Soapbox: The Super Mario Movie Might Not Be All That Great

First: The studio also did the incredible Despicable Me. People really love hand-picking the other two, lesser films to spur complaints. :/

Second: We've seen NOTHING about this yet. Way, way too soon for soapboxing. WAY too soon. Let's give Nintendo a little bit of a chance here, yeah? The Mario Bros movie was a loooooooong time ago. Different company now.

EDIT: And also, love or hate the minions themselves, "Minions" wasn't a bad movie. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad at all. (Life of Pets, yes, that was awful. But that means Illumination has done one amazing movie, several good or decent ones, and one awful one. That's a pretty good record for an animation house that came from seemingly out of the blue.)

You know literally nothing about it. Chill.

If they unleash the comedic side of Bowser then it could be great! Let's just wait and see.

haven't seen anything about the film yet. and yet, i agree wholeheartedly lol

@JKRiki How can you hand-pick if the majority of the Despicable Me movies were trash? You have to pick from the minority not the majority.

I can see Nintendo keeping a very tight leash on this production. I bet he won't be allowed talk freely.

@Nintendoforlife Because the majority WEREN'T trash. As I edited above, ONE of their overall films was garbage. The others were just fine, and certainly better than a ton of animated features we see in theaters today. You want a bad animated movie, check out Legends of Oz.

Oh for gods sake, the news just broke yesterday. For all you know we could get Paper Mario 64/TTYD tier writing out of it. We know literally nothing at all about the movie, no trailer, no teaser trailer, no interviews, not even freaking concept art. If there was ever a damn definition of fake news, this is it right here. Good lord.

Some people have no imagination.

Guess that's why they need Nintendo to sell cardboard to them.

@JKRiki What's wrong with The Secret Life Of Pets?

All I have to say is LEGO MOVIE.

Giving the Mario Movie to Illuminaton is like putting a €300 steak in a manky McDonald's meat grinder.

Even if by some miracle the movie is good I'd sooner give EA money than Illumination.

The second I saw who was making this film I knew IHE would not be happy with it.

Glad you collaborated with IHE! I watch a lot of his videos and soon as I heard Illumination was making the Mario movie I instantly thought of him and his hatred towards Minions/Sing.

I hate everything! It's so odd to see his face in this site.

@NinNin Many things, from a film standpoint. It was cute, and had its moments, but it is by far the weakest of Illumination's productions. (There were parts that were clearly inserted because someone had an idea for a joke and needed to find a place to put it. Example: The insane, pointless hotdog factory scene.)

Disney had to change how Bowser holds a cup of tea.

A cup of tea. And that's just a hands-off cameo appearance.

Imagine what Nintendo would do with Illumination when they have a fuller investment in the project.

If they embrace the ridiculousness of it all and make it funny it could be really good but I’ve got a feeling Nintendo will be really hands on and may take their own character too seriously. Guess we will see

"The Super Mario Movie Might Not Be All That Great"

who said that would be a great movie in the first place?

@AlternateButtons I don't even think Minions is that bad, honestly. It wasn't amazing, and it was clearly "cash cow" territory, but it was a fun time if you let it be. To me, anyway.

Now you could make an argument that the minions themselves are annoying or overused or whatever, and that's fair. I understand why a lot of folks dislike the minions themselves.

I mean, my nieces absolutely love all these movies? Like, they're not Disney/Pixar, but they're certainly the 2nd best big animation studio around. Sing was a fantastic movie, as was the first Despicable Me. The Secret Life of Pets was their weakest one, but my nieces' favorite, so who cares what some old fogies think? Not everything it made for everyone.

With all due respect, I find this article bad written.

I'll still wait for the reviews and the trailer before deciding to see it.
at least Nintendo is working on the project with them. so i can't say the very least of excited for it. but, i guess I've been proven wrong before hand. so I'll wait and see.

They will try to capture the perfect sweet spot, Venn diagram that calls on the nostalgia of adults and the imaginations of children. Just like the Despicable Me movies. It’ll be a hit, but if any dedicated Mario fans or Nintendo obsessives don’t like it - it’s not for us anyway. And it can be non canon if you want it to be. Your call!!

@AlternateButtons Ehhhhh Despicable Me was good. They jumped the shark with the second and went into the unoriginal enemy turned love interest storyline. And then jumped even further off as they went into the whole long lost twin story that we've never seen before.............

@JKRiki "Because the majority WEREN'T trash. As I edited above, ONE of their overall films was garbage. The others were just fine, and certainly better than a ton of animated features we see in theaters today. You want a bad animated movie, check out Legends of Oz."

Legends of Oz was pure crap we agree on that. You can read above to see why I think the other films were less than desireable as well. Either way Illumination has failed to impress me personally as of recently, but with Nintendo's help they might be able to get it together.

Eh, I'm not looking forward to it. Granted, I don't think there is a single producer who would have changed that. The idea of a Super Mario movie just seems like a mess to me. The original movie was a cringey live-action film and this one is going to be an animated movie probably aimed right toward children. Neither of those ideas peak my interest.

That aside, that's just what I think personally. Objectively speaking, I think it's too early to critique the film. I only saw the original Despicable Me and thought it was pretty good (granted, it was a while ago). Apparently the newer efforts have received more mixed reception. We'll just have to wait and see.

If it's along the lines of Mario RPG involving an actual adventure to rescue the Princess with a fleshed out cast then kids will love it. Heck, after Jump Up Superstar, they can add songs! Wonder if they'll get Charles Martinet to do the voice, or will the get Tom Cruise?

It could be amazing, but I have a fear Nintendo will try to go a bit too family and girly with it and end up creating something like an extended version of the utterly crappy intros it's had for all of its recent Super Mario platform games. That's not the kind of childish, hollow fluff and amateur trash this movie needs; it needs to feel a bit more like the '90s cartoons and art would have you imagine the movie being imo. It has to have that kind of playfulness and slight cheekiness to it, and none of the saccharine girlishness that's pervaded the recent games in many ways, even just visually with little colourful flowers and dancing enemies and all that junk.

Too early for soapboxing. Too early to even be complaining about it. The fact Nintendo is having a hand in this means Illumination won't be able to just do whatever with Mario and co.

Anyone who says it's gonna be terrible because Illumination is gonna be the studio behind it is jumping the gun and needs to cool the jets and disarm the nukes.

As far as plot goes, it's true that the majority of mainline Mario games tend to range from 'safe' to 'outright bland'. However the RPGs should at least prove that a genuinely amusing Mario adventure is possible (if not probable).

The Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi series are two of the funniest titles Nintendo has had a hand in, and they've both got Mario slap-bang at the centre. Mario + Rabbids also pull off a good few visual gags, showing that Nintendo isn't too protective of its main mascot.

The running theme in each of the above three examples is to keep Mario relatively clean-cut while ramping up the absurdity of the world around him. That way they manage to build a genuinely funny scenarios without sullying their star. In fact, the juxtaposition only makes it funnier.

So Mario himself might not be a lot to work with, but with enough imagination and wit, I think it's conceivable that a compelling world could be created around him.

Just... not likely.

Thid article is not NL’s finest work. You’re totally jumping the gun despite knowing nothing.

My sister and her husband love those movies so trying to insist it’ll be a disaster is ridiculous. We all have different taste.

Well, I guess they could theoretically bring back the old-style Mario with the Brooklyn accent but smarten the plots up. The Super Mario World comics in Nintendo Power were also pretty good.

Seriously? I'm sure you must've played a Mario & Luigi series or Paper Mario series game? The humour and set-pieces in those games are top notch and an indication of what can be achieved with Mario et al.

The one problem with I Hate Everything is that the presence of that image pretty much tells you how it will pan out before clicking.

Negatively. Moving on.

Mamma Mia

I'm just more interested that IHE is part of the video, nice grab m8's

@JKRiki Calling Despicable Me incredible would just be giving the movie too much praise. It is more of a good enough, has enough heart and entertaining outing, despite the very noticeable cheap animation and instances of potty humor (considering the first mostly dealt with fun Loony Tunes-esque gags)

Mario + Rabbids worked.

Rabbids are the same as Minions.

Nintendo hires Minions studio to work on a Mario movie.

The movie has to be either about mario and bowsers frenemie relationship or about mario and luigi as brothers and how luigi looks up to him and wants to be a respected hero like his big bro. Anything else will fail

Also, you CAN make a Mario story that can have a fun story with fun humor or just even make him cinematic, like Mario Sunshine, the first Mario Galaxy and Mario Odyssey even. Just hoping the writing is up the line of, specifically, Super Paper Mario or Kid Icarus Uprising. Also also, have to agree with the Sony Animation statement. They did the Emoji Movie, but then you look at their filmography, they are a roulette wheel, either great films, filled with talent and then movies like The Smurfs or The Star or Open Season. Still have to wait and see if Illumination doesn't make Mario look bad

The thing that worries me about Illumination making this movie is that the majority of the time they focus on marketing and merchandise, rather than writing a good story. I just hope Nintendo has a tight leash on the project, since last thing we need is bunch of toads screaming more than usual. But it could be worse, Sony could've been making this.

Am I missing something here? What was so terrible about 'The Secret Life of Pets?' I thought that was a delightful film!

The man, the legend, miyamoto himself is involved so chill.

Did this really need to be an article? We know nothing about the project.

"In an effort to improve my mood I reached out to fellow YouTube-type I Hate Everything to see if we could chat our way out of this mess and just see if there's any part of this that could potentially lead to a great movie."

I don't know, if I wanted to talk to someone about the possible silver linings of something I'm concerned about, somebody called "I Hate Everything" wouldn't be my first choice.

People seem to forget Nintendo and their demands with Bowser in Wreck it Ralph. His size, and how he drank tea. Also this feels like more click baity bullpoo discussion, over an announcement of the production.

Illumination literally only cares about cost-cutting for the maximization of profit. They don't have any artistic integrity.

I liked the the live-action movie (yes, it was a bit of stupid-fun) and the cartoon. I'm also hopeful for the movie. They will need to pick up their game in relation to those, but I'm fairly sure they can do it. I'm also an optimist.

Also Mario being straight laced wouldn't be a issue, look at Micky Mouse. He has the same complants about his character.

Ah, I hate everything: I see you're a man of culture as well. Seriously, he's one of my favourite youtubers.

Seriously?????

My family enjoyed "Life of Pets". We love the Despicable Me too.

I don't see this being a problem this time around. The first film was Nintendo's first attempt at turning one of their properties into a movie. They knew nothing about movies. I'm sure they've learned a lot in the time between then and now. I personally think Illumination's animation is great. I don't think that will be a problem. I'm sure I'll see this movie in the first week it's release.

Like others have said, if they can make a great movie around Lego, then they should be able to do the same with Mario.

I think they might be a decent enough fit for Mario, they have experience with literal minion characters that can translate across to toads, koopas, and goomba.

However I would entirely against them doing a Zelda movie, Dreamworks would be my first pick simply to their fantastic work on How to Train Your Dragon, anyone who read the books will knows they can turn a... Light amount of narrative into a full fledged film.

@Arehexes Mickey's newest cartoons are little darker than the originals/younger kid focused ones. You never know, they could go "Shadow the Hedgehog" and give Mario a gun.

If it doesn't have Luigi and LOTSA SPAGHETTI I will not be happy.

Oh look, another pessimistic Alex Olney clickbait video/article slating an video game movie announcement, before we even have any new information/trailers. I suppose I should be very grateful that article was free from spelling errors.

If you guys need clicks today, why not teach Wii U owners how to hack their console and add translations patches for illegal Japan only Famicom/Super Famicom ROMs.

@JKRiki Well ... Princess Mononoke was incredible, The Iron Giant was incredible, Toy Story was incredible, Ghost in the Shell was incredible.

Despicable Me was very good imho, definitely the best in the series, and their best work as well. I'm not sure I would rank it "incredible" though, not from an adults perspective anyways.

Furthermore, the rest of the movies went downhill quick, with Minions being a particular low point, and part 3 also not amounting to much more than a proper distraction for a young audience.

I think that this movie will definitely be aimed at kids, and really just kids, so as that goes, this might turn out to be a 'good' pick.

@Tsurii If you'd prefer, you could sleep all the way through it like Sticker Star.

With that said, how dare you Paper Mario is good from start to finish, and TTYD has the glorious Excess Express chapter.

Stopped reading after the word stellar...

Why the hell are people complaining that the Mario Movie will probably be aimed at kids? Of course it'll be aimed a kids, it's the nibelsnarfing Mario Movie! Jesus Christ! What the hell where you expecting from it? An Animated version of Taken, but with Mario characters?

I have high hopes.

1. They've àlready made 1 Mario movie, so they have a blueprint for what NOT to do.

2. There's already a good video game movie, which is getting a sequel soon, Wreck it Ralph, so they have a good blueprint as well.

3. Mario & Luigi are the video game equivalent of Abbot & Costello and Laurel & Hardy, they are hilarious together, if you pay attention to the dialogue in their RPG and Paper games.

4. The Mushroom Kingdom looked beautiful as a world in SMO, so we know how good it looks in HD.

So, all the elements are there for a good CGI family friendly movie. I'm looking forward to it.

@Ailingforale True, those statements was made a while back (years ago). Also adding a gun doesn't mean it will be edhy Shadow the Hedgehog. Old cartoons have a character using a weapon (Shotgun) while still being light (Bugs/Daffy, Tom&Jerry). Doesn't Mario use a cartoony gun in Mario+Rabbids? I know he can pick up one in Smash.

Could be good, could be bad. We haven't even heard anything outside Illumenation is working on it.

If the writing and comedy is like Mario & Luigi/Paper Mario (the entire series), that'd be awesome. I can see a movie adaptation of either working. Seeing Fawful have chortles on the silver screen would be hilarious!

@YamAsereht And you're still supplying them with those sweet, sweet clicks.

If i was going to tell a story using the mario characters i would look to any of the Mario RPG games.
7 Stars and Paper Mario are perfect examples.

@Arehexes I thought about Mario+Rabbids after I posted the reply. I think I need to put "/sarcasm" after most of my posts. Heck... even if they wanted to make it goofy like Mario+Rabbids I'd be fine with it. It can be good almost no matter which direction they take it. It just needs to be done well... also, I would like to see Yoshi for sure!

Let me point out. There have been elements of Mario's character fleshed out or alluded to over the 30 years where they can easily draw from and easily create a fully fleshed out Mario.

@Nintendoforlife AdBlock is my friend. <3

Forget staying hidden, we're gonna run wild!

I could see it honestly being good or bad. I don't have my hopes up, but hey maybe it will be more faithful to the source material than the first super mario bros movie.

My skepticism for this project doesn't revolve around Illunimation's role.

I'm afraid Nintendo will be micro-managing Mario & Co.'s appearance and behavior to a degree where the film won't be allowed to be its own take on the universe at all.

Since when did everyone hate Despicable Me? The first one was pretty good, and the second one was... okay... Haven't seen the third.

Also what's wrong with Secret Life of Pets? I haven't sat down and watched the whole thing, but my niece loves it, and whenever I catch parts of it, it seems pretty funny.

@Spike6958 "If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my mushroom go now that'll be the end of it"

The concept could work, lol

It's far too early to discuss the quality of a movie that doesn't even exist yet.

@Cosats
With all due respect, I find this sentence poorly written.

I don't even care if the movie is all that great, I'm mostly interested in the visuals! Is this going to be the first time we see Mario in 4K??!

Just going to be blunt here... But it is rather pathetic to start complaining about an idea that has zero information about it released. Not to mention that most times it is hard to use a studios past work (in general) as a reference because there are usually a mix of both good and bad movies. But in this case Nintendo will most likely have to approve whatever is done beforehand. This was not the case in the first Mario movie, that the execs up the ladder butchered.

Sure, you can have concerns, but until such a time as when actual concrete information is released about it, it is all nothing but speculation and/or fear mongering. Just because ~YOU~ did not like Illumination's past projects, does not mean nobody else did either.

It may be difficult for some people, but try showing some patience and restraint. Actually try waiting for details to come out before claiming this is going to be good or bad.

And FYI, that guy needed an intro...I've never EVER heard of this I hate everything guy. And I have no plans to go back to his site. Why would anyone? This video, article and everything about it is bizarre.

@Ralizah the reason he choose IHE was because IHE is a great film critic and cinema expert and also because of his history with illumination.

For everyone saying it’s too early to complain or hate etc. Have you watched the video? They are speculating about the future while looking at the facts and history of both mario, nintendo and illumination.

I think this movie could be good. I don't expect it to be good honestly, but it definitely could be. You can make good movies with one dimensional characters too. You just have to be aware of what you are doing

@Spike6958 the complaint isn’t that it’s aimed at kids, the complaint is that it won’t have added value for adults.
Disney is mostly aimed at kids but adults find enjoyment out of it and it has tons of clever writing and humour that adults can apreciate more. The Only adult stuff in illumination films is badly written hidden sex jokes.

@Benjamin yeah that's the one thing I'm hoping for; that the comedy and story will be on par with the rpgs.

Never mind this, can I have a post-BotW Netflix Zelda anime? Please and thank you.

Meh, pointless negative article essentially

Unnecessary and negative-based-on-nothing pieces like this make me consider unsubscribing. I really don't see what's the point.

Actually.....
I have no interest at all with Minions.
But....
One of their OST has been included on Dance Dance Revolution Ace surprisingly.

Better they work so seriously to bring decent Mario movies.
Shigeru Miyamoto will not happy if they ruin a whole Mario and Nintendo brand image.

@-DG The major problem with The Secret Life of Pets is that it had an interesting premise that is wasted to make the movie basically Toy Story but not as fun

It's a modern Hollywood film by Illumination Productions.

Of course the film is going to be absolute garbage.

mama ****a

I will say this. Anyone who suggests NL is too rosy with Nintendo optimism can be pointed to this article and video.

seriously? the movie is not even in production yet and you are whining already? Yes minions was dumb but others like Sing was pretty good. Let's wait for the movie to be shown and then we can see what uis about. There's no point to cry already.

Illumination isn't a bad studio, they just aren't among the greatest like Pixar and Disney. I think the movie will be fine, just nothing remarkable. Still really early to speculate cause Illumination did have some hits like the first Despicable Me.

Soapbox: Something we know of in concept only, which is many months and possibly years away from being finished, with scant few other details available, may not turn out to be very good.

Really solid internetting today, NL.

My 4 kids love the Illumination movies. ALL OF THEM. Heck, my wife even loves Sing. She's watched it multiple times in spite of generally disliking kids movies.
I think adult gamers have to be careful to remember the intended audience of movies (and Mario, for that matter).

You know what I haven't heard anybody mention here? Who's going to voice Mario? Charles Martinet from the games? Will they go for a big Hollywood star? What about Danny DeVito? He didn't get Detective Pikachu, maybe he'll get this gig instead.

I have the very first movie and i like it. Yes it's not the real deal, but still good in it's own way. I would say second version please

Hey look at Wall-e, a movie with barely any dialogue, maybe they can go that route and make a real feast for the eyes

@AlexOlney so when can we expect Alex&Alex podcasts on the channel?

I look forward to this movie. Miyamoto as producer gives me hope and the minion movies while pointless are certainly funny, entertaining, and especially the first movie: heartwarming.
This movie doesn't need to be a critically acclaimed masterpiece, if its at least okay or better it'll sell for parents and investors for sequels.
On a side note: my wife and I still enjoy the Super Mario Bros live action movie. As a kid I just enjoyed the whole idea and looked forward to a sequel. Now I spend the entire movie laughing at how bad and wrong it is, but it's still entertaining.

Illumination is trash. And Mario isn't a film character.

@sketchturner Just because the target audience is children doesn't excuse a bad movie.

A good movie should be timeless, not something that instantly becomes unbearable once you reach an age where you've developed taste.

I just want a Nintendo Cinematic Universe. Metroid would be like Iron Man, Donkey Kong could be like Hulk, Mario like Thor and Link like Captain America. Then put them all together and make a Playstation All-Stars Movie.

@Tao Exactly. I can think of The Land before Time. That's a good children movie. Now if we talk about the sequels...

@Aurumonado Not yet.

@Metalinkster Only the first part of the movie is like that. A whole movie without dialog would be hard to pull out on this days. Not impossible, but hard indeed.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Probably Ryan Reynolds.

When I read the title of this article I thought I was at The Onion.

@nab1 Clics.

@Aurumonado
Hi...
Say hello to Mario anime during 90's era.

Man, people kill me. They act like this Mario movie needs Oscar nominations to qualify as not blowing it. It’s a family/kids animated movie. As a father of four, I have seen nearly every animated movie over the last 7 years and Despicable Me 3 has been running on a constant loop in my house the last month. Illuminations movies are not bad. They are fun movies that kids will enjoy and that parents will get some laughs from. Based on their previous record, I’m not concerned. I think the movie will be enjoyable. Looking forward to seeing it in the theaters with my boys.

"Mario's just too straight-laced and one dimensional as a character. "

So God forbid he ever gets spotlight stories and screentime in satellite media - the very things Fiction often uses for character building, especially if the flagship works stick to a narratively concise format. Then again, Mario has had whole RPGs about him, and knowing fans' typical prowess in literary analysis that tends to hide behind "one dimensional character talk" (and then it turns out the the only one-dimensional thing was the assessment in question itself), I'm not holding my breath here either. As for Illumination, it also has movies like Sing whose otherwise simple and familiar premise worked out much due to the cast of characters it managed to juggle there. Only time will tell what they're planning for Super Mario universe.

Let Nintendo do what they do and skip the result if not keen on the very idea. Everyone here seems to have lived just fine without an SMB movie for over 25 years, right? Audience enthusiasm isn't what crafts and/or enhances separate worlds - the creators and producers' enthusiasm does.

@Ralek85 "Well ... Princess Mononoke was incredible, The Iron Giant was incredible, Toy Story was incredible, Ghost in the Shell was incredible."

It seems unbelievably unfair to compare Despicable Me to Princess Mononoke, lol. Apart from Toy Story, all those movies are an entirely different audience, and Toy Story is one of the greatest animated films ever made so using that as the general-bar feels unfairly extreme to me. I think there's a difference between "incredible" and "masterpiece" personally. Toy Story and the like are in classes of their own. If I compared any animated film to Spirited Away I'd leave the theater thinking 95% of films were trash.

@Supadav03 Well said.

That's ridiculous. Mario is too one dimensional? Are you kidding me? Compares to the stuff DreamWorks put out there?

What is this, Shakespeare in Love? Seriously you must be joking. This could be a fantastic film with a fun adventure that kids everywhere would love. No you don't want Mario to go through some emotional gut wrecking arc. You want to have a crazy fun adventure with Luigi, Yoshi...seas, deserts, jungles. This movie is long overdue and can be brilliant.

This movie will be made for kids, to sell toys. I doubt anyone would think it could be a critical success.

But they could give the green light to expand on Mario's character. It would be a bold move and could go very badly... Or it could be really cool to finally give him more of a personality beyond the pizza loving Italian (former) plumber.

@JKRiki You are the first person I’ve ever seen who doesn’t think Minions was total garbage. That was one of the worst animated movies I’ve ever seen. I watched it for free on Netflix and still felt like I was owed something for sitting through it.

@Malcrash I guess I'd actually have to watch the whole thing. All I know is that from the scenes I've seen, the tiny bunny character is hilarious.

But but but... IT'S SO FLUFFY!!! Imagine Mario's FLUFFY MUSTACHE!!!

Way too early to be hating on the movie when all we know is Illumiantion is involved. Yes there's an example of how they milked minions and so on but still, they have made good movies in the past. Also Nintendo is involved and, as others have noted, they cared so much about Bowser in Wreck-it-Ralph that it won't be completely up to them how everything happens. Miyamoto is working on it along with others so this is honestly stupid. Isn't this how we would react if we heard rabbids are going to be in a Mario game? I know most people would. And look how that turned out, a 9/10 highly praised game.

I'm just going to throw this out there and say I loved the 90s Mario movie. It was tons of fun considering the source material they had to work with going from a sprite to live action took some creative thinking. A game movie done right was Advent Children no ifs,ands or butts about it but it was done in house!

@thesilverbrick I didn’t think Minions was awful either. I actually own the movie and have seen it several times. It had its moments but I don’t regret spending $10 to add it to my library.

Remember when Mario + Rabbids was a joke and everyone said it was going to be garage? And it ended up surprising everyone how great it was? Even if it’s dumbed down, it’s a kids movie. You can’t expect it to be too much more than that. It’s not going to be Pixar level stuff. Lower your expectations and be surprised if it’s good.

What a narrow view on this Mario Movie.

@thesilverbrick The consensus I got from most people (I know and on the internet is) is that it was not great, but not bad either. The loudest criticism I remember hearing is that the first probably 20 or so minutes of the movie is were it shines. And I tend to agree. The origin story (probably up until they meet Scarlet) is hilarious and charming. The rest of the movie is hit or miss. I mean, compared to the Emoji Movie, its basically Citizen Kane

@Benjamin

...Or the definition could be the act of deliberately fabricating information to the public, or even spreading outright lies about a person you don't like solely for the sake of furthering a collective's already out of control political agenda.

But that's just my take.

I'm in the minority on The Secret Life of Pets. I didn't enjoy the art style in any way. But Minions was cute enough. If they stick with the visual style we are used to from the games, particularly the cut scenes and such, it should be alright, albeit silly.

I like everyone one of their movies, even Secret Life of Pets. This movie will be fantastic

@UmbreonsPapa Compared to the Emoji Movie, anything is Citizen Kane, to be fair, haha.

As in all the best movies... The villains have to be outstanding.... 😊

I liked Pets...only thing I don't like is seeing Minions all over the place. I can guarantee you the Minions will show up in the Mario movie in some way. >_>

@Devlind Didn't 'The Artist'. Win best movie?

They chose that studio because the Minion barely speaks, just like Mario. If the whole movie is Mario going 'Tis me Mario', 'It's Mario time', 'Its a go!', then the movie will flopped. Oh yes, not even Mario fans can stand a full length film with that crazy Italian accent.

If the movie also includes the Bros: Luigi, Waluigi and Wario, it will be a lot more interesting. His bros has more personality.

Or let Pixar make the movie, Nintendo should teamed up with Disney. Pixar will probably turned it into a sappy childhood reminisce of Mario on older console. To coincide with the movie they can relaunch the mini NES/SNES again.

I like others have said, its is WAY too early to make a judgment call about this. Nintendo has provided only the most broad information, i.e. "A movie is being made". We don't know if it will be live or animated (preferably the latter), we don't know who's in the cast (they better use Charles Martinet), and we don't know what the actual story will be. They could do almost anything; we just have to wait for more news.

Knowing Illumination's track record with the horrid Lorax movie and the LCD-status of Sing and SLoP, I'm not expecting anything more than a decent-at-best film. Maybe around the level of the Ratchet and Clank movie.

This site is reaching IGN levels in terms of journalistic quality... >_>

I'm thinking they have to invent their own personality into Mario. The one he has is just too dry.

Talk about counting chickens before they are hatched. I think I will just form my own opinion about the movie when it gets a trailer.

The Mario movie will be incredible!

My comment is baseless.

As is this article.

@thesilverbrick I dunno what to tell you. Maybe talk to more people!

Minions (Capital M) got a LOT of hate from the crowd who hates minions (lower case m). The film, if you don't love or hate minions, was just fine from a film-creation perspective. Was it great? No, most definitely not. It was literally "fine." As I said earlier in the comments, you want a trash animated film go watch Legends of Oz. Or Planes, or Shrek the 3rd, or Food Fight, or heck even Cars 2.

I honestly can’t believe people would accuse MARIO of being one dimensional. He plays multiple sports. He refs boxing matches, cures patients, teaches people to type, drives a heck of a go-kart...

One dimensional? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

All joking aside, this is a have to of a movie. Nintendo needs to get Mario out there, and if it gets me one step closer to a Zelda or Metroid series, I’ll support it.

I really don't get this notion that Illumination is a particularly bad animation-company. Quite a few people here seem to think that several of their movies are somehow objectively bad. Having a quick look at the IMDB-scores tells a different story.

As others have stated, they make family movies, that is movies geared towards children, but with a few laughs for their parents.

I would actually worry more that it's Nintendo's need to protect their assets that will ruin the moview. Given enough creative freedom Illumination will not make "The Godfather", or even "Inside Out". But, they are likely to create 90 minutes of harmless family fun which is really the most sensible goal for a Mario-movie in my book.

I liked Despicable Me, the first one. I went to see Sing last year though, expecting at least a good time and JEEZ! It was one of the worst movies I've seen. Absolutely the epitome of the film expecting you to care but being incredibly lazy at actually making you care. Not to mention the tired concept, unoriginal jokes (the pig was basically the three little pigs from Shrek) and boring story. It actually felt like it dragged on forever and my friend and I both wanted to leave halfway through. We didn't, but I kind of wish I had.

@sinalefa This was my thought as well. The work by Illumination is pretty identical to Mario+Rabbids.

Yeah Mario + Rabbids is a disaster just waiting to happen. They couldn't possibly make anything worth...oh.

I'd rather wait before being presumptuous, cynicisym isn't insight. Nintendo had been careful with how Mario is used across media and Miyamoto is co-producing, they turned down that imagi studio LoZ movie pitch so I feel they're not in a rush to have their IP to appear in any old junk, Illumination are capable of making good animated movies.

Oh no not Illumination, the studio that did Secret Life of Pets and the Minions movie!

Ah well, at least it's not Pixar I guess, the studio that did The Good Dinosaur and Cars 2!

Let's just wait for at least a teaser trailer before we judge and soapbox maybe?

Good or bad you all know your going to see it anyway.

They should make Harold an Kumar mushroom madness that would be a fun movie

Of course it could work. Look at personalityless Mickey Mouse. He seems to have done well for himself.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I can see it working to some extent. Give Luigi a lot of dialogue and characters make light of the fact that Mario doesn't talk much. Give Mario some funny reactions and sight gags. Give a story as solid as TTYD or M&L: SS and you just may have a hit.

I refuse to judge until a trailer comes out. Judging so early in is just dumb.

Guys there are three animation studios
PIXAR
DREAMWORKS
ILLUMINATION
Pixar's owner is Disney. I doubt they would team up with Nintendo to do a movie for them! They are busy with their own masterpieces.
The other studios left are ILLUMINATION and DREAMWORKS. There are not many options out there.

It can't be any worse then the original Mario Bros. movie. But it won't be better either.

@JKRiki

Secret Life of Pets wasn't terrible as much as it was mediocre and predictable. In fact this studio's movies are just mediocre and predictable period, and on the rare occasion mildly entertaining.

But......But why? I mean the last one turned out so good!

@wiggleronacid

Well Mario IS aimed at children. Imagine that. -_-

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Have you seen the "Letters to Mario" Youtube show that Nintendo did to promote Odyssey? Mario talked there very freely indeed. Check it out.

https://youtu.be/FrM0gXWxfQo

@Tempestryke Eh, most movies are predictable these days. Hard to find ones that really break out of any standard-boxes, really. It can't all be Momento.

Illumination is about 100x less mediocre than Dreamworks or Sony or Blue Sky or many others. It is also not Pixar or Studio Ghibli, and expecting them (or anyone) to be Pixar or Studio Ghibli is not wise.

@jcgonzmo I think if the conditions were right, Nintendo would have absolutely teamed up with Disney. They both share the same philosophy in terms of releasing high quality, polished material to their respective audiences. They collaborated on including Bowser in Wreck It Ralph. The rumor is that Mario is supposed to cameo in the sequel. I just think this is a matter of logistics. Universal, which partly owns Illumination, will feature Nintendo's theme park at its studios. So it seems to make sense they would further extend that partnership.

With that being said, I would love to see Pixar/Disney tackle a Nintendo IP at some point. I don't know about Zelda. Someone mentioned Dreamworks and the team that did How to Train Your Dragon. I think that makes sense. Maybe Pixar/Disney could take on a Star Fox movie? They do really well with anthropomorphic animal characters

@JKRiki Well, as long as words still mean something - and I admit that much is certainly up for debate - I'd say 'incredible' does amount to about as strong as an endorsement as one can give.

I agree, that the comparison is unfair, seeing as - to quite Brad Bird - "animation is not a genre". Still, it is commonly, and really almost exclusively refered to as a genre, hence I feel quite alright to compare any animated movie someone thinks is 'incredible' to any other animated movie, I consider incredible.

But yeah, let's do it your way and let's filter by audience first. Which of the movies to do feel were not target at or suitable for kids? I think we both agree that Despicable Me was primarly target at kids (and their parents). We could argue about the works of Studio Ghibli all day, but seeing as my regional ratings board gave Princess Mononoke an age 12 and up, I'm willing to concede, that this might have been unfair - same obviously goes for GitS.

The Iron Giant though, is rather age 6 and up around here, and most of the Disney and Pixar stuff is rated similar or even age 0 and up.

I can definitely think about a few Diseny and quite a few Pixar movies, I liked better than Despicable Me, not to mention ones, that were more of a critical darling.

Just saying ... ^^

Not sure any kind of objective discussion about a positive outlook on ANYTHING can be accomplished by consulting with someone called, "I Hate Everything". Not even worth my time watching it to see if first impressions are wrong. I tend to steer clear of negativity.

I also can't for the life of me understand the saltiness towards Illumination. If you have a problem with the DM franchise and their other works, then maybe you just don't like this kind of animated film. I can't see how those films and their characters are any worse than other franchises from other studios making similar style films like Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, etc...

Leave the salt for the table boys. Click-bate that I'm not happy to see in my beloved nintendolife.com

@NickFalk I agree with you 100%. If there is a danger, it will come from Nintendo stifling the creative process with a stranglehold on how Mario is handled. Combine quirky Japanese humor with the iron grip they have on their IP and you may have a significant conflict in style with a Western studio looking to make a Western-style animated film. I don't have any problem at all with Illumination at the helm.

The problem with the 1993 film was that Nintendo had little to no creative control over the film's production. That, and the fact that it was live-action instead of animated.

While I love the 1993 movie, even I have to admit that for a Mario movie to work, it has to be animated. The series is too cartoony to work in live-action.

But given that Nintendo is most likely going to have creative control over this movie, I'd say let's wait and see what happens. It may possibly be the first video game movie to get over 50% on Rotten Tomatoes (the highest right now is at 44%).

Mario is a hard nut to crack. Pixar would not have been a good fit to Mario, unless they go the way of engrossing Mario and Luigi;s relation in some way. Dramworks could have worked with the adventure part. I think that a Wreck Ralph vibe to it could do it: lots of adventures, with a surprise villain (Donkey Kong posing as a friend and then stabbing Mario in the back), leaving Bowser for the comedic effect, with Luigi as the dependable, but many times in trouble brother, and Peach just as the Queen, but with no deep relation with Mario or the others.

@Devlind yeah but we're talking about Miyamoto, the man who single handly revived the video game industry twice by convincing us an Italian plumber that eats mushrooms and fights turtles would be fun to control.

I feel it's important to mention that the NoA Twitter post said that it's "a movie starring Mario".

Meaning that Mario is in it for sure, but he may not be the main focus.

Anyone up for Super Smash Bros.: The Movie?

@Metalinkster To be fair, he has a record of mistakes for being too stubborn, so we can't really be sure until we see more.

@MH4 Mario+Rabbids

@cfgk24 That's why I said it's possible, although it's hard. If that kind of movies were common nowadays I would never said that.

@Devlind I also thought of that!

I thought: How cool would a Nintendo Cinematic Universe (NCU, if you will) be? Different franchises get their own movies, and they all tie together somehow. And I imagined a M+R spin-off and Smash Bros being the equivalent to the MCU's upcoming Infinity War: where it all comes together.

Alas, this is a childish fantasy.

But it's a cool one. 😁

Pretty confident almost all of the Mario RPGs have had highly entertaining writing. Thousand year door, Bowser's inside story had amazing moments outside gameplay.

There's no reason why focusing on Bowser's misadventures couldn't make for an amazing movie.

This is bound to create different opinions, especially if you consider fans of the old tv shows. To people who only know Mario from the games, though, there’s some potential problems. We know Mario isn’t totally mute, since there’s been a longtime voice actor hoo-hooing and such, but a fully verbal Mario? That kind of requires they give him more personality traits, which runs a risk of disappointing anyone that pictured things differently.

There’s some good reasons to keep Mario as non verbal as he is in the games - for the player, it makes it easier to “be” Mario as you control him. There’s plenty of game characters with fleshed out personalities, but it just feels right that Mario isn’t one of them. It hasn’t really done wonders for Sonic ever since they chose to have him jabber like a radical teenager either.

Also, Mario’s world works best if all of it’s bizarre business exists to provide gameplay mechanics without further explanation. A movie would have to either over-explain them or be set in a different kind of setting. Not to say it’s guaranteed to be bad, but it’s never been necessary to cash in on the franchise with tv shows and movies.

@impurekind "It has to have that kind of playfulness and slight cheekiness to it, and none of the saccharine girlishness that's pervaded the recent games in many ways, even just visually with little colourful flowers and dancing enemies and all that junk."

I'm not a girl but 'saccharine girlishness'? That's a provocative statement and I'd love to see you say that word to the faces of Ubisoft's developers.

Really? Soap boxing and we don't even have a trailer? this entire article was written with below par level intelligence when taking to account the information we DON'T HAVE related to this.

The person who wrote this should rethink how to write articles. Or just think about a different career path.

@jsty3105 It may be "proactive" but it's demonstrably true. Older Mario games were mostly asexual and ageless by design but most of the newer ones are noticeably leaning towards adding elements that specifically appeal to females and kids more and more as far as I'm concerned. And the little things like the overabundance of colourful flowers and twee dancing enemies is just two of the very real and visible examples I've pointed out in order to highlight this. Compare the first level of Super Mario Bros 3. to the first level of New Super Mario Bros. U for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i9omPUt9iQ (nothing overtly girly or childish about it and I think it's pretty universally appealing to all sexes and ages)

https://youtu.be/1uetntyZ5fA?t=104 (starting to feel like they are intentionally making it more girly and childish by design and I think it's actually becoming less appealing to boys and men visually as a result)

I don't see that as an improvement, going from a more asexual and ageless universal appeal to a more obvious sway towards appealing to girls and children.

And this has nothing to do with how Ubisoft approaches the art/design in its games either; it's about how I see Mario games in terms of what they were like aesthetically in the past vs what they are like aesthetically now and the visual changes that I don't think are either necessary or for the better.

So, I'm just worried they're going to do similarly with the movie, and that wouldn't be great for me personally. But I guess it will get all the very young children, girls, women, moms and white nights cheering aloud.

PS. And even the music in each of those first levels goes to what I'm saying too.

@JKRiki

I don't expect them to be. Still, if your studio is met with apathy or eye rolls and your movies are expected to be mediocre...then yeah.

I just joined this site for like 2months + and man, the amount of badly written articles here can be astonishing. How many articles can they make until they realise that they shouldn't say UNTIL they get SOME type of information? This is also the same for the Dark Souls game with no actual gameplay trailer. My guess in them not doing anymore pointless articles is never cause' they love their click baits and views.

While it would be possible to make an interesting Mario movie, I think Nintendo is probably too precious about keeping him blandly likable since he's their corporate mascot for that to happen.

Sort of the same reason Mickey Mouse stopped being used in Disney stuff (aside from edu-tainment shows for very young children): they've sanded all the rough edges off of the character's personality to the extend that there's not really any possibility for a character arc for a feature film.

Dang. Guess it could actually be somewhat good, as seen by the awful idea of a Rabbids crossover being actually really good?

Nintendos also pretty protective of their IPs, so it probably won't be that horrible.

As soon as I heard him say "even people who made the Emoji Movie would have been better", immediately I couldn't take anything else he had to say seriously.

Oh boo who alex I think it was perfect..

If you’re saying a Mario movie won’t be popular then you’re just flatout WRONG. It will be at the very least as popular as the first Sonic movie. Mario isn’t a onedimensional character either so screw off