In the magazine business, the Back Page is where you'd find all the weird goofs that we couldn't fit in anywhere else. Some may call it "filler"; we prefer "a whole page to make terrible jokes that are tangentially related to the content of the mag".
We don't have (paper) pages on the internet, but we still love terrible jokes — so welcome to our semi-regular feature, Back Page. Today, Kate wonders where our gritty Netflix series have gotten to...
There's something weird happening in Hollywood. Whenever a video game gets made into a TV show or a movie, it's almost always a gritty, depressing, desaturated action-adventure romp where everyone's got five days of stubble and a voice made of gravel. Unless, of course, you're Nintendo, because Nintendo properties get turned into kids' movies and cartoons.
Why doesn't Nintendo get gritty reboots, huh? Trust me, there's plenty of fodder in the Nintendo stable for some grim Hollywood blockbusters... and I'm gonna pitch them!
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby's cutesy post-apocalyptic adventure would make for a perfect gritty TV show. It's basically The Last of Us already, but with cute dogs instead of horrible zombies.
But we can change that! Just change the cute Awoofies to slobbering, realistic wolves, cast Robert Pattinson as a grizzled Kirby who's five days from retirement or whatever, and have Waddle Dee played by, I don't know, Rahul Kohli, as an inexperienced but spunky sidekick who's constantly trying to impress Kirby. I would 100% watch this.
Also, Kirby has an eye patch.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Much like every other game on this list, BOTW has plenty of gritty substance to build a show around — you just have to turn the brightness and the saturation down, and you've basically done half the work.
The show, of course, would start with Link waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection, but rather than a jolly and exciting trot down the hill to meet a nice old man, I think we'd instead have Link stumbling out of the cave into something more like a blasted landscape. Villages would largely be destroyed, the few survivors scattered throughout Hyrule, and no one would be trustworthy any more because they're all either out to get something, or they're secretly Yiga Clan assassins.
I love Breath of the Wild, but I also know that in order to get HBO's attention, I'd have to liberally apply a varnish of grimness to the whole thing, and I think that would actually be quite fun. Picture Link rocking up at the Temple of Time, greeted by a fading spectre of the King of Hyrule, only to have him lead Link to a pile of bones in the corner — the last remains of Rhoam. Or defeating Ganon, saving Zelda, and discovering that she used the very last of her power and life to bring you there and save Hyrule, fulfilling both your destinies... and, of course, it turns out that Link's life was tied to hers, too, and they both perish on the floor of Hyrule Castle, satisfied that their journeys came to an end, together.
I mean, come on. I know he's a magic boy, but he LITERALLY dies in the game and then spends 100 years napping. He should totally die at the end.
Splatoon
Okay, so for this gritty TV reboot of the Splatoon series, here's what I'm thinking: It's a futuristic, neon-tinged Western — Blade Runner meets The Walking Dead meets The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Maybe a bit of Kill Bill thrown in there, just for fun. And The A-Team. It's a lot of things.
In the Splatoon TV show, I'm picturing an ensemble cast — a team of crack-shot Inklings, training to become the protectors of Earth. There's a mad scientist who invents ink weapons — the Salmonids' one weakness! — and the show follows this rag-tag group of survivors as they strike out into the world, hoping to find somewhere to call home once more.
Luigi's Mansion
Luigi, in this movie, is a retired plumber who spends his day at dimly-lit bars, drowning his sorrows with endless refills of Mushroom Vodka. After Mario's disappearance following a strange lottery win, the world assumes that the shorter Mario Bro is long dead — killed for the money, no doubt — until one day, Luigi gets a missive from a former mentor of his, Professor Elvin Gadd, a scientist whose research was discredited after a series of failed experiments.
Prof. Gadd summons Luigi to the decrepit mansion that Mario had bought with his lottery winnings, and informs Luigi that Mario has been trapped here by ghosts. OBVIOUSLY Luigi thinks Gadd is mad (which he is), until a ghost murders the Professor right in front of him. Luckily, anticipating this outcome, the Professor left behind a note for Luigi, informing him how to use his patent-pending invention, the Poltergust 3,000...
DOESN'T THAT SOUND RAD?
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Ace Attorney is grittier than people realise. Sure, it's about murder, but dig a little deeper and you'll discover conspiracies, cover-ups, and corruption behind the legal system itself.
It wouldn't be too far of a step to take the games from the small screen to the slightly bigger screen — just dress Phoenix up in a slightly-darker-blue suit, have his mentor killed early in episode one, and watch him rise from the ashes. Bonus points if you write in his relationship with Edgeworth as a canonical one that has him feeling torn between the law and love!
Mario Party
In this mash-up of family fun and the Saw franchise, a group of Super Mario characters are trapped in a life-size board game and forced to play for the highest stakes of all: Their own lives. Backstabbing, star-stealing, and loaded dice are just some of the obstacles to overcome, and that's before you even get to the minigames.
But just who is behind this megalomaniacal game? It can't be Bowser again... right?
Give me your gritty Nintendo TV show pitches in the comments. Maybe together, we can get the attention of HBO!
Comments 51
They could do a tv show about some scratty teens enslaving wild animals to fight for their pleasure
They made a horror movie about Winnie the Pooh. If that is possible, you know they can do something like that with Animal Crossing.
I'd watch most of these, no doubt
Love it.
Yoshi? The potential horror would engender an existential crisis. Well, in me at least.
@blindsquarel I imagine there are at least four pornos as well. Blech.
Because that's not Nintendo's image. Whether you agree or disagree with that attitude or logic is a separate issue.
Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee in Kirbing Bad. Only on AMC.
Oh and Ace Attorney would make a good Better Call Saul.
So I guess the parody nature of the article is what left out unironic candidates like Xenoblade and Fire Emblem?
Smash Bros Fight Club style
Captain N revamp please.
Because Nintendo is for kids mainly. Friendly fun time stuff.
Dear god, some of the woosh comments already.
I actually did once watch a gritty web series based on Super Smash Bros. It was called "There Will Be Brawl." It featured many of the characters from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Luigi was the main protagonist. Kirby was a Hannibal Lecter-style cannibal, Samus was a stripper, and Wario was a crime lord. The show ended with Kirby going into the real world and it was implied he ate Shigeru Miyamoto.
And for the record, there already is an Ace Attorney anime, complete with blood. Not only that, there's also a live-action movie. But since the games are so quirky, I don't see it ever being gritty. Even the darkest moments in the games still have quirky characters.
What is wrong with you people? Is nothing sacred anymore? Won’t anybody think of the children?! Etc.
Anyways, that Splatoon idea has legitimately piqued my interest.
A 13 year old boy wrote this.
Dr mario as a zombie series, a dr killing zombies with different kind of bullets. Yellow (acid), blue (freeze) and red (incineration).
You want a gritty tale?
How about the story of Andrew Tingle and his trafficked Great Fairies?
I went too far...
Mario party is true horror.
Surprised nobody brought up Metroid or Eternal Darkness. Games that feed off their gritt as opposed to Zelda, Fire Emblem, Kirby, or Earthbound which have gritty sides to them but do not always commit
I feel very strongly that Eye-Patch Kirby would wield a katana and is out for revenge.
@bonjong23
You would think so
What about Mario Kart?
I mean, the story writes itself. Just treat everything with semi-realistic logic and maybe make it a cash prize, you could have so many narratives colliding (in some cases, literally) at once.
We almost did have a gritty Nintendo show. They pitched a TV show of Eternal Darkness for the GameCube. https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/06/27/eternal-darkness-tv-show-or-movie
90s Marvel comics have a lot to answer for lol...
MarioKart v Mad Max
Metroid: Primark
Samus goes shopping for a new hat, but in the accessories aisle she discovers that not everything at the fashion retailer is as it seems…
The true cost of fast fashion revealed: aliens, gore, and cheap handbags galore!
Nintendo is not Sony that everything is realistic dark tone game, stop trying to make Nintendo turn into a clone of Sony
"what if Kirby had an eye patch"
Wolf Kirby… he already exists
Instead of gritty, I'd like a Mike rowes "dirty jobs" with Mario/Luigi
Just make a realistic pokemon show where the pokemon fight to the death, occasionally murder trainers, and of course while hiking you need to kill, butcher and eat pokemon over the campfire for dinner; your pet Eevee happily slurping out the innards of a dead pikachu while you are de-limbing amd boiling a Squirtle. Oh, and of course there are many highwayman along your path trying to attack you and steal your money, possibly leaving you for dead after you are mauled by their trained attack-Arcanine. Meanwhile to get money for your mother's surgery your goal is to join the underground fighting tournament where rich intoxicated people cheer every time a pokemon or a trainer is killed and pay high prices for caged legendaries to display.
I know these pitches are jokes, but ever since the Castlevania series debuted I've wanted to see a moody, atmospheric, dialogue-free Metroid animated series that feels like something between aforementioned Castlevania and Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal.
Can we have some sort of literacy test before people are allowed to make accounts here.
Hear my pitch: Animal Crossing meets Shutter Island. You think you're on a good island having fun, but slowly you find out you're trapped and all your cute neighbors are in on it too.
I’m more surprised that it’s taken this long to get something like the upcoming Mario movie. In theory, Nintendo’s IPs have always seemed ripe for animation, be it more family-friendly (Mario, Kirby, etc.), or something drifting closer to PG-13/Adult Swim territory (Zelda, Metroid, etc.).
You can’t help but feel like there are a number of IPs that would naturally lend themselves to streaming or movies, or even other mediums like graphic novels. While gritty and Nintendo don’t often go hand-in-hand, there’s a lot of creative meat on the bone for approaches that Nintendo would likely be more comfortable pursuing.
Luigi’s Handsome: Dark Moon
One day, our Brooklyn-based protagonist is asked to star in a calendar full of sexy New York plumbers. Bashful by nature, Luigi is hesitant at first, but after an altercation with an armed robber leaves him virtually pennilessness, he has no choice but to accept the proposal.
Unsurprisingly, his chiselled good looks, finely-honed physique and immaculately-groomed moustache attract significant attention and he is soon scouted by a major modelling agency, where he rapidly rises through the ranks to become one of New York’s hottest models.
Will this newfound fame and fortune go to his head? Will he reconcile his relationship with his increasingly envious brother, Mario? Will he fend off competition from the mysterious up-and-coming talent, Waluigi?
Find out as we watch Luigi navigate the trials and tribulations of being an exceptionally, preposterously, dangerously handsome man.
How did a quarter of the comments miss the fact that this is a joke. Really guys.
@blindsquarel Animal Horror Story: Cult
@Deemo37 There don’t seem to be that many. Edit: well...
Anyways, that Luigi’s Mansion shot is going in my desktop background rotation.
"Or defeating Ganon, saving Zelda, and discovering that she used the very last of her power and life to bring you there and save Hyrule, fulfilling both your destinies... and, of course, it turns out that Link's life was tied to hers, too, and they both perish on the floor of Hyrule Castle, satisfied that their journeys came to an end, together."
dumps ~100 pages already filled with text in recycling bin, takes out clean sheet of paper
What a great read. I have not been able to sleep tonight at all and all of this made me laugh so thanks Kate for that 😅
Loool the fact some people here are taking this seriously cracks me up 🤣🤣
Has everyone forgotten about the "BEN Drowned" Majora's Mask story, that was just freaky
https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/BEN_Drowned
Be warned
@EaglyTheKawaiiShika Because sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!
@EaglyTheKawaiiShika I tend to be reserve that kind of comedy on things that I don't care for off as much, like a rival football team or something like that. But I don't think people see the parody in this article as it such a ridiculous suggestion and I personally don't think much to the article either.
But if that is what the writer likes and others then so be it, have your fun. In the same respect if people comment and don't go to far with their comments then surely they are allowed their opinion too and don't need to be 'called out' for being stupid.
Wait, didn't Ace Attorney get a show in Japan?
@EllaTheKawaiiNeko It's got an anime which has a western release and also a Japan only live action adaptation.
@nessisonett was the missing question mark intended to add some irony to your comment?
@KingdomTears Rhetoricals can end in a question mark or period.
No thank you. Let that stay in the realm of fan made vids.
Some Kid Icarus Uprising spoilers ahead.
You already have humanity going to war over a lie, nuclear style bombs going off and the majority of humans being wiped out.
But let's go even further and change the Chaos Kin arc so that Pit is unable to free Palutena from its control without killing her. Maybe he can't go through with it and instead has to watch as the chaos kin continues to tear down the mortal and immortal realms racked by guilt that his actions led to its escape.
After it comes to light that Dark Pit is in fact the original version and Pit has been a copy who was given fake memories by Palutena to guarantee his loyalty he gains new resolve.
The two Pits eventually team up to end the Chaos kin/ Palutena's reign of terror. In the aftermath of the battle the chaos kin strikes Dark Pit down from the heavens and with the last of her strength Palutena grants Pit one last use of flight to save him. As in the game Pit exceeds his limits to save Dark Pit and his wings burn up in the process leaving him fatally injured.
The two say their goodbyes in the ruins of the mortal realm.
Well, there's no gaymance between Phoenix and Miles, but otherwise that Ace Attorney movie already exists, and it's really good!
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