Super Mario Bros. (film)
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Super Mario Bros. is a movie loosely based on the Super Mario Bros. series of video games. While the film draws inspiration from the series, it follows a completely different continuity based in an entirely different world from its inspiration. Similarly, the characters are based on their archetypal roles from the games rather than their specific natures and actions.
The film cost an estimated $42 million to create due to its high profile cast and special effects, yet its gross revenue was only $20,915,465.
Plot Synopsis
The Dimensional Split
65 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the Earth, unaffected by the small mammals that shared the planet with them. Life was good for the dinosaurs until a gigantic meteor struck the planet in modern-day Brooklyn. The impact was believed to have completely destroyed the dinosaurs. Conditions were perfect for the mammals to grow and develop into intelligent humans. However, some dinosaurs were not killed, but were banished to a parallel dimension created from the impact connected to the first through the meteor present in both. On the dinosaur side, a shard chipped off of the rock. Due to the nature of the meteor, if it was reunited with the shard, the two dimensions would be reunited into one. The shard could also open a gateway between the dimensions. The alternate dimension included another planet Earth. However, unlike the mammalian Earth, the reptilian Earth was a barren desert with few resources.
As 65 million years past, the mammals and the dinosaurs underwent convergent evolution in their separate worlds, becoming two different types of humans, mammalian and reptilian. Both were vicious, but only the reptiles knew of the mammals. The mammalian world developed into its current state, naïve of the other world.
King Koopa's Coup
However, the reptiles were forced to live in a barren world. They crowded together in Dinohatten, the only city on the planet, and competed for resources. However, under the rule of the king, the city was relatively prosperous. Although the king possessed the meteor shard, and thus had the means to reunite the dimensions, he refrained from doing so. As time passed, his queen gave birth to their first egg. The times were generally good, yet a man named Koopa desired for the resources of the mammals.
King Koopa developed a machine capable of de-evolution. De-evolution is a process by which one can reverse the process of evolution, reverting the victim to his or her pre-evolved state. He realized that if he was able to reunite the two Earths, he could lead an attack on the mammals, de-evolving them into harmless monkeys.
King Koopa then staged a coup of the government. He was opposed, both publically and secretly. Even his own two cousins, Iggy and Spike, sided with the king. However, Koopa eventually overpowered the opposition and captured the king. He forced him into his de-evolution machine and de-evolved him into a fungus. To prevent his escape, Koopa imprisoned him in Devo 4. Koopa then pursued the queen, who had taken the meteor shard. The queen escaped into the mammals' dimension using the meteor shard and took her child, still in its egg, under her arms in a protective case. Emerging in Brooklyn, the queen ran down Fulton Street and found St. Theresa's, a Catholic church. She left her egg on the doorstep, placing the meteor shard in the case. After stroking the egg gingerly, the queen ran back to her own dimension.
Several nuns from the church found the egg and took it in, where it soon hatched to reveal a female baby named Daisy.
Reentering her own dimension, the queen was ambushed by King Koopa in the underground tunnels that lead to and from the meteor site. When he discovered that the queen no longer had the shard, he destroyed a key foundation and escaped as the queen was crushed.
Dinohatten's Decline and Daisy's Life
As King Koopa began his rule over Dinohatten over the next twenty years, conditions began to worsen. Under his rule, the limited prosperity previously experienced began to fade away. Additionally, King Bowser began to grow, escaping from Koopa’s tower and into the city, where he began to torment King Koopa and his regime.
Meanwhile, on Earth the nuns raised and supported Daisy until she was old enough to leave the church to attend New York University, where her major was archeology.
The Mario Bros.
When he was younger, the Brooklynite Mario Mario took in an abandoned boy, adopting him as his brother. Mario served as Luigi Mario's mother, father, and friend as he grew up. Unlike his brother, who was good-natured yet calm and reasonable, Luigi learned to focus on his gut instincts and thus developed a more erratic personality. Mario and Luigi ran a plumbing business together, the Mario Bros. Plumbing Services, but were forced to live life paycheck to paycheck because of Scapelli Construction, a powerful business run by Anthony Scapelli. The company ran a plumbing division which took away much of the Mario brothers' business.
Overall Plot
The story concerns Mario andLuigi Mario, two Italian American brothers living in Brooklyn, New York who are being driven out of business by the Scapelli Construction Company. Luigi falls in love with an orphaned college student, Daisy, who is digging for dinosaur bones under the Brooklyn Bridge. After a date, Daisy brings Luigi to the dig site, where she sees some of Scapelli’s men sabotage it by opening the water-pipes. Mario and Luigi manage to stop the flooding but are knocked out by two strange characters, Iggy and Spike .Mario and Luigi go deeper into the cavern, following Daisy’s screaming and eventually discover an interdimensional portal, which Mario and Luigi follow Daisy. They then find themselves in a dystopian world where a human-like race evolved from Tyrannosauridae. It is said that they are descended from a T. Rex population that escaped through the interdimensional gate. Iggy and Spike turn out to be lackeys (and, surprisingly, cousins) of the world’s evil dictator, King Koopa (who does not look anything like the one in the game). However, Mario and Luigi failed to bring Daisy’s “rock,” a meteorite fragment that King Koopa needs in order to merge his world with the real world that was separated from King Koopa’s during the Big Bang. It turns out, though, that Daisy is the princess of the other dimension, but when King Koopa overthrew it and turned her father into fungus, Daisy’s mother took her to New York via the interdimensional portal. The portal was then destroyed, but when Scapelli was blasting at the cave, it was reopened. When King Koopa hears about the re-opening of the portal, he sends Spike and Iggu to find Daisy and the rock in order to merge the dimensions and make King Koopa dictator of both. Koops thinks only Daisy can merge the worlds, although as for Mario and Luigi, the plumbers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky for Daisy, the plumbers were persistent in finding her. During the finale, the worlds merge, but Luigi takes back the rock and the worlds separate. Mario fight King Koopa, and eventually wins, and he and Luigi de-evole King Koopa, making him a During the big finale, the worlds merge but Luigi takes back the rock and the worlds separate. Mario fights Koopa and eventually wins when he and Luigi de-evolve him, making him a Tyrannosaurus, and then finally primeval slime. The brothers save the two worlds from the cruel dictator, and Daisy’s father reclaims control over the kingdom.
Cast
- Bob Hoskins — Mario
- John Leguizamo — Luigi
- Dennis Hopper — King Koopa
- Samantha Mathis — Princess Daisy
- Fisher Stevens — Iggy
- Richard Edson — Spike
- Fiona Shaw — Lena
- Dana Kaminksi — Daniella
- Mojo Nixon — Toad
- Francesca Roberts — Big Bertha
- Gianni Russo — Anthony Scapelli
- Lance Henriksen — King Toadstool
The special effects were coordinated by Paul J. Lombardi, who Shigeru Miyamoto later named Falco Lombardi after in thanks. (watch movie via: "http://www.watch-movies.net/movies/super_mario_bros/")
Critical Reception
The movie is generally considered poor. In a Nintendo Power article about New Super Mario Bros., a timeline of Mario's history could be seen at the bottom of the page. The Super Mario Bros. movie was mentioned, only with the words, "Yes, it happened. Let us speak no more of it."[1] Other critics have complained that the movie doesn't accurately represent the Mario series and throws the whole continuity off, leaving a "horrible mess."[2] The actor of Mario, Bob Hoskins, called the film the worst thing he ever did,[3] while Luigi's portrayer, John Leguizamo, states that he practically could not bear working on the film.[4]
Shigeru Miyamoto actually liked the movie, mentioning that his only real dislike of it was that he found it to be too true to the games, in stark contrast to most other comments.[5]
