By 1986, the world had only gotten so far as “Super Mario Bros.” on the Nintendo/Famicom, so Masami Hata’s “The Great Rescue of Princess Peach!” as a movie stretches as far as it can on very little source material. With the original NES game, they only gave you so much about the lore, and motivations of the villains, so the anime movie itself relies on a bizarre, anemic plot that, I can assume, is not at all canonical.
Tag Archives: Super Mario
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
It’s been about thirty years since Nintendo allowed one of their IP’s to be translated in to a feature film, and now that video game movies have upped the ante in substance, the time is right for a return from the Mario Bros. Their mascot Super Mario makes his big screen return in a new animated feature from the studio that gave us the (ugh) Minions. In spite of that fact, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is really quite good, and dare I say one of the best video game movies ever made. As with most IP’s of Mario’s ilk, there was some ballyhoo around casting decisions made for his return, but “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” comes out looking quite shiny.
My 5 Favorite Mario World Characters
With tomorrow being the release date of the highly anticipated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” and it arriving theaters, I thought it’d be a good chance to list some of my all time favorite Mario characters from the Mario universe. I’ve grown up with the Mario games, playing it on NES as a small child, and religiously playing his games on SNES, N64, and even the Nintendo DS.
What are some of your favorite Super Mario World characters, and or villains?
“Super Mario Bros: The Movie” 30 Years Later: The Baffling Feature Film Adaptation
Kids today will soon know their Mario Brothers as CGI animated sprites in the upcoming “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” I, for one, am psyched. But back in 1993, my Mario Bros. (beyond the video games) were found on television and in the movies. After Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells ended their run as Mario and Luigi in “The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!” in 1989, the studios decided to finally bring the Super Mario world to the big screen in 1993. Said movie was called “Super Mario Bros: The Movie.”
You’d probably think: “How they could possibly get such an easy concept so wrong?”
But they did. They really did.
The Wizard (1989): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
After spending many years on sub-par DVD releases and in basic limbo for a new release, “The Wizard” is given a much overdue Collector’s Edition that treats the cult classic the way it deserves. Is it a glorified Nintendo commercial? Sure! Is it a glorified ad for Universal Studios? Definitely! Is it fun? Oh god yes. “The Wizard” is a movie that might appeal to you more if you have nostalgia attached, granted, but on its own it’s a solid kids adventure film that’s also ahead of its time in the way it digs in to the video game tournaments and how much mental and physical prowess they demand.
The Wizard (1989)
In 1990, my brother and I watched 1989’s “The Wizard” about thirty times a day and loved the movie every single time we popped it in to the VCR. When I was seven, I dreamed of two things. I dreamed of entering a video game competition and playing Super Mario 3, and travelling around the country with the gorgeous Jenny Lewis. Mostly I wanted the second, but playing Super Mario 3 was also a great prospect. There’s no way to discuss “The Wizard” without seeing it through nostalgia tinted glasses, but while most people claim “The Wizard” is nothing but a ninety minute commercial for Nintendo, I wouldn’t so much call it a commercial so much as a mirror on the culture in the eighties. In the late eighties and most of the nineties, Nintendo simply dominated the world.
