Illumination's Super Mario movie

[JB-the-Hunter]

The way people seem to always leap to Pratt's defense will remain mystifying to me. He is stunt casting, and is a bad choice. As much as I love the Lego movies, he is not a good choice for Mario, and is not a good voice actor. The charm that he seems to have been able to convey on film is not right for Mario. I'm fairly certain I can go through the fairly star studded cast of the new Ducktales and pick out a half dozen better options.

Nobody should be defending or bashing him, because no one has witnessed his performance yet. Also, the whole cast is stunt casting. That doesn't mean anything about the quality of the final product. It will always mystify me how people come to conclusions about things without the tiniest shred of insight. The amount of times people hated casting choices before seeing even a trailer, let alone the film, and ended up being proven wrong is beyond count.

And about him not being right for Mario, every character in this film is going to have their personalities evolved and exaggerated from the games, because the games don't allow much room for the characters to display their personalities. In the comic this film is taking inspiration from, Super Mario Adventures, Mario is very sure of himself and fearless, similar to Peter Quill, without the bumbling side. I don't know whether or not Pratt will be able to pull off Mario's voice (which is not that hard, I've heard various convincing Mario impressions over the years), but I have little reason to doubt he can play a version of Mario that was written similar to the character he's played for almost a decade. What matters most is the direction he and the rest of the cast are given.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Let’s remember this is a cartoon.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

If chances of this movie being awful -or at best, unremarkable and forgettable- are pretty high, why should Chris Pratt being cast as the main character be so high on the list of things you don't like? So high that you ignore every other potential weakness.

Me personally; I've never watched a single movie from this studio, not even their mascot series, so I have no expectation on what to dread in their film quality. My one concern is that of Charlie Day, my only exposure to him that I found memorable is from the first Pacific Rim (no comment on his LEGO role, I don't remember it), and he's quite annoying there. I did not watch the sequel -that apparently made him the villain- or a single episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia to gauge the possibility that he might impress me.

The amount of times people hated casting choices before seeing even a trailer, let alone the film, and ended up being proven wrong is beyond count.

You actually reminded me of Kojima Hideo not being fond of David Hayter in the role of Solid Snake or Big Boss albeit him winning the role more than once.

 

[Lily Adler]

Looks like a new Power Up.

 

[JubJub86]

This thing was probably always going to be pretty lame (then again, I thought the Sonic flick was pretty obnoxious, including the lead role dude, most seemed to like it though), but yeah, the Pratt thing's just sort of...odd. Like more in a "I'm trying to understand the thought process behind it" way than being so negative to say there's no chance it'll work out.

Just get Martinet in the Mario role, maybe throw big names around for Bowser and Peach, maybe Martinet doesn't do Luigi for the movie either. You get your star power, you're doing Charles right, you're getting Mario who sounds like Mario. Bing bang boom.

Marvel with the first Thor logic. Two no-namers in the leads, surround them with Anthony ****ing Hopkins and Rene Russo and Natalie Portman and Daddy Skarsgard.

All I can think is maybe Martinet/1996/N64 "Craig Ferguson's Italian impression-slash Simpsons-Luigi" Mario voice is something they're worried about getting ire from the professionally-outraged on, so decided to tone it down. Like Pratt'll do an accent, but...nobody's baking-da-pizza-piiieee.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[CaptainWagner]

A lot of people saying that Martinet's classic Mario voice is being replaced because of offending Italians and... have we considered that it's being updated simply because, iconic as it is, it's a stupid voice that would be annoying as **** to listen to coming from the main character of a 90+ minute movie?

Pratt is a horrible choice, but so would be forcing us through a feature length rendition of *the mario voice*

 

[Snow Queen]

A lot of people saying that Martinet's classic Mario voice is being replaced because of offending Italians and... have we considered that it's being updated simply because, iconic as it is, it's a stupid voice that would be annoying as **** to listen to coming from the main character of a 90+ minute movie?

Pratt is a horrible choice, but so would be forcing us through a feature length rendition of *the mario voice*

Only Cuomo's sock accounts are saying that.

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

A lot of people saying that Martinet's classic Mario voice is being replaced because of offending Italians and... have we considered that it's being updated simply because, iconic as it is, it's a stupid voice that would be annoying as **** to listen to coming from the main character of a 90+ minute movie?

Pratt is a horrible choice, but so would be forcing us through a feature length rendition of *the mario voice*

Of course if we accept that we can’t have THE Mario voice in a Mario movie, we’d have to ask if some things really have to be movies. And then that would lead to bigger questions about how movies have essentially become packages for commercialism and viewer consumption, and we can’t have that.

 

[Sithborg]

Only Cuomo's sock accounts are saying that.

According to them, we have very limited number of italians to look up to. That's why we have to keep Mario and Columbus.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

According to them, we have very limited number of italians to look up to. That's why we have to keep Mario and Columbus.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The actual meeting where they broke the news to Mario about Chris Pratt:

Spoiler

 

[Silvermoth]

I’m all for including Italians in the plot but I don’t want them just forced in there. It’s just not realistic and reeks of forced diversity

 

[samsnee]

Honestly Seth Rogen as DK seems more uninspired to me. We know he’ll probably come off as a pothead.

 

[Drizzle]

Honestly Seth Rogen as DK seems more uninspired to me. We know he’ll probably come off as a pothead.

I don't think that's how his Pumbaa came off in The Lion King. People just equate Seth Rogen playing a pothead in every movie he's in because he famously smokes it in copious amounts but not all of his performances are like that.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

I don't think that's how his Pumbaa came off in The Lion King. People just equate Seth Rogen playing a pothead in every movie he's in because he famously smokes it in copious amounts but not all of his performances are like that.

Come to think of it; he wasn't one in Steve Jobs, neither of his performances in An American Pickle were a pothead, he was a mess but clearly not a pothead in Green Hornet (wow, that guy must really love computers, that passing line about what Britt wanted to be wasn't just a passing line about the character), and clearly not such a thing in the Disaster Artist.

Only performance I know of his which I think was a pothead is from the movie Knocked-Up.

Pratt is a horrible choice, but so would be forcing us through a feature length rendition of *the mario voice*

I think too much of Charlie wouldn't be a better option either.

I’m all for including Italians in the plot but I don’t want them just forced in there. It’s just not realistic and reeks of forced diversity

LOL

 

[Drizzle]

Come to think of it; he wasn't one in Steve Jobs, neither of his performances in An American Pickle were a pothead, he was a mess but clearly not a pothead in Green Hornet (wow, that guy must really love computers, that passing line about what Britt wanted to be wasn't just a passing line about the character), and clearly not such a thing in the Disaster Artist.

Also he wasn't a pothead in 50/50 or The Interview as far as I can recall.

Only performance I know of his which I think was a pothead is from the movie Knocked-Up.

Also 40-Year-Old Virgin and the most obvious one, Pineapple Express.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Again, I don’t know what people’s expectations of this are, but just watch these and substitute the characters with Mario and Luigi making pop culture references and pop music and you’ll get the gist of what the tone will be lol

 

[Drizzle]

Again, I don’t know what people’s expectations of this are, but just watch these and substitute the characters with Mario and Luigi making pop culture references and pop music and you’ll get the gist of what the tone will be lol

I think the difference here is that pretty much every Dr. Seuss adaptation starting with Jim Carrey's Grinch has been bastardized in some way and Shigeru Miyamoto will be keeping a close eye on production because he's very protective of his characters. It's hard to tell until we actually see it.

 

[DarkKnight88]

I think the difference here is that pretty much every Dr. Seuss adaptation starting with Jim Carrey's Grinch has been bastardized in some way and Shigeru Miyamoto will be keeping a close eye on production because he's very protective of his characters. It's hard to tell until we actually see it.

But I think a language barrier will definitely come into play when it comes to humor. Sure the story he could oversee but I could see him just deferring to the directors (Teen Titans Go) on that count. Thus what we see above.

 

[JB-the-Hunter]

Here's some quotes from Chris Meledandri (co-producer with Miyamoto) that makes me believe the movie will feel more like Mario than like Illumination:

"We are keeping [Miyamoto] front and center in the creation of this film. I’ve rarely seen that happen with any adaptation, where the original creative voice is being embraced like we’re embracing Miyamoto. There’s a history in Hollywood of people believing that they know better than the people responsible for a property. I’ve made that mistake before."

"The challenge is taking things that are so thin in their original form and finding depth that doesn’t compromise what generations of fans love about Mario, but also feels organic to the iconography."

The film will no doubt be comedic, but the animated films that the directors and writer worked on prior didn't have Illumination-style comedy that doesn't age well and nobody involved wants the movie to be seen in a bad light after how the '93 Mario movie affected Nintendo.

 

[Silvermoth]

Honestly Seth Rogen as DK seems more uninspired to me. We know he’ll probably come off as a pothead.

to be fair, pothead is a pretty accurate description of dk. Plus with a star like Seth you could spin him off if you want.

hey who would be the perfect Diddy?

 

[Drizzle]

to be fair, pothead is a pretty accurate description of dk. Plus with a star like Seth you could spin him off if you want.

hey who would be the perfect Diddy?

Judging from the rest of the cast, Illumination would probably get someone like Andy Samberg for Diddy. I'm surprised he wasn't included in the cast list since he's a popular enough character on his own but I suppose that doesn't mean he won't show up.

 

[I Am The Knight]

I don't think that's how his Pumbaa came off in The Lion King. People just equate Seth Rogen playing a pothead in every movie he's in because he famously smokes it in copious amounts but not all of his performances are like that.

I forgot he was in that. Then again I had already forgotten about that soulless cash grab remake

 

[samsnee]

All this internet anger reminds me of when they released the first Sonic trailer. Granted he looked terrible and they were right to change the design. But similar outrage.