0. Background story
Yesterday, I saw the movie Super Mario Bros. I immediately wanted to go and watch the animation after I saw the teaser advertisement. Still, there was an inner conflict because I didn't want to ruin my special memories with Mario. Most of us spent many days struggling with Koopas and a Bowser. Hell yeah, we bet for time attacks and coins with friends. I don't want to disturb these cute and special moments for me. However, I checked many people reviewed the film is pretty well-made, which gave me the courage to reserve a ticket.
1. About the Mario game series
The Mario game series is assessed as one of the monumental video-game in the game industry. To talk about its birth and development, we should briefly cover the history of Nintendo. Although Nintendo is now a well-known game company, its origin was a Japanese playing card manufacturer. (Hwatoo) Interestingly, the company layered lime powder inside the card to enhance the card's hitting feeling(?). Surprisingly, they already knew what matters to gamers regardless of analogue or digital settings. In 1953, the company made the first plastic trump cards. The cards make a hit globally. Nintendo started new businesses actively, but all of them were screwed. Due to the miserable failure, they realized their survival strategy: "Do what we are good at."
Nintendo began its business making cards, so it decided to expand its business in manufacturing toys. Their toys were quite popular, especially the “Ultra” series. However, the toy business was highly competitive business back then. Therefore, they tuned their concentration to electronic toys, a fairly cutting-edge industry back then. The newly established Department of Development and Information then launched a portable game console called “Game & Watch” in collaboration with Sharp. The game device was very successful, but the history starts with the joining of Shigeru Miyamoto. The period when he joined the company was when Nintendo started to expand their business to America based on their success in Game & Watch. Although it was successful in Japan, the game trend already had changed when they arrived with the console and the game Radar Scope in America. To deal with these poor sales, they came up with a new idea only to change the software (Radar Scope), leaving hardware (Game & Watch).
Nintendo threw an in-company game contest to select candidates for the new game. And in this contest, Shigeru Miyamoto’s Popeye(뽀빠이) was selected. However, Popeye was eventually changed into Donkey Kong due to the copyright issue. As Miyamoto had a background rather than pure development, he dissolved his interest in comic books and their narrative, leading to the success of Donkey Kong, which was differentiated from other games back then. The story of the game Donkey Kong is straightforward; It’s about a jump man who struggles to save a lady by avoiding attacks of Donkey Kong.
Wow, we’ve come so far. The reason for mentioning Donkey Kong is that the Jump Man later became our Mario. Donkey Kong became extremely popular in North America. The success of the game was left to finish up the stock. Based on the achievement, Nintendo started to develop following-up games directed by Shigeru Miyamoto. In this period, the development of legendary games such as Super Mario Brothers and Legends of Zelda was undertaken.
In 1983 Nintendo released the first Mario series, "Mario Brothers". The Jump man finally got his name and job from this game: Mario, the plumber. Because of his job, the game environment and story became very unique. The whole game is about getting rid of strange things that came out from sewer earth pipes. (the green tube you are familiar with) In this version, the only thing Mario could perform was to jump, flip over monsters, and kick them out.
Finally, in 1985, the "Super Mario Brothers" came into the scene. The game's main character was not Mario; it was Super Mario. From here, Mario could jump, step on, and kill monsters. Also, the iconic "?" item box appeared. Whenever Mario eats a mushroom by hitting the item box, he becomes Super Mario. Also, the game's background was sensational, filled with colourful graphics of blue sky, clouds, brown bricks and green earth pipes. Considering most of the games back then had a black background, surely it caught gamers' eyes. The collaboration with game music was also astonishing. The music director of Super Mario Brothers was Koji Kondo. He composed the well-known Super Mario overworld theme. Even people who never played Super Mario will be familiar with the song. The game was sensational all over the world in a word.
2. Super Mario Brothers movie
Based on the Mario series's huge success, Nintendo released several related series that put up Mario as a main character. Super Mario Cart, Super Mario and Yoshi Island, and Super Mario Party are notable. The movie gave the impression that it culminates every Super Mario and related series from the oldest version to the latest one. There are so many points I fell in love with this film, but to put it short, I could summarize into three factors.
https://youtu.be/yKxaYsn_F78?t=14
- Endless application of Super Mario world items
At first, I expected the movie would be a typical adventure film which is unique because Mario is the main character. However, from Mario's fighting scene with Donkey Kong, I realized that the movie perfectly represented the whole Super Mario world. It ingeniously utilized tons of Super Mario "?" box items, such as Tanooki-suited Mario, Cat-suited Mario, Fire Flowers, Star man, etc. It was a great joy to watch every element of Super Mario Worlds that are applied in high-quality graphics.
https://youtu.be/F5FRVTdkoS4?t=76
- Able to experience diverse Super Mario and related series
The most joyful part of the movie was the cart racing scene with Mario, Princess Peach, and Donkey Kong troops against Bowser and his army. The scene was quite surprising because I never expected to see Super Mario Kart series applications. Strictly, Super Mario Brothers and Super Mario Kart is a different game. However, the cart driving scene was so cool and dramatic. The colourful graphic, special effects, and fancy cars were definitely attractions. Besides Super Mario Karts, audiences could feel the vibe of Super Mario 3D and Party. It's a great opportunity to experience all of the series at once.
https://youtu.be/aW7bzd8uwyQ?t=17
- Wonderful music arrangement of game bgm to a movie soundtrack
Right after watching the movie, I added the Super Mario Brothers' original soundtrack album to my playlist. The original game bgm is very cute and catchy. However, the soundtrack brought the background music into another level, more magnificently and overwhelmingly. Moreover, special songs such as Peaches, Love Serenade, sung and composed by actor Jack Black were added. There was no heterogeneity compared to the original game themes.
3. Conclusion
I sincerely agree with Miyamoto Shigeru's comment about the movie. He said the accomplishment of converting a well-loved game into a well-made film was possible due to the development of graphic technology, but more than that, owing to kids who sincerely loved Super Mario Brothers in their childhood grew in a while able to produce the movie version of it in every collaborative industry. Once again, working for something I have loved for a long time is a powerful motivation to produce outstanding work and results.
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