What happens when directors, producers and writers don't talk to each other...
... and the one thing Super Mario Bros. (1993) canonised for Nintendo's character of Mario going forward...
“Trust the fungus!”
It’s-a-me! Em!
All art is subjective. Movie review podcasts do a fantastic job of critiquing films, highlighting their positives and negatives, and are often responsible for you parting with your hard-earned money for that cinema ticket (or streaming rental!), or not.
Luckily for you, and me, and Super Mario Bros. (1993) (oh hey, that rhymed!), I am not a review podcast. Whether a movie is good, bad or indifferent makes no odds, when something like this exists in the world, with a fascinating behind-the-scenes story. This movie, and many others like it, are exactly why this podcast exists.
Super Mario Bros. is a miracle! No adaptation exists quite like it, nor will it ever. Its production was a poop show, though.
The producers didn’t want to work with the directors, the directors were getting the blame for everything, and were forbidden from talking to the seventh writer. Writing teams were being told one thing by producers and another by the directors - no-one was talking to each other. Threats were being thrown around, the set was chaos, no-one knew what was going on, no-one knew what they were going to be filming.
The actors had signed up for an earlier version of the script; a few of them drank heavily during filming to get through. Others just spouted tirades of verbal abuse at the scapegoated directors.
But this movie also gave us the last of the cable puppets before CG took the industry by storm - the wonderful Yoshi.
“Hand out the devolution guns! Prepare for destiny!... Where's my pizza?”
There’s a scene in the movie where Mario and Luigi are arrested and processed by the Dinohattan police department. I’ve never been arrested, but I’ve seen police dramas, and I know you generally get asked for your full name.
But Mario and Luigi never had a full name in the video games? And it’s not like you can just say “oh, it’s Mario Smith and Luigi Smith!” and get away with it. Smith ain’t Italian!
Mario and Luigi Smith, if they were real, would be referred to as the Smith Brothers. So, the filmmakers, in their infinite wisdom, realised these were the Mario Brothers. It made sense to call them Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.
During Japan’s 30th anniversary Super Mario Bros. event in 2015, Shigeru Miyamoto apparently stated that Mario’s full name is “Mario Mario” and Luigi is “Luigi Mario”. Mario Mario might therefore now be canon.
And it’s all thanks to this incredible movie! Trust the fungus!
And finally…
“Now that's what *I* call a close encounter.”
Em x
"Great variety of film genres covered. Your episodes are always entertaining and I’m amazed at the level of detail you go into. I’d love it if you covered more horror movies though!”
Rob
