#im so mad lol this is so silly but i think the sonic movie broke me a long time ago and now i must live like this

[seventeendeer]

I'll admit that Chris Pratt as Mario was the one part of the trailer that didn't work for me, but everything else really did have quality to it. Jack Black had the perfect balance of threatening Bowser and campy Bowser, the animation was exactly what I'd hope a Mario movie would look like, and it's clear there's a lot of passion in the project, to the point where they even incorporated Mario creatures that aren't as well-known and mainstream. I don't think it deserves being entirely ragged on just thanks to one lackluster part.

I’m afraid I have to disagree! Chris Pratt Mario is easy to rag on because it’s exactly as awful as predicted and ties into an existing awful trend in current animated movies (also Chris Pratt sucks as a person), but I also think it's just ... the most obvious symptom of an issue strewn all throughout the trailer.

It lacks soul. Sure, the character models are up to the industry standard and the color work is very good and there’s nothing immediately artistically offensive about it, but it’s just so lackluster. The characters’ lines and body language are completely to-the-point, have no individuality or spunk, no flavor. There’s no word play, no slang (made up or real), no distinct speech patterns. All the characters’ lines sound like they came directly out of 11 other movies from the last decade. The body language accomplishes getting across some very basic emotions, but again, everyone moves the same, there’s no sauce on there, it’s just “character is scared,” “character is excited,” “character is surprised.” Bowser’s character acting while talking is also very awkward and janky (reminder that Hotel Transylvania, a similarly badly written but EXTREMELY well-animated CGI movie came out TEN YEARS AGO).

On the subject of Bowser, I also think Jack Black was a very poor choice for him. Yeah, he can do the voice rumble, but it has no depth, no reverberation. It’s generic.

It’s not just Chris Pratt Mario that sounds flat and lifeless, even though he is definitely the worst offender - everyone, from Toad to Luigi to the penguin guys at the beginning, all literally just sound like Some Guy.

Which becomes a problem when “tiny cute cartoon animal sounds like a grown human being” was supposed to be a joke at the beginning! The joke doesn’t land when every other character sounds like that and it’s not meant to be funny!

This being another problem. It’s not funny or has an interesting plot teased? They tried to crack some jokes, but they were regurgitating common cartoon gags that were done to death a decade ago. It was some Ice Age 4 style comedy. And with the generic plot threads introduced, the trailer really had nothing going for it except “please come look at our movie, it has some nice special effects!”

As for using lesser-known Mario characters ... I’m sorry to say, but that’s a really common marketing tactic for this era of big franchise movies. A really basic, generic plot front and center so newcomers to the franchise can keep up with the plot, with these little nuggets of “remember this obscure guy or thing?!” for longtime fans to point at and go “oh yes I remember that guy or thing!!” It isn’t evidence of passion, it’s evidence of the creators knowing how nerd fandom operates and taking advantage of people’s sincere affection for their favorite stories.

I love bad movies and I don’t fault anyone for being excited about the Mario movie, but it’s disheartening to see people hyping up these soulless cash grabs just because franchise movie creators have caught onto which levers to pull to make fans swallow their garbage without complaining too much.

It was the same thing with the Sonic movies. They have basically nothing to do with the Sonic franchise, even the main character is completely divorced from the thematic context he was born out of, but tons of people love it just because it’s superficially “heartwarming” and more or less manages to dodge some of the obvious problems of other family films in the same genre.

Again, I’m not saying no one’s allowed to like these movies. But how anyone can look at the Mario trailer or the Sonic movies and call them good adaptions ... is beyond me.

The Mario and Sonic games’ stories aren’t good because there’s a guy named Mario in overalls and a blue hedgehog named Sonic who save the day in each their silly little way, they’re good because of their unique themes and ideas. Mario’s story is appealing because it’s quirky, energized, full of weird places and weird people that are nothing like any big blockbuster movie. Sonic’s story is all about environmentalism and anti-capitalism! Sonic stands for a green future! These traits are the heart and soul of the franchises these movies are trying to adapt, it’s what makes them good, but mainstream movie producers don’t care about any of that. They just put the funny-looking guy on the screen, try not to piss off any parents or long-time fans too much, then wait for money to start rolling in.

Besides, Mario’s only two defining character traits are “Italian” and “plumber,” and I do think it says a lot that even getting those two things right was too much effort for Illumination. The sheer balls it takes to look at a massive franchise like Mario and decide to change 50% of the most recognizable traits of its main character are astounding. Maybe it would be stupid to trash the movie over a single miscast voice ... but when it’s the main character? When said miscasting takes away one of his two character traits? That’s not nitpicking, that’s identifying an underlying problem with the production process, that is, a lack of interest in the very franchise they’re trying to adapt.

Nintendo has more money than god. They should be able to get a hold of an animation studio that can do more than just make pretty special effects and look up obscure characters on a fan wiki.

I don’t want a Mario movie that’s more or less non-offensive, I want a Mario movie that’s good. I want a Mario movie that understands the property it’s adapting. We have got to stop patting big blockbuster movies on the back for doing the bare minimum.