Mario Movie Improves On Characters Who Didn’t Have “Much Of A Personality”, Says Director | Nintendo Life

Image: Nintendo / Illumination

Ever since it was initially announced, we have all been curious as to how Nintendo and Illumination would go about bringing the world of Mario to the big screen. From The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailers that we have seen so far, it certainly seems like they have done a good job. The movie iterations of the characters have just enough in common with the video games that we know where we stand, but there are some fun twists in there to keep things interesting.

This process of bringing the iconic characters from game to screen was touched on by one of the movie’s directors, Michael Jelenic, in a recent interview with Animation Magazine (thanks, Go Nintendo). Jelenic was glowing in his praise for the movie’s cast, who he stated had the tough job of bringing life to the video game characters who “don’t have much of a personality”.

Sometimes in the animation community people think that you can’t use celebrities, but I think it’s easy to forget that these are great performers and they’ve all proven themselves multiple times and created iconic characters. We cast them in the parts because we believed they could bring these video game characters, who really don’t have much of a personality, to life and make them relatable and funny and heroic. Literally every single person in this movie is great.

While we would argue that the personality of these characters has grown over the course of their in-game appearances, we can understand Jelenic’s point regarding the difficulty of translating those ‘wahoo’s, ‘oh yeah’s and ‘Marioooo’s into fully-formed characters that can carry a story for 90 minutes.

Saying that Mario and co. don’t have much of a personality might seem a little harsh from a gaming point of view, but we imagine that the depth of character shown in something like Super Mario Odyssey is only a fraction of what is required to convey the emotions of a plot-driven movie.

The full interview goes on to explore why the directors think that the Mario franchise has endured for so long, their approach to animation and how past projects came to influence this one. You can check it out in full over on the Animation Magazine site.

Would you say that the Mario characters have enough personality as they stand, or do you agree with the directors? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

[source animationmagazine.net, via gonintendo.com]

Ever since it was initially announced, we have all been curious as to how Nintendo and Illumination would go about bringing the world of Mario to the big screen. From The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailers that we have seen so far, it certainly seems like they have done a good job. The movie iterations of the characters have just enough in common with the video games that we know where we stand, but there are some fun twists in there to keep things interesting.

Sometimes in the animation community people think that you can’t use celebrities, but I think it’s easy to forget that these are great performers and they’ve all proven themselves multiple times and created iconic characters. We cast them in the parts because we believed they could bring these video game characters, who really don’t have much of a personality, to life and make them relatable and funny and heroic. Literally every single person in this movie is great.

While we would argue that the personality of these characters has grown over the course of their in-game appearances, we can understand Jelenic’s point regarding the difficulty of translating those ‘wahoo’s, ‘oh yeah’s and ‘Marioooo’s into fully-formed characters that can carry a story for 90 minutes.

The full interview goes on to explore why the directors think that the Mario franchise has endured for so long, their approach to animation and how past projects came to influence this one. You can check it out in full over on the Animation Magazine site.

Would you say that the Mario characters have enough personality as they stand, or do you agree with the directors? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

somehow i lost interest in the film even before this interview. i have the feeling the franchise used is interchangeable. it is certainly a well and effortfully produced, but generic animation film.

Yeah I always play Mario games thinking you know what these characters would be a lot better if they were just like the annoying cringe worthy characters from Illumination films

I’ve always felt that the minimal storylines and lack of talking in mainline Mario games kept the characters from growing, but then we have side projects such as Luigi’s Mansion, where Luigi is saturated in personality. Not to mention the Bob Hoskins movie (where he’s a burly Bronx- builders bum crack kind of guy) and various shows over the years, where flagship characters definitely have strong personalities.

The problem is (if you even consider it a problem, I don’t) that character identity varies for each project. This new movie will just give us another version of the characters and from what I’ve seen, I’m going to enjoy it immensely.

I’m glad they did a good job and I can’t wait to see it, but..

Many videogames and their characters are iconic for a reason you know? Do your variant, sure, I see why you have to, but don’t claim you fixed what was not broken to begin with >.>;

I agree with the person above me! I mean just look at origami king, all they were more limited with characters yet they were still great! Bob, ):

The appeal of Nintendo’s characters, arguably, is that they are mostly silent (or nearly silent) ciphers for the player to map on their own expectations/traits of the character. That’s what makes them so timeless and enjoyable. Whole different appeal to video game characters like Sonic, who have a whole personality kind of baked into the character.

Does that really matter to the success of the movie? Probably not. I think we’ve seen Mario projects do this before (like those old shows, or that other movie). It’ll probably follow in those lines. It’ll be funny, maybe a bit cool, kind of fun, but lacking that sort of mind-blowing greatness of a Mario Galaxy or a Mario Odyssey because I think, essentially, it’s that fusion of gameplay and those cipher(ish) characters that makes the real Mario magic happen.

The appeal of Nintendo’s characters, arguably, is that they are mostly silent (or nearly silent) ciphers for the player to map on their own expectations/traits of the character. That’s what makes them so timeless and enjoyable. Whole different appeal to video game characters like Sonic, who have a whole personality kind of baked into the character.

Does that really matter to the success of the movie? Probably not. I think we’ve seen Mario projects do this before (like those old shows, or that other movie). It’ll probably follow in those lines. It’ll be funny, maybe a bit cool, kind of fun, but lacking that sort of mind-blowing greatness of a Mario Galaxy or a Mario Odyssey because I think, essentially, it’s that fusion of gameplay and those cipher(ish) characters that makes the real Mario magic happen.

Ah yes, more “let’s throw professional voice actors under the bus in favor of actors that have no experience with voice acting so they use their typical voices!”

Keep sullying the art form with your overemphasis on big name marketing.

Yeah make Peach a generic tough girl with no flaws they could have done similar to her in Super Princess Peach game have some flaws but there’s balance in her character.

I’m still not on Seth Rogen voicing DK he sounds like not trying and man that guy ain’t funny.

I like the mario games because they are timeless classic and gives good feel on adventure thats why I like about Super Mario Odyssey and Galaxy this one just looks really generic we see for final product.

We have to have Strong independent women in everything!

Now everyone can be strong and independent and that’s awesome.

I feel Nintendo has done a fine job Establishing who these characters are and done very well by doing it without dialog for many years. Building on top of that for a movie is fine, but personally, I feel like from the trailers, they turned Mario into a bumbling hero, which I don’t think is necessary. I get they want to show growth of the protagonist, but it looks like Princess peach is going to be the wise sage character that gets Mario ready to save his brother.

Don’t get me wrong Still looking forward to seeing the movie in April, but the trailer doesn’t make me feel like they are doing anything special.

@Jeremazing But from a storytelling perspective that makes sense.

Mario is from the human world right? It would make sense that suddenly been thrust into a alien world would make him a bumbling hero who has to grow.

He doesn’t know the rules of this world, and how things operate. Making him suddenly knowledgeable of all the inhabitants of the mushroom kingdom the second he lands, wouldn’t be an interesting story of personal growth.

If you were to switch the characters stories around and have Peach land in new york city all of a sudden, she too would be a bumbling hero because the rules of Mario’s world makes little sense to someone from a land of talking mushrooms.

I think you are being overly harsh here. Nintendo wouldn’t approve of a script that made Mario out to be a total idiot. That’s just standard storytelling of every hero’s Journey.

The thing is, if the movie isn’t even any “good,” it comes down to how much money the movie makes at the box office. To be considered a success, a movie has to make back at least twice it’s budget, regardless of whether or not the film is any good.

The 1993 live-action Mario movie not only was poorly received with audiences, gamers, and critics, it didn’t even make back it’s budget. Hence why Nintendo waited for 30 years to try again with another movie.

And let’s look at The Angry Birds Movie: it made back almost five times it’s budget in ticket sales, even though it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 43%. Because of that, they made a sequel, which made back over twice the budget, but was received much better, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 73%.

The live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie made back at least 3.5 times it’s budget, despite a Rotten Tomatoes score of 63%. That was still enough to warrant a sequel, which made back 3-4 times it’s budget, despite having a similar Rotten Tomatoes score of 69%. And a third movie is on the way.

So even if you don’t like Mario, Chris Pratt’s portrayal of him, or have no hopes that this movie will be any good, go see it anyway. Or at least buy the ticket and then do whatever you want with it; either give it away or throw it in the trash (just don’t scalp it; that’s a BIG no-no).

The reason is, if this movie is successful at the box office, it could not only spawn sequels that may be better than this one, it could also spawn films based on Nintendo franchises that we actually like, such as The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, and Super Smash Bros.

The more people realize that, the more likely we’ll get those films. As it is, that’s how I convinced my mother to go see it, because she is a BIG fan of The Legend of Zelda, and would love to see a movie based on that game. So I encourage everyone to heed my advice and go see this movie, even if it’s not any good.

@AstroTheGamosian Dude/Dudette it’s Mario. Every other kid and their grandpa knows about the character. Arguably more so than Sonic.

This film is going to make bank regardless of it’s reception. That’s just facts. All these people complaining in the comments or just other sites are a vocal minority (we need to stop pretending they have huge influence). A badly reviewed piece of media hasn’t stopped it from making millions or billions.

There’s too many parents with kids and too many Mario fans who don’t waste their time online nitpicking for this film not to succeed. It’s going to be a huge hit. Will it make a billion? eh maybe, maybe not, but whatever it’s budget is, it’s going to easily double or triple it.

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