WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Super Mario Bros. (1993) 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.240 Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:18.520 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.079 yes it's true. Today we're going to be talking about 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.960 the Super Mario Brothers movie. No, no, no, Not the 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.240 one currently in theaters as we record this, with Jack 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.159 Black as the voice of Bowser, the one currently on 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.600 four dollars DVDs, with Dennis Hopper as not only the voice, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.159 but the body and the soul of Bowser. Though when 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.000 I first thought about this, I was calling him Bowser. 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.879 Is this before the character was called Bowser in the 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.640 Mario verse. In this movie, he's just Koopa. How did 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:51.440 that change happen? 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.840 I think Lance Hendrickson is King Bowser in this. Oh, 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.720 I believe that's how he's credited. Which I don't know 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.560 why they made this choice, because I feel like he's 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.360 more of a Dentis Hopper is totally playing some version 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.040 of Bowser in this. Maybe they just thought like Koopa 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:08.800 sounded better. 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.160 I don't know anyway. Yes, we are, of course talking 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:17.440 about the live action Super Mario Brothers movie from nineteen 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.399 ninety three, and I'm pretty sure. This one was a 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.040 parent's night out movie for me. So I was a kid. 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.000 I think I had a babysitter, had a kid cuisine, 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.360 frozen meal for dinner, maybe some oatmeal cookies afterwards, fresh 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.240 rental from the video store. And what was that rental? 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.160 It was a VHS tape of Super Mario Brothers. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.040 Yeah. I don't think I ever saw this as a kid. 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.360 I didn't see it until I was an adult. But 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.520 I remember seeing the promotional materials for it, perhaps a trailer, 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.280 you know, maybe an article or at least a screen 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.600 shot in Time magazine or something, and I remember thinking, well, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.880 this is a bold choice for adapting the Mario Brothers 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.120 video game. But I also so was too young to 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.600 question it. I was like, yes, this is the way, 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.800 this is what we're doing. This is the cinematic Mario Brothers. 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.520 When you're a kid, this has come up many times 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:12.680 on the show before. When you're a kid, you don't 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.400 really have that sense of this is not a way 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.200 that movies are supposed to be. If a movie exists, 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.720 it's like, yeah, that's what movies are like that that's legitimate. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.080 I mean, that's the way I was My son is 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.600 not this way. Like, he's a Pokemon fan and I've 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.600 watched some Pokemon with him. Some of it is some 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.079 weird stuff, but we watched Pokemon Detective Peak of two 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.840 together and we had a great time watching it. I 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.040 thought it was as I've mentioned on the show before, 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.920 I thought it was substantially good, especially considering it is 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:47.160 also essentially a video game adaptation. But he refuses to 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.120 acknowledge it. Now. He's like, no, the Pokemons don't look right. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.840 They look and he has all these critiques about it, 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:55.679 and I'm just kind of like, you're a little young 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:57.200 to understand this, but you know you're going to have 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.519 to find that middle ground with other people and realize 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.680 that Pokemon Detective Pikachu is like the bridge that will 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.000 bring other people in, that will allow you to connect 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.680 with other people outside of like the Pokemon fandom. 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:09.800 Well, I haven't seen that one. But we'll have to 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.480 compare our experiences in a minute, because I think we 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.639 cannot cover the Super Mario Brothers movie without talking a 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.399 little bit more generally about the concept of video game 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.920 to movie adaptations. But I want to hold off on 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.400 that for a second because the first thing I have 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.080 to say is Now that I have gone back and 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.240 reviewed the evidence, I can say without a doubt, in 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.080 my opinion, this is one of the weirdest movies we 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.080 have covered on the show, and one of the weirdest 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:41.080 movies I have ever seen. I am truly at a 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:47.040 loss for words to express how bizarre Super Mario Brothers is, 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:54.320 both qualitatively and quantitatively. There is a dank manic luminosity 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.120 to the proceedings. It is a dream dreamed by a 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.080 slime mold who is also a corporate lawyer. It is 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:06.600 a warm garbage bag leaking black liquid onto your bed, 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.920 But the garbage bag and the liquid are made of 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:15.320 lawnmower man's style CGI, and the garbage bag is also poocy. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:18.400 I don't know where you fall in this. Obviously, there 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.920 are different ways that movies can be weird, but I 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.800 I struggle to think of a movie we've covered on 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.280 our show about weird movies that is as weird as 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:28.800 this one. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.080 Yeah. I mean, they're all weird in different ways, and 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.159 it can be hard to to to compare them. The 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.480 way I kept thinking about this film is to think 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.440 of it in terms of evolution and misnomers about evolution, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.640 as will discuss come up just throughout the film, so 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.560 that that'll be something we'll discuss in a bit. But 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.080 you know, it's it's easy to think about bad films, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:56.440 weird films, miscalibrated films as being the result of a 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.440 whole bunch of bad decisions, but it's not not really 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.000 necessarily the case, like in this movie is the result 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.279 of a number of bad decisions, but also a lot 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.680 of solid or even great decisions. But in the same 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.279 way that evolution is a linear progression, but not one 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:17.200 of just like constant quote unquote improvement Necessarily, it's not 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.400 like an ascension towards heaven. The evolution of a film 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.360 from you know, conception and pre production to final form 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.760 to the version that goes into theaters or on vhs 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:33.520 and DVDs, it doesn't mean that what you're going to 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.719 get at the end is going to be great. Like 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:38.600 in this case, you can almost think of it as 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:43.960 sort of like terminal evolution. Evolution can produce a morphological form, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.320 a way of life that is very niche, but is 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:51.160 also ultimately doomed to extinction because of how niche it is. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.440 And that's kind of what we have here, a movie 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.160 that was created to fill a particular niche, and one 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.960 that may not actually exist, and as it turned out, 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:00.960 was also doomed. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.200 The creative elements in this movie do not feel like 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.920 they were selected through the process of a single cohesive 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.960 vision of what the movie should be. Instead, it kind 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.960 of feels like a catemorary domice of creative elements. So 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:21.520 it's just rolling up chairs and doughnuts and nails and 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.279 people and they're all in this ball together in the end. 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.680 Yeah, it's not even like sometimes with films, there's this 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.240 feeling of like a push and pull, like this side 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.960 wanted a comedy, this side wanted a horror movie, and 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.039 you have something, you know, mismanaged in between, or you 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.440 have just multiple genres kind of hit in a film. 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.120 We've talked about that a bit, but yeah, this one, 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.520 I guess the best way I can think about it 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.320 is you take the source material here, the Super Mario 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.560 Brothers video games that existed up until this point, and 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:57.280 to adapt them into a live action film, you're gonna 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.080 have to make some bold choices, and they definitely made 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.719 some bold choices. It just ultimately didn't take on a 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.080 form that most of us can can really connect. 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.120 With Okay, well, this sounds like the bridge to talking 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.560 about the general concept of video game to movie adaptation, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.680 something that actually happens a lot now, but this was 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.320 once a completely new thing. Of course, people have long 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:27.400 been adapting text based literature into movies. So plays, short stories, novels, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.920 those all become movies, you know. Those kinds of adaptations 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.040 have been made for more than a century. And while 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:38.600 there are always interesting choices and changes that take place 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.640 when adapting a story from one medium to another, I 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.360 think it's safe to say that adapting a novel, or 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.000 especially adapting a play to the screen, is often a 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:53.360 fairly natural transition. And it can depend on the novel itself, 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.760 but presumably there's a narrative of some sort and that 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.800 can be embodied by actors and set designers and so 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:04.920 and captured on film. Now, especially for more recent video games, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.600 the transition is also fairly natural, and I think that's 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:12.440 because over time a lot of big budget video games 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.760 have become more cinematic in style and structure. Like big 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.240 video games now often have stories and characters in plot 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.120 structure almost exactly like a movie, except you play as 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:27.440 one of the characters instead of just watching, but Super 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.080 Mario Brothers in the early nineties was a totally different 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.040 type of media. This is a video game where you 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.880 play as a little cluster of pixels, a little man 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.840 in overalls with a mustache and a hat, and you 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.760 run from left to right and you jump on fanged 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.800 mushroom monsters and malicious turtles, and you go down sewer 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.560 pipes into castles. The actual story is very thin, So 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.720 I'm really just riveted actually by the idea of what 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:57.679 it must have felt like when this was a new 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.199 thing to do. Nobody had ever really adapted a videodo 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.920 game to a movie, a feature length movie before, So, like, 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:05.920 how do you do it? How do you turn that 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.440 little man running across the screen and jumping on things 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.440 into a ninety minute story? If I try to go 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.040 back in a time machine, imagine it's the early nineties 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.480 and I've been given this as a writing project, I 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:20.720 really do not know what I would have thought about it, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.560 Like where to start? What do you do? 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.040 Yeah, yeah, this is interesting. I like how you point 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.400 out just like the the initial novelty of this. And 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.600 I was reading actually Michael Weldon's writings on this, published 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.240 in nineteen ninety six, So three years after this came out, 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.160 this film came out in the Psychotronic Video Guide, and 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.880 he points out a lot about the film that we'll 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.840 be pointing out. You know, I think we have shared 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.440 the same general opinion, but he includes the line it 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.800 didn't stop more movies based on video games, which to 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.760 us with our modern perspective like it, I mean, we 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.599 can't imagine them having stopped, you know, but yeah, that 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:01.520 kind of I think for me sums up that at 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.080 the time, like this was this was a novel idea, 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.959 and they were adapting things that didn't scream for adaptation 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.839 because you look at something like Silent Hill. Silent Hill 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.319 has you know, their gameplay innovations there and a lot 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.120 of technical advancements, but you have things like pyramid Head, 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.120 you know, things with a definite design quality to them, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.360 a definite setting, and even with Silent Hill, you sort 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.079 of have a story there, right, But but you know, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.360 things you can latch onto and be like, yes, let's 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.480 make a pyramid Head movie. But with Mario, the true 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:39.400 innovations are all deeply technical, They're all deeply embedded in 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.440 game design. Like that's where Super Mario was so innovative, 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.320 and the reason it was so successful is it was 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.560 doing things that had not been done before. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.280 Well, you notice a lot of modern video games have 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.360 a difficulty setting called story mode for people who are 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.120 not very interested in gameplay mechanics. They just want to 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.480 experience it as a story like a movie. That type 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.320 of mode would make no sense whatsoever for the original 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.360 Mario games. There isn't a story like. The story is 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.280 the gameplay. It's just the gameplay. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:09.760 Oh man, I wish we had. We would have had 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.280 story mode back in the day. I remember I had 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.320 Castlevania for any s I didn't have Mario. Castlevania was 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.559 always too hard for me. I never made it very 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:20.560 far through that game. I would have loved to have 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.680 had a story mode for that, even though there's you know, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.880 basically no story or narrative to Castlevania. Either. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.400 To be fair, I maybe getting terminology mixed up story 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:31.640 mode I think maybe also just sometimes means like not 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.400 multiplayer early. But you know what I'm talking about, that 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.640 difficulty setting. It's like the easy mode where you are 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.160 just there. You just want to experience the narrative. You 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:41.439 don't want to have to fight for it. 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.560 Yeah, I don't want to get frustrated with it. I 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.240 just want to ride this out. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.480 Okay, there's a second thing that I'd say, at least 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.920 from my perspective, I have to make clear at the 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.760 very beginning in order for you to understand what the 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.760 experience of watching Super Mario Brothers is like, and it's 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:00.520 that in a pure visual sense, this is, with doubt 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.840 one of the ugliest movies we have covered on a 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.680 Weird House and one of the ugliest movies I have 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.640 ever seen. And I don't even think that is an 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.760 oversight by the filmmakers, Like I don't think that's unintentional. 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.520 From what I've read, they were trying to create something 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.240 that was hideous to look at. It was part of 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.079 an intended esthetic that one of the producers. I was 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.960 reading an article by Karina Longworth from many years ago, 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.920 sort of a retrospective about the making of this film, 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.760 and she said that the producers were calling it an 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.960 aesthetic of new brutalism. I don't know what that means. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.160 That was their term, and they said it was, you know, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.800 it was set to be inspired by kind of perverse 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.839 urban settings and industrialism. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.880 Ah. Now that's interesting because as we'll discuss in a bit. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.240 I don't really love the music in this film. I 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.719 feel like the music is outside of one piece from 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:04.040 the soundtrack, very forgettable to bad. But imagine if it 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.480 had had a heavy industrial soundtrack, because clearly, yeah, that's 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.240 what the aesthetics are asking for it ultimately, not like 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:14.840 a traditional score, not even like some cool funk, but 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.199 just some straight up like nurse with wound or something 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:22.199 playing with like a sound of cacophony, get some einsters 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:23.760 into a new bottin in there or something. 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.319 The Mario theme as done by Ministry. 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.959 Ye, Ministry would have been a great a great pick 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.560 for the way this film looks. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:37.760 Can you imagine the Swans take on Mario? Yeah? I 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:39.240 would listen to that in a heartbeat. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:41.640 Yeah, And I think that this is this is a 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:43.720 great point to make. Yeah, this idea that there are 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.560 aspects of the film that are pushing in a more 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.160 you know, creative and inventive direction. But at the other hand, 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.800 this was like what a fifty million dollar picture aimed 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.800 at a mainstream audience and presumably for children. Those are 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.200 certain things, Yeah, there are certain things that had to 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.560 be in check, like like you know, you probably can't 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.760 go to graphic on melting a dude in this movie, 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.240 and it's gonna end up having a traditional score, no 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:13.080 matter how gnarly the visuals are so. Historically speaking, no 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:15.679 one liked this movie. No one seems to have liked 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.520 working on it. Neither critics nor audiences found much to 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:24.400 love about it. It was a box office bomb. However, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.600 it does seem like maybe the cheese has aged into 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.000 something more desirable, at least for some segments of the population, 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.680 or at least some individuals. I was reading that Quentin 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.600 Tarantino defended the film recently on his I believe he's 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.640 on a podcast and in hosted an enthusiastic showing on 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.920 it now. Tarantino certainly has a love of weird films, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.800 although he sometimes makes some really you know, head scratching 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.080 picks for favorites. I seem to recall he loved twenty 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:51.960 thirteen's Lone Ranger, for example. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.760 That's a I don't know but yeah, but okay, I Well, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.840 we two also have enthusiasm for out of the way picks, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.680 kind of strange movies that nobody else would really think 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.640 were even worth revisiting. They can't and you know, what. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.480 I can't say that I loved or even necessarily liked 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.320 Super Mario Brothers, but I'm really glad we decided to 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:18.280 cover it for the show because I think this movie 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:23.480 is maybe not pleasant, but it is fascinating. I think 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.720 you could write a book length work about this film, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.840 about how it was made and what it means, and 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.000 I would read that book. 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.520 Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important to know, especially with 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.520 critics like Michael Weldon and even you know, some other 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.560 contemporary reviews. Is like when this was new, when this 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.800 was the latest release, like it didn't have this historic place, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.600 you know. So I think even the critics who really 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:52.600 gave it a lashing, you know, they would they probably 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.080 would consider a similar picture in a different light if 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:01.440 it were from thirty years ago to their writing. So, yeah, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.160 it is. It's a weird film. It's it's an ugly film, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.560 but there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:08.920 it now. 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:13.720 Since it was, of course ostensibly a film mostly for children, 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.760 it had toy tie ins, and you included a photo 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:21.080 of those action figures here in the outline. Just wretched, 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:22.680 wretched toys. 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.560 Yeah, they remind me. They're almost as repulsive as the 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.680 Dick Tracy toys that I definitely own several of They 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:32.560 look like they have similar bodies, you know. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.200 Okay, so two of the toys are Mario and Luigi. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.240 I get that. One toy is Dennis Hopper as King Koopa. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:42.000 One is one of the movies goombas, which are getting 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:46.480 nasty looking. But then two of the six pictured here 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:50.280 are just They're just the guys from Night at the Roxbury. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.440 They're like Fisher Stevens and the other dude from the 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.480 movie were in suits to go out to the club. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:01.320 Yeah, like the least marketable in terms of children characters film. Meanwhile, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:03.800 the goomba looks really good, Like the goomba toy actually 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.200 does look better than the goomba's in the movie. Agree, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.120 all right, So Joe, what's the what's the elevator pitch 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:10.560 on this one? 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:16.399 Well, it's a hymn A Mario No I do? Okay, 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:20.480 So it's uh, Mario and Luigi are. They're struggling plumbers 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:25.159 in Brooklyn. They meet Daisy, a paleontologist who happened to 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:28.800 have hatched from an egg. Together, the three of them 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.439 are sucked into an alternate dimension where people evolved from 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.639 dinosaurs and everything is gross, and an evil Dennis Hopper 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:40.560 wants to make our world gross like his. Can the 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:41.480 humans stop him? 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.320 All right? Let's listen to that trailer audio. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:58.320 They're brothers, They're plumbers. They're on the trail of a 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:03.320 kidnapped princess and a mystical meteorite. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.919 That gives any one who possesses EXI. 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.080 The power to rule the universe. 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.639 Get me the rocks. 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:25.760 They must rescue the princess physic escaping and make. 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.520 It safely back later, alligators. 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:53.000 To our world before time runs out. Get him Super 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:54.080 Mario Brothers. 0:18:54.600 --> 0:19:01.240 This ain't no game all right. Now. If you're wondering 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.920 where can I watch nineteen ninety three Super Mario Brothers, 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.840 Well it's pretty much only available as physical media, so 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:11.440 go out and get it now on bare bones Blu ray, DVD, 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.040 LaserDisc or VHS. 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.080 We watched it on a DVD that might as well 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:17.199 have been a VHS. 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.359 Oh yeah, this is I mean, I'm glad you were 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.359 on it and you ordered up a couple of these 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.399 three dollars DVDs for us. But man, this is one 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.520 of the most bare bones DVD releases of a major 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.040 motion picture I've ever seen the menu for it, Like 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.879 the onscreen menu looks like one of those template default 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.480 menus on a burn your own DVD program from like 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:41.400 fifteen years ago. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.720 It might literally have been something like that. And when 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.000 the menu pops up, it plays the Super Mario theme 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:51.880 like from the game. But I swear they modulated it somehow, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.240 so it sounds sad. It literally sounds like the depressed 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:01.800 version of the Mario music. Dun dund dun dundun. 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.479 Yeah, like a busted holiday card or something. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:06.840 Yeah. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.000 I don't know if the Blu ray received any more love. 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.840 I tend to doubt it. I mean, I don't think 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.040 any release for this film re release has given it 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.439 any amount of love. It's been just sort of cast 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.680 out there, like we don't want Pirates to provide the 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.320 people who are interested with this film. So okay, we'll 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:35.080 put it out all right. Shall we get into the 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.040 connections on this one? The people of note because there 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.320 are a number of fascinating folks and very talented folks 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:46.879 involved in the creation of this monstrosity. So first of all, 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:51.280 the director's chairs. We have a pair of directors. I 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.520 believe they were husband and wife at the time. Annabel 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.399 Jenkle and Rocky Morton both born in nineteen fifty five, 0:20:57.840 --> 0:20:59.720 so yeah, these two were a couple. They found it 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.560 Q Cumber Studios in the late nineteen seventies and they 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.320 specialized in music videos, TV commercials, title sequences, stuff like that. 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.560 They worked with a number of notable clients and musical talents, 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:14.360 but what really put them on the map was Max Headroom. 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.439 Max Headroom debuted in a fifty seven minute TV film, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.840 Max Headroom Twenty Minutes Into the Future in nineteen eighty five. 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.280 He was played, of course, by the talented Matt Freuher 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:29.280 in a cyberpunk origin story for this character that I 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.000 think a lot of us associate with later becoming a 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:34.240 spokesman for Coke. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.600 But I thought the whole point of Max Headroom is 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:43.120 that he is an evil, soulless, computer generated representative of 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.639 an oppressive corporate conglomerate that wants to rule the world 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:47.600 with an iron fist. 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.000 Well, I don't know. I think you might know more 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.640 about Max Headroom than I do. I haven't seen any 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:57.160 of these Max Headroom properties aside from like the Coke spots, 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.920 so all I know is that he's digital and kind 0:21:59.920 --> 0:22:00.520 of plastic. 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.320 Yeah. I've never actually seen this TV film or anything, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.000 but like I've seen clips and I've read about it. 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.000 That's what I thought it was. It seems to me 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:12.760 like if like Dick Jones from RoboCop became the spokesperson 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:13.240 for coke. 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.320 Yeah. I don't know, So maybe we have some Max 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.520 Headroom fans out there. You can set the record straight 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.200 on this, but Max was a hit. He almost immediately 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:25.199 got his own Channel four music video presentation show that 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.760 got aired on Cinemax in the US the Coke deal. Obviously. 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.080 Max even had his own TV show on ABC in 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:35.320 nineteen eighty seven, and we continue to have various cameos 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:37.720 over the years and it remains something of I guess 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.080 like an eighties odd ball cultural icon. All right, But anyway, 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.200 back to Jenkle and Morton here. Following Max Headroom, they 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.680 did a nineteen eighty eight film titled Da starring Dennis Quaid, 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:53.000 Meg Ryan, Charlotte Rampling, Daniel Stern, and Jane Kazmarak. Wow, 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.080 an impressive cast. I have not seen it. It was 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.720 apparently like a neo noir flick, and it did pretty 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.840 well clear and commercially, I understand it's actually a remake 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:06.199 of a nineteen forty nine film, and Michael Weldon in 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:10.199 his review stress that the original is definitely better. But 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.159 then came nineteen ninety three Super Mario Brothers, and you know, 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.720 there's a lot to unpack here about what didn't work, 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:20.119 and you know what a bomb it was, certainly, and 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.400 it kind of I think caused a pause in both 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.520 their careers. I believe Morton continued doing music videos. We 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:30.280 don't see much from him afterwards, either in terms of 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:33.520 film or TV credits, at least around two thousand and five, 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:36.359 which is also around the time that the couple having 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:39.399 to divorce. I think Morton's work has mostly been in 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:43.320 music videos, and Jankell has continued to direct, including the 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:46.720 two thousand and nine TV movies skellg The owl Man 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:51.120 starring Tim Roth and John sim and twenty eighteen's Tell 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:54.320 It to the Bees starring Billy Boyd and Anna Paquin. 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:56.800 Yeah, I think I can say I'm not familiar with 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:00.000 it either of the director's other work really, apart from 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.119 what little bit I know about Max Headroom. So that 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:04.359 you know, all I've got to go on here is 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.639 Super Mario Brothers. I can't get further into their heads. 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:12.800 All right, the writers on this. So there's, first of all, 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:16.639 there are a pair here. There's Terry Runt, I believe 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:18.919 it is I may be mispronouncing that, are you Nte 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:22.760 who lived nineteen sixty through nineteen ninety four, along with 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:26.960 Parker Bennett dates unknown. They'd previously written nineteen ninety one's 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:31.520 Mystery Date. Bennett was a cartoonist and apparently was in advertising. 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.920 But that's all I really dug up about their professional careers. 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:39.879 The other credited writer is Ed Solomon born nineteen sixty. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:42.040 Solomon is best known for his writing work and I 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:44.800 believe all the Bill and Ted films, from the Bill 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:47.480 and Ted franchise, the first Men in Black movie, the 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.840 Now You See Me films, and also such titles as 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:53.680 ninety two's Mom and Dad Saved the World, that two 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:58.000 thousand Charlie's Angels movie, and twenty twenty one's No Sudden 0:24:58.040 --> 0:24:58.840 Move Now. 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:02.760 I think one thing to stress, and this will make 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.160 a lot of sense if you see the movie, is 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:08.560 that the script that we ended up with being shot 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.479 and making the movie was by no means the first 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:16.399 attempt or the first draft to script this thing. I 0:25:16.720 --> 0:25:18.960 don't know. I've read accounts where I lost track of 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:21.040 all the different version I think there was something like 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:26.840 nine different scripts or something, and it went through all 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.159 kinds of development hell or I don't know if it's 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:32.480 technically development hell. That might be a more specific thing. 0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:36.520 It went through a very complicated creative process. In fact, 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:41.320 I was reading an article in Yahoo Entertainment about one 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.359 of the screenwriters who did an early draft for the movie. 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:49.400 And this article is by John San called the Super 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:52.200 Mario Brothers Movie Turns twenty five, How the Infamous Dud 0:25:52.280 --> 0:25:56.119 was inspired by an Oscar winning film. This article claims 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:59.439 that the first draft of the script, again completely different 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:02.280 from what was actually filmed, was written by the Oscar 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:05.400 winning screenwriter Barry Morrow, who was one of the two 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:09.399 writers behind rain Man, and he was brought on board 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:12.800 because of the rain Man script because of quote his 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:15.199 talent for writing Brothers. 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:16.480 Oh wow. 0:26:16.800 --> 0:26:20.840 So a few quotes from the article, Morrow says, my son, 0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:23.640 who was very small at the time, was Mario crazy. 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:25.679 I said I would do it just to get Mario 0:26:25.760 --> 0:26:30.199 games for my son. Probably. Apparently it was going to 0:26:30.200 --> 0:26:33.199 be an origin story telling the story of how the 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:35.479 Mario Brothers became. 0:26:35.320 --> 0:26:37.960 Super Don't they just step on a mushroom? Like that's 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:39.040 the original version. 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:41.479 Yeah, I think that is. But so, he says he 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:43.840 can't remember all of the details of his script. I've 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:46.600 read a few other allegations about it elsewhere that it 0:26:47.200 --> 0:26:50.439 had a kind of mythic structure and involved like a 0:26:50.440 --> 0:26:53.840 great journey or a quest. But he says it hinged 0:26:53.880 --> 0:26:57.160 on quote a ring getting lost in a drain, and 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:00.840 that's what led Mario and Luigi into the plumbing world. 0:27:01.200 --> 0:27:03.760 Well, I mean makes sense. You got to start somewhere. Uh. 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:07.160 He also says, quote, I didn't even finish the script. 0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:09.800 I had the last scene I was working on when 0:27:09.840 --> 0:27:12.280 the courier arrived and said I've been told to take 0:27:12.320 --> 0:27:14.720 it whether you're finished or not. Off it went. 0:27:15.600 --> 0:27:18.640 Wow. That story itself is pretty crazy, just in terms 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:21.280 of like a pre internet age, like there's no like 0:27:21.320 --> 0:27:23.080 we need you to email the script. Now it's like 0:27:23.160 --> 0:27:24.600 the courier is at the door. 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:28.000 Yeah, so he had to hand off the unfinished script. 0:27:28.080 --> 0:27:32.360 Of course it was. It may have fed into subsequent scripts, 0:27:32.400 --> 0:27:35.840 which were subsequently revised in many different ways. I've heard 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:40.639 that the shooting script that they ended up using, I 0:27:40.680 --> 0:27:42.520 think the claim I read about I think this was 0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:46.240 in the Koreana Longworth article in Grantland that I read 0:27:46.280 --> 0:27:50.760 about this. That script they said by the time they 0:27:50.920 --> 0:27:54.199 used it had no original pages in it, so you 0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:56.040 know they would have like the color coding of the 0:27:56.080 --> 0:27:59.160 different revision pages, and there were no white pages from 0:27:59.200 --> 0:28:00.439 the first draft. Left. 0:28:00.960 --> 0:28:04.520 Wow. Well, if creatively this is a train that eventually 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:07.560 goes off the tracks, we have to acknowledge that that 0:28:07.600 --> 0:28:12.320 train began long ago in a station of just pure 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:16.679 game development. The individual that, of course this begins with 0:28:16.960 --> 0:28:21.440 is Shagiru Miyamoto born nineteen fifty two, video game designer, producer, 0:28:21.520 --> 0:28:24.560 and game director in Nintendo. His work also includes the 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:27.680 creation of the Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, f Zero, 0:28:27.800 --> 0:28:30.520 and Star Fox. He has been described as the father 0:28:30.600 --> 0:28:32.040 of modern video games. 0:28:32.400 --> 0:28:35.600 I don't know a lot about him personally, but yeah, 0:28:35.600 --> 0:28:37.200 I don't know. How can you argue with that track 0:28:37.240 --> 0:28:41.880 record that is an incredible creative and technical mind. 0:28:42.240 --> 0:28:45.280 Yeah, all right, let's get into the cast here. Obviously, 0:28:45.760 --> 0:28:48.960 the lead is Mario Mario. Mario is his full name 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:53.040 and the character's name, and Mario Mario is played by 0:28:53.200 --> 0:28:56.200 Bob Hoskins. Who of nineteen forty two through twenty fourteen. 0:28:56.680 --> 0:29:00.680 Hoskins was a versatile British actor, probably best known to 0:29:00.800 --> 0:29:03.800 many out there for his role as Eddie Valiant in 0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:06.800 nineteen eighty eight, who framed Roger Rabbit, But of course 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:08.680 he came into that role on the back of a 0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:12.440 lot of highly regarded work, including nineteen seventy nine Pennies 0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:16.280 from Heaven, nineteen eighty two's The Long Good Friday, playing 0:29:16.280 --> 0:29:20.480 a gangster British gangster opposite Helen Mirren and Paul Freeman. 0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:24.320 Nineteen eighty four is The Honorary Console, which was also 0:29:24.440 --> 0:29:27.320 released under the title Beyond the Limit. On that he 0:29:27.640 --> 0:29:30.200 acted opposite Richard Gear and Michael Caine. And then there's 0:29:30.240 --> 0:29:33.920 nineteen eighty seven's Mona Lisa playing a criminal again opposite 0:29:34.040 --> 0:29:37.720 Kathy Tyson, Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane and Clark Peters. That 0:29:37.760 --> 0:29:40.760 one was directed by Neil Jordans, so a great actor, 0:29:41.080 --> 0:29:44.120 maybe best known for his roles outside of some of 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:47.360 these films, roles as heavies, you know, as kind of 0:29:47.400 --> 0:29:50.600 tough guys and gangsters. But there's a lot of interesting 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:53.720 stuff in there too. Amid some obvious paydays I've seen 0:29:53.760 --> 0:29:58.360 some creepy performances from him and also just some basic 0:29:58.760 --> 0:29:59.960 authority figure roles. 0:30:00.360 --> 0:30:03.200 Bob Hoskins was a great actor. Yeah, I love him. 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:07.440 He has quite famously and emphatically insisted that this was 0:30:07.520 --> 0:30:10.719 the worst thing he ever worked on in his entire career, 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:15.040 and has had just venomous things to say about it 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:19.840 in interviews. But I was reading in that Grantland article 0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:25.080 about the other actors who at some point were considering 0:30:25.320 --> 0:30:28.000 or were considered for the role of Mario. Do you 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:30.520 know who these other potential Marios were. 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:34.560 I am going to guess Robert de Niro. 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:36.760 He's not on the list. He may have been in there, 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:40.400 but not here. Okay, No, first one, Karina Longworth says, 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:44.479 first one, Dustin Hoffman wanted to be Mario again because 0:30:44.520 --> 0:30:48.480 his kids were Nintendo maniacs, and so he wanted to 0:30:48.520 --> 0:30:53.200 impress his kids, apparently by being Mario on screen. But 0:30:53.320 --> 0:30:58.320 that didn't work out. I think originally the game executive, 0:30:58.360 --> 0:31:01.000 so this may have been the people at Nintendo rather 0:31:01.040 --> 0:31:04.680 than the movie studio, wanted Danny DeVito. I mean it 0:31:04.720 --> 0:31:06.440 seems like a very clear choice there. 0:31:06.960 --> 0:31:09.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean de Vito would have been 0:31:09.440 --> 0:31:11.400 interesting in the role. Would have brought a different energy 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:15.400 because one thing about Hoskins Mario is that he looks 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:18.560 like he's ready for a brawl a lot in this film, like, 0:31:18.600 --> 0:31:21.760 oh yeah, his intensity is a little unnerving at times. 0:31:21.840 --> 0:31:24.200 He looks like he could kill somebody in an argument 0:31:24.240 --> 0:31:25.000 about football. 0:31:25.160 --> 0:31:28.760 Yeah, and his character frequently says that he wishes to 0:31:28.880 --> 0:31:29.440 kill people. 0:31:29.680 --> 0:31:32.960 Yes, So this is a Mario who expresses death, which 0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:37.840 is constantly yeah. But apparently Danny DeVito ended up not 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:41.280 being involved in this because he wanted to concentrate on 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:45.840 directing and co starring in Hafa. Okay, I think that 0:31:45.920 --> 0:31:50.640 was starring Jack Nicholson as Jimmy Hoffer. Okay. Next thing 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:54.240 after this was that apparently Tom Hanks was considered for 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:56.760 the role. This would have been Tom hank right around 0:31:56.800 --> 0:31:57.880 the time of Forrest Gump. 0:31:57.920 --> 0:32:02.200 I believe, No, I don't know. Hank's would have been 0:32:02.280 --> 0:32:06.320 Luigi at Best yeah, though I honestly don't even know 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:07.760 how I have a strong opinion about this. 0:32:09.520 --> 0:32:13.160 Tom Hanks apparently wanted five million for the role, but 0:32:13.280 --> 0:32:16.000 instead they ended up going with Bob Hoskins. And it's 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:19.840 weird because it's like, I can't really fault them for that. 0:32:19.920 --> 0:32:23.600 Seems like a great choice, But then again, I don't know, 0:32:23.720 --> 0:32:27.000 Like Hoskins ended up being so hostile about the very 0:32:27.080 --> 0:32:32.040 idea of this film. I don't know. I mean maybe 0:32:32.120 --> 0:32:34.800 I one wonders if there had been a different actor 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:36.800 in the role, if the whole movie could have taken 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:38.200 a different direction. I don't know. 0:32:38.320 --> 0:32:41.600 Yeah, yeah, hard to say. Now, you can't have Mario 0:32:41.680 --> 0:32:45.920 without Luigi and Luigi Mario is played by John Leguizamo 0:32:46.160 --> 0:32:49.920 born nineteen sixty. I've seen this film singled out as 0:32:49.960 --> 0:32:52.760 the role that allowed him to rise to fame, and 0:32:52.840 --> 0:32:55.040 maybe that's the case. But he'd certainly been putting in 0:32:55.120 --> 0:32:58.120 the work prior to Mario Brothers and has done a 0:32:58.160 --> 0:33:01.239 great deal since Mario Brothers to cement his legacy as 0:33:01.240 --> 0:33:05.160 a comedian and an actor with both comedic and dramatic power. 0:33:05.720 --> 0:33:09.320 His earliest credit is playing Madonna's boyfriend's friend in the 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:13.280 nineteen eighty four music video for Borderline, followed by small 0:33:13.440 --> 0:33:16.280 roles in such films as Diehard Too and Regarding Henry. 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:19.640 But it's clearly off to the races after Mario Brothers, 0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:22.000 and the man has worked so much that I can't 0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:24.360 even hit it all like the high points. But just 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:26.640 to name a few films of note, there's Tu Wong 0:33:26.720 --> 0:33:29.880 Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmart from ninety three, the 0:33:29.960 --> 0:33:33.920 nineteen ninety six adaptation of Romeo and Juliet Oh nineteen 0:33:34.000 --> 0:33:37.840 ninety seven Spawn, in which he plays the villainous clown character. 0:33:38.320 --> 0:33:40.840 Yeah, that's a role. 0:33:40.960 --> 0:33:43.920 I know it's probably not like up there for like 0:33:44.040 --> 0:33:47.840 examples of Leguizamo at his best, but like that is 0:33:47.880 --> 0:33:52.360 a role where the times raw energy that he has 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:57.160 as an actor is really essential. Like he's wearing God 0:33:57.200 --> 0:33:59.880 only knows how much makeup in that to become clown, 0:34:00.400 --> 0:34:03.400 and he's able to like shine through that in a 0:34:03.440 --> 0:34:08.600 way that feels like impishly comedic and also villainous at 0:34:08.640 --> 0:34:09.200 the same time. 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:13.920 February tenth, twenty twenty three article on comicbook dot Com 0:34:14.080 --> 0:34:18.080 features quotes from an interview with John Leguizamo. John Leguizamo 0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:20.760 is asked of all the villains he's played in his career, 0:34:20.880 --> 0:34:24.680 what is his favorite. Leg Guizamo says, I gotta say clown. 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:26.840 Awesome. 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:29.400 He says he liked it because of the level of 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:32.160 difficulty and because of how much freedom he had like 0:34:32.239 --> 0:34:35.840 to add lib and get crazy, and so he says, quote, 0:34:35.880 --> 0:34:37.200 I pushed it to the max. 0:34:37.760 --> 0:34:42.680 Well, it absolutely worked. We may eventually rewatch Spawn for 0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:46.080 Weird House Cinema. In many ways, it's not an experience 0:34:46.120 --> 0:34:50.160 I'm looking forward to, but his performance, actually several of 0:34:50.200 --> 0:34:52.120 the performances would be the main thing I would want 0:34:52.160 --> 0:34:55.200 to come back for. All Right, and I'll mention some 0:34:55.239 --> 0:34:57.359 of their Leguizamo films in a bit, But another one 0:34:57.360 --> 0:34:59.640 of note is twenty twenty two is the Menu. That's 0:34:59.680 --> 0:35:01.640 probably one of the more recent ones that I've seen 0:35:01.680 --> 0:35:03.520 from him, and I thought he was great in that, 0:35:03.680 --> 0:35:07.399 playing this kind of washed up action actor that I've 0:35:07.440 --> 0:35:09.680 seen him in interviews. Say that he kind of patterned 0:35:09.680 --> 0:35:12.600 this character after Steven Sagal because he worked with and 0:35:12.600 --> 0:35:15.480 he had, like many people, he has a Steven Sagall story, 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:18.319 many people in the industry, and so he based that 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:20.240 character in part on Steven Sagal. 0:35:20.840 --> 0:35:23.560 Let me gues. Steven Sagal told him that he could 0:35:23.640 --> 0:35:26.799 read anyone's mind just by shaking their hand, and then 0:35:26.880 --> 0:35:29.520 leg Wasamo shook his hand and Segal passed out on 0:35:29.560 --> 0:35:32.680 the floor something like that. 0:35:33.200 --> 0:35:36.560 All Right, we mentioned we mentioned our villain already, but 0:35:36.680 --> 0:35:40.040 we have King Koopa, and this is played by Dennis Hopper, 0:35:40.040 --> 0:35:43.520 who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty ten. This is, 0:35:43.560 --> 0:35:46.280 weirdly enough, our first Dennis Hopper movie in our left 0:35:47.000 --> 0:35:49.600 two plus years of weird house cinema, which is kind 0:35:49.600 --> 0:35:51.960 of a shock because Dennis Hopper is an actor with 0:35:52.040 --> 0:35:56.319 a long career that experiences multiple spikes and dips and 0:35:56.440 --> 0:35:59.719 has a lot of weird films in there from different decades. 0:36:00.160 --> 0:36:02.239 Yeah, he's one of those who, you know, he's done 0:36:02.239 --> 0:36:05.560 his prestige films, but also he clearly was not above 0:36:06.120 --> 0:36:09.200 cash in a paycheck doing some kind of weird sci 0:36:09.239 --> 0:36:11.160 fi slop. He did that quite a bit. 0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:14.720 Yeah. So he came up in TV in the occasional 0:36:14.719 --> 0:36:17.680 Western during the nineteen fifties, and then in the sixties, 0:36:18.400 --> 0:36:19.520 you know, things got weird. 0:36:19.600 --> 0:36:19.839 Man. 0:36:20.400 --> 0:36:23.120 He started appearing in things like the nineteen sixty one 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:26.279 horror film Night Tide. He played a neo Nazi on 0:36:26.320 --> 0:36:30.240 the nineteen sixty three episode of The Twilight Zones He's Alive, 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:33.960 And certainly there were more TV and westerns mixed in there. 0:36:34.120 --> 0:36:36.440 But he also appeared in the nineteen sixty six Space 0:36:36.560 --> 0:36:41.240 Vampire film Queen of Blood, starring John Saxon. In sixty seven, 0:36:41.320 --> 0:36:44.960 he appeared in the Corman directed Jack Nicholson scripted LSD 0:36:45.160 --> 0:36:50.239 movie The Trip, which which is certainly amusing. I have 0:36:50.360 --> 0:36:53.440 seen The Trip. Other notable sixties films, of course, include 0:36:53.480 --> 0:36:56.760 Cool Hand, Luke, Hang Him High, Oh in nineteen sixty 0:36:56.840 --> 0:37:00.759 nine's Easy Rider, which he also directed and wrote the 0:37:00.800 --> 0:37:04.720 first of nine directorial credits, which also included nineteen seventy 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:08.120 one's The Last Movie. He was in sixty nine's True Grit. 0:37:08.200 --> 0:37:10.680 In nineteen seventy nine, of course, he played a memorable 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:14.359 role as the as a deranged photo journalist in Apocalypse Now. 0:37:15.360 --> 0:37:18.480 And I think his eighties output may be classified by 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:20.799 some as a slump, but he's still and during that 0:37:20.840 --> 0:37:23.160 time period he gave us a nineteen eighty one Stigmata 0:37:23.160 --> 0:37:26.680 movie titled Reborn. And then, of course he had a 0:37:26.760 --> 0:37:30.440 strong nineteen eighty six with both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 0:37:30.520 --> 0:37:32.160 two and Blue Velvet. 0:37:32.440 --> 0:37:33.680 Wow. Yeah, that's a year. 0:37:34.480 --> 0:37:37.520 Did you notice Joe in this movie? The MANI like 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:42.719 sort of campaign and dictator posters for King Coopa include 0:37:42.719 --> 0:37:45.040 one where King Coopa has a big chainsaw. 0:37:45.640 --> 0:37:46.640 No, I didn't see that. 0:37:46.920 --> 0:37:49.279 Yeah, I did notice until like the end sequences when 0:37:49.320 --> 0:37:51.480 they're kind of like throwing overthrowing him and tearing the 0:37:51.480 --> 0:37:54.319 stuff down, But there's clearly a big chainsaw in one 0:37:54.360 --> 0:37:54.960 of the posters. 0:37:55.360 --> 0:37:58.360 One of my favorite sort of understated movie scenes of 0:37:58.360 --> 0:38:01.880 all time is Dennis Hopper shopping for chainsaws at a 0:38:01.960 --> 0:38:04.040 chainsaw store in TCM two. 0:38:04.640 --> 0:38:07.400 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's one of my favorite sequences 0:38:07.400 --> 0:38:09.320 in that movie as well. All Right, Then, in the 0:38:09.600 --> 0:38:13.600 early nineties, his career experienced another strong villains surge with 0:38:13.800 --> 0:38:16.600 Roles and not only ninety three's Mario but also ninety 0:38:16.640 --> 0:38:20.120 three's True Romance Who in ninety four Speed, which of 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:22.440 course was pretty huge at the time. He followed it 0:38:22.520 --> 0:38:25.399 up with nineteen ninety five's water World, and I guess 0:38:25.400 --> 0:38:28.480 after that there's another slump period, but he still gave 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:32.560 us nineteen ninety six as Basquillot as well as Space Truckers. 0:38:33.320 --> 0:38:35.919 Of note, he was a modern art collector and owned 0:38:35.920 --> 0:38:40.239 an extensive collection, and I believe he owned some Basciot paintings. 0:38:40.800 --> 0:38:43.960 But anyway, the rest of his career is pretty packed 0:38:43.960 --> 0:38:47.319 with projects, with some standouts at least for us, like 0:38:47.400 --> 0:38:50.560 George Romero's Land of the Dead from two thousand and five, 0:38:50.760 --> 0:38:53.239 which reunited him with John Leguizama. 0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:55.799 He plays a similar kind of character in Land of 0:38:55.840 --> 0:38:58.920 the Dead to his King Koopa character. Yeah, he's like, 0:38:59.680 --> 0:39:03.279 he's sort of a post apocalyptic rich guy who lives 0:39:03.360 --> 0:39:06.520 up in a you know, skyscraper above all the poor 0:39:06.600 --> 0:39:08.200 people in the zombie land. 0:39:08.600 --> 0:39:10.600 Yeah. I remember seeing Land of the Dead when it 0:39:10.640 --> 0:39:15.000 came out, and I remember liking it, but not like 0:39:15.040 --> 0:39:16.960 falling in love with it. It's interesting to look at 0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:20.960 where zombie cinema and zombie TV shows and so forth 0:39:20.960 --> 0:39:24.399 have gone since that time period, because I feel like, take, 0:39:24.400 --> 0:39:27.720 for instance, The Walking Dead. Clearly, you know, it owes 0:39:27.920 --> 0:39:32.120 a huge nod to all of Romero zombie films, but 0:39:32.160 --> 0:39:34.760 I feel like, if you had to compare The Walking 0:39:34.840 --> 0:39:37.160 Dead film by film, I feel like it has more 0:39:37.160 --> 0:39:39.359 in common with Land of the Dead and that kind 0:39:39.400 --> 0:39:43.600 of vision of post zombie apocalypse society, you. 0:39:43.560 --> 0:39:45.840 Know, well, Land of the when you think about the 0:39:46.080 --> 0:39:48.799 Romero movies in order, so Night of the Living Dead 0:39:48.840 --> 0:39:52.319 is about the night of the outbreak. Dawn of the 0:39:52.360 --> 0:39:57.560 Dead is taking place as civilization is falling apart. Day 0:39:57.600 --> 0:40:00.000 of the Dead is very interesting because It takes place 0:40:00.200 --> 0:40:03.480 apparently after civilization has fallen apart, and it has a 0:40:03.560 --> 0:40:06.759 very small, isolated cast. It's like a group of scientists 0:40:06.760 --> 0:40:10.399 and military personnel living alone on a base and they're 0:40:10.440 --> 0:40:12.600 not even sure if anybody else is left out in 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:15.440 the world. Land of the Dead comes along after that. 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:17.920 It's the fourth film, and it sort of opens back 0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:20.759 up again. It has a social element and it's like, Okay, well, 0:40:20.760 --> 0:40:23.640 here's what a city looks like in the zombie world. 0:40:24.080 --> 0:40:27.719 People have reorganized. There is a social structure now, and 0:40:27.840 --> 0:40:29.280 this is this is what emerges. 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:41.279 Yeah, all right, all right, But back to Mario. We 0:40:41.360 --> 0:40:44.279 have the character Daisy, who I guess is essentially like 0:40:44.600 --> 0:40:45.200 the Princess. 0:40:45.239 --> 0:40:49.040 This is the princess character identifiable as the princess from 0:40:49.040 --> 0:40:52.120 Mario only because she's named Daisy, which I guess she 0:40:52.239 --> 0:40:54.239 is maybe in some of the games, like the maybe 0:40:54.280 --> 0:40:56.160 the Game Boy one or something, I'm not sure, and 0:40:56.200 --> 0:40:58.759 because they say she's a princess, but she never like 0:40:59.080 --> 0:41:01.319 looks like the prince from the games, and she never 0:41:01.400 --> 0:41:04.399 like flies like in Super Mario two. So I don't 0:41:04.440 --> 0:41:05.920 know what else would tire her to that. 0:41:06.280 --> 0:41:09.080 Yeah, that's right, Luigi, I don't know if he double jumps. 0:41:09.080 --> 0:41:11.239 He kind of double jumps, I guess, But I don't 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:12.400 think Daisy ever flies. 0:41:12.800 --> 0:41:15.160 They all do spend a lot of time digging up turnups. 0:41:16.440 --> 0:41:20.480 No, they don't, all right, So Daisy's played by Samantha 0:41:20.560 --> 0:41:23.560 Mathis born nineteen seventy. Former child actor. She appeared in 0:41:23.600 --> 0:41:26.160 nineteen nineties Pump Up the Volume. She was a voice 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:29.640 actor on Fern Gully, then Mario happened. Not a lot 0:41:29.680 --> 0:41:33.160 of video game movies after that, but more traditional dramas. 0:41:33.440 --> 0:41:36.239 She pops Up in nineteen ninety six, Is Broken Arrow, 0:41:36.520 --> 0:41:38.840 a nineteen ninety nine episode of The Outer Limits, and 0:41:39.000 --> 0:41:42.600 she was in the cast of American Psycho in two thousand. 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:44.720 She was also in two thousand and fourths The Punisher, 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:48.440 and had a role on the TV series The Strain of. 0:41:48.560 --> 0:41:51.239 Note in My Household. At least when Rachel saw the 0:41:51.239 --> 0:41:54.200 cast of this movie, she was like, Oh, it's Amy. 0:41:54.600 --> 0:41:57.960 And that's because Samantha Mathis plays the adult version of 0:41:58.000 --> 0:42:00.520 the youngest sister Amy. I think the younger version is 0:42:00.880 --> 0:42:04.719 Kirsten Dunst. In the nineteen ninety four film adaptation of 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:08.680 Little Women directed by Julian Armstrong, which is a beloved 0:42:08.719 --> 0:42:11.320 film in our house. It's long been one of her favorites. 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:15.880 Oh, very nice. Well, I can't say much about Samantha 0:42:16.000 --> 0:42:18.920 Mathis in this film other than it's probably not the 0:42:18.920 --> 0:42:21.920 best representation of what she was capable of. You know, 0:42:21.960 --> 0:42:24.480 her scenes to me anyway, they felt at times they 0:42:24.480 --> 0:42:27.439 feel either green or disconnected, and it may not even 0:42:27.480 --> 0:42:30.200 be anything that's a reflection on her experience level at 0:42:30.200 --> 0:42:32.600 the time. You know. It's just like we said, this 0:42:32.840 --> 0:42:35.360 is not the production that perhaps one should use to 0:42:35.440 --> 0:42:37.480 judge everyone's acting abilities. 0:42:38.239 --> 0:42:40.560 Yeah, it seems like she's kind of going through the motions, 0:42:40.600 --> 0:42:42.919 but most of the actors are. I think the only 0:42:42.920 --> 0:42:47.560 one who's not just going through the motions is Dennis Hopper, 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:50.280 which you know he would kind of give you something 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:52.240 even when he was just collecting a paycheck. 0:42:52.640 --> 0:42:55.399 Yeah, all right, let's move on to the goons. First 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.520 of all, we have Fisher Stevens playing Iggy. This is 0:42:58.520 --> 0:43:01.759 one of Kopa's goons. Born nineteen sixty three, a fine 0:43:01.760 --> 0:43:04.680 actor of stage, screen and TV, who is unfortunately best 0:43:04.719 --> 0:43:07.400 remembered by many for the ill conceived role of the 0:43:07.480 --> 0:43:11.279 roboticist Ben on Short Circuit one and two. He was 0:43:11.320 --> 0:43:14.279 also in nineteen ninety five's Hackers. But he's really been 0:43:14.280 --> 0:43:16.720 in some solid stuff over the last ten years, including 0:43:16.920 --> 0:43:21.080 twenty fourteen's The Grand Budapest Hotel, twenty sixteen's Hail Caesar, 0:43:21.719 --> 0:43:24.439 twenty sixteen is The Night Of on HBO and also 0:43:24.480 --> 0:43:27.640 the HBO series Secession. But he's just one of two goons. 0:43:27.719 --> 0:43:30.160 These are the koop of cousins. As we later learned, 0:43:30.760 --> 0:43:33.600 the other one is Spike, played by Richard Edson born 0:43:33.640 --> 0:43:35.880 nineteen fifty four. This is a character actor with a 0:43:36.200 --> 0:43:38.120 is a great sort of loopine look, a kind of 0:43:38.200 --> 0:43:41.879 lean and hungry look. Best known to many out there 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:44.640 is the Garage Attendant in nineteen eighty six is Ferris 0:43:44.640 --> 0:43:47.359 Bueller's Day Off. He was also in such films as 0:43:47.400 --> 0:43:50.080 eighty six as Howard the Duck, eighty nine's Do the 0:43:50.120 --> 0:43:52.960 Right Thing, an episode of the TV series Monster Zoh, 0:43:53.040 --> 0:43:56.560 and then Rob Zombie's twenty nineteen film Three from Hell. 0:43:56.640 --> 0:43:59.000 All right, we have another villain to sort of round 0:43:59.000 --> 0:44:02.480 out our villain cast here, and that's the character Lena, 0:44:02.800 --> 0:44:05.080 who I don't to my knowledge, is not based on 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:10.160 anything from the actual video games. But Lena is played 0:44:10.200 --> 0:44:13.520 by the terrific Fiona Shaw born nineteen fifty eight a 0:44:13.560 --> 0:44:17.360 tremendous Irish film and theater actor, probably best known to 0:44:17.520 --> 0:44:21.640 most out there as Aunt Dursley on the Harry Potter films, 0:44:22.000 --> 0:44:24.440 but she's far more than that. Some of her older 0:44:24.480 --> 0:44:27.719 credits include nineteen eighty nine's My Left Foot. She was 0:44:27.719 --> 0:44:29.799 one of the stars of that film. She's in the 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:32.719 nineteen nineties Mountains of the Moon, which is a film 0:44:32.760 --> 0:44:36.440 about Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. After Mario. You can 0:44:36.480 --> 0:44:39.799 look to such films of hers as Neil Jordan's The 0:44:39.840 --> 0:44:43.239 Butcher Boy from ninety seven, that ill conceived nineteen ninety 0:44:43.280 --> 0:44:46.440 eight Avengers movie. She had a fun witch role on 0:44:46.600 --> 0:44:49.960 HBO's True Blood, and she has a tremendous role in 0:44:50.239 --> 0:44:54.600 Star Wars and Or playing and Or's mother. So I 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:56.600 think a lot of folks a lot of folks are 0:44:56.600 --> 0:44:59.279 probably familiar with her from and Orr as well, but 0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:01.279 she's also up on some of their big shows like 0:45:01.360 --> 0:45:03.720 Flea Bag and Killing Eve in recent years. 0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:07.120 Give us Lena, we love Lena. Do we agree? We 0:45:07.160 --> 0:45:07.680 love Lena? 0:45:08.360 --> 0:45:10.839 Yeah? Yeah? I thought she was great in this. I mean, 0:45:10.880 --> 0:45:14.840 she's she's smoking, she's she's very fashionable, and they have 0:45:14.920 --> 0:45:17.920 her done up as this you know, kind of vamping villain, 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:20.239 which of course is you know, very different from from 0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:22.839 Aunt Dursley. You know, Fano Shaw had a great deal 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:25.520 of range, and I feel like she tends to eat 0:45:25.600 --> 0:45:29.279 up her scenes rather nicely. There's there's one scene though, 0:45:29.360 --> 0:45:32.800 where she lunges and puts a knife to a princess's throat, 0:45:33.040 --> 0:45:36.880 and I legit jumped because it felt real on Shaw's 0:45:36.880 --> 0:45:38.640 part in a way that nothing else in the movie 0:45:38.640 --> 0:45:41.040 had felt real up till that point. I was like, Ah, 0:45:41.040 --> 0:45:41.920 she's got a knife. 0:45:42.040 --> 0:45:45.440 Oh yeah, yeah, she's great. She's she's a lizard queen, 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:50.400 but with the kind of bride of Frankenstein edge. Yeah, yeah, 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:50.959 she's good. 0:45:51.200 --> 0:45:54.200 Okay, we get into the smaller roles here. We're almost 0:45:54.239 --> 0:45:56.759 done with the lineup here. But Mojo Nixon is in 0:45:56.920 --> 0:45:59.520 Sea plays a character named Toad. This is one of 0:45:59.560 --> 0:46:04.560 the very few screen rolls of the rockabilly psychobilly icon. 0:46:04.680 --> 0:46:08.239 Mojo Nixon born nineteen fifty seven, probably best known for 0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:11.440 such songs as Don Henley Must Die, Don't let Him 0:46:11.440 --> 0:46:15.279 Get Back Together with Glenn Fry That's of course, and 0:46:15.320 --> 0:46:17.600 he at one point performed that song with Don Henley, 0:46:17.800 --> 0:46:21.080 but also such songs as you Can't Kill Me, Bring 0:46:21.120 --> 0:46:23.759 Me the Head of David Geffen, and many more. He's 0:46:23.800 --> 0:46:26.840 known for having this kind of like wild gonzo persona. 0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:29.839 If you don't have Mojo Nixon, your store could use 0:46:29.840 --> 0:46:30.360 some fixin. 0:46:32.040 --> 0:46:34.080 All right, So more on Mojo Nixon in a bit. 0:46:34.840 --> 0:46:37.200 Lance Hendrickson is in the cast here, as we alluded 0:46:37.239 --> 0:46:42.480 to earlier, I think playing King Bowser, the deposed King Bowser. 0:46:42.719 --> 0:46:44.680 So he's not really in this movie. This is more 0:46:44.840 --> 0:46:46.719 or less just a cameo, and it's kind of a 0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:48.880 crummy cameo because if you're not looking for him, you 0:46:48.920 --> 0:46:50.840 might not realize that this is Lance Hendrickson. 0:46:51.320 --> 0:46:53.880 And he doesn't even have anything interesting to say. He 0:46:54.040 --> 0:46:56.480 just like pops up and he's like, well here I 0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:57.960 am I love plumbers. 0:46:58.280 --> 0:47:02.040 Yeah, He's like, love those plumbers and that's so yeah. Somehow, 0:47:02.080 --> 0:47:04.279 we've never watched the Lance centrix In movie on Weird 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.359 House Cinema, so we're not going to get into him here. 0:47:07.520 --> 0:47:10.840 We'll come back when we watch a proper Lance synrix 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:13.040 In movie if you have suggestions for what that might 0:47:13.080 --> 0:47:15.480 be right in, But obviously he's best remembered as the 0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:18.479 role of Bishop of the Android in nineteen eighty six, 0:47:18.560 --> 0:47:22.200 is Aliens, and then finally, the music on this one 0:47:22.480 --> 0:47:25.800 is the work of Alan Silvestrie born nineteen fifty session 0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:29.160 guitarist who broke into Hollywood composing in the seventies and 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:31.160 went on to score a ton of big movies, including 0:47:31.680 --> 0:47:33.960 Romance in the Stone in nineteen eighty four, Back to 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:36.320 the Future, all the Back of the Future films, eighty 0:47:36.360 --> 0:47:40.680 seven's Predator, ninety five's Judge Dread, Forrest Gump in ninety four, 0:47:41.360 --> 0:47:44.080 and some of those big marvel A Injurs movies as well. 0:47:44.080 --> 0:47:47.160 He's a two time Oscar nominee. Nothing wrong with this 0:47:47.239 --> 0:47:49.239 score at all, but I hate it. 0:47:50.160 --> 0:47:52.520 Yeah, yeah, solvester. He's done a lot of great stuff. 0:47:52.920 --> 0:47:55.239 Back to the Future scores magical, I mean, yeah, yeah, 0:47:55.480 --> 0:47:58.719 it makes the movie, it creates the feel. But I 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:01.120 thought the movie that I don't know. I thought the 0:48:01.200 --> 0:48:04.480 music in the Mario movie was kind of trash, except 0:48:04.560 --> 0:48:07.640 for the George Clinton cover of Walk the Dinosaur, which 0:48:08.560 --> 0:48:10.520 I don't know, how could a person not love that? 0:48:11.120 --> 0:48:13.560 Oh? Yeah, that that is a great track. Wonderful. P 0:48:13.719 --> 0:48:16.160 Funk cover of Walk the Dinosaur love it. 0:48:16.320 --> 0:48:19.520 I think it's credited to George Clinton and the goom buzz. 0:48:19.840 --> 0:48:22.000 I don't know if that's actually p Funk or George 0:48:22.040 --> 0:48:24.040 Clinton and some other I don't know. 0:48:24.360 --> 0:48:24.960 No idea. 0:48:25.560 --> 0:48:27.120 All right, you ready to talk about the plot? 0:48:27.880 --> 0:48:29.440 Oh yeah, let's talk about the plot. 0:48:30.000 --> 0:48:32.720 So I wanted to note the music of the opening credits. 0:48:32.760 --> 0:48:35.440 The first thing we get is the original Super Mario 0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:39.360 Brothers theme song from the game you Know, D Do Do, 0:48:40.000 --> 0:48:43.400 But there's something different. There's like a jazzy high hat 0:48:43.440 --> 0:48:46.080 beat keeping time with it, and then a sort of 0:48:46.160 --> 0:48:49.759 minor chord pad fills in, and then the Mario theme 0:48:49.840 --> 0:48:53.279 gradually fades out and a traditional score comes in. I 0:48:53.360 --> 0:48:57.040 think there's a sort of eerie flute melody, and that 0:48:57.360 --> 0:49:02.840 is even that musical transition I think is emphasizing a 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:06.200 theme that will come through in many other design choices 0:49:06.280 --> 0:49:08.560 about the beginning of the movie. I'll come back to 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:11.000 that in a minute. But so, first of all, we 0:49:11.080 --> 0:49:14.319 see like a weird pixelated landscape, looks like it could 0:49:14.320 --> 0:49:17.920 be from a Nintendo game, and a voiceover narration begins 0:49:18.520 --> 0:49:21.240 and it says, a long, long time ago, the earth 0:49:21.360 --> 0:49:24.440 was ruled by dinosaurs. They were big, so not a 0:49:24.440 --> 0:49:28.120 lot of people went around Hasslinom And I immediately thought, 0:49:28.239 --> 0:49:30.839 why does this sound like a voice from the Simpsons. 0:49:31.320 --> 0:49:34.320 But I looked up the narrator and I immediately understood 0:49:34.360 --> 0:49:37.759 why it's Dan Castellanida, the voice of Homer Simpson a 0:49:37.760 --> 0:49:39.360 bunch of other Springfield characters. 0:49:39.840 --> 0:49:43.040 I like this choice. I felt like this instantly grabbed 0:49:43.040 --> 0:49:43.520 my attention. 0:49:43.920 --> 0:49:46.920 Yeah. So the narrator goes on and while this is happening, 0:49:46.960 --> 0:49:50.760 the pixelated landscape starts to reveal dinosaurs. They're eating leaves 0:49:50.800 --> 0:49:54.800 and stuff, and the animations are i'm gonna say not strong. 0:49:55.120 --> 0:49:57.680 They kind of look like something from a five dollars 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:01.520 educational CD rom you bought it com Usa in the nineties. 0:50:01.800 --> 0:50:04.520 Yeah, they're kind of feel like they're intentionally crunchy. All right, 0:50:05.000 --> 0:50:07.680 I assume it was intentionally an intentional act. 0:50:07.719 --> 0:50:07.839 Yea. 0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:11.120 So the narration says, actually, no people went around Hasslingam 0:50:11.160 --> 0:50:15.440 because there weren't even people yet, just the first tiny mammals. Basically, 0:50:15.600 --> 0:50:19.839 life was good. Then then after this, the dinosaurs they 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:22.160 start talking to each other and one of them is 0:50:22.239 --> 0:50:24.839 chewing on what looks like blonde hair. By the way, 0:50:25.760 --> 0:50:28.120 the dinosaur says, you know, it just don't get no 0:50:28.239 --> 0:50:31.319 better than this, and the other dinosaur says yeah, and 0:50:31.440 --> 0:50:33.640 I'm like, why do they have New York accents? 0:50:33.960 --> 0:50:36.000 I think you're about to find out that's right. 0:50:36.040 --> 0:50:38.600 So we cut back to the pixelaid landscape. It says 0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:44.160 Brooklyn sixty five million years ago. Then the narrator says, 0:50:44.200 --> 0:50:49.160 then something happened. A giant meteorite struck the earth. Goodbye dinosaurs, 0:50:49.520 --> 0:50:53.120 and we see the impact, and the narrator says, but 0:50:53.200 --> 0:50:56.960 what if the dinosaurs weren't all destroyed? And now we 0:50:57.000 --> 0:51:00.840 start zooming through a bunch of abstract, grainy CG stuff, 0:51:00.880 --> 0:51:03.520 And all I could think is, you know, everybody knows 0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:07.040 Custer died at Little Bighorn, but what this movie presupposes 0:51:07.160 --> 0:51:11.600 is maybe he didn't. So the narrator says, what if 0:51:11.600 --> 0:51:15.439 the impact of that meteorite created a parallel dimension where 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:20.320 the dinosaurs continue to thrive and evolve into intelligent, vicious, 0:51:20.400 --> 0:51:24.880 aggressive beings just like us, And hey, what if they 0:51:25.000 --> 0:51:28.040 found a way back? And then we are slammed with 0:51:28.120 --> 0:51:31.600 the title super Mario Brothers. I want to talk about 0:51:31.640 --> 0:51:33.839 the title design because I feel like it's kind of 0:51:33.920 --> 0:51:37.040 getting at the same thing that music transition was a 0:51:37.080 --> 0:51:40.440 minute ago. What is the title suggesting with this like 0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:46.960 gleaming gray metal surface and the industrial rivet font. I 0:51:47.000 --> 0:51:50.319 think the implication is like, oh, you played this as 0:51:50.320 --> 0:51:54.719 a video game, but playtime's over. Mario's not just an 0:51:54.760 --> 0:51:59.080 innocent fantasy anymore. Mario's in the real world now, where 0:51:59.120 --> 0:52:02.120 things are made of metal and held together by rivets, 0:52:02.239 --> 0:52:06.160 and there is smog and acid, rain and crime and 0:52:06.239 --> 0:52:09.320 probably a guy with a mohawk carrying a boom box. 0:52:09.560 --> 0:52:10.680 Let's see what happens. 0:52:11.120 --> 0:52:14.480 I also think that the title card here for Mario Brothers, 0:52:14.760 --> 0:52:16.960 it looks like a like it's from a commercial for 0:52:17.000 --> 0:52:19.600 a hard hitting law firm that is ready to fight 0:52:19.680 --> 0:52:19.960 for you. 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:25.040 Yeah optional, Robert Vaughn, Yeah, Robert Vaughan. Yeah, it's time 0:52:25.080 --> 0:52:26.800 to get tough, Mario. 0:52:27.000 --> 0:52:29.160 Tough Mario and Mario fighting for. 0:52:29.120 --> 0:52:34.040 You anyway, So it says a cut to Brooklyn twenty 0:52:34.120 --> 0:52:37.080 years ago. So we're gonna get more prologued. It's like 0:52:37.120 --> 0:52:40.200 a rainy night, woman's running around. She leaves a strange 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:43.239 metallic capsule on the steps of a convent. The lady 0:52:43.320 --> 0:52:46.080 runs away, she climbs down into a manhole. I guess 0:52:46.080 --> 0:52:51.000 into the sewer. She wanders off into some kind of 0:52:51.160 --> 0:52:53.640 like tunnel, and then she bumps into Dennis Hopper. There 0:52:53.680 --> 0:52:56.640 he is. He's lurking in the shadows wearing a military 0:52:56.760 --> 0:52:59.360 uniform that has so many metals. I guess it's the 0:52:59.400 --> 0:53:02.320 dictator look or you know, he looks like Patent or something. 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:05.240 And he says, where is the rock? And she screams 0:53:05.239 --> 0:53:10.560 and runs away, and then the tunnel seemingly collapses. Back 0:53:10.680 --> 0:53:15.000 at the convent, the nuns open up the capsule. There 0:53:15.160 --> 0:53:18.319 is apparently an egg inside. The egg hatches and then 0:53:18.400 --> 0:53:23.040 out comes a human baby. Yeah, all right, and then 0:53:23.080 --> 0:53:25.960 there is a weird, jagged crystal left with the egg. 0:53:26.120 --> 0:53:29.560 One of the nuns holds it up significantly. This means something, 0:53:30.320 --> 0:53:32.680 and then we cut to another setting. It is Brooklyn. 0:53:32.960 --> 0:53:36.279 Now I see buildings, I see traffic, I see a 0:53:36.320 --> 0:53:40.239 billboard ad for newports that seems telling about what kind 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:42.359 of movie this is going to be. Again, presumably this 0:53:42.400 --> 0:53:44.520 is for children, but one of the first things we 0:53:44.560 --> 0:53:46.920 see in the modern world is a cigarette ad. 0:53:47.440 --> 0:53:48.240 Yeah. 0:53:48.400 --> 0:53:51.719 So we meet our heroes, Mario played by Bob Hoskins 0:53:51.719 --> 0:53:55.399 and Luigi played by John Leguizamo. Their plumbers, rob would 0:53:55.400 --> 0:53:57.799 you say they are down on their luck plumbers? 0:53:58.080 --> 0:54:00.839 Yeah, yeah, they seem. They talked about how they're like 0:54:00.880 --> 0:54:05.319 three bills behind on paying their rent. They're having a 0:54:05.360 --> 0:54:07.839 tough time, and they're having a tough time just getting 0:54:07.920 --> 0:54:09.800 anybody to hire them. 0:54:10.360 --> 0:54:12.920 A major source of their financial woes seems to be 0:54:13.000 --> 0:54:18.200 that Luigi is addicted to paranormal, fringe and conspiracy media. 0:54:18.360 --> 0:54:21.760 So he's like spending their last dime to buy copies 0:54:21.840 --> 0:54:25.760 of some weekly world news type publication with articles about 0:54:25.800 --> 0:54:30.279 a scientist that turns people's brains into cheese. Also in 0:54:30.360 --> 0:54:35.440 Luigi's media diet, he's watching a TV show called Miraculous World. 0:54:35.600 --> 0:54:37.799 That is this supposed to be in search of I 0:54:37.800 --> 0:54:38.239 think so. 0:54:38.760 --> 0:54:40.799 Yeah, definite, in search of vibes here. 0:54:42.080 --> 0:54:44.279 So he's like watching a segment He's like, Wow, this 0:54:44.320 --> 0:54:47.600 guy just found out he was in another dimension. So 0:54:47.880 --> 0:54:52.080 there are a bunch of conflicts between the characters established. 0:54:52.520 --> 0:54:55.720 The differences are that Mario takes their dire financial situation 0:54:55.880 --> 0:54:58.640 seriously and Luigi does not seem to worry too much. 0:54:59.640 --> 0:55:03.760 Also conflicts between them Mario does not believe in parallel 0:55:03.800 --> 0:55:07.000 dimensions and the scientist who turns people's brains into cheese, 0:55:07.320 --> 0:55:10.600 and Luigi says, but Mario, you gotta believe in something, 0:55:12.680 --> 0:55:17.040 love that Mario is generally just more stressed out and serious, 0:55:17.120 --> 0:55:18.920 and Luigi's kind of happy, go lucky. 0:55:19.840 --> 0:55:22.160 Yeah, it makes sense. He's got more spring in his step, 0:55:22.160 --> 0:55:22.920 he can double. 0:55:22.719 --> 0:55:26.440 Jump, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so they have some arguing 0:55:26.480 --> 0:55:28.919 in banter and traffic while they're driving to a job. 0:55:29.000 --> 0:55:32.600 I think they're literally just shown like driving over garbage cans, 0:55:32.680 --> 0:55:37.040 absolutely reckless, dangerous behavior. Once they get to the job site, 0:55:37.160 --> 0:55:41.319 a rival plumbing company called Scapelli has taken the job. Now, 0:55:41.320 --> 0:55:44.879 what's the deal with Scipelli. Scapelli is not a blue 0:55:44.960 --> 0:55:47.960 collar plumber like Mario and Luigi. He's a rich big 0:55:47.960 --> 0:55:51.000 wig who rides around in a limousine. And when I 0:55:51.000 --> 0:55:52.960 saw him come out, I looked up the actor and 0:55:53.000 --> 0:55:55.799 I was like, Oh, that's Carlo Ritzi from the Godfather. 0:55:58.200 --> 0:56:03.440 So so yeah, it was Barzini. I guess this means 0:56:03.480 --> 0:56:05.960 he is implied to be a mobster in addition to 0:56:06.120 --> 0:56:07.360 running a plumbing company. 0:56:07.960 --> 0:56:10.120 Oh yeah, because it's not long before we get a 0:56:10.160 --> 0:56:15.560 scene where he like blatantly threatens our heroine and says 0:56:15.600 --> 0:56:18.040 like it'd be a shame if you were to disappear 0:56:18.040 --> 0:56:21.080 on the streets like these other young women have been disappearing. 0:56:20.920 --> 0:56:23.200 Super Mario Brothers, the movie Children. 0:56:23.880 --> 0:56:23.960 Ye. 0:56:25.280 --> 0:56:27.680 So from here we move on to a sort of 0:56:27.960 --> 0:56:31.840 news segment that I don't know what's going on with 0:56:31.880 --> 0:56:35.240 the narrative here, Like there's no established character watching the news. 0:56:35.280 --> 0:56:38.600 It's just suddenly a news segment. And there's a construction 0:56:38.760 --> 0:56:42.560 site that has been controversially shut down by university students 0:56:42.560 --> 0:56:46.719 who are digging for dinosaur bones. And there's conflict between Scappelli, 0:56:46.800 --> 0:56:50.680 who wants the site open for business, and Daisy, this 0:56:50.760 --> 0:56:53.800 character who comes out and she is the head paleontologist 0:56:53.800 --> 0:56:55.680 at the dig site. She wants to keep the dig 0:56:55.719 --> 0:56:58.200 going in the name of science, and this is when 0:56:58.239 --> 0:57:01.040 Scapelli threatens her. He's like, lot of girls been going 0:57:01.120 --> 0:57:05.799 missing in Brooklyn lately, which implies that he is responsible 0:57:05.840 --> 0:57:08.200 for that, but we find out he's not. It's dinosaurs 0:57:08.280 --> 0:57:09.680 kidnapping girls from Brooklyn. 0:57:10.120 --> 0:57:12.279 Yeah, but still one of the many one of the 0:57:12.320 --> 0:57:14.920 many points in the film where it's like this is 0:57:15.400 --> 0:57:17.840 for kids. This seems a little little hard edged. 0:57:18.200 --> 0:57:22.440 Yeah, So later we see a duo of twitchy guys 0:57:22.520 --> 0:57:26.040 dressed like they're from the movie Hackers, and they're tailing 0:57:26.160 --> 0:57:29.520 Daisy around. This is Fisher Stevens and Richard Edson playing 0:57:29.560 --> 0:57:33.240 Iggy and Spike, and it's first it's like, maybe these 0:57:33.280 --> 0:57:36.320 guys are not from around here, because Spike comes back 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:38.360 to the car with a couple of hot dogs and 0:57:38.400 --> 0:57:41.040 he's like, they said it was dog meat. And then 0:57:41.040 --> 0:57:43.600 they throw away the buns and they eat the hot dogs, 0:57:44.000 --> 0:57:47.080 and they identify Daisy from a description which is that 0:57:47.680 --> 0:57:51.280 she has two legs, one head, and two arms. 0:57:51.840 --> 0:57:55.040 But so do they Well, it's recurring joke that there 0:57:55.040 --> 0:57:59.720 lizards and they can't tell mammals apart, so they'll, you know, 0:57:59.800 --> 0:58:02.120 come back to that. I will say one other thing 0:58:02.160 --> 0:58:05.240 about Fisher Stevens character in this If there's someone in 0:58:05.280 --> 0:58:10.200 your life that is thinking about growing sideburns and you 0:58:10.320 --> 0:58:13.880 don't want them to grow sideburns, show them a picture 0:58:13.960 --> 0:58:17.040 of Fisher Stevens from this film, and I think that's 0:58:17.040 --> 0:58:18.440 going to take care of all your problems. 0:58:18.880 --> 0:58:22.080 Yeah. So the Koopagons here try to chase Daisy, but 0:58:22.120 --> 0:58:26.800 they are foiled by running face first into plate glass. Meanwhile, 0:58:26.920 --> 0:58:29.120 Daisy and Luigi run into each other at a pay 0:58:29.160 --> 0:58:31.240 phone and they have a meet cute and Luigi is 0:58:31.320 --> 0:58:35.400 just instantly in love. He's adorably awkward. He's like, wow, 0:58:35.520 --> 0:58:37.919 I haven't heard the name Daisy around here before, or wait, 0:58:38.160 --> 0:58:40.360 he has heard it because it's also the name of 0:58:40.400 --> 0:58:44.240 a flower. And Mario and Luigi end up giving Daisy 0:58:44.240 --> 0:58:46.560 a ride back to the dig site. Luigi asks her 0:58:46.600 --> 0:58:49.439 out on a date and she agrees. So it's later 0:58:49.520 --> 0:58:53.600 that night and it's a double date at an Italian restaurant. 0:58:53.840 --> 0:58:56.720 They're having a big old mess of Spaghettian meatballs and 0:58:56.760 --> 0:59:01.760 I was like, whoa, whoa, who is Mario's date? Yeah, 0:59:01.840 --> 0:59:05.440 they're all talking and Daisy has expertise on iridium layers 0:59:05.440 --> 0:59:08.919 and geological strata, and Mario's date is talking about how 0:59:08.960 --> 0:59:12.520 not to get tan lines. And it's I think it's 0:59:12.600 --> 0:59:14.680 said that they all wrote out to dinner together in 0:59:14.720 --> 0:59:15.480 the plumbing van. 0:59:16.320 --> 0:59:18.720 Yeah, yeah, cool, this is the I want to say. 0:59:18.720 --> 0:59:20.720 We're like twenty minutes into the film at this point, 0:59:21.120 --> 0:59:23.880 and it was and you're watching and you're like, wow, 0:59:23.920 --> 0:59:27.360 this film has really given children so little to latch onto. 0:59:27.520 --> 0:59:30.640 This is so little, It's true. So we learn a 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:33.120 bit about Daisy's backstory at dinner. Here, she says she 0:59:33.200 --> 0:59:36.480 was left at a convent as a baby, raised by nuns, 0:59:36.520 --> 0:59:39.440 and that she has this weird crystal necklace that was 0:59:39.520 --> 0:59:41.520 left with her and she still wears it, though she 0:59:41.600 --> 0:59:43.640 does not mention that she hatched from an egg. I 0:59:43.680 --> 0:59:55.040 don't know if anybody ever told her that. Now, Spike 0:59:55.080 --> 0:59:57.720 and Iggy are still following Daisy around, but they get 0:59:57.760 --> 1:00:01.960 confused and think Mario's eight is Daisy, and they throw 1:00:02.000 --> 1:00:04.880 a bag over her head and kidnap her. They take 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:09.560 her to another dimension. Meanwhile, Luigi and Daisy are they're 1:00:09.600 --> 1:00:12.600 just having more cute date stuff. They're awkwardly flirting and 1:00:12.600 --> 1:00:15.240 they're they're hitting it off, and the dialogue in these 1:00:15.280 --> 1:00:19.360 scenes is atrociously unnatural, but the actors are almost charming 1:00:19.480 --> 1:00:22.800 enough to pull it off. Almost uh. They end up 1:00:22.880 --> 1:00:24.840 going back to the dig site, and then they go 1:00:25.000 --> 1:00:28.920 down into the underground tunnel and Daisy shows Luigi some 1:00:29.000 --> 1:00:33.400 of the dinosaur bones they have unearthed, and she says, 1:00:33.520 --> 1:00:36.360 so they're looking at a dinosaur. It's got big reptilian fangs, 1:00:36.840 --> 1:00:39.439 but she says it has opposable thumbs, and she says, 1:00:39.480 --> 1:00:42.560 it's almost as if he was a monster. Trying to 1:00:42.560 --> 1:00:46.280 be a human being. It's beautiful, and then Luigi's like, 1:00:46.400 --> 1:00:48.360 you're beautiful and then they kiss. 1:00:49.000 --> 1:00:53.280 Okay, yeah, just you're you're you're kissing, kissing, saying in 1:00:53.360 --> 1:00:53.840 the sewer. 1:00:54.160 --> 1:00:58.480 But they're interrupted because Schipelli's sabotage plumbers that like his 1:00:58.600 --> 1:01:01.720 sapper team is there and they have just sabotaged the 1:01:01.760 --> 1:01:04.720 dig site. So they like blow up some pipes or 1:01:04.720 --> 1:01:08.240 something and everything's flooding. Mario brothers come to the rescue. 1:01:08.320 --> 1:01:12.120 There's an action packed plumbing scene until Daisy is kidnapped 1:01:12.120 --> 1:01:15.320 by the Cooper brothers and Mario and Luigi they're chasing. 1:01:15.320 --> 1:01:16.960 They're like, oh, we got to get her back. They 1:01:17.000 --> 1:01:20.040 discover that she has been taken through some sort of portal, 1:01:20.400 --> 1:01:23.560 a wall of solid rock that is also a dimensional rift. 1:01:23.880 --> 1:01:27.720 Luigi jumps through it, Mario reluctantly follows because he's afraid 1:01:27.720 --> 1:01:30.840 of heights. They tumble through a bunch of hideous CGI 1:01:31.000 --> 1:01:33.440 before popping out on the other side unharmed. 1:01:33.640 --> 1:01:36.560 Yeah, so the CGI is definitely hideous, especially when they're 1:01:36.560 --> 1:01:39.000 sticking their faces through it. There's a real help me 1:01:39.080 --> 1:01:43.480 I am in Hell. I also have to comment on 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:46.880 the plumbing sequence. Because yeah, that was amazing, because it's 1:01:46.920 --> 1:01:49.400 almost like there was a note at some point from 1:01:49.440 --> 1:01:52.160 the producers and they're like, aren't Mario and Luigi plumbers? 1:01:52.400 --> 1:01:55.280 Shouldn't we have a scene where they're actually plumbing, Like 1:01:55.320 --> 1:01:58.480 this is clearly the appeal of the character to young people. 1:01:58.920 --> 1:02:01.240 We need more plumbing, Like, well, this is right, It 1:02:01.600 --> 1:02:04.680 just doesn't work from a character creation standpoint if we 1:02:04.760 --> 1:02:05.880 don't see them plumbing. 1:02:06.320 --> 1:02:08.160 Well, they have a lot more plumbing later. They have 1:02:08.240 --> 1:02:09.800 plumbing in like the third act. 1:02:10.120 --> 1:02:13.080 Yeah, Like this is the point that at least some 1:02:13.120 --> 1:02:14.880 of the writers who worked on the script were like, 1:02:15.080 --> 1:02:16.400 gotta get that plumbing in there. 1:02:16.560 --> 1:02:18.960 So they pop out in a kind of crowded subway station, 1:02:19.160 --> 1:02:23.760 but it's a weird crowded subway station. There is this 1:02:23.920 --> 1:02:26.880 fibrous gunk hanging out all over the place. We will 1:02:26.960 --> 1:02:30.440 later learn this is the fungus. And it's hard to 1:02:30.480 --> 1:02:34.120 describe the vibe of this place. It is sort of 1:02:34.360 --> 1:02:38.080 it has elements of country Western, but also heavy metal 1:02:38.480 --> 1:02:43.720 and cyberpunk. It's like they're outdoors, but it seems indoors. 1:02:43.840 --> 1:02:47.280 It's constantly night time. There are neon lights everywhere. I 1:02:47.320 --> 1:02:49.760 was thinking it's a little bit Vegas Strip, a little 1:02:49.800 --> 1:02:54.200 bit Biff World, a little bit Blade Runner, I don't know. 1:02:54.280 --> 1:02:57.000 And of course there's a big sign that says vote 1:02:57.040 --> 1:02:59.240 for Koopa, so at least they get to vote here. 1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:01.760 I think all of these sequences were filmed in a 1:03:01.840 --> 1:03:04.160 like a giant industrial space in North Carolina. 1:03:05.720 --> 1:03:09.160 Wait literally literally yeah, oh wow, Okay. 1:03:08.920 --> 1:03:10.800 So for the rest of the film, we're somewhere at 1:03:10.840 --> 1:03:13.800 North Carolina in a big like former factory or something 1:03:13.880 --> 1:03:14.520 or warehouse. 1:03:15.080 --> 1:03:17.680 So a lot of the attempted humor in this movie 1:03:17.920 --> 1:03:20.280 doesn't work, But there are a few moments here on 1:03:20.320 --> 1:03:23.080 the streets when they first arrive and I forget what 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:27.160 this place is called Koopa World or whatever, that are 1:03:27.200 --> 1:03:29.680 actually kind of funny. There was one part I laughed at, like, 1:03:29.720 --> 1:03:31.920 so there are lizards everywhere because this is you know, 1:03:32.080 --> 1:03:36.240 Dino Manhattan sort of, and there are lizards fighting in 1:03:36.280 --> 1:03:38.320 the streets, and there are people with sort of various 1:03:38.360 --> 1:03:41.480 reptilian features, and then there's a lady pushing a big 1:03:41.520 --> 1:03:44.720 egg in a stroller, and I did laugh at that. 1:03:44.720 --> 1:03:46.880 That was good. I like how we start seeing some 1:03:46.920 --> 1:03:49.920 dinosaur mutants in there, but not that many. It's kind 1:03:49.920 --> 1:03:52.160 of the reverse of sometimes you know, you have like 1:03:52.200 --> 1:03:54.440 your Star Wars Cantena scene and you have a lot 1:03:54.480 --> 1:03:57.040 of great aliens and then you have a few humans 1:03:57.120 --> 1:03:59.280 in the background just to sort of fill things out. 1:03:59.480 --> 1:04:02.320 We get there, it's mostly humans that are presumed to 1:04:02.320 --> 1:04:06.600 be evolved reptiles, and then also some reptile mutants thrown in, 1:04:06.600 --> 1:04:07.640 but only like one or two. 1:04:08.000 --> 1:04:10.600 Another funny gag here, there's a brief glimpse of a 1:04:10.640 --> 1:04:14.000 marquee outside of Grindhouse Theater and it's showing a movie 1:04:14.040 --> 1:04:15.960 called I Was a Teenage Mammal. 1:04:16.640 --> 1:04:21.880 Yeah, Triple X by the way, for kids. 1:04:21.880 --> 1:04:25.120 For the kids, yeah, exactly. And Mario and Luigi just 1:04:25.200 --> 1:04:27.720 keep saying where are we? This is crazy, and they're 1:04:27.720 --> 1:04:30.720 making jokes about how Manhattan got really bad since we 1:04:30.720 --> 1:04:34.160 were last here. So finally we meet the villain and 1:04:34.400 --> 1:04:38.200 again this is Koopa played by Dennis Hopper. My god, 1:04:38.240 --> 1:04:40.200 what would you call his hairstyle? 1:04:40.880 --> 1:04:44.600 I guess it's kind of like Dino rose something to 1:04:44.720 --> 1:04:47.400 really allow them to lean into the reptilian vibe that 1:04:47.440 --> 1:04:50.560 they've cultivated for him. And it's he's one of several 1:04:50.720 --> 1:04:53.120 extreme hairstyles that we see in the movie. 1:04:53.600 --> 1:04:56.120 It's like he has blonde hair, but yeah, it's styled 1:04:56.200 --> 1:04:59.720 up into the kind of rows of like the things 1:04:59.720 --> 1:05:03.440 on an Alligators back. Yeah, and he's hanging out with 1:05:03.480 --> 1:05:07.320 his creepy lady friend Lena. Oh, I mean, maybe we 1:05:07.320 --> 1:05:09.120 should go a little bit deeper on what's going on 1:05:09.200 --> 1:05:13.120 with Lena here. She's like Jillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, 1:05:13.200 --> 1:05:15.800 but with the charm turned down to zero and the 1:05:15.840 --> 1:05:20.720 body temperature dial set to room. There is a scene 1:05:20.760 --> 1:05:23.480 later where she's being irritable and Koopa says, looks like 1:05:23.560 --> 1:05:25.760 someone woke up on the wrong side of the nest 1:05:25.840 --> 1:05:26.480 this morning. 1:05:28.120 --> 1:05:30.960 That must be an ed Solomon line that way. Oh yeah, yeah, 1:05:31.200 --> 1:05:35.160 But anyway, I like Fiona Shaw on this. Again, this 1:05:35.320 --> 1:05:37.480 is not a character that comes from the Games as 1:05:37.480 --> 1:05:40.200 far as I know. This is a creation just for 1:05:40.360 --> 1:05:44.280 ninety three's Mario. But it's a lot of fun. Anytime 1:05:44.640 --> 1:05:49.040 Lena is on on screen, I'm interested in what she's doing. 1:05:49.440 --> 1:05:53.760 Yes, love Lena. So Dennis Hopper gives a speech where like, 1:05:53.880 --> 1:05:56.920 while he's doing this, he's dipped. Did you understand he's 1:05:56.960 --> 1:06:00.000 like dipping his hands in hot wax and making whack 1:06:00.400 --> 1:06:01.680 gloves for himself. 1:06:02.600 --> 1:06:05.800 Yeah, I don't. It's something. He's talking about the dangers 1:06:05.800 --> 1:06:07.840 of fun guy. So I thought maybe it was some 1:06:07.880 --> 1:06:09.400 sort of decontamination thing. 1:06:09.480 --> 1:06:12.160 I don't know, So he says, look at this place, pathetic. 1:06:12.200 --> 1:06:14.640 It gets worse every day. The humans on the other 1:06:14.680 --> 1:06:17.440 side have a world full of resources ready for the taking. 1:06:17.800 --> 1:06:21.840 Imagine an endless supply of food, clean air, water, And 1:06:21.920 --> 1:06:25.600 what are we stuck with this pit hole? Germs everywhere, 1:06:26.000 --> 1:06:30.360 fungus sixty five million years, we've been exiled here after 1:06:30.400 --> 1:06:34.840 that meteorite struck, while mammals roam free and the other dimension, well, 1:06:34.920 --> 1:06:37.919 not for long. So he lays out his whole plot 1:06:38.000 --> 1:06:41.160 right here in this first scene. He says, finally, when 1:06:41.160 --> 1:06:44.000 he gets hold of the Princess Daisy and the rock, 1:06:44.120 --> 1:06:47.280 he'll be able to finally merge our world with theirs 1:06:47.320 --> 1:06:50.080 and get rid of the mammals. So Spike and Iggy 1:06:50.080 --> 1:06:52.400 show up to report that they have the princess, but 1:06:52.520 --> 1:06:55.600 they forgot to get the rock, and Koopa needs the 1:06:55.680 --> 1:06:58.800 rock too where he can't merge the dimensions, and they say, oh, well, 1:06:58.840 --> 1:07:02.120 a couple of plumbers took it, and so Coopa puts 1:07:02.160 --> 1:07:06.600 out an APB on all plumbers. Now. Meanwhile, back with Mario, 1:07:06.640 --> 1:07:10.120 and Luigi. There was another I thought actually intentionally funny 1:07:10.120 --> 1:07:13.320 scene that works where they get mugged by a little 1:07:13.360 --> 1:07:18.160 old lady. It's like this little old lady who's like, oh, hello, gentlemen, 1:07:18.240 --> 1:07:21.360 you know this is a dangerous neighborhood. Are you too armed? 1:07:21.400 --> 1:07:24.000 And they're like what no, And then she pulls out 1:07:24.040 --> 1:07:25.720 like a laser gun and she's like, give me all 1:07:25.760 --> 1:07:26.760 your coupa coins. 1:07:28.240 --> 1:07:30.960 Yeah. This felt like something out of the old like 1:07:31.200 --> 1:07:33.680 out of an old Judge Dread comic book. If you're 1:07:33.680 --> 1:07:36.240 not familiar with the Judge Dad comic books, they had 1:07:36.240 --> 1:07:39.560 a pretty wacky vibe. For instance, in the comics, Judge 1:07:39.640 --> 1:07:43.680 Dread had an elderly cleaning lady named Maria who spoke 1:07:43.720 --> 1:07:46.520 with an exaggerated Italian accent. And this was not a 1:07:46.520 --> 1:07:47.440 one off character. 1:07:48.840 --> 1:07:52.520 I like, you included a panel here, maya judge. 1:07:52.480 --> 1:07:55.840 Yeah, you come aback to your old Maria. Yeah. Oh. 1:07:55.840 --> 1:07:58.680 But also after this, it's like a fight breaks out 1:07:58.680 --> 1:08:02.120 in this scene, and another lady, not the little old 1:08:02.200 --> 1:08:04.240 lady who tried to rob them, a different lady in 1:08:04.280 --> 1:08:08.080 a red dress with legion of doom spikes wearing pneumatic 1:08:08.200 --> 1:08:11.560 rocket boots ends up stealing the meteorite chard from them. 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:15.960 She'll come back then. Also, I guess a few minutes later, 1:08:16.080 --> 1:08:20.639 the Koopa police come and arrest Mojo Nixon for standing 1:08:20.720 --> 1:08:23.880 on the sidewalk singing a satirical song about King Koopa. 1:08:24.560 --> 1:08:27.760 Yeah, and Mojo Nixon's character Toad here has just an 1:08:27.760 --> 1:08:31.800 extreme hairstyle. It is just something else. It's like a spiral. 1:08:32.280 --> 1:08:35.080 It's good. And by the way, Mario, like this movie, 1:08:35.120 --> 1:08:38.639 takes a stand. Mario takes great offense as an avid 1:08:38.640 --> 1:08:42.280 defender of free speech. Mario angrily insists that you cannot 1:08:42.360 --> 1:08:45.040 arrest a guy for singing a song. And then the 1:08:45.080 --> 1:08:47.960 police noticed that Mario is a plumber and they arrest 1:08:48.000 --> 1:08:50.679 him too. They arrest him in Luigi and Luigi protests 1:08:50.680 --> 1:08:52.600 that he's not a plumber, just an apprentice. 1:08:52.920 --> 1:08:55.960 Yeah, and Mojo Nixon's not even doing any obscene songs here. 1:08:56.000 --> 1:08:59.240 I mean, depending where you stand on obscenity laws, I 1:08:59.240 --> 1:09:02.040 guess a case could be made with some tracks. But 1:09:02.160 --> 1:09:04.760 he's just criticizing the Koopa government here. 1:09:05.200 --> 1:09:07.439 Now they get in a police car and they take 1:09:07.479 --> 1:09:09.600 them to the police station. But we should stop to 1:09:09.960 --> 1:09:13.080 mention the cars in this movie for a second. Every 1:09:13.200 --> 1:09:16.880 car in the Koopa world is mad maxified. They have 1:09:17.000 --> 1:09:19.839 engines on the outside, they have all kinds of spikes 1:09:19.840 --> 1:09:22.640 and doodads poking out all over the place. And then 1:09:22.680 --> 1:09:27.000 they've also got they're all constantly shooting sparks out of 1:09:27.040 --> 1:09:27.759 their roofs. 1:09:28.160 --> 1:09:30.639 I've seen a lot of movies with Mad Max cars 1:09:30.680 --> 1:09:34.360 in them, you know, and you know, some are good, 1:09:34.439 --> 1:09:37.160 some are bad. Some you see a lot of work 1:09:37.200 --> 1:09:39.880 and some it seem a little more slapped together. A 1:09:39.920 --> 1:09:42.240 lot of work went into these and they're. 1:09:42.000 --> 1:09:45.600 Really ugly hideous. Yeah. Now there was another thing that 1:09:45.640 --> 1:09:48.320 I thought, I don't know, this was like almost funny. 1:09:48.760 --> 1:09:50.519 I wasn't quite sure what was going on. But there 1:09:50.560 --> 1:09:53.320 is an atmosphere of total chaos at the police station. 1:09:53.600 --> 1:09:57.360 Like while Mario and Luigi are being booked and they're 1:09:57.400 --> 1:09:59.639 doing it, they're doing the bid about how they're both 1:09:59.720 --> 1:10:02.719 named Mario. That's their last name, so it's Mario Mario, 1:10:02.840 --> 1:10:05.920 Luigi Mario. But while this is going on, the booking 1:10:05.960 --> 1:10:10.000 officer is getting his back rubbed with the spike of 1:10:10.040 --> 1:10:13.080 a high heel on a woman's foot, which is attached 1:10:13.080 --> 1:10:16.200 to a leg that is jutting in from off screen. 1:10:16.360 --> 1:10:20.320 At an impossible angle, and meanwhile there is just constantly 1:10:20.520 --> 1:10:23.719 glass shattering everywhere and people jumping around. 1:10:25.040 --> 1:10:27.439 Yeah, like this really feels this is one of those 1:10:27.439 --> 1:10:31.080 things that especially felt like late eighties, early nineties, you know, 1:10:31.080 --> 1:10:34.760 it feels very MTV. It feels very in line with 1:10:34.880 --> 1:10:37.080 the director's sensibilities. 1:10:37.439 --> 1:10:40.519 But Mario and Luigi get defungused at jail. They go 1:10:40.560 --> 1:10:43.880 through a defungusing process and then they go into lock 1:10:44.000 --> 1:10:47.479 up where Mojo Nixon gives them some exposition. He explains 1:10:47.560 --> 1:10:50.200 history to them. He's like, Okay, you're in a parallel dimension. 1:10:50.240 --> 1:10:51.760 By the way, I don't know how he knows all this, 1:10:52.280 --> 1:10:55.120 but he's like, you're in a parallel dimension that was 1:10:55.160 --> 1:10:59.320 split off by the KPg impact some somehow, you came 1:10:59.360 --> 1:11:03.040 over here from mammal dimension into this one. Oh and 1:11:03.080 --> 1:11:05.160 by the way, he says that the fungus that is 1:11:05.240 --> 1:11:08.920 choking the city, he says, it's that old king. I 1:11:08.920 --> 1:11:10.720 guess the guy who used to be in charge here. 1:11:11.560 --> 1:11:16.240 Mojo Nixon says, he's been de evolved. So Koopa comes in. 1:11:16.280 --> 1:11:18.680 He's trying to find out where the meteorite piece is 1:11:18.920 --> 1:11:20.840 and he does this ploy where he pretends to be 1:11:20.880 --> 1:11:23.479 their lawyer. That didn't really work out, so they go 1:11:23.640 --> 1:11:29.000 into the d evolution chamber. Now, this is actually a 1:11:29.160 --> 1:11:32.920 major theme in the film, that isn't. I don't know 1:11:33.040 --> 1:11:37.000 how this theme became so big in the Super Mario 1:11:37.120 --> 1:11:39.600 Brothers movie. Does this have anything to do with the 1:11:39.640 --> 1:11:41.519 games in any way you're aware of? 1:11:42.200 --> 1:11:44.680 Well, just that Mario gets big and then if he 1:11:44.680 --> 1:11:48.040 gets injured, he becomes small again. Right, he loses his powers, 1:11:48.040 --> 1:11:51.000 and I guess you could say he's de evolving to 1:11:51.080 --> 1:11:51.639 some extent. 1:11:51.960 --> 1:11:54.280 So yeah, it's a machine with like a chair and 1:11:54.320 --> 1:11:56.920 then the chair you sit in it, you get strapped 1:11:56.920 --> 1:11:59.120 down and it sticks your head up in a big 1:11:59.200 --> 1:12:02.280 hole that za aps you with blue light until you 1:12:02.400 --> 1:12:06.320 come out having been changed. And Koopa gives a Bond 1:12:06.400 --> 1:12:09.160 villain speech about how the machine works. He says, normally, 1:12:09.360 --> 1:12:13.240 evolution is an upward process. Things evolved to get smarter, 1:12:13.680 --> 1:12:17.880 achieve higher forms. This machine does the opposite, reducing you 1:12:17.960 --> 1:12:21.960 to a primordial state. And I hate to be pedantic here, 1:12:22.000 --> 1:12:24.920 but we got to Coopa. That is a classic rookie 1:12:25.000 --> 1:12:29.080 mistake about evolution. Evolution does not mean things get higher 1:12:29.200 --> 1:12:34.040 or better, just means lineages of organisms adapt to environmental pressures, 1:12:34.200 --> 1:12:38.000 so they adapt to proliferate in their present environment. There's 1:12:38.040 --> 1:12:42.680 no up in evolution. But unfortunately the cringe science does 1:12:42.720 --> 1:12:46.080 not stop there, because Mario gets mad at Koopa and 1:12:46.080 --> 1:12:49.240 he says, what single celled organism did you evolve from? 1:12:49.600 --> 1:12:53.720 And Coopa says Tyrannosaurus rex the lizard king, thank you 1:12:53.840 --> 1:12:57.639 very much, which I would argue as more than one cell. 1:12:58.080 --> 1:13:00.360 I did like that. Dennis Hopper makes the bulge choice 1:13:00.400 --> 1:13:02.360 to act this scene out with his arms and a 1:13:02.360 --> 1:13:04.040 t rex pose. I don't know if you noticed that 1:13:04.160 --> 1:13:06.479 or have them kind of like little t rex arms. 1:13:08.240 --> 1:13:12.559 I also have to point out that the devo chamber 1:13:12.600 --> 1:13:14.920 here major set piece in the film, and they made 1:13:14.960 --> 1:13:19.360 a toy place that of this where you like strap 1:13:19.360 --> 1:13:20.840 in an act. It's kind of like the swine ped 1:13:20.920 --> 1:13:23.960 I guess from Masters of the Universe. I can't tell 1:13:24.000 --> 1:13:26.720 from the grainy image I found of the box how 1:13:26.760 --> 1:13:29.719 it was supposed to work. And I would ask listeners 1:13:29.720 --> 1:13:31.880 out there, Hey, if you had this toy, what was 1:13:31.920 --> 1:13:35.160 it like? But let's not get ourselves. Nobody had this toy. 1:13:35.520 --> 1:13:38.599 They had a toy, a mass produced toy set of 1:13:38.680 --> 1:13:41.040 the d evolution Chamber. 1:13:42.520 --> 1:13:46.000 I refuse to believe any child actually had this toy. 1:13:46.040 --> 1:13:47.839 But so what does it actually do in the movie? 1:13:48.840 --> 1:13:51.479 Like we see it demonstrated on poor Mojo Nixon. He 1:13:51.520 --> 1:13:53.760 gets his head stuck in it and it transforms his 1:13:53.840 --> 1:13:57.519 Mojo Nixon head into like a tiny reptilian head. 1:13:58.160 --> 1:14:00.679 Yeah, some great cgi there, as well as his face goes. 1:14:02.240 --> 1:14:06.120 Yeah, and we're told that this is a goomba. But 1:14:06.120 --> 1:14:08.240 that's funny because that's not what the goombas are in 1:14:08.280 --> 1:14:11.720 the games the game. In the games, they're like ambulatory mushrooms, 1:14:11.800 --> 1:14:15.880 not like people with large bodies and tiny, creepy reptile heads. 1:14:16.520 --> 1:14:18.479 Yeah. Yeah, there's stitching a lot of stuff together here. 1:14:18.760 --> 1:14:21.479 Now, I will say I remember that the transformation of 1:14:21.560 --> 1:14:25.960 people into goombas in this movie was an element that 1:14:26.160 --> 1:14:28.920 I found unsettling when I saw it as a kid. 1:14:29.040 --> 1:14:32.719 Something seemed to kind of perverse and wrong about it. 1:14:32.600 --> 1:14:33.960 It didn't feel good. 1:14:34.840 --> 1:14:38.639 Yeah, he's not only turning them into creatures. He's turning 1:14:38.720 --> 1:14:41.640 them into creatures that act and look stupid, So it 1:14:41.680 --> 1:14:42.799 feels like more of a crime. 1:14:43.320 --> 1:14:45.799 There's a scene later where Cooper reveals his like grand 1:14:45.840 --> 1:14:50.240 master plan is to devote all of the humans and 1:14:50.320 --> 1:14:52.679 the mammal dimension and turn them into monkeys. 1:14:54.360 --> 1:14:57.160 By the way, this whole merging of the of the dimensions, 1:14:57.200 --> 1:14:59.640 merging of the planes, I don't know if this is 1:15:00.120 --> 1:15:02.360 truly This is not the first work of fiction to 1:15:02.520 --> 1:15:04.880 deal with this possibility, but this I do know that 1:15:04.920 --> 1:15:08.719 this becomes a major plot point in the later Mortal 1:15:08.800 --> 1:15:13.679 Kombat games. So one has to wonder did they get 1:15:13.720 --> 1:15:16.120 that from the Super Mario Brothers movie or is there 1:15:16.200 --> 1:15:19.200 some other key bit of like Warring Dimension media that 1:15:19.240 --> 1:15:20.200 I'm just not thinking of. 1:15:21.400 --> 1:15:23.439 Well, anyway, so they send Toad off to join the 1:15:23.439 --> 1:15:27.559 other goombas Mario and Luigi. They sort of overpower their captors. 1:15:27.600 --> 1:15:30.040 They beat up the guards. They throw Koopa into the 1:15:30.120 --> 1:15:33.360 de evolution machine. So you're thinking, like, oh, is the 1:15:33.360 --> 1:15:37.639 movie about to be over? But no, Luigi, they crank 1:15:37.720 --> 1:15:40.840 the dial to the Jurassic setting, but he's like only 1:15:40.880 --> 1:15:42.479 in there for a second. That sort of pokes his 1:15:42.560 --> 1:15:44.400 head in and then he falls back out. But when 1:15:44.439 --> 1:15:47.719 he comes back out, he has these like morphing vertical 1:15:47.800 --> 1:15:50.080 pupils that are fading in and out. 1:15:50.400 --> 1:15:52.599 Yeah, it's one of the first of several scenes where 1:15:52.880 --> 1:15:55.400 Koopa glitches. Dinosaur I guess you'd say. 1:15:55.439 --> 1:15:58.360 Mm hmm. There's a big action scene where they're like 1:15:58.400 --> 1:16:03.280 fighting goombas with flamethrow and they eventually come under a car, 1:16:03.439 --> 1:16:06.439 a police car and get out of there, and the 1:16:06.479 --> 1:16:08.280 car chase ends with them going through a tunnel and 1:16:08.280 --> 1:16:11.840 getting spit out in some kind of desert. After this, 1:16:12.000 --> 1:16:15.120 there is a scene where Koopa is having a mud 1:16:15.160 --> 1:16:17.240 bath with Lena. 1:16:17.360 --> 1:16:20.200 Yeah, this is a pretty solid scene. Like the set. 1:16:20.280 --> 1:16:21.880 I don't know about the scene, but the set looks 1:16:21.920 --> 1:16:25.320 really dope, okay, And there's something about having your villain 1:16:25.439 --> 1:16:27.519 in the mud bath. It reminded me of the we 1:16:27.560 --> 1:16:29.839 have a mud bath scene in twenty twenty one's Dune 1:16:29.880 --> 1:16:34.720 with the baron in there as he's addressing his underlings. 1:16:34.760 --> 1:16:39.320 So similar connection there. I don't know if Denise Villeneuve 1:16:39.520 --> 1:16:42.919 was looking at this when he was putting together his 1:16:43.160 --> 1:16:45.240 dreams for his doing adaptation. 1:16:45.640 --> 1:16:49.200 Surely, surely it was inspired by the Super Mario Brothers movie. 1:16:50.320 --> 1:16:53.040 Dennis Hopper has a line this almost fell ad libbed. 1:16:53.320 --> 1:16:56.160 He says, you know what I love about mud, It's 1:16:56.280 --> 1:16:58.639 clean and it's dirty at the same time. 1:16:59.600 --> 1:17:03.320 Yeah, ull kids, kids. 1:17:05.479 --> 1:17:09.720 Oh so meanwhile, remember Daisy, Remember the paleontologist. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, 1:17:09.920 --> 1:17:12.320 she's been hanging out with all of the women from 1:17:12.360 --> 1:17:15.280 the Mammal Dimension that I guess were all except her 1:17:15.439 --> 1:17:18.360 erroneously brought here by Iggy and Spike because they thought 1:17:18.439 --> 1:17:20.680 all of them were her. But now they're all just 1:17:20.720 --> 1:17:23.360 still here and they're like hanging out, stuck in this room. 1:17:24.000 --> 1:17:28.519 And Mario's date from Meatball Night is here. Nice and 1:17:28.680 --> 1:17:33.080 Lena shows up in the room to extract Princess Daisy 1:17:33.160 --> 1:17:36.759 from the room of the Mammal Dimension women, and Lena 1:17:36.880 --> 1:17:39.559 dresses her up in a purple gown and jewelry and 1:17:39.680 --> 1:17:42.759 gives some exposition. She says that Daisy is the daughter 1:17:43.200 --> 1:17:48.240 of the former queen of this world who stole the rock. 1:17:48.360 --> 1:17:51.400 That's what they're calling this, like Little Shard smuggled the 1:17:51.400 --> 1:17:55.400 baby into the Mammal dimension and then died. And Daisy 1:17:55.439 --> 1:17:57.719 wants to know about her father. Is he still living 1:17:58.160 --> 1:18:00.519 and Lena says, depends on what you mean by living, 1:18:00.840 --> 1:18:04.520 And later she asks Coopa about him. Coopa says, oh, 1:18:04.720 --> 1:18:10.080 he's around again, referring we will find it, spoiler, we 1:18:10.120 --> 1:18:12.479 will find out that all of the fungus that's just 1:18:12.560 --> 1:18:15.840 all over everything, in every building and room in this 1:18:15.920 --> 1:18:18.920 world is the former king. He's I guess he got 1:18:18.960 --> 1:18:19.720 really big. 1:18:20.000 --> 1:18:23.759 Yeah, which in and out of itself, it's grotesquely realized 1:18:23.800 --> 1:18:26.320 in the film, but it's it's kind of a neat idea, 1:18:26.520 --> 1:18:29.080 this idea that the deposed king was too powerful to 1:18:29.120 --> 1:18:31.720 really go away, and that he's like he's everywhere. I mean, 1:18:31.720 --> 1:18:34.360 there's something kind of potent about that. You can imagine 1:18:34.360 --> 1:18:38.360 this being used a great effect in a different work 1:18:38.439 --> 1:18:38.880 of fiction. 1:18:39.800 --> 1:18:41.800 So there's a new scene where I think Coopa is 1:18:41.880 --> 1:18:45.519 punishing Spike and Iggy for failing many times, and Spike 1:18:45.560 --> 1:18:48.880 gets sent into the Devo machine. But then instead of 1:18:48.920 --> 1:18:51.720 being made to DEVO, he has made to Evo. They 1:18:51.760 --> 1:18:55.760 so they set the dial to quote advanced. Yeah, they 1:18:55.760 --> 1:18:58.040 pop his head in. He comes out with a vastly 1:18:58.040 --> 1:19:02.439 improved vocabulary and he starts doing math problems. And then 1:19:02.479 --> 1:19:04.320 they do this to the other guy as well. So 1:19:04.360 --> 1:19:07.680 now they are both smart. But in this movie, smart 1:19:08.000 --> 1:19:10.880 just means listing a lot of synonyms for a word. 1:19:10.960 --> 1:19:14.080 Somebody just said, yeah, yeah, they just book smart. They 1:19:14.080 --> 1:19:18.760 don't actually do anything smart in the film. They just 1:19:18.800 --> 1:19:21.080 suddenly have a different vocabulary. 1:19:20.479 --> 1:19:22.840 Though I think it does change their politics. Now they 1:19:22.880 --> 1:19:26.120 start sort of revolting against King Cooper. Remember, they're like, 1:19:26.160 --> 1:19:27.080 you're a fascist. 1:19:27.439 --> 1:19:29.679 That's right, that's right. They just have very little ability 1:19:29.680 --> 1:19:32.400 to do anything about it because they're not plumbers. 1:19:32.800 --> 1:19:35.720 That's right. That's right. Oh somewhere in here, there's a 1:19:35.760 --> 1:19:37.400 scene where Daisy meets Yoshi. 1:19:37.680 --> 1:19:40.080 I remember, Oh yeah, Yoshi is one of the highlights 1:19:40.120 --> 1:19:40.599 of the film. 1:19:40.880 --> 1:19:45.080 Yes, so there's a tiny theropod dinosaur, definitely not as 1:19:45.160 --> 1:19:48.040 cute as Yoshi in the games, but he's sort of, 1:19:48.080 --> 1:19:52.000 you know, a dog sized dinosaur, and Daisy's getting to 1:19:52.000 --> 1:19:55.240 know him, and Koopa enters the scene and says, Yoshi 1:19:55.320 --> 1:19:58.559 is a pet of the royal family. And Daisy is 1:19:58.600 --> 1:20:02.200 of course amazed because here's dinosaur. She's a paleontologist, she's 1:20:02.200 --> 1:20:04.759 always studied them, but never seen one alive of course. 1:20:05.520 --> 1:20:07.800 Yeah, yeah, so this was something I remember from the 1:20:07.800 --> 1:20:10.000 trailers and the promotional materials when I was a kid. 1:20:10.000 --> 1:20:12.760 I was like, yes, this this is Yoshi. This is great. This, 1:20:13.000 --> 1:20:15.519 I mean, who doesn't want to see this movie with 1:20:15.560 --> 1:20:17.559 a with a cute dinosaur that's your friend. 1:20:18.040 --> 1:20:20.680 Sure, but this scene really ends up taking a turn. So, 1:20:21.080 --> 1:20:23.840 first of all, there's more exposition. There's a lot of 1:20:23.880 --> 1:20:28.479 just explaining. Coopa explains that their dementia, well, he doesn't 1:20:28.479 --> 1:20:31.680 explain this, it like is demonstrated with a prop that 1:20:31.720 --> 1:20:35.360 their world is Aracus pretty much like the planet has 1:20:35.439 --> 1:20:37.920 one big city and the rest of the planet is 1:20:37.960 --> 1:20:41.160 an endless desert. So Coopa spins the globe around and 1:20:41.200 --> 1:20:43.559 there's only one landmark, the city. The rest is just 1:20:43.640 --> 1:20:46.720 flat desert. So like, if there's only one landmark on 1:20:46.760 --> 1:20:48.559 your planet, why would you have a globe? 1:20:49.000 --> 1:20:53.440 I mean, maybe it's not nothing out there, there's some landmarks. 1:20:53.760 --> 1:20:57.599 Yeah, So Coopa explains to her also that she's one 1:20:57.600 --> 1:21:01.160 of them. You know, she's descended from dinah, not mammals, 1:21:01.600 --> 1:21:04.439 and we will in later scenes see her bonding and 1:21:04.439 --> 1:21:06.760 making friends with Yoshi. I guess not just because she's 1:21:06.840 --> 1:21:11.000 interested in dinosaurs, but because she is one. Then the 1:21:11.040 --> 1:21:14.839 scene takes a horrible turn and Coopa gets really creepy. 1:21:14.920 --> 1:21:18.200 He does like a cgi snake tongue thing at Daisy 1:21:18.240 --> 1:21:22.519 and tries to kiss her. It is absolutely disgusting, and 1:21:22.560 --> 1:21:25.320 in a way, I guess hats off to Dennis Hopper 1:21:25.360 --> 1:21:28.000 because I assume they probably told him. Hey, okay, time 1:21:28.040 --> 1:21:30.760 to be the King of creeps, and he accomplishes it. 1:21:31.360 --> 1:21:34.280 But I don't know, I do not understand how anybody 1:21:34.320 --> 1:21:37.000 involved thought this scene was appropriate in a movie for 1:21:37.080 --> 1:21:37.719 little kids. 1:21:38.560 --> 1:21:43.320 Yeah, because he's playing an abusive, lecherous totalitarian, but in 1:21:43.360 --> 1:21:46.479 ways that break through the sort of simplified cartoon version 1:21:46.600 --> 1:21:47.640 of those attributes. 1:21:48.000 --> 1:21:50.680 Yeah, it's just gross, and so like, is this a 1:21:50.760 --> 1:21:53.080 kid's movie? And then to add more to that, so 1:21:53.200 --> 1:21:56.880 Daisy rejects him, and then Coop Coopa sends her away 1:21:56.880 --> 1:22:00.479 with Gumba's and he kicks Yoshi. He kicks Yoshi, cruelty 1:22:00.479 --> 1:22:04.599 to animals. Also, I don't really blame Hopper here because 1:22:04.600 --> 1:22:06.840 I think he's probably doing what they told him to 1:22:06.880 --> 1:22:10.920 do and create this awful, detestable villain. But this, the 1:22:11.040 --> 1:22:14.160 tone is just miles off the mark for what this 1:22:14.280 --> 1:22:16.000 movie is presumably supposed to be. 1:22:16.640 --> 1:22:29.920 Absolutely. Yeah, Now, of course, where at Mario and Luigi 1:22:30.000 --> 1:22:31.960 at this point they've been cast out into the desert 1:22:32.080 --> 1:22:33.200 and with the fremen. 1:22:33.640 --> 1:22:37.240 Yeah that's right, yes, after having given their water. I 1:22:37.280 --> 1:22:39.400 don't know. Yeah, So they're out in the desert wandering around. 1:22:39.479 --> 1:22:42.240 They're arguing with each other at some point that they 1:22:42.360 --> 1:22:45.040 end up crossing paths with Iggy and Spike after Iggy 1:22:45.040 --> 1:22:47.320 and Spike crash their dune buggy in a mud pit, 1:22:48.080 --> 1:22:51.439 and then they fill Mario and Luigi in on the 1:22:51.479 --> 1:22:54.320 exposition that the audience already knows all the stuff about 1:22:54.320 --> 1:22:57.040 the world. Skoupon needs the Shard to merge the dimensions, 1:22:57.040 --> 1:22:59.880 et cetera. This movie spends a lot of time going 1:23:00.080 --> 1:23:03.080 over stuff that's already been covered. Character is just telling 1:23:03.400 --> 1:23:07.000 exposition to characters of things the audience already knows, sometimes 1:23:07.040 --> 1:23:09.520 like four or five iterations of the same information. 1:23:09.960 --> 1:23:11.640 Yeah, I don't know how much of that is. Just 1:23:12.040 --> 1:23:13.920 like it's kind of a clunky plot, and so they 1:23:13.920 --> 1:23:16.400 felt like they really needed a hammer at home. I 1:23:16.400 --> 1:23:19.400 don't know, like maybe if they had one less exposition sequence, 1:23:19.560 --> 1:23:23.479 I wouldn't have as clear of an idea about what's 1:23:23.479 --> 1:23:23.840 going on. 1:23:24.160 --> 1:23:26.320 But they agree to work together. They say, like, Spike 1:23:26.320 --> 1:23:28.639 and Iggy can have the shard if they help Mario 1:23:28.680 --> 1:23:31.599 and Luigi rescue Daisy. So they make their way back 1:23:31.600 --> 1:23:34.280 to the city by knocking out some Coopa cops at 1:23:34.320 --> 1:23:37.519 a dump with plumbing equipment, and they steal a garbage 1:23:37.560 --> 1:23:40.640 truck and then they go to a night club to 1:23:40.720 --> 1:23:44.400 find the lady who stole the meteorite shard, and once again, 1:23:44.640 --> 1:23:47.000 is this movie supposed to be for kids? This club 1:23:47.080 --> 1:23:51.120 scene really seemed way too adult. Like there's just leather 1:23:51.280 --> 1:23:54.479 and butts everywhere. It's a weird vibe. 1:23:54.800 --> 1:23:57.720 Yeah, there's a lot of underwear in this scene, and 1:23:57.960 --> 1:24:00.320 I kept expecting the lady with three breasts from Total 1:24:00.320 --> 1:24:02.160 Recall to show up. You know, It's like that kind 1:24:02.160 --> 1:24:03.080 of a vibe. 1:24:03.280 --> 1:24:07.080 It is exactly that kind of setting. Yeah, So Mario's 1:24:07.080 --> 1:24:09.680 plan to get the meteorite chard is to charm the 1:24:09.760 --> 1:24:12.080 lady who beat them up and stole it earlier. Turns 1:24:12.120 --> 1:24:15.479 out her name is Bertha, and turns out it sort 1:24:15.479 --> 1:24:18.400 of works, like he goes up and he's like, hello, beautiful, 1:24:18.439 --> 1:24:21.160 and she punches him at first, but then she dances 1:24:21.160 --> 1:24:24.640 with him. Then he gets the shard back. Then then 1:24:24.680 --> 1:24:27.639 a George Clinton cover of Walk the Dinosaur starts playing. 1:24:27.960 --> 1:24:31.439 Then goombas arrived, commanded by Lena, and then Lena gets 1:24:31.439 --> 1:24:33.720 hold of the shard, but Mario and Luigi managed to 1:24:33.840 --> 1:24:36.439 escape the goombas with the help of Bertha, who is 1:24:36.520 --> 1:24:39.320 very strong and who is now in love with Mario. 1:24:39.439 --> 1:24:42.120 I think she like kisses him and calls him sugar 1:24:42.160 --> 1:24:45.880 buns or something, and then she gives them pneumatic rocket boots, 1:24:45.920 --> 1:24:48.800 which she calls stompers. And I think here is the 1:24:48.840 --> 1:24:52.360 first time we see the Super Mario brothers actually gaining 1:24:52.479 --> 1:24:54.960 some of their powers from the game, because now they 1:24:55.000 --> 1:24:57.559 can jump because they have the boots from Bertha. 1:24:58.040 --> 1:24:59.760 Now they can do again. This is something that they 1:24:59.760 --> 1:25:01.760 were like, well, they've got a jump. They've got a jump. 1:25:01.760 --> 1:25:03.760 They've got to do plumbing and they have to jump. 1:25:03.840 --> 1:25:08.760 So there's another chase they escape. There is a scene 1:25:08.600 --> 1:25:12.639 where we see Coopa taunting a big hunk of fungus 1:25:12.680 --> 1:25:17.519 hanging over an empty throne, and again we will find out, oh, 1:25:17.600 --> 1:25:20.000 this is the king. This is Daisy's father, the king. 1:25:20.720 --> 1:25:22.960 And then Coopa goes and he orders a pizza on 1:25:23.000 --> 1:25:26.840 a videophone. He wants a Coopa Special with pterodactyl tail, 1:25:27.040 --> 1:25:31.439 dino lizard, hold the mammal, no worms, and spicy. So 1:25:31.560 --> 1:25:34.559 the Marios after this, they sneak into Koopa tower by 1:25:34.560 --> 1:25:39.360 doing plumbing like they like, twist some bolts and stuff 1:25:39.400 --> 1:25:42.000 on pipes in order to turn off the heat, so 1:25:42.040 --> 1:25:44.519 the tower turns cold and this is not good for 1:25:44.560 --> 1:25:48.479 the dinosaurs. They also find the outfits of their actual 1:25:48.520 --> 1:25:51.200 colors from the game. They just like find red overalls 1:25:51.200 --> 1:25:54.280 for Mario and green for Luigi. I think it's somewhere 1:25:54.280 --> 1:25:57.160 around here that Lena starts turning on Coopa, Like, she 1:25:57.280 --> 1:26:00.360 starts to get jealous of his desire for Daisy. So 1:26:00.439 --> 1:26:02.479 she's like, well, I'm gonna take the shard and I'll 1:26:02.520 --> 1:26:03.960 merge the worlds without him. 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:05.920 And this is great because, like I said, I'm I'm 1:26:05.920 --> 1:26:09.240 here for Lena. I'm ready to support Lena and her 1:26:09.720 --> 1:26:14.200 coup against Koopa. So let's see if she can pull 1:26:14.240 --> 1:26:14.559 it off. 1:26:14.880 --> 1:26:17.280 Yeah, she tries to go to Daisy's room and kill her, 1:26:17.439 --> 1:26:20.960 but that doesn't work because Yoshi intervenes. Yoshi bites Lena, 1:26:21.080 --> 1:26:24.920 and Daisy escapes. Oh and meanwhile, Daisy has been making friends, 1:26:24.920 --> 1:26:27.879 not just with Yoshi but with the Mojo Nixon Gumba. 1:26:28.600 --> 1:26:31.479 They're friends now. I guess he's like a nice one. 1:26:31.880 --> 1:26:34.719 Yeah. They let him keep the harmonica that he played 1:26:34.720 --> 1:26:37.519 in life, and so it's always around his neck to 1:26:37.560 --> 1:26:39.120 identify which one he is. 1:26:39.439 --> 1:26:42.240 That's right, And it turns another thing. The Mario brothers 1:26:42.240 --> 1:26:45.320 somehow discovered that Goomba's like to dance, so they like 1:26:45.439 --> 1:26:48.400 get them swaying back and forth to music in order 1:26:48.439 --> 1:26:51.000 to evade them while they're trying to sneak around through 1:26:51.000 --> 1:26:52.120 some elevator shafts. 1:26:52.640 --> 1:26:55.120 Yeah, I know those sequences. Those are some great weird 1:26:55.160 --> 1:26:58.559 scenes that also feel like they're part of a children's movie, 1:26:58.560 --> 1:27:02.240 you know, like big dumb looking monsters or dancing with 1:27:02.280 --> 1:27:03.840 each other. And I accept it. 1:27:04.320 --> 1:27:07.400 So eventually, I guess Daisy meets up with you men. 1:27:07.439 --> 1:27:12.040 There's so many characters just like meeting, crossing paths, getting captured, uncaptured, escaping, 1:27:12.080 --> 1:27:14.799 blah blah blah. Just there's a lot of plot movement 1:27:14.960 --> 1:27:18.240 without a lot of significance really changing. But it's like 1:27:18.360 --> 1:27:20.840 Daisy meets up with Spike and Iggy, who explained to 1:27:20.880 --> 1:27:23.799 her that her father, the King, was the first victim 1:27:23.880 --> 1:27:27.400 of Koopa's de evolution machine. He is the fungus that 1:27:27.439 --> 1:27:31.479 covers the entire city. As we've said, she tries to 1:27:31.560 --> 1:27:35.000 talk to the fungus father, then she frees Yoshi from 1:27:35.000 --> 1:27:38.240 his chains. Then she just hacks the computer system. She 1:27:38.320 --> 1:27:39.439 starts like getting in there. 1:27:40.840 --> 1:27:43.479 I have to drive home that the what we see 1:27:43.520 --> 1:27:46.960 in the throne room of the former Kings as fungus. 1:27:47.160 --> 1:27:49.479 It's just really disgusting. Looks like the failed results of 1:27:49.560 --> 1:27:52.519 a telepod experiment from the Fly or something. 1:27:52.640 --> 1:27:55.400 Oh yeah, totally yeah. It's just a weird kind of 1:27:55.479 --> 1:28:01.000 slime and flesh gunk. Oh but somewhere here, I guess 1:28:01.400 --> 1:28:04.080 Mario and Luigi make it into the tower. They reunite 1:28:04.080 --> 1:28:07.479 with Daisy. They are introduced to the fungus King. Here's somehow. 1:28:07.520 --> 1:28:10.280 Mario gets reminded about his meatball night date, whose name 1:28:10.360 --> 1:28:14.519 is Daniella. Okay, that's her name. She's also stuck here 1:28:14.520 --> 1:28:16.280 in the Koopa World with all of the other women 1:28:16.320 --> 1:28:19.280 from Brooklyn who were kidnapped, and he's like, oh yeah, 1:28:19.280 --> 1:28:21.880 I promised to take her to WrestleMania. That means I've 1:28:21.880 --> 1:28:25.240 got to rescue her. So he goes to rescue her. 1:28:25.280 --> 1:28:28.519 He does it, and they all Mario and all of 1:28:28.560 --> 1:28:32.160 the ladies from Mammal World go bob sledding down a 1:28:32.200 --> 1:28:35.479 giant pipe pursued by goombas. I think this is another 1:28:35.720 --> 1:28:39.280 nod of the games, like going down the pipes, and 1:28:39.320 --> 1:28:42.840 there's some kind of Kinney Loggins music play in They 1:28:42.840 --> 1:28:45.519 get spit out in the streets of Koopatown, where they 1:28:45.560 --> 1:28:50.120 reunite with Daisy and Luigi, and at some point in 1:28:50.120 --> 1:28:52.439 their Daisy and Luigi were captured, and then they got 1:28:52.479 --> 1:28:55.360 away again. I don't know how all that happened. But 1:28:55.439 --> 1:28:57.960 then there's more action in the streets. Koopa's down there 1:28:58.000 --> 1:29:01.440 aiming a de evolution gun at them. There are devolution 1:29:01.600 --> 1:29:04.920 guns now, not just the machine with the chair, So 1:29:05.040 --> 1:29:07.240 from here it's sort of action all the way to 1:29:07.280 --> 1:29:10.519 the end. There is a sequence where Lena is trying 1:29:10.560 --> 1:29:13.920 to get the shard and she gets electrified somehow and 1:29:13.960 --> 1:29:16.840 gets big hair and then runs down the tunnel to 1:29:16.960 --> 1:29:21.160 the dimensional rift. Luigi and Daisy also run down there 1:29:21.200 --> 1:29:24.679 after her. They return the girls from Brooklyn back to Brooklyn, 1:29:25.120 --> 1:29:27.680 they say, tell everyone in Brooklyn about the invasion of 1:29:27.720 --> 1:29:33.120 the goombas that's coming. Lena inserts the shard into the meteorite, 1:29:33.200 --> 1:29:35.839 but it blasts her into the wall and she becomes 1:29:35.880 --> 1:29:41.719 a cooked skeleton with frizzy hair. Luigi and Daisy are like, oh, yeah, 1:29:41.720 --> 1:29:44.639 of course that happened to her, because only Daisy has 1:29:44.720 --> 1:29:47.240 the power to insert or remove the shard. 1:29:48.160 --> 1:29:50.240 Okay, all right, I. 1:29:49.720 --> 1:29:52.519 Don't recall that being established before, but maybe I missed it. 1:29:52.720 --> 1:29:54.920 Yeah, we're leaning a little bit on the Dark Crystal. 1:29:54.960 --> 1:29:55.680 At this point, I. 1:29:55.640 --> 1:29:58.800 Think, yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of just action, like 1:29:58.880 --> 1:30:02.280 Koopa's trying to shoot Mario and Luigi with fireballs in 1:30:02.320 --> 1:30:08.120 the street. There's a big fight. But when the shard 1:30:08.320 --> 1:30:11.719 is insurged into the media rite, everything gets interrupted because 1:30:12.400 --> 1:30:15.320 they're like their bodies start dissolving. So like Coopa and 1:30:15.400 --> 1:30:18.040 Mario are in a standoff and they're turning into pixels 1:30:18.040 --> 1:30:21.760 and flying away, and Coopa's like, we're merging. 1:30:22.720 --> 1:30:25.519 Oh my god. This was a part in the movie 1:30:25.520 --> 1:30:27.879 where I was like, oh my goodness, what is happening? 1:30:27.960 --> 1:30:30.360 Like I was just for a minute there, just totally 1:30:30.720 --> 1:30:32.439 thrown off. I was like, are we about to time 1:30:32.479 --> 1:30:36.519 cop Here they're can merge together and occupy the same 1:30:36.600 --> 1:30:38.640 mass at the same time. I don't know, but of 1:30:38.640 --> 1:30:39.720 course it's the dimensions. 1:30:40.040 --> 1:30:43.400 Yeah. Yeah, So the merging dissolves Koopa and Mario. It 1:30:43.479 --> 1:30:47.040 sends them to the mammal dimension Brooklyn, where they pop 1:30:47.080 --> 1:30:51.240 out on the the dig site of the Scipelli dig. 1:30:52.240 --> 1:30:56.640 We see the dissolving of the World Trade Center, like 1:30:56.680 --> 1:30:59.720 the towers dissolve, and somebody comments, those guys will do 1:30:59.800 --> 1:31:01.160 any thing for publicity. 1:31:02.800 --> 1:31:03.360 Yikes. 1:31:05.080 --> 1:31:08.120 Coopa gets there and he shoots the de evolution gun 1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:12.679 at Schipelli, who turns into a chimpanzee. Once again, humans 1:31:12.720 --> 1:31:15.000 did not evolve from chimpanzees. Yeah. 1:31:15.080 --> 1:31:17.080 Yeah, also did not evolve from mushrooms. 1:31:17.920 --> 1:31:22.360 Also true. So Coopa then says he's going to make 1:31:22.360 --> 1:31:24.960 a monkey out of Mario. He aims the de evolution 1:31:25.120 --> 1:31:29.280 gun at him, but then Mario remembers Luigi earlier said hey, 1:31:29.320 --> 1:31:32.880 we should trust the fungus. So Mario says, trust the fungus, 1:31:33.360 --> 1:31:35.680 and he holds up a piece of fungus as a 1:31:35.760 --> 1:31:39.160 human shield or a fungus shield, and the de evolution 1:31:39.320 --> 1:31:43.320 gun hits it and it gets bigger, and then Daisy 1:31:43.320 --> 1:31:45.439 and Luigi managed to get the shard out of the 1:31:45.479 --> 1:31:50.400 media orite. So Coopa and Mario dissolve back to Iracush 1:31:50.800 --> 1:31:53.559 and then, hey, all of your friends are back here, 1:31:53.600 --> 1:31:56.040 and let's do a payoff of everything that happened earlier. 1:31:56.640 --> 1:32:01.120 So remember how the goombas like to dance, Welljo Nixon Gumba, 1:32:01.200 --> 1:32:04.040 he starts playing the harmonica and they start dancing, so 1:32:04.080 --> 1:32:07.799 they're not fighting. And hey, remember Bertha with her rocket boots, 1:32:07.960 --> 1:32:10.400 Well she's here with rocket boots. Luigi puts them on 1:32:10.520 --> 1:32:14.280 and starts zooming around. Hey, remember those devo guns. Mario 1:32:14.360 --> 1:32:16.960 and Luigi get them and they use them on Koopa 1:32:17.080 --> 1:32:21.360 to turn him into a velociraptor. Remember, oh, we've seen 1:32:21.800 --> 1:32:24.519 remember bob bombs from the Mario game, the little like 1:32:24.720 --> 1:32:28.800 walking bombs, like from a cartoon. They keep popping up 1:32:28.800 --> 1:32:30.760 in the game because the Fungus is like trying to 1:32:30.840 --> 1:32:34.599 hand them to Mario. There was one that was ignited earlier. 1:32:34.640 --> 1:32:37.080 I skipped over that during the big action scene in 1:32:37.120 --> 1:32:40.000 the streets. It walks back over to Koopa, blows up, 1:32:40.080 --> 1:32:43.439 launches him sky high. He falls back down, roars. He's 1:32:43.439 --> 1:32:48.200 still dinosaurish. Mario and Luigi they keep shooting him with 1:32:48.280 --> 1:32:52.080 the de evolution gun until he turns into primordial Ooze, 1:32:52.360 --> 1:32:54.720 and then the people of Coopaville celebrate. I guess they 1:32:54.720 --> 1:32:57.840 didn't like Koopa, but we were given no indication of that. 1:32:58.840 --> 1:33:02.200 Then everybody hugs the fungus. King turns back into Lance 1:33:02.240 --> 1:33:06.479 Henrickson and says I'm back. Love those plumbers, and then 1:33:06.520 --> 1:33:09.800 we never see him again. Daisy uses the shard to 1:33:09.840 --> 1:33:12.880 magically open the portal, you know, but it's like, Oh, 1:33:12.880 --> 1:33:15.240 but I can't leave. This is my world. You know, 1:33:15.520 --> 1:33:20.120 I haven't even met Lance Hendrickson yet. So the Marios 1:33:20.200 --> 1:33:24.439 go back to their world, Daisy stays here, and so 1:33:24.880 --> 1:33:27.240 then we get a little epilogue. So back home in Brooklyn, 1:33:27.280 --> 1:33:31.439 the Mario brothers, they're hanging out with Daniella. They're eating 1:33:31.479 --> 1:33:36.360 spaghetti and meatballs. They're watching that Unsolved Mysteries show and hey, look, 1:33:36.439 --> 1:33:39.400 look we're on the show. Now there's a segment about 1:33:39.439 --> 1:33:42.240 the time that we saved this dimension from the ruthless 1:33:42.280 --> 1:33:45.840 dinosaur Dictator, and then they high five about being on 1:33:45.920 --> 1:33:50.160 TV until Daisy comes to the door. She is wearing scorched, 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:54.120 tattered clothing. She's holding a de evolution gun. She says, 1:33:54.320 --> 1:33:57.519 I need your help, Mario Brothers. You're never gonna believe this, 1:33:57.920 --> 1:34:03.080 and then Mario says, oh, I believe That's that's the 1:34:03.080 --> 1:34:05.640 moral of the movie. Now when somebody says something, he 1:34:05.760 --> 1:34:07.880 is no longer skeptical. He just believes it. 1:34:10.000 --> 1:34:11.960 This is a great moment where they're setting up a 1:34:12.000 --> 1:34:15.040 sequel that absolutely would never happen. But it made me wonder, 1:34:15.320 --> 1:34:18.120 is this the coming of Wart the villain from the 1:34:18.160 --> 1:34:21.400 main villain from Super Mario Brothers too. That's like invading 1:34:21.400 --> 1:34:23.280 the world of Dreams or whatever was going on in 1:34:23.320 --> 1:34:23.719 that game. 1:34:24.200 --> 1:34:27.559 The second live action Super Mario Brothers movie would, as 1:34:27.600 --> 1:34:29.760 we said, involve a lot of turnip digging, you know, 1:34:29.880 --> 1:34:33.719 pulling things up, throwing them, getting on top of blocks, 1:34:34.040 --> 1:34:34.639 the good stuff. 1:34:34.720 --> 1:34:37.040 That's that's the one I actually owned. That was the 1:34:37.080 --> 1:34:39.840 one that I have the most experienced with. Still never 1:34:39.880 --> 1:34:41.759 made it to wart was not good at these games. 1:34:42.520 --> 1:34:44.240 Well that was a marathon. I knew this one was 1:34:44.240 --> 1:34:45.960 going to go long, and as we said, there's a 1:34:46.000 --> 1:34:47.880 lot of stuff about this we didn't even get into. 1:34:48.479 --> 1:34:51.439 This is like, I really meant it when I said 1:34:51.439 --> 1:34:54.400 a I think a book length work could be devoted 1:34:54.439 --> 1:34:57.120 to Super Mario Brothers the movie, what it is and 1:34:57.160 --> 1:34:59.879 what it means and why it's so strange. 1:35:00.680 --> 1:35:02.879 Did you stick around for the post credit sequence? 1:35:03.520 --> 1:35:04.479 Is there actually one? 1:35:04.760 --> 1:35:06.080 There actually is one? Yes? 1:35:06.200 --> 1:35:07.080 Oh wow, I didn't. 1:35:07.640 --> 1:35:10.960 It's real dumb. It's where you have a couple of 1:35:11.880 --> 1:35:15.360 representatives of a Japanese video game company, presumably Nintendo or 1:35:15.360 --> 1:35:17.760 maybe they even say they're from Nintendo, and there they 1:35:17.880 --> 1:35:19.840 show up and they're like, we're here, we hear we've 1:35:19.880 --> 1:35:21.599 heard about your adventures, and we would love to turn 1:35:21.640 --> 1:35:24.400 them into a video game. We think audiences would love this. 1:35:24.640 --> 1:35:27.280 And then it's revealed it's not Mario and Luigi they're 1:35:27.280 --> 1:35:31.120 talking to. It's the Koopa cousins and they and they, 1:35:31.880 --> 1:35:34.800 they go back and forth about what the game might 1:35:34.880 --> 1:35:38.360 be called. And there's some like you know, bad humor there, 1:35:38.400 --> 1:35:40.800 But luckily it only lasts a few seconds and that's it. 1:35:41.120 --> 1:35:44.639 Totally missed it. But so they're living in our dimension now. 1:35:45.320 --> 1:35:48.880 I think so, yes, Okay, yeah, unless they are now 1:35:48.920 --> 1:35:52.000 splinter dimensions. I don't know there. If you, if you 1:35:52.040 --> 1:35:54.160 think too long and hard about this movie, there you 1:35:54.200 --> 1:35:57.960 know a lot of a lot of possibilities emerge, possibilities 1:35:57.960 --> 1:36:01.439 that could have been explored in various ways in the 1:36:01.479 --> 1:36:03.880 sequel that you, I guess, can only view in an 1:36:03.920 --> 1:36:04.799 alternate dimension. 1:36:05.200 --> 1:36:07.120 Okay, we've got to end it there. This has been 1:36:07.760 --> 1:36:08.880 ridiculously long. 1:36:09.360 --> 1:36:11.880 All right, we shall end it there. But we'd love 1:36:11.880 --> 1:36:15.200 to hear from everyone out there. Oh, especially if you 1:36:15.200 --> 1:36:18.320 have experiences with the release of this movie. Did you 1:36:18.360 --> 1:36:20.720 see it in a theater? What was your level of 1:36:20.760 --> 1:36:24.240 excitement for it? As like a video game player, I 1:36:24.280 --> 1:36:26.439 don't need I'd like I say, I refuse to believe 1:36:26.439 --> 1:36:28.439 anybody owned any of these toys, but if you did, 1:36:28.520 --> 1:36:30.599 right in, we'd love to hear from. You. Might need 1:36:30.600 --> 1:36:34.519 to include photographic evidence though, to convince me. And yeah, 1:36:34.560 --> 1:36:37.200 we'll be back next week. On Weird House Cinema, we're 1:36:37.240 --> 1:36:39.840 primarily a science podcast and the Stuff to Blow Remind 1:36:39.840 --> 1:36:42.519 podcast feed core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on 1:36:42.560 --> 1:36:45.280 Friday's we set aside most serious concerns to just talk 1:36:45.280 --> 1:36:48.120 about a weird film. But as we if you've seen 1:36:48.120 --> 1:36:50.360 in this episode, we're still not going to let particularly 1:36:50.400 --> 1:36:53.960 bad science takes go by without some comment. 1:36:54.360 --> 1:36:57.320 Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you 1:36:57.320 --> 1:36:59.440 would like to get in touch with us with feedback 1:36:59.439 --> 1:37:01.639 on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic 1:37:01.680 --> 1:37:03.960 for the future, or just a salo, you can email 1:37:04.080 --> 1:37:14.320 us at contact Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 1:37:14.439 --> 1:37:17.400 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:37:17.479 --> 1:37:20.280 more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:37:20.400 --> 1:37:23.160 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.