Midweek Update: The Two Marios

Thirty years ago, Super Mario Bros. hit theaters. It was a very weird adaptation of the popular video game, taking the bright colorful colors and whimsical tone on the Nintendo games and replacing it with a dystopian vision of Brooklyn infested with dinosaur-people and fungal growth. It was a flop when it came out and so soured Nintendo on their Hollywood experience that they refrained from having any of their other works turned into movies. The Japanese company finally changed their tune in the last decade or so by partnering with Universal Studios to not only make Mario theme parks, but also with Universal’s animation studio, Illumination Entertainment, to make an animated Mario movie (as opposed to the live-action version from 1993). That movie opens today, and it’s interesting to compare the two films for what they say about how IP has changed in the past thirty years.

Watching 1993’s Super Mario Bros., there’s a sense of a quick cash grab. While the filmmaking process itself was disastrous (more on that in the “What I’m Reading” section), there is something fairly liberating about the way directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton approached the material. At no point in this process did anyone ask, “What will the fans think?” Keep in mind, video games being a young medium targeted towards children meant that despite this film being PG-13 (and not particularly childlike), the thinking went that no one had to really care that much. It was a smash-and-grab job, and anyone who would raise a fuss about not being faithful to the games was either a child or an adult caring about a childish thing, so either way their opinion did not matter.

Fast-forward thirty years and you have The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a film that feels like every single shot was run through an anxious committee of executives wanting to make sure their precious IP wasn’t harmed in any way. Illumination, a studio devoid of imagination and creativity, was the perfect place for this project because they could shepherd a soulless corporate branding exercise to completion, and, more importantly, make sure it was a hit. Illumination, the studio that the Minions built, doesn’t make good movies, but they make massive hits. Their films also aren't painfully expensive, and they’ve settled on an easy formula of slapstick plus celebrity voices equals loads of cash. In a market almost entirely devoid of movies for children, it’s easy to dominate when the only alternatives for parents are PG-13 films that may have content too mature for the little ones.

I grew up with Mario and his games. I haven’t played every one (even outside the main titles, there are countless spinoffs since Mario is Nintendo’s mascot), but I know enough to get all the references and also to understand that Mario is a bit hamstrung as a narrative lead. There is no Mario mythology beyond “Plumber gets sucked into the Mushroom Kingdom where he must save Princess Peach from the nefarious Bowser.” Also, as a mascot, he needs to be pliable enough to put into different kinds of games, which further limits what he can and cannot do as a character. Unlike the recent video game adaptation of The Last of Us, the problem isn’t trying to refit a rich narrative, but rather there isn’t much of a narrative at all. You might have to exercise some creativity.

But even here, there are issues because Mario, despite being a mascot, is still a character and behaves a certain way. People have strong feelings about Mario and his pals where in adaptations like The LEGO Movie or Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves don’t have to worry about certain characters as much as simply playing in the worlds of these IP. Mario is a problem that has to be solved: he’s detailed enough that you know him on sight (red cap, friendly voice, plumber), but also not so characterized that he instantly lends himself to a feature-length narrative.

This is the problem both the ‘93 and ‘23 adaptations encountered, and the best they could come up with is, “Mario loves his brother Luigi”, which is fine as a motivation, but that’s still not really a character or even a place to start a character arc. Neither film attempts to solve this problem either and instead they invest their resources into production design. The only difference is that while ‘93 Mario is dark and weird and twisted, ‘23 Mario makes sure to sell you on what you already recognize from the character’s history so there are nods from everything to Punch-Out to Super Smash Bros to, of course, Mario Kart. The plot motivations for these references is thin to non-existent because The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a film constructed almost entirely out of Easter eggs. There’s nothing clever or subversive about these references; they simply show up on screen so that when, for example, Mario and Luigi are descending into a sewer, there’s a sign that says, “Level 1-2” and you’re like, “Ah, that’s like how level 1-2 in the first game is underground.”

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the kind of safe, bland, forgettable IP adaptation that corporations love because it furthers the brand rather than telling an compelling story. There are so many fun things you could have done with an animated Mario movie, but Illumination studiously avoided all of them in favor of a film that’s pleasant to look at and a chore to sit through. As the film grinded on, I couldn’t help but wonder how this film had less whimsy and creativity than the most recent mainline Mario game, Super Mario Odyssey, a game where Mario acquires a magic hat that allows him to control various creatures to the point where he becomes a T-Rex with a little mustache.

Despite their vast visual differences, both the ‘93 and the ‘23 movie both forget the most important part of the Mario games: they’re fun.

What I’m Watching

Today’s other big release is Ben Affleck’s Air, his first directorial effort since 2016’s Live by Night. It’s a fun movie as long as you don’t think too hard about the messy complications presented by Nike as a corporation or Michael Jordan as a human being. While I wince a little at the recent spate of Corporate Underdog films (see also Ford v Ferrari), I have to admit they lend themselves to compelling narratives. The partnership between Nike and Jordan was monumental in the business and sports world, and Affleck is a good enough director to play it as breezy while never losing the character stakes. Also, while Amazon Studios has had its problems (see more on that in the What I’m Reading section), I feel like Air is a great acquisition for them because it’s a perfect movie to pop on a Saturday afternoon.

As for other viewing, I’m continuing to watch a lot of Jack Nicholson stuff, both from his early career and his late career. Over on TV, Succession continues to be the best, but I’m not sure if I want to pick up another TV show on top of that or if I just want to keep watching more movies. Like I’ve got all episodes of Twin Peaks calling to me, and I know I should watch it, but also I’d like to watch a bunch of Paul Newman movies, and there are only so many hours in a day.

What I’m Reading

I finished The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, and it’s a pretty great read, although I feel like author Sam Wesson is a little too sympathetic to his lead characters in the first half so that he can make their “downfalls” hit harder (Robert Towne becoming addicted to cocaine and getting into a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife is slightly more fraught than Jack Nicholson starring in Heartburn). As a story about how Hollywood changed and why Chinatown was New Hollywood at its most successful, the book is fantastic, and I love how it adds shading to note corporate takeovers as well as the rise of certain businesses practices so it’s not simply the historical shorthand of “Jaws ruined everything.” The main place where the book falters is in trying to tie the fate of Hollywood as an industry to the fates of the book’s four main figures—Jack Nicholson, Roman Polanski, Robert Towne, and Robert Evans. Basically, it’s an excellent book about the industry and Chinatown and a solid but uneasy biography of these four guys.

I’ve now moved on to We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gains. Back to the Future is one of my all-time favorite films, so I’m looking forward to digging into this one.

In other reads:

• This Hollywood Reporter article by Kim Masters on Amazon Studios is pretty damning! The gist of the article is that Amazon is spending like drunken sailors to get a hit, but they have no clear vision for what they want their output to look like. Rings of Power was supposed to be their Game of Thrones, but only 37% of domestic viewers bothered to finish the first season (50% is seen as a solid result). Elsewhere, the studio is paying a premium to sign with major talent and getting nothing in return, and I can’t say I blame the talent. Amazon Prime Video isn’t the best platform, it exists awkwardly alongside other Amazon businesses, and the streaming landscape is volatile enough without wondering if you’re really going to get the backing you need from the studio (similar to Netflix, Amazon has a habit of just dumping its content and hoping that critical acclaim or social media will do the work).

• Naturally, after rewatching 1993’s Super Mario Bros. I had to read this oral history on the movie over at Inverse by Ralph Jones. While I don’t buy the argument that the movie has necessarily been redeemed as a cult picture (you can't find it on streaming, and I only saw it because the DVD was $4 on Amazon), it is fascinating how it was chewed up in a grinder of conflicting visions and untested directors with a producer who didn’t want to back a specific vision as much as simply get the film released. I don’t think the story has a villain or a hero as much as there were no “rules” on what this adaptation had to be, and so it came out kind of bonkers. This line in particular from set decorator Beth A. Rubino caught my attention: “It’s dark, it’s sexy, it’s gritty, there’s something taboo about it.”

• Finally, on May 9th, TCM will have a night of Preston Sturges programming (Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Lady Eve, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Great McGinty). Before you dive in (and you should!) I recommend checking out this great New Yorker article by Rachel Syme about Sturges and his films.

What I’m Hearing

Last week, The New Pornographers released their ninth studio album, Continue as a Guest. It’s…fine? Their 2007 release, Challengers, is one of my all-time favorite albums, so I’m always curious about what they’ll do next, but I feel like since 2014’s Brill Bruisers, they’ve been treading water. Like there are some good songs scattered about, but they don’t have the hooks they put into their earlier stuff. Again, it’s not the worst album ever, but it never comes close to the dizzying heights of Twin Cinema, Mass Romantic, or Challengers.

What I’m Playing

Now that I’ve wrapped up Hogwarts Legacy, I’m moving over to The Last of Us Part II since I’d like to be caught up with the story before casting and other details get reported in relation to the second season of the HBO series.