archived documentaries that’ll help you explain it much better than me, but anyway...
It pretty much scared Nintendo from making movies until the 2010s, when The Bygone Company secured the film rights for a Mario film. Bygone had already been pretty popular in Japan because of their contract work on several shorts for a number of gaming companies, including Nintendo, such as their Pikmin shorts. Did you know Man Flan was also involved in the film’s production? He’s one of the head writers for IDW Haya, but he wasn’t like the script writer. He was more of a supervisor to keep the characters accurate. A lot of people like to credit him for crafting the overall story, but that’s a popular misconception born from how people deify him over the years. The story’s also, like, fairly consistent, which is where a lot of that stems from. The story itself starts at night over Bowser’s Castle, some enemies are trying to enter because Mario is inside and they want to back up their king. But then the enemies are picked off one by one from the shadows. A Goomba stomped here, a Koopa Shell being tossed at a group. This turns out to be the work of Luigi, who then immediately screws up and starts improvising when the minions find out it’s him. The tone changes from tense to comedic as Luigi fumbles his way into winning. A purple glow then emanates from the clouds, Luigi looking quite scared at what that could be. Before we can see what that is, the camera moves all the way inside Bowser’s Castle, fire and smoke brewing everywhere to show Mario and Bowser fighting from two platforms. Mario’s throwing Bowser’s hammers back at him while dodging electricity and fire. Peach is caged above, using her magic to heal Mario and float Bowser’s hammers back at him, laughing a bit as she does. The thought process behind this movie’s story is to resemble another installment of the Mario franchise, so this is not like some “origin story” type of movie. This is still meant to be separate from the games, so there are some creative liberties taken here and there, and a lot of the storytelling is borrowed from existing games. This whole section, for instance, is based on the intro to Super Mario RPG. Interviews went off about this opening sequence and its introduction to the characters and their personality for non-gamers, also making sure to assure audiences of the whole “damsel in distress” thing, with Peach actively helping while still caged in. This fight is then interrupted by a large earthquake before the ceiling collapses, showing a flying aircraft that turns out to be piloted by... Tatanga! After announcing himself, he reveals that he’ll be marrying Peach before conquering the world. Bowser attempts to stop him, but he’s stopped by his own minions, hypnotized by Tatanga. It’s then up to Mario to reach Peach’s cage as it’s being hoisted by Tatanga. He climbs the broken castle’s walls, dodges blast after blast, but then Tatanga spins Peach’s cage around, smacking Mario and sending him falling back down into the clouds. Cue the title card.  Tatanga was quite an interesting pick to have as the main villain. He’s only made like, 2 appearances in the ‘90s and never again. In the movie, while he’s doing his marrying and hypnotizing thing from his original game, he’s also this quite interesting mix of Fawful and the X-Nauts. I’ll just continue with the recap to show you what I mean. Mario wakes up at Toad’s house, and he briefs him on all the things that have happened while he was out for days. A lot of the Toads were captured by UFOs, while Bowser’s Minions have been redecorating the Mushroom Kingdom with posters and banners of Tatanga. Toad pretty obviously explains to the audience that they’ve been hypnotized, but he also wonders where Bowser is because of that. Note how Mario doesn’t really say much throughout this movie. He definitely does say stuff throughout the film, but he’s mostly silent, often letting his face and body do the talking. His voice is, obviously, done by Charles Martinet. And Samantha Kelly plays both Peach and Toad, though Toad’s been given a less raspy voice direction. I’d almost compare him to his voice in the first few Party games. Toad’s meant to voice out Mario’s thoughts and feelings, so having it come from a raspy voice for a whole movie would probably kill Kelly’s throat. Just another difference between this movie and the games, lol. So it’s up to Mario and Toad to navigate around this conquered Mushroom Kingdom. A camera watches over the two, before it switches to a number of technological rooms, before landing on Peach’s room. The camera short-circuits, and we’re brought to Peach’s thoughts. She’s been brought to Tatanga’s mothership, and she wonders what to do to get out of here. Yeah this is basically the TTYD Peach sections adapted for the movie. You’ve got all the stuff there. Tatanga’s AI wants to know the feelings it got from Peach, she explains what she believes love is (with some clear parallels to Mario), and the AI helps Peach if she helps it. Unlike TTYD, though, the “help” Peach gets is a lot more proactive. She gains control over a number of robots, permanently opens up access to doors, and more. After the first few times showing Peach helping out, her help is entirely invisible, so the movie pretty much trusts you to pay attention to this pattern lol Back to the recap... As Peach gets control over one of the robots, it cuts to that robot walking off while Mario and Toad are sneaking through surveillance (there are a lot of these seamless transitions) before they notice Luigi about to be hauled off in a cage. They free him, and Luigi explains what happened to him. Most of his recap is jokey and exaggerates what he actually did, but it turns into mumbles as Mario looks out to a bridge showing Peach’s Castle, which is now covered in purple banners and a large advertisement for Tatanga’s wedding.  I suppose it’s about that time I talk about the visuals. Initially, the visual design was concepted by Bygone staff. It’s definitely in a “western concept art” art style, with Mario having this inflated head look to him, giving him way too many plumber-based accessories, or this ugly realistic style to him. A middle ground was achieved between Bygone and Nintendo where the models were 3D, but cheated in angles that resembled the official 2D art. It created quite a bunch of neat angles for environments, though I’m sure none of it was future-proofed. One thing that’s important to mention throughout Luigi’s rambling recap is that Bowser was with Luigi before he got captured. Bowser then split off from Luigi, and nobody’s seen him since. They hitch a ride on one of the flying cage robots and head to Tatanga’s mothership. This robot is also under control by Peach, which is why it doesn’t just fling them off. The AI questions Peach why she wants the three to reach the mothership, and Peach simply answers that they’re there to stop Tatanga. The AI doesn’t understand why, so it restricts access from Peach and asks her to retrieve a data disk from Tatanga’s office so it can fully understand why this plan needs to be stopped. “Love” is a fairly common theme throughout the movie. You got the whole wedding thing, but you also got Peach’s explanation of love above, Bowser’s Minions later breaking from their mind control from their love of their king. And some minor things like brotherly love with Mario and Luigi, love through adventure with Toad mentioning all the adventures Mario’s gone through, and love of the world with Mario’s anger at seeing it being corrupted by Tatanga. This is all said in interviews, by the way. Like, I guess I saw the brotherly one for a bit, but they didn’t really focus on that. That may have been in an earlier draft of the script. Peach manages to sneak around, get the data disk, and upload it to the AI’s computer. It’s quiet for a moment, then it starts to explain the whole plan to Peach: Tatanga’s wedding with Peach is not because he’s in love with her, but to use her powers. You see, the Mushroom Kingdom is a source of the greatest power in the galaxy: Power Stars. Peach’s Castle itself is filled with the Power of the Stars, and only Peach’s magic is able to unseal the Stars inside. With all of that power, Tatanga can turn the whole world into his own personal battleship, waging war and destruction across the galaxy.  Fully understanding the context behind Peach’s captivity, the AI tries to ask Peach to escape, but Tatanga appears, furious to see his own AI betray him. He orders his hypnotized minions to fully reboot it. Peach is then carried off. I thought it was a neat abridged adaptation of TEC. You can’t really fit everything in a feature-length film, so I’m glad they fit everything that was needed of him. 5 months after this movie, Nintendo would announce a remake of TTYD in one of their Nintendo Directs, so getting TTYD in everyone’s consciousness all lines up pretty neatly. Mario, Luigi, and Toad reach the mothership and punch their way through the hypnotized enemies. After hearing some ominous thudding, they carefully open the sliding doors to discover Bowser’s been single-handedly breaking inside the mothership. Bowser flies in a fit of rage seeing Mario again, but Toad steps in as the mediator: everyone here wants to save Peach, so let’s get going! Toad, like, jumps in the air frustrated like in the first Mario Party as well. It’s cute. In the movie, Toad’s also like this tiny package of impatience that often needs to be pulled back in by Mario. Earlier on, Mario had to pick him up from running headfirst into a surveillance robot. But just as soon as the four are together, they have to be separated as well. First, Toad distracts a bunch of large guards (larger than Bowser) with his speed for the others to move ahead. Then, Luigi is up next as he throws Mario across a pit trap. That just leaves Mario and Bowser, and that’s when they encounter Bowser’s hypnotized minions. They all start attacking, and Mario’s already on the offensive. However, Mario then notices Bowser’s not fighting back. In fact, he’s simply pushing them away. Mario asks what Bowser’s doing, and Bowser calmly responds that these are his minions. He grins and yells out at any of the other minions attacking Mario if they’re afraid of challenging him. Mario’s surprised at this, but Bowser just wants him to go ahead and save Peach. Mario just silently nods, and that just leaves him all alone. I do like the soundtrack of this movie. Some of it is orchestral renditions, but it often swings to stuff like big band in action scenes, jazz when things are quieting down, or digital instruments during Tatanga’s scenes. I like the mix-up. During Mario’s running through the ship’s hallways, however, there’s only electrical ambience and Mario’s footsteps as he nears a crazy sight: some sci-fi cathedral. Peach is standing right there at the foot of the altar, so Mario runs right for her. Obviously, Mario expects a surprise attack from Tatanga who, after some speech about he finds it impressive how a guy in overalls can get here so far, starts fighting Mario.  People like to put this movie on some "timeline" or whatever, but I really don’t think it’s all that important. As I’ve said above, this is more like some celebration of the Mario franchise, and that includes some storytelling from existing games. Super Mario RPG with that surprise villain entrance, TTYD in using Peach as a spying assistant for the heroes, Bowser’s Inside Story for having the villain redecorate both Kingdoms and hypnotizing the Koopa Troop, Super Mario 64 with that whole Power of the Stars thing, and Super Paper Mario with that gradual sacrifice of the cast. Tatanga is this small gremlin alien, but that means he’s quite nimble with his ray gun. Like in his game, his laser splits in three, which I think is funny. Mario dodges all of it, and the way they have him bounce the lasers back at Tatanga with the metal chandeliers hanging above is like the scriptwriter trying to propose an actual boss fight. Things are looking up for Mario, but Tatanga figures out what Mario’s doing and, in a pretty smart move, aims his laser away from Mario, but onto another reflective surface that hits Mario in the back. That lands him right near Peach, who has not moved at all this entire fight. That’s because she’s been fully hypnotized by Tatanga! Mario yells for Peach to wake up, but all she can say is that she loves Tatanga. The little purple guy laughs and says she’s fully under his control now. So, in a last-ditch effort, Mario kisses Peach. That... doesn’t seem to work for a few seconds, so Tatanga pushes Peach away to fully aim his gun straight at Mario’s head. Gloating in Mario’s face about his victory, he’s lightly tapped on the shoulder and turns around.  BAM! A frying pan straight in his face that makes him crash out of the cathedral’s stained window and into outer space. The way they wanted to tone this movie is pretty interesting, according to interviews. They described the Mario world as a fantasy world where surreal precedes the real, and they wanted Tatanga to be this sci-fi invader with a bit of a realistic undertone, slightly infecting the surrealism that the Mushroom Kingdom lives under. How Tatanga is defeated, with a frying pan, is meant to be this return to the surreal. Where did that pan come from? How is an open hole in space not sucking Mario and Peach out as well? Well, there is a slight breeze now, but that only exists now to blow the wind through eachother’s hair. But, there’s now a giant hole, so the mothership is set to crash. Mario grabs Peach and he quickly runs off to head for an exit. The remaining fragments of the ship’s AI activates and calls out to Peach where the escape shuttles are. Mario’s surprised to hear this voice, but Peach asks Mario to trust him. It’s a pretty neat team-up as the ship starts falling apart. Mario’s jumping over rubble while Peach uses her magic to float eachother across gaps. They then reach the last available shuttle and Peach thanks the ship’s computer before entering. Although she can’t hear the computer anymore, it thanks her before activating the ship’s self-destruct sequence. As the shuttle flies downwards, Mario and Peach see multiple shuttles fly as well holding Luigi, Toad, Bowser, the captured Toads, and the Koopa Troop. (I honestly don’t know if I should switch between Bowser’s Minions or Koopa Troop... I’ve been wildly inconsistent naming them.) Overhead, they see the ship explode in a blinding light as its blast sends the shuttles rocking faster towards the Earth as the nightsky sees them as shooting stars. That same night, a fireworks festival is held with both the Mushroom and Bowser Kingdom celebrating. Bowser’s busy celebrating with his minions, so Mario and Peach have some time alone as they head to that same bridge looking over Peach’s Castle. Peach says she doesn’t know what snapped her out of her hypnosis, and asks if Mario knows what happened. Mario shyly doesn’t answer, and Peach now smiles knowing the answer. Still, she feigns ignorance, saying she can wait until he’s ready to answer, and that they should return to the party. And then the credits roll as it moves upwards. There’s some nice fireworks, you can see Tatanga spinning around in space with his arms angrily crossed, and then the credits end downwards at Peach’s Castle with Mario and Peach sitting on its roof. It’s a very comfortable watch. Some people say the movie went a bit too slow with the amount of establishing shots, but I really do prefer it like that. They actually made a sequel some years later, which I’ll cover in a bit. So, see you guys soon!! 4/5 |
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