#but if so sorry to put this on your dash

[bulgariansumo]

Welcome to the second part of my Mario Movie Retrospective. Here's the first part if you're interested.

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

This movie can be fun at times, and if nothing else, a testament that no matter how many things go wrong, you can still wind up with a piece of art that is charming in its own way to some people. 

But like the tagline says, this ain’t no game. It has enough to make it bizarre on its own, but it gets even weirder when considering it in the context of the franchise’s history.

I first saw this movie in the early 2000’s, not 10 years after its release, and I remember being so confused. Why is Mario so gruff? Why doesn’t Luigi have a mustache? Why does everything look so dark? 

Why are Mario and Luigi from the real world?

In the late 80’s/early 90’s, the franchise cemented that Mario and Luigi were plumbers from Brooklyn before stumbling into the Mushroom Kingdom. This is especially true in US-produced media like the DiC cartoons, the Mario Ice Capades, and Hotel Mario. I think this movie is the last thing to reference that before the 2023 one. 

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island got released in 1995, which has it so that the brothers are born in the Mushroom Kingdom, and that’s the story many games afterward go with. Charles Martinet’s portrayal of the Mario Bros. forewent a Brooklyn accent entirely starting from 1996, becoming iconic soon after. 

Mario’s image and premise changed drastically in a short window of time. If you’re like me and got into the series during Super Mario 64 or after, there’s a lot in previous portrayals of Mario and Luigi that feel foreign. People my age and younger can be a little unfair to this movie for that reason. It’s something I always found grating.

Besides, there’s enough to criticize as it is. I can still see the cartoons as Mario-related. Even if I was a kid who grew up on The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, I’d still be deeply confused if I went into “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and got hit with a loredump about evolution and parallel universes.

As you might recall from last time, each Mario Movie faces a dilemma: How to stretch such a simple premise to movie length without adding so much that it feels divorced from the source material? How to balance making it a movie and making it Mario?

The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach focused more on the Mario. Sure, it had Mario and Luigi go on a mandatory treasure hunt for power ups, but even then, that movie had to throw in walking montages to make it to an hour.

The live action movie focused more on the movie. And its relationship with the source material? They see each other from time to time, but, well… someone’s paying alimony. The movie wasn’t always meant to stray so far, judging by the earlier scripts, but it changed so many hands on the way to completion that things got lost, rewritten, or outright ignored.

There’s a lot to cover when talking about this movie. It’s a little more character-focused than the previous one, so let’s start with the cast.

Mario - This Mario has no time to dream or think about what-ifs. He’s a plumber; he’s got work to do and bills to pay. A cautious man, getting thrust into adventure is not his idea of a good time. Though he calls Luigi his brother, he found him as a baby and raised him, so he’s more like Luigi’s father (-figure.) I find it interesting that though Mario had no official personality at this point, both The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach and the cartoons went with more optimistic, determined portrayals that share a lot with how he’s depicted now. This may be the only version to deviate from that. 

Luigi - He’s a young, starry-eyed dreamer who wants to believe there’s something more to the world than meets the eye, like parallel dimensions, aliens, and so on. He’s endearingly awkward at times and becomes lovestruck with Daisy at first sight. Extremely impulsive, he’s neither the brightest nor the strongest, but he has heart. Also, he is a gamer. This Luigi just so happens to be the protagonist. …Is anyone else getting deja vu? 

Daisy - Not yet known as Peach in the US, the writers must’ve felt Toadstool wasn’t the most charming name for a love interest, nor realistic. This version is raised in the real world, after all. Luckily for them, someone along the way discovered that a Princess Daisy existed, which was kind of a deep cut at the time; she wasn’t really an established character yet. In this movie, Daisy is a passionate archeologist, feeling a connection to dinosaur bones. The kind of girl who takes her date to a dig site. While she does spend a chunk of the movie in peril, she’s shown to be willing to stand up for herself and resourceful enough to eventually escape capture. Fun Fact(?): Allegedly, she has a character arc that was completely cut from the theatrical release. The extended cut is available, but I’m only focusing on the theatrical version because it’s what most people have seen. 

Koopa - This human version of Koopa/Bowser lacks the brute force of others and is instead more conniving. He reigns over the perpetually exploding Dinohattan. He’s also very concerned with germs. His motivation is closely tied with the movie’s plot, so bear with me. When the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs hit, it did not kill the dinosaurs, it just threw them and some fungus into an alternate dimension where they evolved into humanoids. Stay with me. A kingdom developed in this dimension before being taken over by Koopa around the time of Daisy’s birth. He used a machine to de-evolve her father into fungus. Daisy’s mother flees through the dimensional portal into New York, leaving her with some nuns before going back, only to be killed by Koopa. She left a necklace with Daisy containing a meteor shard, which will merge both dimensions back into one when placed back into the meteor. Koopa wants to merge both dimensions because the dino dimension has much less natural resources than the real world, and they’re not doing well. Also, he wants to turn humans into monkeys and rule both worlds. He sends some henchmen to kidnap Daisy in order to get the necklace back, but also because she’s the only one who can insert it into the rest of the meteor. Mario and Luigi end up taking the necklace, which is why he hates them.

Toad - A musician protesting Koopa’s reign, spreading rumors that the fungus infesting the city is the true king. He’s arrested along with Mario and Luigi before being forcefully devolved into a Goomba and placed into servitude. Despite this, he retains his morals (and harmonica) and helps the protagonists.

Iggy and Spike - Koopa’s bumbling henchmen. He gets so fed up with them that he reverses the settings on his de-evolution machine to evolve them into smarter beings. This only results in them saying big words. They switch alliances off screen since the scene that shows them doing so got cut. All of their lines go on for too long, leaving their comedic bits falling flat.

Yoshi - Koopa’s pet who ends up helping Daisy after she shows him kindness. The practical effects make him look like a tinier version of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. He’s kinda cute in an ugly way.

Lena - Koopa’s girlfriend/wife/main henchwoman? Her jealousy of Daisy makes her go to the extreme in order to win back Koopa’s attention. At least I think that’s what her motivation is? She keeps talking about “what I deserve,” but never elaborates on what that means.

Big Bertha - Not a fish. Instead, she’s a club bouncer who steals the meteor necklace from Mario and Luigi with the help of her jumping boots. Mario woos her in order to steal the necklace, then ditches her in the middle of their dance. She ends up helping the brothers afterwards. Why? Good question. 

Daniella - Mario’s girlfriend. She and a few other women get kidnapped by Iggy and Spike, being mistaken for Daisy. Her actress looks a little like how Nintendo would later redesign Pauline from Donkey Kong, which I think is interesting.

As hinted at in Luigi’s description, he’s a lot like the previous movie’s Mario in his determination. The same is true with this Mario and the previous Luigi being the more practical ones. These traits are amped up in the live action movie characters. But while Luigi is the protagonist, Mario’s worldview sets the tone. The alternate dimension Luigi dreamed of–the main setting–is just a worse version of where they already live: a crowded city rife with crime and corruption.

Now, I originally wrote some stuff about Luigi’s idealism and Mario’s world weariness butting heads and how it represents the older characters vs. the younger characters in this movie. Something-something about fighting the power and believing in yourself. That didn’t quite hold up after a rewatch. 

Mario’s willing to stick up for himself and anyone who he feels needs it (meanwhile, Luigi tries to sell him out to the cops.) His and Luigi’s conflict comes from Mario not believing hard enough. Nothing is impossible; that’s Luigi’s motto and the movie’s. He believes fungus is telling him to use bombs, he’ll jump off a cliff so long as he believes it’ll be okay, and he’s right every time.

Undermining this conflict is the fact that Mario will also do things at random. What’s his plan for sneaking back into Koopa’s tower? Turn off the heating system, steal some clothes, ???, profit!

This is an overarching issue in the writing: Everyone just kinda does stuff for no reason, conveniently moving the plot to where it needs to be. Characters’ alliances change between scenes. Important items appear and disappear at whim. Some of this is due to scenes that were cut, but others are unexplained. It leaves the movie feeling like it’s falling apart after the first hour.

Another writing issue is that the movie treats lines that make no sense like the hardest one-liners ever dropped. “You know what I love about mud? It’s clean and it’s dirty at the same time.” –Koopa, 1993. Cool, what does that mean?

There’s bright spots in the writing, though. It can have fun with itself, leading to jokes I enjoy, like the reveal of Mario and Luigi’s last name, the elevator scene, and some visual gags. 

Everyone in charge of the visuals–the practical effects, CGI, costume, and makeup artists–did a fantastic job bringing the settings to life, even if they’re not what anyone would expect from the title. 

The music score is surprisingly full of wonder, but something I noticed when listening to this soundtrack vs. The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach’s is that the latter was filled with arrangements of songs from the game. The live action movie plays the Super Mario Bros. theme for exactly 20 seconds, and that’s it. That sums up the difference between these two movies better than I can.

The only things in this movie that feel vaguely Mario-esque in vibes are the lighthearted elements that feel necessary to make it suitable for a child audience. Otherwise, it’s too dark, gungy, and horny to match the series. Toad is lobotomized and enslaved. Daisy’s dad is a diseased-looking mass of fungus and slime. Mario dives into Big Bertha's chest like he’s bobbing for apples.

When the movie does want to reference the games, easter eggs are prioritized over recognizability. Enemy names are in the background if you squint, yet Luigi wears red more often than green. There’s no powerups, but Miyamoto’s in a crowd shot, so I’ve heard. It feels like missing the forest for a blade of grass. Though focusing on recognizability won’t fix much, at least viewers will know they’re watching the right movie. 

As it stands, we’re left with a Mario movie where the main characters don’t wear overalls and the villain is only a monster in the figurative sense. Nowhere are the blue skies and rolling hills of the Mushroom Kingdom. Instead, we go from New York City to… dystopian New York City. Toad’s some guy with a guitar.

This movie might be received better if it scrubbed the references and called itself “Directionless in Dinohattan” or something. I can see how people would get a kick out of it, even if it’s held together by duct tape and dreams. The thing that holds it back most is its disinterest in being Mario-related while shambling around in Mario’s skin. Like the Ice Capades costumes.

People with skill worked on this movie. There’s heart somewhere, regardless of whether it’s in the right place or not. The choices it makes are so baffling it makes sense to be a little fascinated. For those who want to enjoy the chaos, pick it apart, or just gawk at the weirdness, there’s something for different types of people. All of this gives it the makings of a cult classic.

Also, heads up if you do end up checking it out, Koopa is a real creep to Daisy. He tries to force a kiss on her and implies that he’s going to do something way worse later on. So if you’re sensitive to attempted/implied SA, skip a few minutes ahead after Yoshi’s first appearance. Didn’t think I’d have to warn for that in a Mario movie, but this one is committed to proving that nothing is impossible.

Here's some other stuff I have to say about the movie that I couldn't fit here or in the tags.

Next are my thoughts on Super Mario Bros. (2023).

[canadianno]

WHERE MY GORE LOVERS AT BABY

I never see appreciation for the bishop purgatory designs anywhere, so. I am here. To change that.

I want to see more people mess around with the designs... I want to see more people including silly headcanons and stylizing them!!! Because the designs are all amazing!! The way each design conveys how the lamb fought them is INCREDIBLE.

The top of Leshys' head is devoid of foliage because the rest of him was hidden underground during his fight. Hekets' throat and stomach are raw and skinned because she's always landing and scraping around hard on stone when she's trying to crush you. Kallamar is covered in a large burn because it's so difficult to get close to him during his fight, implying the best strategy was a long range strategy. Shamuras' front is completely torn open and hanging out because they're running directly at you during the entire fight and that is exactly! Where! You'd! Be! Hitting them!

I'm just really really passionate about the bishop purgatory designs. I want to see more people explore them I think they're so cool.

[userparamore]

MAD MEN (2007–2015) 07.10 The Forecast

[gooptroupe]

stares deeply into the abyss. cbeeduo In love feeling joy hugging happy seeing sunshine having a good life 1080p 4k

c!beeduo in 1080p 4k, just for you anon

closeup under cut

[qiu-yan]

sensitive topic incoming

not a haterpost i promise.

sect leader yao is not a reliable source

further explanation/hypothesizing:

it happened exactly as sect leader yao said: self-explanatory. the version of events preferred by jiggy antis

he mercy-killed rusong: maybe rusong was already showing signs of a life-altering disorder as a result of the incest. or maybe jiggy just felt that, if the incest information ever came out, rusong would be doomed to a life of suffering in a heavily prejudiced society. jiggy himself had spent his entire life suffering and getting kicked around due to his own proximity to society's pariahs/taboos, so perhaps he felt that he could not subject his son to the same miserable existence. thus, jiggy gave rusong a more peaceful end, before (in jiggy's mind) society could force rusong to suffer.

he allowed rusong to die through inaction: this is really only a "kill" under a utilitarian moral framework. by this explanation, maybe jiggy found out in advance that someone was planning to kill rusong; however, for any of the other reasons listed here, jiggy decided to do nothing and allow the assassination to happen. thus jiggy would consider himself guilty of allowing rusong's death to happen through inaction.

he did it to justify eliminating an opponent of the watchtowers: maybe the advancement of the watchtower project, which jiggy knew would make society a safer place, had hit a deadlock because of a particularly stubborn opponent. so jiggy killed rusong and framed the opponent in order to engineer a situation in which his annihilation of the opponent would be entirely socially sanctioned.

and here is where the utilitarian arguments come in. perhaps jiggy knew that the watchtower project would improve the lives of millions of people and would make society as a whole safer. and he saw that one political opponent as the final major barrier. and jiggy could think of no other way to get rid of this guy. so jiggy weighed the lives of those millions of people against his one son, and concluded those millions of strangers were weightier; his son became his iphigenia.

of course, this is still a rather unhinged plan to just come up with on your own, so perhaps a better explanation of events is this reasoning paired with the "he allowed rusong to die through inaction" series of events.

rusong was killed by political opponents and jiggy blamed himself: now we reach the "he didn't do it" section of the potential explanations. jiggy has a habit of claiming kills he didn't strictly perform himself; so long as the chain of cause and effect can somehow be traced to somewhere near him eventually, jiggy will claim credit for someone's death. this is how jiggy takes credit for the death of jin zixuan: even though [novel canon] no one forced wei wuxian to lose control of wen ning and no one forced wen ning to attack jin zixuan, jiggy still acts as if he can call himself jin zixuan's killer, simply because he sent jin zixuan to wei wuxian's location.

jiggy, in pursuing the watchtower project, aroused a lot of public anger. jiggy made himself, and by extension his wife and his child, the political enemies of many, and thus political targets as well. thus, if an enemy targets the life of jin rusong because they are jiggy's enemy, jiggy is entirely justified in feeling as if rusong's death is his fault. after all, if he hadn't pursued the watchtower project, then maybe rusong would still be alive.

jiggy said "he had to die" as a Cope: losing your son sucks. perhaps jiggy, in the despair following his son's death, tried to cope with the new reality by telling himself that rusong would have had to die anyways, because he was an incest baby. if rusong was always slated to die, then the fact that rusong is now dead can now be survived. thus, "rusong had to die" becomes an emotional coping mechanism for jiggy.

no, jiggy himself is uncertain if he allowed rusong to die through inaction: this one is a a bit fanciful but bear with me here. on one hand, jiggy loves his wife and son. on the other hand, jiggy is horrified by his marriage with his wife and by the existence of his son, because his wife is also his sister and his son is the product of incest. jiggy lives with not only this horror but also the constant fear of exposure, because if this information ever got out, the lives of himself, his wife, and his son would all be over.

rusong's growth thus becomes a source of dread, not hope: every day lived brings the possibility of rusong developing some disorder or condition that eventually proves the incest. is it not possible that jiggy, living every day under such fear, might come to believe that things would be better if rusong stopped growing older? if rusong died--then gone too would be the evidence of the incest, would it not?

now along comes the political opponent who assassinates rusong. jiggy does not see it coming and jiggy is thus unable to stop it. but afterwards, upon beholding the corpse of his son, what does jiggy feel? rage? despair? no--relief! he feels relief! though he also grieves, the constant fear shrouding his entire life has, for once, lifted!

but if jiggy is relieved by the death of his son, what does this imply? can jiggy truly say, with full confidence, that he did not see the assassination coming? can he really say, with heaven and earth as his witnesses, that his failure to stop the assassination was not to some degree a choice? is there truly no small part of him that did in fact see the assassination coming--yet, knowing it would be so relieving for him, simply chose to do nothing?

but if jiggy did not see the assassination coming at all--if rusong's death truly cannot be pinned on jiggy at all--then what does that say about jiggy's power? about jiggy's safety? jiggy being innocent of killing through inaction means that jinlintai really is somewhere assassins can penetrate into. then jiggy's son really was killed by a force jiggy had no way of stopping. then, in this situation, jiggy really was powerless.

you can remove the ambiguity and argue the case either way: jiggy knew about the assassination and let it happen, jiggy legitimately knew nothing and could not have stopped the assassination. but the ambiguity makes this scenario more interesting to me. jiggy lives for the rest of his days uncertain if he chose to allow his son to die through inaction, or if he really was just weak enough to fail to protect his son. maybe jiggy's memories of the incident even manage to start distorting after a while, implying either one or the other depending on jiggy's own mental situation.

thus, when jiggy says "rusong had to die," he's uncertain if he's justifying his actions or delusionally coping with a reality he had no hand in making. when jiggy says "i killed my son," he's uncertain if he's even telling the truth or not.

ah well. this is basically original fiction at this point. it's just a potential scenario.

anyways, these are just a few scenarios based on various meta and fanfics of this subject ive read over the past few months. you can probably come up with all sorts of explanations. whatever you come up with, though, should be better than just blindly taking sect leader yao at his word.

[anistarrose]

trying not to start an online fight in a comically inappropriate venue, but people also have some genuinely concerning misconceptions about this, so: if someone tells you that they can't go vegan because of dietary restrictions, you do not know more than they do about those restrictions in question. and they are under no obligation to share personal medical details in order to prove that you are wrong.

moreover, a world in which anyone has to "prove" their need for dietary accommodations to any authority — to say nothing of being denied them a priori because of a refusal to engage with even small scale, ethical animal husbandry — is enacting ableist violence on our bodies. personally, I want nothing more than for for-profit animal agriculture to burn with the rest of capitalism — but you have to understand that telling people like me to "just stop being selfish and stop eating animals" can only be translated as either "only eat things that make you violently ill," or "stop eating even the minimum amount of protein that a human can survive off of."

if you have an impulse to accuse me of overreacting, consider that the refusal of actual medical institutions to take legume and grain allergies seriously has caused me bodily harm throughout my life and to this day — with consequences for my overall lifespan that have yet to be revealed. I am not overreacting.

[sheepalmighty]

Some more of that Chai joins Vandelay for half a day AU. Or just a picture of a kinda OOC Kale chilling if you wanna gloss over those comics. I'm still not sure if the colours are too garish or not.

These were mostly done with the premise of treating Kale's office like the hideout. I also really like how mundane, or familiar, the interactions between Chai and Kale can be in the game so I wanted to draw some stuff exploring more like that. But also, there's the ulterior motive of shipping so I included an out of context scene because I can't bother drawing the rest of it (though it seems like a huge jump in their relationship as a result. I think they're so big headed that they get stuck in a feedback loop of stroking the other's ego if an excuse comes up to do so)

[puppppppppy]

adhd comix

[sentientsky]

lady cassandra o’brien really truly is nikola orsinov’s wildest fucking dream

[waystar-royco]

rebecca’s description of the beginning of her and rupert’s relationship actually serves as the perfect example of how rupert and ted are perfect foils of one another.

both men have a capability to make a person feel “special” and “chosen” like rebecca describes having felt when rupert was trying to get with her. likewise, both men have a same relentless drive to win over the people that they want to impress. i mean, is rupert’s persistence in asking out rebecca after her initial refusal that much different than ted’s stubbornness in his attempts to win over those who doubt and resent him? we’ve seen it in the way he developed his relationships with jaime, roy, rebecca,trent, and all the others who have treated him poorly since his arrival in london. just like rupert, ted is not one to take no for an answer.

the difference of course lies in their intentions. rupert is selfish - when he sets his sight on his “chosen” one, it’s because he wants to possess them for himself. rebecca was his prize, so of course he wouldn’t give her up just because she said no. as a result, his persistence was rooted in manipulation - after all, how could she deny him after he worked so hard to win her over? after he chose over over everyone else, his own wife include? furthermore, his respect and care for a person is finnicky. the second he decides he’s bored of someone, they are no longer special to him, and they no longer see themselves as special either. that’s why he was so willing to leave his former wife for rebecca after just meeting her, and also how he was just as capable of making rebecca feel like a nobody after he left her as he was at making her feel special when they first got together.

ted, on the other hand, is so unbelievably genuine. he makes people feel special because he truly believes that every single person is uniquely capable and important. we know that after losing his father, he promised himself that he wouldn’t let anyone live (or, as he fears, die) without understanding their own importance. for this reason, his refusal to let someone walk away from him isn’t because he doesn’t want to lose some kind of contest, but because he is so desperate to help everyone that he truly believes he can’t give up on anyone.

all of this is exemplified further in how both of them treat nate. both rupert and ted have made nate feel special at times and have helped nate see more value in himself. however, only ted was willing to do so from the moment he met nate, who at the time was just an insecure and disrespected kit-man who everyone else was quick to laugh at. rupert, however, only noticed nate once everyone else thought he was great. and once he did notice him, of course he had to have him for himself, and, more importantly, had to take him away from rebecca. i can only imagine that rupert will soon dump nate just like he has everyone else that was once special to him. and who will assuredly be there to catch nate during his downfall? ted, the one who’s love and support never came with any string attached in the first place.

[le-velo-pour-dru]

I'M BACK GUYS

IT WAS AMAZING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MY GOSH GUYS I LOVE IDKHOW SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY PUT ON SUCH A GREAT SHOW I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 😊🫶❤️ I'M SO HAPPY I GOT TO GO, IT WAS WORTH ALL THE STRESS LEADING UP TO IT AND I JUST HAD AN AMAZING NIGHT 😁🫶🩷 I LOVE YOU IDKHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And sorry to everyone concerned about me, I hate to say this (/hsrs /lh), but...

HE IS HOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Ohhhhhhhhh my god I was standing there the whole time flustered out of my GOURD 🫣 Forget being subdued, I want that man(?) BAD

[sunnydayaoe]

[punctuation-completionist]

Holy shit I thought I'd seen the worst and laziest gimmick blogs already. Congrats on setting the bar even lower.

@#$_&-+()/*"':;!?,.~`|•√π÷ק∆£¢€¥^°={}\%©®™✓[] get a fucking job

jokes on you asshole, i am in school most of the day and have multiple hours of homework every night. i just ride the bus for two hours to and from school and know how to use a queue

and you? do you understand how much work i put into this blog? how much i've learned about various punctuation so that i—with time i could easily use doing something else i might add—can tell people about things that i find interesting? i doubt it because you just have a hate filled heart from what i can see, picking on blogs that you find lazy because you can't even bother to dig.

i would have just left this in the inbox; but i really do feel like showing everyone what a fool you are. i mean, come back when you know all the brackets and dashes and have read at least one book about punctuation and then you can talk about who's the "laziest gimmick blog"

and no, i am not justifying that keyboard smash of an attempt to get more punctuation. if you want to talk about lazy bud? take a look inwards, perhaps.

[squidparasitesparasite]

WARNING/ a little loud

finally did what i said i would do and made a visual representation of my textpost

heres the original quote for context since i cant reblog with a video attached:

"sometimes i have a full recreation of the lois griffin “9/11 was bad” bit in my head but it’s just me saying “chilaios frotting” and a room full of other mes cheering and ripping eachother apart until my brain explodes"

[itspileofgoodthings]

so many people have said that as you approach your 30’s things start to fall into place but I don’t feel that at all. the closer I get the more it feels that everything is dissolving and falling apart