The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023)

I'm a little surprised that there's no thread for this yet (or if there is, it's old and buried somewhere), but that's fine. Since we're getting a trailer on thursday, it seems like there's finally a good reason to make a (new) one.

In fact, we're getting a whole Ninteno Direct dedicated for it!

Judging by the poster, it seems to look fine enough visually?

But of course we're not here for the visuals. We want to hear the voice that will come out of Mario's mouth and whatever it will be just the Pratt voice or something so spectacular(ly bad), that the internet will explode.

Are you prepared?

No.

Joking aside, I'm really kind of not. This thing could go in so many different directions, it's kind of crazy. If the Sonic movies hadn't been such inexplicably decent movies, I'd have never thought there was a chance in hell this movie could be anything other than a disaster, but now I'm second guessing myself because of two movies featuring Ben freaking Ben Schwartz as Sonic the Hedgehog. Weird times.

Yes. I have been withholding all judgment on the Chris Pratt casting until I actually hear the Mario voice in a trailer.

I gotta say I love the look of the poster, and it makes me want a game with that kind of graphical fidelity. Lack of a butt aside, of course. But Mario's face is gonna be a big make it or break it for me.

@beggary: Great, I can't unsee the butt thing now.

Well, I guess that the movie will look phenomenal, at the very least. Funny that it is literally impossible to walk to Peach's castle.

Seems like the movie is gonna play things pretty straight as far as just being about Mario going on an adventure, or whatever. I was really hoping that it was going the super meta and self-aware route, like the Chip and Dale movie. The voice cast just screams "We are video game characters and we are completely aware of that fact" to me.

I'll echo Gerstmann by saying we pretty much know what it'll look like as we've had 3D Mario for a long time, the question is the voice and they'll probably tease everyone by not revealing it in the trailer :P.

I wonder if Peach will get kidnapped, or are woman in distress out of vogue these days.

It already seemingly leaked, in case you cannot handle the AGONIZING wait.

Decidedly, yes. And honestly, for good reason. While I personally wouldn't like it but also wouldn't have a problem with that being the story considering the source, it is going to stir up some shit if that is the case. Also, if they change it I feel almost certain THAT will stir up shit as well, considering the reaction over the Little Mermaid.

Is it just me or does that look like a man with a Mario mask on? Like someone that would work at a theme park?

It's not for me, to be honest. Not unless it's a gritty story of two plumber brothers struggling to make a living whilst PEACH LEAVES THEM CONSTANTLY. Meanwhile their landlord is on their case for Yoshi. He's an exotic pet. Pets aren't covered by the tenancy agreement.

To be fair, Mario did have kind of a fling with Daisy that one time.

And also the fire flowers they have. They're an invasive species. They'll totally displace all the local flora if left alone.

And the grow op they're running for the mushrooms. Proposition 1-1 will not pass.

@cikame: I had wondered the same thing. Will we hear Mario speak? Nintendo knows people are super curious to hear Chris Pratt. I'm hoping they keep the mystery going just to piss everyone off lol.

I thought Chris Pratt was fine, but Jack Black sounds terrific. It looks very pretty and very much in line with the games. I guess I'm excited? I see some people acting like Chris Pratt (who was good in the Lego Movie) did this miserable job, and I don't think you can judge on two sentences. KMK seemed solid as Toad.

Chris Pratt with the Ghost of a Brooklyn accent is.... fine, I guess. It's fine.

I mean I'm not going to see the movie but the people losing their shit over it look way more ridiculous.

I'm not usually someone freaked out by, like, weird animation or uncanny valley type stuff or whatever, but Mario's face looks fucked up. Especially when it emotes.

Looks fine. It did get me to laugh a bit with the dramatic penguin battle bit and the classic BWAAARM sound effects.

But I am intensely curious if we'll see the "real world" and if it'll be CGI since the trailer confirms that Mario is just now discovering the Mushroom Kingdom.

The trailer looked fine. I am sure it will do very well based on how Sonic did and I could see it being the highest grossing movie in the country the month of it's release. This is all regardless of if the movie is actually good.

Other people said this first elsewhere on the internet, but this is one of the funniest results after Pratt claimed the Mario voice would be “unlike anything [we]’ve heard”. I think it might, in fact, be the most like anything I’ve ever heard.

Pratt is bad in this! Admittedly, this is a pretty tiny sample, but either do a character voice or don't, man. This halfway-Brooklyn thing just draws attention to how much like regular ol' Chris Pratt it sounds.

Everything was great! Except Chris Pratt. Chris Pratt sounded bad! Which is unfortunate. Since I bet there'll be a lot of Chris Pratt.

Been around through a lot of insufferable internet jokes, memes and fads. The Chris Pratt whining may be a top tier insufferable.

I vow not to express any strong opinions about this movie on the internet. It'll probably be fine.

Also, we've heard two sentences by Mario and I can't understand why people are already worked up about it.

It looked pretty but I felt no emotion watching it. Kinda wish it was live action because this feels soulless. It's like watching a bunch of jocks take your magic cards and try to play with them the past few years watching celebrities try to play "video games are cool all of a sudden". Society made nerds & gamers feel miserable for the past 30 years, like we never belonged, our hobby was never cool, until money became involved - and now it just feels like a desperate attempt to stay relevant.

Hollywood has literally thrown away billions and billions of dollars not adapting video games over the years, and they are finally realizing this - and sadly we are more than likely never going to get an actual truly good video game movie. They can make money all they want, but the prospect of a "good video game movie" is long, long gone at this point. I haven't enjoyed any video game movies i've seen recently and there is no excuse for that, there should at this point be dozens of amazing video game movie franchises. What would make a good video game movie? To feel something? Anything? To care about a story / be invested in the world, but none of these movies have done this for decades now.

In the 90s we got 6 video game movies. 2000-2010 we got 19 movies. 2010-2022 we got 21 movies, and right NOW there is 27 video game movies in production to be released in the next few years.

They are cashing in on what we love, but the soul will be gone from them all. I look at this list of video game movies, and the best one probably on that list is ... the original Mortal Kombat from 1995. Compared to the new movie which I had to turn off after 30 minutes because it was so bad (and yes I've seen multiple reviews, read multiple synopsis of the story to know that I don't want to see more). What made the original Mortal Kombat good? Unlike nearly every attempt at a video game, it was just the video game! Island, warriors, fighting - boss fights. Wow, hard plot!

This is the thing about video games that make it so hard to believe it took them so long to "figure it out" - the plots are already written for you, you don't need to REWRITE the plot - or add new characters, or situations - just adapt the VIDEO GAME into a MOVIE, and it has potential to be good.

Video game movies have always been bad (unless they were made in the 90s). And ever since then they haven't seen the pile of gold before there eyes, and now that they see it - it's gonna be bad movie after bad movie. This trailer did not bring back any of my nostalgia of having got a Nintendo, Super Nintendo for Christmas and playing all the Mario games endless hours as a child. Personally, I think this movie will end up being good - will I watch it? Probably. Will I feel anything?

The art in this movie looks fantastic and might end up being fun, I can't fault it for that. It is just upsetting to see that this is the future, non stop soulless video game movies. This is Nintendo so there is hope for it, and it is Super Mario after all and I do not think it will be a bad movie based on the trailer. Honestly, this comment isn't about Super Mario at all - just video game movies in general since over the years the attempts at them have been more and more exhausting (and this is not one of those examples, this movie looks good let me reiterate, I just don't care for the "AAA celeb spam voice actors" to sell a movie).

I just don't care anymore, and can't get excited for the prospect of a video game movie because it is fatiguing to watch one of the only things I've ever loved be continuously mocked for decades, and now put on a pedestal because technology caught up with the rest of the world when we were already fully dug in. And now it passes us by as the old generation of gamers gets laughed at by the new generation of gamers who will never see a single original thought put into any of these movies going forward.

Don't worry, it happened to us too.

I just want to hear Mario say "Threat Neutralized"

https://youtu.be/_TnHW4yc0zU

This is a teaser, not a trailer. Looks like Nintendo is still keeping almost everything about this movie in secret. No sight of Peach or DK, Luigi shows up but doesn't say anything. Mario says 2 non-interesting lines.

Anyway I've been low-key excited for this since it was announced, and still am. I think Chris Pratt is fine and I haven't seen anyone seriously suggest who should do it if not him (I assume Charles Martinet and Danny DeVito are joke answers only from people that want to watch the world burn). Mario's voice was always going to be controversial, but I wish people would give it a rest already - it's only a movie. I'm guessing Mario is going to be the straight man in this movie that will allow the supporting cast to get wild.

Are people really seeing a lot of outrage about Pratt/the move/the voice? In the circles I find myself it has been more a combination of dunking on Pratt in general and thinking he would sound stupid in this. And now they're just mocking him because he does sound kind of stupid. But I also don't think a normal person expected Mario to have a "good" voice. The person comparing the Mushroom Kingdom here we come to Linda Belcher broke my freaking brain a little bit.

@sethmode: I dunno, I feel like the main takeaways I'm seeing after the trailer were "why can't the games look like this" and "Chris Pratt sucks as Mario". It's definitely happening.

My opinion is very much that if it was anyone other than Chris Pratt voicing Mario, nobody would care as much about it as they seem to now. Hell, if Charlie Day was playing both Mario Bros people might even love it.

I'm not going to defend Pratt or the choice to put him here, but I do feel like the level of obsession over having him in it at all and the tiny sliver of his performance we got is at least a little bit silly. People really want to hate on it for a variety of reasons, and so they will.

It's just that the millionth person has to log into Twitter with their original meme about how Chris Pratt sounds like Chris Pratt.

I think Chris Pratt sounds good. What do people want? If he did the Charles Martinet voice, or put on an overly stereotypical Italian voice, people would be crying racism. Also, I wouldn't want to hear a whole movie of Mario with the Charles Martinet voice. That would be overkill, which is probably why we never really hear Mario talk, and when we do, it's usually two or three phrases tops. "Wahoo, wa-haa, and it's-a-me Mario." That's it. It seems like people just want to hate on Chris Pratt nowadays, but we all loved him in Parks and Rec. People were reeally excited when they found out he was Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy. He was good in the Lego Movies. The Jurassic movies suck... super hard, but he's always been a decent actor in everything he was in. I think people are either just mad that he's getting a lot of successful movie roles, or they don't care for his views on "certain things", so now they hate him. Opinions are fine, but everyone just sounds like they're following the herd to hop on the hate train. A whole movie of that "Wa-hoo" voice would be fucking terrible. I think the movie looks like a fun time.

This is a movie for toddlers and pre-schoolers.

Chris Pratt was great in the LEGO Movie, so I know he's got chops. Two lines is not enough to judge an entire performance.

Mario being a regular guy with a Brooklyn accent works way better in a movie than a weird Mushroomian with the voice of an Italian clown.

I don't think that the voice is great, but it's way better than anyone doing, "a voice". I would be so annoyed to sit through an hour of Martinet's falsetto. Doing "voices" also tends to lose range and it makes the character less believable. It's better to have an actor just do a normal voice and focus on acting.

I have no problem with Chris Pratt's voice, Considering we only heard two lines, So its really hard to judge by just two lines in a teaser trailer, Jack Black as Bowser is perfect, During the NYCC panel, He said that Bowser has a musical side, So its possible we might hear Bowser singing in the movie.

Keegan Michael Key sounded pretty good as Toad, Its like he inhaled some helium and tried to imitate Toad's high pitched voice.

Prediction: Mario's dad will be in this movie, played by Charles Martinet in a cameo. He will be implied to be the original "Jumpman" who fought the original Donkey Kong (now Cranky Kong)

Making a good Mario movie must be hard. It is not like the video games, where Mario just jumps on the enemies and walks through pipes.