"A long long time ago, the Earth was ruled by dinosaurs. They were big, so not a lot of people went around hassling 'em.
Actually, no people went around hassling 'em cuz there weren't any people yet. Just the first tiny mammals. Basically, life was good.
Then something happened: a giant meteorite struck the Earth. Goodbye dinosaurs!
But what if the dinosaurs weren't all destroyed? What if the impact of that meteor created a parallel dimension where the dinosaurs continued to thrive and evolve into intelligent, vicious, and aggressive beings... just like us?
And hey, what if they found a way back?”
- Opening Narration
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| Trust the fungus. |
The Facts
Release Date: May 28, 1993
Director: Rocky Morton & Annabel Jankel
Writer: Parker Bennett, Terry Runté, & Ed Solomon
Starring: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis, Fisher Stevens, Fiona Shaw, Richard Edson
What's the Deal
Struggling plumber siblings Mario and Luigi meet a young paleontology student named Daisy who is captured by President Koopa, the dictator of an alternate dimension ruled by humanoids that evolved from dinosaurs.
The Mario Bros. cross the dimensional barrier into this dinosaur universe to rescue Daisy, and prevent Koopa from acquiring the final piece of the meteorite that will allow him to merge the dimensions and take over our world.
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| "Loyal...lethal...and stupid." |
Background/Development
This movie's development is such a wild ride that I could do a whole series of articles on it alone.
Roland Joffé approached Nintendo with a Super Mario film pitch in 1991. Nintendo of America's Minoru Arakawa approved the pitch, with very little creative control (with Joffé speculating that Nintendo was mostly curious in seeing what kind of impact a big-budget Hollywood movie would have on the Super Mario brand)
Harold Ramis (apparently a fan of the games) was approached to direct, but declined.
Dustin Hoffman, Danny DeVito, and Tom Hanks were all approached for the role of Mario, while Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Keaton were considered for King Koopa.
In 1991, Jim Jennewein and Tom S. Parker turned in the first script, drawing from Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, with Mario and Luigi heading to a fantasy world similar to the one in the games, to rescue Princess Hildy, who'd been captured by King Koopa, who wishes to marry her in order to acquire the Crown of Invincibility.
Along the way, Mario hatches a Yoshi that he named “Mario Junior”, is pursued by an old hag who falls in love with him, Toad eats the mushrooms growing on his body, Luigi has to learn financial responsibility, there's a genuinely funny discussion about the “Forest of No Return”...it's overall a LOT closer the source material than the movie we eventually got. And while it's pretty unrefined and would've had some ironing out done in subsequent drafts, it's a pretty fun start.
Parker Bennett and Terry Runté turned the script into something darker and more science fictiony, with Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais' scripts going in more of a Mad Max direction (ever wanted to see Mario cocking a shotgun as punctuation in response to dozens of bloodthirsty death row inmates being released and sent after him and Luigi? Well...that happens in one of these drafts)
Ed Solomon and Ryan Rowe were brought on to further refine the script, shooting begins, Solomon leaves, Bennett & Runté return, and the script keeps being altered until shooting concludes, with actors not bothering to learn their lines until right before the cameras roll because the script might've been changed since they got it.
Morton and Jankel were frequently chewed out by the producers for the issues that popped up, and were barred from the set for the last three weeks of the film's shooting, with Roland Joffé taking over directing.
They were also locked out of the editing room, until getting the support of the Director's Guild of America.
Very few people involved with the movie have any good memories associated with it. Bob Hoskins declared it to be the lowest point of his career, director Rocky Morton claimed that his prevailing memory from the movie is the feeling of humiliation, Dennis Hopper said that he jokingly told his son he only did the movie to buy his son shoes, only for this son to quip “I don't need shoes that badly”.
Most of the non-leads seemed to enjoy working on it, conversely. Makeup Effects Lab founder Al Apone also had a great time on the movie, Richard Edson (Spike) and Mojo Nixon (Toad) both seemed to have had a good time as well.
John Leguizamo was kinda down on the movie originally, but he seems to have warmed up to it over time, especially liking working with Bob Hoskins. When Hoskins passed away in 2014, Leguizamo posted a screencap of the movie to his Instagram, captioned “Rest in perpetuity, my Mario brother”
The podcast Best Movies Never Made has a fascinating series about the film's development (hosted by the writers of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies!), going over the various script drafts.
The movie was a critical and financial flop, making back just over half its budget, and beginning the trend of most video game-to-film adaptations being perceived as poor quality. The movie is generally considered why Western-made adaptations of Nintendo games kinda stopped happening (aside from the French Donkey Kong Country cartoon in the late 90s) until 2019's Pokémon Detective Pikachu.
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| "I grab her, you bag her." "I bag her, you grab her." "That's what I said." "...exactly." |
My History With It
My earliest memory of this movie is seeing it advertised at a supermarket checkout. Might've been on a magazine. And I remember mentioning to my dad that I wanted to see it. I would've been three years old, so this must've been around the time I had started playing Super Mario World, or possibly watched the reruns of the DiC cartoons, because I distinctly remember being excited about these games being adapted into film.
I didn't get to, though. However, I do remember getting the movie on VHS a year or two later, and I recall sitting in my family's living room, watching the prison escape, and asking my mom why nobody's fighting off the villains with Spin Jumps, or anything like that.
My mom responded that it's a live-action movie, and they can't do stuff like Spin Jumps.
I still enjoyed the movie a lot, and watched the tape frequently as a kid, especially once we rediscovered our SNES and I got back into Super Mario. I also wondered a lot what a sequel would be like, and how it could be more accurate to the games.
When I was about ten, I wrote a script for a sequel/remake based more on the games that I called Super Mario Bros. 2000. I'd cast myself as Mario, of course, but we never got around to making the movie.
Watched it a few times as a teenager, even showing it to my sci-fi/fantasy-loving dad who seemed to find it an entertaining little film.
Little over a decade ago, my youngest brother (who would've been fifteen years old at the time) developed a sudden appreciation for the movie, buying the DVD (which I think I own now) and often talking about how underrated it is.
Around this time, I showed the movie to my young cousin (would've been about three or four), and afterwards, I asked him what he thought of it. He said he liked it, then immediately threw up (for what I presume was an unrelated reason).
Gross, but kinda funny.
In 2013, I stopped by my old high school to attend the world premiere of an independent horror/action/comedy film made by someone who moonlighted as a substitute teacher there. At one point, two plumbers are called to a scene...they're brothers dressed like Hoskins and Leguizamo in this movie, and Mojo Nixon (Toad) has a voice-only cameo in that scene.
A few weeks ago, while helping my mom move, she handed me our old VHS of the movie, which I had assumed was lost to time.
Haven't watched it much since then, until this most recent viewing for the blog...which I did on April 4, mere hours before going to the midnight premiere of The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
General Thoughts
So, if it's not obvious, I like this movie.
If it is obvious, then, well...I like this movie either way.
The production design is really cool. Dinohattan, Koopa's Tower, the Boom-Boom Bar, and even the police station being especially interesting, visually, with a lot of stuff going on.
Then again, I am a child of the 90s, so maybe I just have nostalgia for this type of aesthetic.
The special effects are probably the only thing this movie has that's unanimously considered good. The Goombas and Yoshi in particular still look great.
The Yoshi animatronic was so impressive that Steven Spielberg considered letting Patrick Tatopoulos' team design the smaller dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, before ultimately giving it to Stan Winston Studios.
While Tatopoulos didn't get Jurassic Park, his work on Super Mario Bros. led to him having a very robust career in production design, working on things like Stargate, Spawn, Pitch Black, Van Helsing, 300, Batman v Superman...
Hoskins and Leguizamo are a lot of fun as the titular Bros., with Mario as the more level-headed, snarky, mature sibling, and Luigi as the younger, more impulsive and romantic one.
There's also a bit of a father/son dynamic between them, since Luigi tells Daisy that they lost their parents when he was very young, and that Mario had to raise him.
The movie spends a lot of time with the origin story established by the DiC cartoons, in that Mario and Luigi are Italian-Americans living in Brooklyn, New York, who end up in another world due to plumbing shenanigans.
Samantha Mathis watching John Leguizamo play the greatest video game ever made
With her being Koopa's kaptive, as well as a young blonde woman who wears a light-purple dress for most of the movie...it might seem a little odd that the princess is named “Daisy”, after a redhead who wears a yellow dress and was kidnapped by a space alien named Tatanga.
Thing is, though, the Mushroom Kingdom's ruler was known as “Princess Toadstool” at the time, and “Toadstool” isn't really a name one encounters much in real life...as opposed to “Daisy”, which is a name that real people actually have.
Luigi's flirting with Daisy is endearingly awkward. Thirty years later, and “It's a pleasure to meet me—it's a pleasure to meet you,” still makes me laugh out loud (Mario giving his brother the side-eye when he says it make it even funnier), as does his asking her out with “Do you eat?”
Helps that John Leguizamo and Samantha Mathis have some good chemistry and play a cute couple.
Anthony Scapelli is involved with organized crime, right? That's the implication I'm getting. The first version of the script had Mario being antagonized by a mobster, who I assume is what eventually became Scapelli.
Mario's girlfriend, Daniella (played by Dana Kaminski), is very, very pretty. Earlier drafts of the script had Scapelli as her older brother, while the final script gives her middle name as “Pauline”, implying she's supposed to be the film's equivalent of the Lady from Donkey Kong.
Adding to this, Scapelli is de-evolved into a monkey in the movie's climax, which has got to be a reference to Donkey Kong himself.
And yes, I have to mention that, after turning Scapelli into a primate, Koopa smiles and exclaims "Monke!"
Goombas are large, 7-foot tall mutants, Daisy's father is a fungus that's growing all over the city (which Koopa calls “this mushroom kingdom”), Big Bertha from SMB3 is a bouncer at the Boom-Boom Bar, Koopa's cousins are named “Iggy” and “Spike”, Bullet Bills are used to activate mechanical jumping shoes, Koopa's men use repainted SNES Super Scopes to de-evolve being, Yoshi is an adorable mini T-Rex that Koopa keeps as a pet, Toad is a street musician who gets arrested and de-evolved into a Goomba, garbagemen are referred to as Snifits...
There's a lot of references to the source material, but most of them are in name only. You could remove those references and not a whole lot would change.
Props to Alan Silvestri's score. The main theme for the movie in particular is super catchy.
The music in the Boom-Boom Bar is also worth pointing out, with “I Would Stop the World” by Charles & Eddie, George Clinton's cover of “Walk the Dinosaur”, and Divinyls' cover of “Love is the Drug” (which I prefer over Roxy Music's original, if we're being honest)
The soundtrack and ending credits include “Almost Unreal” by Roxette, originally written for Disney's Hocus Pocus, but rewritten for this movie. Though Roxette themselves don't care much for the song, or the movie.
Mario and Luigi putting on their trademark coveralls and hats is treated as being kind of a big deal...despite the clothes being completely different from the overalls and caps they're actually known for wearing.
I think the Boom-Boom Bar is my favorite scene in the movie. It's funny, the 90s cyberpunk fashions are on full display, Mario gets a chance to shine on his own, and the music is great Don't get me wrong, they look cool, but it's still odd how the movie frames it as “Now they're finally wearing the thing!”
Koopa being a germophobic neat freak is a neat bit of characterization.
Toad is played by Mojo Nixon, whose biggest hit is the novelty song “Elvis is Everywhere”, right? And Toad is the one who informs Mario and Luigi about the King being the fungus covering the city. ...and at one point, Toad yells “The King is everywhere!”
If that was accidental, it's a pretty great coincidence.
Toad's protest song is something that pops into my head alarmingly often
"Ain't got no water, anywhere
Food's bad, so's the air
Got no resources, in a great big stupor
All because of the evil king Koopa..."
Iggy and Spike are worthwhile additions to the cast. They're consistently entertaining characters (and according to Richard Edson, most of their dialogue was improvised).
The meteorite that destroyed the dinosaurs actually splitting the world into two dimensions, one where humans evolved from apes (ours), and one where they evolved from dinosaurs...with the princess from the dinosaur dimension holding the final piece that, when added to the meteorite, will allow the dimensions to merge...that's a pretty fascinating premise for a movie.
Has nothing to do with Super Mario, though.
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| I didn't say anything about Fiona Shaw as Lena, Koopa's secretary/love interest. I don't really know what to say, if we're being honest. The character's fine, has some great outfits, and her skeleton is currently used as decoration at the Barbary Coast Bar in Wilmington, NC |
Conclusion
This is a terrible adaptation of the Super Mario games.
It's pretty much an original story with names from Nintendo's games slapped on.
But I think it's a fun science fiction comedy.
The cast does really well in their roles, it's fascinating to look at, great special effects, the comedy is pretty effective (though I admit, nostalgia might be playing a part there, but...actually, no. The dancing Goombas are always hilarious)
Honestly, if this wasn't titled Super Mario Bros. and was its own original IP (call it Bob & Dave in Dinohattan or something)...I think it would've been better-received.
If you're in the mood for an entertaining sci-fi comedy, then yes, I recommend it. If you're in the mood for something actually based on Super Mario, then I don't.
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| Glug, glug, glug! |
"I read that sea turtles navigate thousands of miles on instinct."
"Not in New York traffic, they don't!"
-Luigi, Mario
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