MovieBob Talks Mario Movies, Game Journos, and the State of the Industry

[coakroach]

I'll rail against Roger Ebert all I want, the man didn't 'get' Starship Troopers for crying out loud.
Also games shouldn't be made into movies the same way movies shouldn't be made into books, use of interactivity defines a game in the same way cinematography can define a film, stripping away either one is a pointless step backwards.
Imagine an MGS4 movie where at the end you just watch Snake go down that hall instead of giving yourself arthritis from mashing that controller.

 

[JehuBot]

I became a gamer back in 1997 when I was Introduced to Sony's Play Station , thanks to my cousin.

one of the first games I played was "Crash Bandicoot" , a game that made in love with platformer games and in gaming in general , and I still love the hell out of it (and it's sequels by Naughty Dog) till this very day.

but do I think it can be made into a movie ? hell no !

Why ? because it has a paper thin story that won't translate well into the big screen. same thing can be said about Mario

"a princess has been kidnapped by a Dragon/Turtle hybrid , go beat him , and save the princess" , how can you make a 90 minute movie out of this without screwing up ?

 

[lastjustice]

It's obscene that flash-in-the-pan stuff like Hitman or Uncharted keep getting the movie treatment while the most iconic game characters of all time are denied their shot."

Flash in the pan or not, Uncharted and Hitman both actually have enough story do something with in terms of making a movie.(uncharted was more or less written like a summer blockbuster to begin with.) Mario has a paper thin story, like most early NES games. If you are so dead set on this idea being a movie, Mr Chipman,What would you add to the storyline to make it more compelling? A magical kingdom is invaded by a clan of evil magician turtles, and a plumber from NY and his brother are only ones who can stop them. If we go straight off the gameplay it would be a movie of them mostly running and jumping alot over various pits and bad guys heh. So there needs be something added because Mario out of the box blows as a movie.

Megaman atleast has the whole morale debate over machines and their role in our world once they have sentitence to pad out the story if you made it into a movie.Which megaman has had more character developement over the years than Mario, as we see him talk to other characters in his own universe quite a bit. Mario never had any hook to it that really gave it any depth of greater meaning. He never really talks to other characters in game or has any backstory brought up. There's a reason every single comic, animated cartoon(the cartoons generally lacked any focus because the games. Theyd usually involve random plots that had nothing do with the games.Whether it was Mario bros super show, Mario 3, or super mario world.) and movie had to make up so much stuff along the way because lets face it, there wasn't enough to work with if you went solely off the games.

 

[00slash00]

your fanboyness is clouding your judgement

 

[Volothos]

your fanboyness is clouding your judgement

This. A thousand times this.

 

[maninahat]

The Hitman and Uncharted franchises are just a 'flash in the pan', eh Movie Bob?

That's the most obscene thing I've heard all week. Not that I should be surprised, Bob does love to flame bait.

They were pretty shit though, and they'll hardly stand the test of time.

As for why they got made into movies and not Mario though, it seems pretty obvious: there are only so many video game fans of a franchise, and a producer is only going to pick a videogame story if it is about something non-gamers might find appealing. Hitman or Tomb Raider on paper can sell themselves to action movie fans and young adults as well as gamers. Mario is harder to sell. Imagine the amount of money it would cost to build a decent looking Marioland and the goombas and shit. Producers will struggle to see how bizzare aesthetics will appeal to adults looking for a family movie, and its cutsie style will turn off many non-gaming young adults. It hardly seems likely to turn into a decent profit.

 

[maninahat]

It's obscene that flash-in-the-pan stuff like Hitman or Uncharted keep getting the movie treatment while the most iconic game characters of all time are denied their shot."

Flash in the pan or not, Uncharted and Hitman both actually have enough story do something with in terms of making a movie.(uncharted was more or less written like a summer blockbuster to begin with.) Mario has a paper thin story, like most early NES games. If you are so dead set on this idea being a movie, Mr Chipman,What would you add to the storyline to make it more compelling? A magical kingdom is invaded by a clan of evil magician turtles, and a plumber from NY and his brother are only ones who can stop them. If we go straight off the gameplay it would be a movie of them mostly running and jumping alot over various pits and bad guys heh. So there needs be something added because Mario out of the box blows as a movie.

It is probably not as hard as it looks to flesh out a Mario story. Shrek, after all, is basically about an Ogre and his sidekick on a quest to rescue a princess. Despite that, there are plenty of laughs, discussions and characters to keep Shrek entertaining. That would be all you have to do with Mario: set up the relationship with Mario and Luigi, give them a story arc, introduce Yoshi as a comic relief/wild card, give the Princess plenty of screentime with Bowser, and you'll have enough variety to keep it interesting.

 

[maninahat]

I'll rail against Roger Ebert all I want, the man didn't 'get' Starship Troopers for crying out loud.

I think Ebert was pretty on the nose. He correctly saw it was a satire of the novel, portraying the heroic soldiers as facistic 50s super men. But he also felt the movie to be charmless, unexciting, and one dimensional.

 

[internetzealot1]

Why are people getting upset over the "flash in the pan comment." Its not really an insult. And its true.

 

[Samsont]

"Nintendo needed to recover after the relative failure of the GameCube"
B-B-But...I loved the Gamecube...
But his idea on his perfect game would be a pretty sweet game I would say, unless the two differing backgrounds clashed in the design of the game, because the west and japan are VERY differrent.

 

[McMarbles]

Why are people getting upset over the "flash in the pan comment." Its not really an insult. And its true.

Agreed... at least where Uncharted is concerned. It's bascally Tomb Raider with testicles.