How would you make a Mario film?

Traditional animation and the game voice actors - except Bowser: the little clips of M&L:BIS and other such games don't sound like they'd translate well to full dialogue, and SMS's voice was terrible; my choice is and always will be Christopher Heyerdahl (example). It would be a retelling of how the bros come to the Mushroom Kingdom and save Peach for the first time, while the events of Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong are flashbacked/discussed, with Kamek as the secondary antagonist and even Pauline appearing (to up the girl content). Peach would also be more than a useless damsel in distress love interest, with the emotional heft actually centering around Mario and Luigi's (twin) brother relationship.
 
TheFarmboy said:
No celebrities like Zac Efron or Nicki Minaj)
Click to expand...
i'm sorry just the thought of nicki minaj voicing someone in a mario game is the best idea i've ever heard

soon we'll see peach telling bowser off through her mad rapping skills
 
Nabber said:
TheFarmboy said:
No celebrities like Zac Efron or Nicki Minaj)
Click to expand...
i'm sorry just the thought of nicki minaj voicing someone in a mario game is the best idea i've ever heard

soon we'll see peach telling bowser off through her mad rapping skills
Click to expand...
Don't forget the booty shakes
 
mario - nicki minaj
luigi - ariana grande
bowser - zac efron
peach - eminem

somebody write this movie

now
 
Walkazo said:
Traditional animation and the game voice actors - except Bowser: the little clips of M&L:BIS and other such games don't sound like they'd translate well to full dialogue, and SMS's voice was terrible; my choice is and always will be Christopher Heyerdahl (example). It would be a retelling of how the bros come to the Mushroom Kingdom and save Peach for the first time, while the events of Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong are flashbacked/discussed, with Kamek as the secondary antagonist and even Pauline appearing (to up the girl content). Peach would also be more than a useless damsel in distress love interest, with the emotional heft actually centering around Mario and Luigi's (twin) brother relationship.
Click to expand...
You're great.

I kind of don't want Mario to be anime-styled. I prefer 2D western and/or CGI animation. I won't die if it is anime, it's just that I think western suits Mario more.

Finally, any Mario movie should never take itself too seriously. It should have witty dialogue and appeal to the kids too, like any kids' cartoon. :)
 
Chiaki Nanami said:
I wouldn't
Click to expand...

pretty much. someone on tmk a while back posted something I agree with.

I do not wish to watch a Mario... I don't want to watch a Metroid either. I don't even really want to watch an EarthBound or a Punch-Out!! or a Zelda.

These things are games. They were designed as games. A lot of the aesthetic decisions for them were made because they would make them better... as games. Mario's mustache. Little Mac's height. Samus's morph ball.

It probably is a bit silly that Mario can jump so high, squishes chestnuts and kicks turtles. It might be a bit crazy that Samus' nemesis is a space pterodactyl, and she was raised by bird aliens who leveled up beyond the need to exist. Okay sure, going into a movie WITHOUT a pathetically boring, made-up, twenty-minute prologue explaining where Ness's PSI comes from would leave the audience asking some questions, and big chunks of the rest of the game would probably be boring in a movie even though they work in the game--Poo doesn't really add much to the story on top of having a name children will make fun of, so he could stand to be cut entirely. You know what I think is the answer to these problems? Not turning something designed to be played into something you watch.

If you're reading this and it's your life dream to make a film adaptation of a video game, stop. Do not do it. Make your film script but just be inspired by whatever it was you were uncreative enough to steal. And that gives you so much more freedom to do things besides shove your fanon into other people's faces, other people who probably have their own fanon that yours shits all over. Turn it into an original scenario, replace all the characters with your own. It's probably already distanced enough from what you were going to do an adaptation of anyway. Make an adaptation and you will inevitably alienate people who don't know the source material, while disappointing people who do. So make something else and design it to be watched, where everything in it is there to make it a better movie. Such that turning it into a video game would be a travesty.

tl;dr movies and video games are totally different, and it is not worth familiarity to convert one to the other. As if previous attempts haven't almost invariably screamed this.
Click to expand...
 
The reason that video game movie adaptations failed so hard is the reckless disregard for the source material, not necessarily because video games can't be turned into movies.

Anyway, what makes books better than video games to adapt?
 
Mario Party X said:
The reason that video game movie adaptations failed so hard is the reckless disregard for the source material, not necessarily because video games can't be turned into movies.

Anyway, what makes books better than video games to adapt?
Click to expand...

Except in say Mortal Kombat's case where it followed the source material almost perfectly but still wasn't very good for other more technical reasons.

Also I agree it needs to be lighthearted with an emphasis on fun and whimsical things. A dark film would be stupid.
 
Yeah, yeah. Ooh! I got one! "Adventures in the Underground City".
Great, what happens?
Well, there's a city...
[typing on a typewriter] City...
And it's underground...
[typing] Underground...
And they have an adventure...
[still typing] Adventure...
The end.
End.


It would be Anime, and there would be perfect voice actors. Daisy will be a main character, along with everyone else, there will be tacos, Daisy and Rosalina die saving Luigi, oranges, Peach clones herself, and the movie will be 3 hours long.
 
Mario Party X said:
Anyway, what makes books better than video games to adapt?
Click to expand...

Because books are a story-telling medium, just like how movies are.

I don't know about Glowsquid's post, I could think of several games that could very well be movies (Last of Us being one of them)
 
If a Mario movie is made it won't adapt a specific game. It will just be based off the general series and what one would expect from it.
 
Fawful said:
Baby Luigi said:
I could think of several games that could very well be movies
Click to expand...
Me too. And they're all Mario games.
Click to expand...

They would be horrible movies imo
 
Mario fundamentally isn't a story-telling series. You can't even compare ANY Mario game to the best story-telling video games.

By the way, the more I think about it, the more I think that the reasoning behind "video games are games and movies are movies" is flawed. That would imply the other way around is true: making a movie-licensed or show-licensed game would instantly equate they're terrible. Though, like video game movies, are not known to be reputable, they DO have great video games based off movies or shows that shouldn't be ignored (The Stick of Truth instantly comes to my mind, it's a great show-based game).

Like most video game movies, movie licensed games are usually designed by hacks only seeking to cash in the license, that's why they have a pretty bad reputation.
 
Baby Luigi said:
Mario fundamentally isn't a story-telling series. You can't even compare ANY Mario game to the best story-telling video games.
Click to expand...
Somebody didn't play the Paper Marios
 
I did, and even those games' stories are not even impressive looking at the big picture of things.
 
Baby Luigi said:
Mario Party X said:
Anyway, what makes books better than video games to adapt?
Click to expand...
Because books are a story-telling medium, just like how movies are.
Click to expand...
I once read that short stories / novellas are ideal for adapting since you can actually get the whole thing on screen, rather than having to chop out tonnes and tonnes of stuff.

But really, any medium can be adapted to any other medium if whoever's doing the adaption knows what they're doing, and how to alter the story to fit the new medium.

Make your film script but just be inspired by whatever it was you were uncreative enough to steal. And that gives you so much more freedom to do things besides shove your fanon into other people's faces, other people who probably have their own fanon that yours shits all over. Turn it into an original scenario, replace all the characters with your own. It's probably already distanced enough from what you were going to do an adaptation of anyway.
Click to expand...
I really don't get why people get so high and mighty about this sorta thing, seeing as most things are adapted (or I guess "stolen"?) from other things. Every time one of the big comic companies puts out a new animated show, or a live-action movie, or a new comic relaunch of a classic series, it's shitting over the established fanon, but people don't tell them that they should just turn female!Thor or black!Spiderman or HughJackman!Wolverine into original characters and stop bothering everyone already. No one complains that Shakespeare only wrote 2 original plays, with the other 36 being an assortment of OC-filled historic fiction, AUs and played-straight adaptations (with or without twist endings), and in modern times, re-mounting the plays with new spins on them (i.e. gender-swapped Hamlet, bollywood dance numbers for the curtain calls, Richard III in Nazi England, gay royal cousin incest love triangles, etc.) is way more common practice then turning them into completely different things (West Side Story, The Lion King, Slings & Arrows, Zetsuen no Tempest). People were happy to see the Harry Potter, Twilight, LotR and Scott Pilgrim films; eveyone's favourite Disney films started out as fairy tales or books (or are sequels to films based on said print material); the show Merlin was a pretty cool adaptation of the Arthurian legend; the latest reboots of Doctor Who and Star Trek are very unlike the classic series but are nonetheless very popular; And Another Thing... reads just like an authentic Douglas Adams book; The Megas and The Protomen's Megaman-based concept albums are awesome and tell cool stories; Pokemon works just as well as a video game, an anime and a manga; the list goes on and on and on forever.


Of course, realistically, your spec script will probably never be produced regardless of whether it's fanfiction, original stuff, or if you took the 50 Shades of Grey middle road and just renamed everyone and tweaked it enough that you only need studio backing and not studio backing and copyright holder permission (or whatever). Usually, your script's gonna go in the garbage, or maybe if it's good enough, producers will say "wow, you can write" and then put it in a drawer and tell you to go and pen the next Nicholas Sparks adaptation or be on the committee for Transformers 6. So imho, if you like writing fanfic screenplays, then go ahead and write 'em: be free, have fun.
 
Baby Luigi said:
I did, and even those games' stories are not even impressive looking at the big picture of things.
Click to expand...

The way I figure is, the traditional narratives in Mario games would not translate well to film because, well, there's hardly anything to actually translate. What in the Mario games could you really talk about for 80+ minutes?

However, I think taking a similar approach to the narrative design from the Paper Mario games does have potential. Of course don't copy and paste their existing stories because they've been specifically tailored for an interactive experience, but instead take their idea of giving historic Mario tropes an ironic, self-aware twist (à la Super Paper Mario); if you pull it off well enough you could produce a decent, comedic film on par with something like The Brady Bunch movies.

But yeah, unless it was done completely ironic like that I can't see a Mario film ever working.
 
Chiaki Nanami said:
historic Mario tropes an ironic, self-aware twist (à la Super Paper Mario)
Click to expand...

That game was just about the least self aware Mario game in the entire franchise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back