My personal stake in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and its predecessor The Super Mario Bros. Movie, are low. They are for children and I am an adult. If I have any devoted stance, it is this. I believe the 1993 film adaptation of Super Mario, a box office disaster starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo, will endure for much longer. Not merely because it is a train wreck, but because being that train wreck provides something these new movies sorely lack: A fascinating distinctiveness.
As the snarky prologue to the 1993 film explains, this is not the Mario World you are accustomed to. Millions of years ago, the asteroid that hit the dinosaurs did not cause their extinction, but wedged them into a parallel dimension. There they continued to evolve much like the mammals had, albeit building a cold blooded and cyberpunk dystopia instead. As their world runs out of natural resources, their dictator King Koopa (played by none other than true psychopath Dennis Hopper), seeks a magical gemstone that will allow him and his army of Goombas to invade the human world. It is up to the Mario brothers (Hoskins and Leguizamo), Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis), Toad (Mojo Nixon) and Yoshi (a tiny animatronic velociraptor) to save both dimensions.
The production of the film was a disaster. The cast and crew grew to loathe each other, the two stars calling it the worst decision of their career. The script seemed like a collection of ideas relabelled with Mario nomenclature. It’s no coincidence that the finished product more closely resembles then married directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton’s Max Headroom over the video game namesake. It was rumored that Nintendo provided a list of requests to the studio, all of which were ignored. Likewise it has been speculated that this film is the reason Nintendo pursued so little in Hollywood until 2019’s Detective Pikachu.
Bearing little resemblance is the mistake these new films from Illumination refuse to make. From the jump, Nintendo’s involvement has been at the forefront, each trailer and casting announcement embedded into a Nintendo Direct presentation. They’re so dogmatic to the style bible that Donkey Kong’s subsequent appearances in the video games have inched closer to his look on the silver screen. These are not just Mario products like the games are, these are Mario products in the same vein as tee shirts and Valentine’s Day cards. They are films so indistinctive that the moment anything improves on them, they will simply vanish into the background. Camouflaged in a pile of merchandise. Replaced outright.
The 1993 film fits in with no other Mario thing. It cannot be replaced. In The New York Times, critic Calum Marsh mourned the era when Hollywood could not crack game adaptations. Whether it’s HBO’s The Last of Us or Warner Bros’ Minecraft, the direct oversight of the publishers ensures a more accurate, and probably better made adaptation of their games. They’re also heinously boring compared to the aspirational craft from what came before, a lineage of cyberpunk-by-default misfire attempts at Mario, Double Dragon and Street Fighter.
The 1993 Mario movie is not very good, but it does have vision. It has inspired fan comics and communities in a way I struggle to imagine modern Mario fan opting for their big screen counterparts over the standard ones. It is a rich tapestry with impossible ambitions. Each time I see the film, including the recently uploaded director’s cut, I notice a new beautiful detail. The last time it was that one of the kidnapped princesses was constantly hacking cigs. It’s also the earliest a film wagered that this Donald Trump guy would make for a good dictator, an insight that is likely impossible from anything starring Chris Pratt.
