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Why The Super Mario Bros Movie SUCKSmovie
Brace yourselves, cause this is going to be a long rant.
So, apparently a lot of people are like, "It's a good movie," or "It's a fun movie," so it's worth watching. Why do they think this? Fanservice. Well, for some who don't know a thing about the Mario games or Nintendo, they probably only enjoyed it because they blew their bucks to let their naive little imps watch the movie on the big screen, not knowing what kind of ear-rape (the pop songs) and brain rot (the humor) they were going to get.
It's high time movies stop getting justified by one or two scenes that are "good", and stop getting accepted for how their animation looks despite how god-awful the plot is. I'm not asking for a masterpiece of a film, I mean how would you expect a movie about plumbers...with super-powered mushrooms and flowers...fighting a fire-breathing turtle...be a "masterpiece", right? What has to be done is putting in real effort, not by wasting it all on the animation and expecting a cast of so-called celebrities, a lukewarm script, and some dumbass pop songs to carry the movie for them. These are things Illumination, the creator of the cursed Minions are guilty of in pretty much all of their movies. For some reason they must have celebrities, like Benedict Cumberbatch in The Grinch, or Matthew McConaughey in Sing 2. And, they must have at least one obnoxious pop song in all their movies instead of an original soundtrack, regardless of how badly they fit in, like that "Take On Me" scene in the Mario Movie. Even Illumination's newer songs are terrible, like the rap version of "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch".
Moving on, these are the primary reasons why The Super Mario Bros Movie is trash:
1. Bowser's Peach Obsession: this running joke gets old soooo fast. I understand the argument that this could be making fun of Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach in all of the video games, and "explaining" why he does it (but he doesn't do it in every game, it just so happens to be most of them). They could've just made a joke about Bowser's "crush" on Peach in one scene, and leave it at that. But to make it his entire motivation?? I like Jack Black's voice for Bowser, but this whole taking over the kingdom just to win over a princess makes the big Koopa a complete idiot. Why waste your army and resources on all that when romance is all you want?
This is an issue Hollywood has with movie villains nowadays: they have to give them a sympathetic backstory or motivation, but all it does is make them look really stupid, or it just makes you hate them more rather than feel sorry for them. Illumination really sucks at making villains, and they seem self-aware that they're making them stupid. They give all their baddies–Vector, the Onceler, and Cumberbatch's Grinch–a bully vibe, or a bad vibe like Michael Jackson. They're not being evil for some selfish, messed up reason. They're just being jerks cause they think it's cool. They're pretty much every lame, boring villain you see on corny Saturday morning cartoons. Illumination just does this anyway cause they think writing stupid villains makes for good comedy, but it's just immature and irritating.
2. Peach is a 1-Dimensional Heroine: here's a question for you, what happens to Princess Peach while she's Bowser's prisoner? I'm not talking about the movie. I'm talking about every Mario game you've played where you've had to rescue her from the King of the Koopas. While you're playing through all those world levels collecting stars, what happens to Peach? How do we know if she's really a stereotypical damsel in distress? How do we know if she's locked up in a cage or cell all the time? We never see any of this happening.
Is it a bad thing for Princess Peach to get kidnapped in the story? Should we really throw Luigi out of action just so Peach can be a boring, feminist heroine? Say all you want about a kidnapped "princess" being cliché, but this female character with no flaws, no character arc of her own, and no fair stance on the male character is a whole new cliché of its own that is much more unbearable.
If the writers at Illumination had any brains, they'd let Mario and Luigi work together throughout the film and not get separated. Instead, Mario and Peach would get separated only after developing somewhat of a fondness for each other. Peach's introduction could even create a divide between Mario and his brother, who then have to work together again once the princess is in danger. This wouldn't be exactly what should've happened in the film, but at least something to give Luigi more use in the film.
3. Seth Rogen and the Kongs are Crap: as mentioned before, this movie depends too much on fanservice. So, what better cameos to include in the film than Donkey Kong and his family? I would've been fine with them being here if they weren't rewritten so drastically. First of all, the Kongs do not run their own kingdom. They're a laidback bunch who live with the jungle and its creatures. DK is a protector of nature, fighting against technological, militaristic invaders like King K. Rool as seen in the Donkey Kong Country games.
So why the HELL do the Kongs have Mario-karts now? Why does Cranky Kong have an elaborate throne room and a Colosseum-style arena? Now the Kongs are a powerful nation who don't want to help Peach and Mario, despite having a strong army and engineers, because they are lazy and selfish. Instead, as per the game lore, they should be refusing to help because they have no kingdom. They don't see anything they have to offer to the Mushroom Kingdom, and the thought of war scares them. (of course, there was no crossover between Mario and the DKC games whatsoever. DK only shows up in the Mario Party, Mario Sports, and MarioKart games, and in the Mario & DK games as an antagonist)
4. The Fanservice and Pacing: the movie is 90 minutes long, and so much happens in that time. Illumination wastes so much time cramming in as much references and cameos as they can to trick people into loving the movie. A lot of these references don't fit nor flow in the movie's context, and could've been spared for a sequel or spin-off (i.e. the blue Luma, the Yoshi herd, the wedding guest cameos). Donkey Kong was one thing, but including his whole family? These characters only show up in the Country series, which is very much separate from the Mario games, and no, MarioKart and Mario Sluggers don't count. The whole MarioKart sequence wasn't even necessary, and they had to ruin the Kongs' lore just to put the Karts into existence in a very sloppy way. They didn't have to get to Bowser with karts, and so much screen time for character development and focus was wasted on showing off shiny karts on the big screen.
Speaking of screen time, there was so much montages of walking through the Mushroom Kingdom and Mario or Peach training on the obstacle course. Every conversation between the characters is rushed and you hardly remember anything they said as another fanservicey thing comes onto the screen. Mario and DK's arguing inside the Maw-Ray comes to such a half-assed reconciliation, you wouldn't believe for a second that they were enemies turned friends. And of course, since they couldn't give enough time for Bowser to be an interesting villain, every scene with him had to be about him simping on Peach.
So, apparently a lot of people are like, "It's a good movie," or "It's a fun movie," so it's worth watching. Why do they think this? Fanservice. Well, for some who don't know a thing about the Mario games or Nintendo, they probably only enjoyed it because they blew their bucks to let their naive little imps watch the movie on the big screen, not knowing what kind of ear-rape (the pop songs) and brain rot (the humor) they were going to get.
It's high time movies stop getting justified by one or two scenes that are "good", and stop getting accepted for how their animation looks despite how god-awful the plot is. I'm not asking for a masterpiece of a film, I mean how would you expect a movie about plumbers...with super-powered mushrooms and flowers...fighting a fire-breathing turtle...be a "masterpiece", right? What has to be done is putting in real effort, not by wasting it all on the animation and expecting a cast of so-called celebrities, a lukewarm script, and some dumbass pop songs to carry the movie for them. These are things Illumination, the creator of the cursed Minions are guilty of in pretty much all of their movies. For some reason they must have celebrities, like Benedict Cumberbatch in The Grinch, or Matthew McConaughey in Sing 2. And, they must have at least one obnoxious pop song in all their movies instead of an original soundtrack, regardless of how badly they fit in, like that "Take On Me" scene in the Mario Movie. Even Illumination's newer songs are terrible, like the rap version of "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch".
Moving on, these are the primary reasons why The Super Mario Bros Movie is trash:
1. Bowser's Peach Obsession: this running joke gets old soooo fast. I understand the argument that this could be making fun of Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach in all of the video games, and "explaining" why he does it (but he doesn't do it in every game, it just so happens to be most of them). They could've just made a joke about Bowser's "crush" on Peach in one scene, and leave it at that. But to make it his entire motivation?? I like Jack Black's voice for Bowser, but this whole taking over the kingdom just to win over a princess makes the big Koopa a complete idiot. Why waste your army and resources on all that when romance is all you want?
This is an issue Hollywood has with movie villains nowadays: they have to give them a sympathetic backstory or motivation, but all it does is make them look really stupid, or it just makes you hate them more rather than feel sorry for them. Illumination really sucks at making villains, and they seem self-aware that they're making them stupid. They give all their baddies–Vector, the Onceler, and Cumberbatch's Grinch–a bully vibe, or a bad vibe like Michael Jackson. They're not being evil for some selfish, messed up reason. They're just being jerks cause they think it's cool. They're pretty much every lame, boring villain you see on corny Saturday morning cartoons. Illumination just does this anyway cause they think writing stupid villains makes for good comedy, but it's just immature and irritating.
2. Peach is a 1-Dimensional Heroine: here's a question for you, what happens to Princess Peach while she's Bowser's prisoner? I'm not talking about the movie. I'm talking about every Mario game you've played where you've had to rescue her from the King of the Koopas. While you're playing through all those world levels collecting stars, what happens to Peach? How do we know if she's really a stereotypical damsel in distress? How do we know if she's locked up in a cage or cell all the time? We never see any of this happening.
Is it a bad thing for Princess Peach to get kidnapped in the story? Should we really throw Luigi out of action just so Peach can be a boring, feminist heroine? Say all you want about a kidnapped "princess" being cliché, but this female character with no flaws, no character arc of her own, and no fair stance on the male character is a whole new cliché of its own that is much more unbearable.
If the writers at Illumination had any brains, they'd let Mario and Luigi work together throughout the film and not get separated. Instead, Mario and Peach would get separated only after developing somewhat of a fondness for each other. Peach's introduction could even create a divide between Mario and his brother, who then have to work together again once the princess is in danger. This wouldn't be exactly what should've happened in the film, but at least something to give Luigi more use in the film.
3. Seth Rogen and the Kongs are Crap: as mentioned before, this movie depends too much on fanservice. So, what better cameos to include in the film than Donkey Kong and his family? I would've been fine with them being here if they weren't rewritten so drastically. First of all, the Kongs do not run their own kingdom. They're a laidback bunch who live with the jungle and its creatures. DK is a protector of nature, fighting against technological, militaristic invaders like King K. Rool as seen in the Donkey Kong Country games.
So why the HELL do the Kongs have Mario-karts now? Why does Cranky Kong have an elaborate throne room and a Colosseum-style arena? Now the Kongs are a powerful nation who don't want to help Peach and Mario, despite having a strong army and engineers, because they are lazy and selfish. Instead, as per the game lore, they should be refusing to help because they have no kingdom. They don't see anything they have to offer to the Mushroom Kingdom, and the thought of war scares them. (of course, there was no crossover between Mario and the DKC games whatsoever. DK only shows up in the Mario Party, Mario Sports, and MarioKart games, and in the Mario & DK games as an antagonist)
4. The Fanservice and Pacing: the movie is 90 minutes long, and so much happens in that time. Illumination wastes so much time cramming in as much references and cameos as they can to trick people into loving the movie. A lot of these references don't fit nor flow in the movie's context, and could've been spared for a sequel or spin-off (i.e. the blue Luma, the Yoshi herd, the wedding guest cameos). Donkey Kong was one thing, but including his whole family? These characters only show up in the Country series, which is very much separate from the Mario games, and no, MarioKart and Mario Sluggers don't count. The whole MarioKart sequence wasn't even necessary, and they had to ruin the Kongs' lore just to put the Karts into existence in a very sloppy way. They didn't have to get to Bowser with karts, and so much screen time for character development and focus was wasted on showing off shiny karts on the big screen.
Speaking of screen time, there was so much montages of walking through the Mushroom Kingdom and Mario or Peach training on the obstacle course. Every conversation between the characters is rushed and you hardly remember anything they said as another fanservicey thing comes onto the screen. Mario and DK's arguing inside the Maw-Ray comes to such a half-assed reconciliation, you wouldn't believe for a second that they were enemies turned friends. And of course, since they couldn't give enough time for Bowser to be an interesting villain, every scene with him had to be about him simping on Peach.
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11/15/2023 4:28 am
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Anything in particular you agree about? What did you think about the movie?
Hollyweird is driven by most $$$ for least possible effort (and that's when it's acting rationally):
Pandering to the LCD with simplistic plots and overly repeated content, par for the course…
Annoying pop music is cheaper than paying for quality (and think of the co-marketing as well as the rabid fans of the 'artist' as a gauranteed audience)
Celebrities as a draw for movies… well — to quote the wit and wisdom of John Denver — "A lot of sad people thinking that's a-mighty keen"
Pandering to the LCD with simplistic plots and overly repeated content, par for the course…
Annoying pop music is cheaper than paying for quality (and think of the co-marketing as well as the rabid fans of the 'artist' as a gauranteed audience)
Celebrities as a draw for movies… well — to quote the wit and wisdom of John Denver — "A lot of sad people thinking that's a-mighty keen"
Obviously anyone who puts in minimal effort to gain tons of money, only to make a garbage book or movie, hates everything those two things stood for. They are anti-art, anti-inspiration, and anti-human.
It sucks that no one can tell a real artist from a fraud anymore. Someone needs to get all those drudges at Illumination and Disney into some harmless desk jobs that offer them all the money they drool about, and keep their dirty fingers away from the film industry.
It sucks that no one can tell a real artist from a fraud anymore. Someone needs to get all those drudges at Illumination and Disney into some harmless desk jobs that offer them all the money they drool about, and keep their dirty fingers away from the film industry.
