Triple Click - The 1993 Mario Movie Sure Was Weird (BONUS)

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

The triple click trio dimension-hop to the gritty dystopia of Dinohattan, where they fight for freedom against the villainous politician Koopa, an evolved T-rex who wants to reunite the dimensions and… turn humans into monkeys using de-evolution technology… wait, how is this a Mario movie?LINKSFeaturing an excerpt from “Walk the Dinosaur” by Was (Not Was), 1987A chronology of script rewrites for Super Mario Bros. ‘93: http://www.smbmovie.com/SMBArchive/preproduction/script.htmA Collider story recounting the film's troubled production: https://collider.com/super-mario-bros-movie-1993-history-explained/Join the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Hello everyone, Kirk Hamilton here. We are off this week and we'll have a new episode for you next week. But no new episode this week because we're taking a little break. And instead of running a new episode, we thought that we would share one of the many bonus episodes that we recorded last year for Maximum Fun members. This is an episode from last fall, I think from last September, that we recorded about the extremely strange and extremely enjoyable we thought anyways. is 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie. This was kind of in light of there being a new Mario movie, which none of us had seen at the time. Of course, now the new Mario Brothers movie is out.

It is a very successful film that I'm guessing a lot of you have seen, and you can now travel back in time to last fall to a time when none of us had seen the new Mario movie, and the only Mario movie that existed was the bizarre and bizarrely enjoyable 1993 one. So that's what this is. Just as a reminder, if you like this, episode, if you want to hear a whole bunch more of them, like, I don't know, more than 30 that we've recorded since we started making the show, become a member at maximumfun.org slash join. We really

appreciate everyone who's become a member because you support the show. You're entirely responsible for the show existing, and you make it possible for us to keep making it. So yeah, maximum fun.org slash join. Thanks so much to all of our members, and we will see you all next week when we're back with our regularly scheduled weekly episodes. All right, take it away past triple Click hosts. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shrier and hello. Welcome to another bonus episode from Triple Click. Thank you for listening and becoming a maximum member so you can listen to this fine, fine bonus episode. We're going to talk about the weirdest movie. I think weirdest is a great way to describe it. This is a notorious bad movie. We are talking about the Super Mario Brothers movie from

1993. And I will say, preliminarily, as part of the introduction, I love this movie, like, kind of earnestly. I think there are some really cool ideas in this movie. I don't think they're executed well. However, I have watched the movie multiple times. I do laugh at the jokes pretty much every time I watch it. And I'm kind of sad about the way that it shook out. And I feel like there was definitely a good version of this movie that isn't the one we got. But, Talking about it and looking at it is really fascinating, especially in light of the upcoming Chris Pratt Mario, where people are already asking questions like, how does he get from Brooklyn, New York to the Mushroom Kingdom, which is a question that Super Mario Brothers 1993 also had to come up with an answer for. They sure took a swing at answering that question. To be fair, it's not the mushroom.

It's not the Mushroom Kingdom. It's Dinohattan. It's Dinohattan. It is Dinohattan. Can I start off by reading. a quote. This is Bob Hoskins who plays Mario in this movie.

In 2007, Bob Hoskins said, the worst thing I ever did, Super Mario Brothers. It was a fucking nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. And had a husband and wife team directing whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks, their own agent told him to get off the set.

Fucking nightmare. Fucking idiots. You didn't read that in a British accent, Jason. Bob Hawkins has a brilliant. accent, which is astounding. Considering reading that quote and then seeing his actual performance in the movie is so funny because he really puts us all into that accent into the performance. Oh man, I don't even know where to start with this movie other than to say it's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. When did you first see this movie?

Do you remember seeing it as a kid? Because you, unlike Kirk had at least seen it before. The only thing I remembered was the Gumba face, which was just kind of burned into my memory. But other than that, I have no recollection. Although one thing, one thought that I had, one takeaway I had from this movie was, I feel like a whole generation of boys in the 90s were brought up to think that like being awkward to women is how you convince them to date you. Because this among many other 90s movies, who is a man being super awkward to a woman and a woman somehow falling for it. And it turns out in the real world. too. That's often part of it.

Yes. Like stammering, like not being able to find any words. And it always works in the movies, but it doesn't really work so much in person. If you look like John Leguizama, then maybe it works. He's very endearing. And I feel like this is one of those things where it's like chemistry makes all the difference. Like I do feel like the John Leguizama and Samantha Mathis as Daisy chemistry is the only thing that sells that these two people would be attracted to each other. and the script doesn't sell it and nothing about their circumstances sells it, but they're very cute together

in a way that's ineffable. But yeah, it's, I mean, also Mario kind of does the job for Luigi in this movie. He does. He's like the parent setting up a play date between two kids. He's basically like,

you two are going on a date. I can't do the eyes. Mario, who is not only Luigi's adopted brother in this movie, but also his adopted father in this movie. And mother, which is how Louis is, how Luigi describes it initially. It's just extremely strange.

And Luigi has taken the last name Mario as a result of this. I just have left with so many questions about everything. But to answer your question, I don't really remember much of it as a kid other than that. Toad face, and I remember Dennis Hopper as Cupa

because he just is, bless his heart, he's just putting the dearly departed, the late Dennis Hopper is just putting his all into it. And he is. He really is. My other fun memory of Dennis Hopper is he's the villain in season one of 24 where he plays like this vaguely Eastern European terrorist mastermind. And it's also just so so funny and so like, wow, Dennis Hopper just really, he just put

his all into every performance. It's funny to imagine that he was actually King Cooper from Dino Hatten in 24. That's what I'm going to choose to believe. That is. Yes. And Jack Bauer had to enlist the help of Mario to. to break a few legs and also fix a few pipes. So, Kirk, this was your first time watching the movie.

What did you think about it? This was a very weird movie, is what I think about it. To explain a little bit, though, of my history with it, I'm very aware of this movie despite the fact that I never saw it. I was 13 when this movie came out. And I have vivid memories of it being bad, of me being very interested in it because I liked video games. And, of course, there was a Mario movie coming out.

I remember so clearly talking to friends about the de-evolution technology. Yes. And the whole Devo thing, just that that was a concept that really stuck in my mind, the idea that dinosaurs would evolve and devolve themselves with this weapon, and they could be devolved into primordial sludge and just that whole idea. And actually, Jason, like you, I have that Gumba head, that weird puppet head thing, like burned into my brain. And, like, I very much associate that with this movie.

So it's of a piece with a lot of stuff from this time period. I mean, those sorts of big set, elaborate, very weird blockbusters, like Hook, I guess, is one. Or Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which also features Bob Hoskins from a few years earlier. Like that, this is kind of, it's of a piece with those sorts of movies, but it's so much stranger. And it fails to cohere so profoundly by the end that watching it was just, it's just amazing. It's not surprising that it was very hard for us to track down a version of this to watch, only because it's not on streaming services. You have to buy a DVD, basically, because no one wants you to see this movie.

No one who is involved in making it wants to even act like it exists, even though there's a surprising amount of really A-list talent involved in making this movie. Basically, everyone about the directors is somebody kind of great at what they do who's gone on to have a very successful career. And the screenwriters also are largely unknowns, or at least Parker Bennett, and Terry Runt are. Ed Solomon's written a few things besides this. But yeah, Annabelle Jenkel and Rocky Morton are the two directors who are the married

couple that Bob Hoskins so eloquently described. And there is, I tragically haven't watched this, but I probably will after this. There is a version of this movie that has an additional 20 minutes in it that apparently helps explain some further plot points. And it's called the Morton Jenkel cut. And as one example of something that is in there, this character Scapelli, who's sort of like a mobster bit part in the movie. It's so funny.

They built him up and then you just never appeared again, except at the end when he turned into a monkey. I know, but apparently there was more of a mob plot line where like the mob was trying to destroy the Mario Brothers plumbing business in some form and that was like a larger piece of it. And there was like more gritty underworld stuff in there. I mean, it's hard to imagine more of it because the whole weird thing about this movie is like, it's like a meme where it's like, well, what if the Mario Brothers happen in real

life? That would be so fucked up. And it's like somebody made an entire movie that's just that premise over and over where like there's real mushrooms and like fungus, but it like looks realistic. So they're like little tiny mushrooms, but they still have to like deliver power ups to the Mario brothers somehow and like plumbing and pipes and like going through pipes and navigating a system is also a part of the movie, but it's all quote unquote gritty and realistic and like cyberpunky. So like that has to somehow be of a piece with Mario. I mean, just the idea of having Mario Beelive action is I think part of what really charms me about this movie despite myself because it's like, why would you do that? Why would you have? And the timing here,

just for context, this movie was released in 1993. So the most recent Mario Giac, game had been, the most recent main Mario game had been Super Mario World. And Yoshi is in this movie is like a little weirdo dinosaur. A little cute velociraptor. And the super scope features in this as well. So the Super Nintendo

was clearly at the height of its powers. Because they're constantly using modified superscopes. Which is like the good Nintendo. The wizard, yeah, because the wizard was before Super Mario Brothers 3. I believe that was the 89 was it? Something like that. I think I would call the wizard a good movie,

But it was, it had a coherent plot. I like it. It had that going for it. I feel like it holds up, okay. Yeah, just like for some other context here, this was released the same year as The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was released a year before The Mask, which is another kind of like weirdo, supernatural-ish movie,

like action movie meant for kids. Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know what to make of it. It feels very 80s in a certain way. Like, the fact that it came out in 93 almost feels wrong. Like it feels like it feels like a night. 1989 movie. There's something about it. There's a lot of tropes. Yeah, there's a lot of 80s tropes. Like the two the two kind of like boneheaded henchmen who are following around and like bungling.

Yeah, just like that feels very 80s. A lot of it, yeah, the Bertha jumping and the kind of like special effects of that those jump boots also felt very 80s. I think also Maddie where you're getting it is that like Dinohattan itself feels like it's straight out of the 80s. which I think is part of that feel. So there were a whole lot of scripts for this movie, and maybe we can link to some of these past scripts in the episode description. I don't know if we normally do that for a bonus app. Something that we haven't done yet. We have hit the ground running. I think personally, let's describe the premise of this movie

and then go through some of the versions of the script that are out there because there are so many, and that's so fascinating, to kind of just get a sense of how it came to be, that that final version is what we ended up on. Okay. Okay. Let me see if I... Do you want to do it, Maddie?

Okay, it's all here. I mean, unless you're volunteering. I... Okay, so it starts with a pixelated montage that becomes live action describing dinosaurs, when dinosaurs walked the earth. And these dinosaurs evolved. And this is the part that I don't think the monologue super explains well,

but is the case, there is a parallel universe from our own, our human universe with which we are familiar, where dinosaurs went to and continued to evolve. So like there is a meteor that, you know, maybe may or may not have killed the dinosaurs. That's still a part of things here. But in the Mario movie world, it also fractured the dinosaurs into this other world. And for whatever reason, dinosaurs evolved into humanoid beings that basically just look exactly like humans. But they're not mammals. They are born in eggs.

And some of them look more like dinosaurs than others. And we see this woman running through the sewers at the beginning of the movie. She's got an egg. And she's running and transporting herself from the dino world, the dino dimension. to our human world with this egg. And she drops it off, along with a little meteorite, at a convent. And some nuns watch this egg open to reveal a little baby girl who is Princess Daisy from the dinosaur dimension. How am I doing?

Well, and of course, the way you know this is because the way that you know this is because the woman who is her mom is played the same actress. Yeah. So it helps a lot. The same person is actually. A little bit confusing. I was at least a little confused on that. Yeah, so that's the beginning. And let me, maybe I'll, can I just rush us through the rest of it?

Sure. There are parallel dimensions. Princess Daisy has a bit of the meteorite around her neck, and that can allow the dimensions to re-merge, basically, because the meteor that hit caused this split. And King Cooper is over in the dino world, and he wants to get her back so that he can reunite both of the dimensions and rule them all.

as the king cupa. Because naturally, as soon as he gets to the human world, he'll be able to rule it with the same totalitarian hand with which he already rules. One, because he's a trinosaurus rex and that apparently makes you powerful. So they kidnap her, and then that's right after she falls in love with Luigi, then Martin Luigi chase her into the mushroom kingdom or dino topopolis or whatever the hell it's called. There's a lot of action, a lot of hijinks. Then they rescue her. There's a minute where the world's kind of merged, and then they fight him, and then they win, and then they go back to the real world. and that's it.

Like, I feel like... Like, Daisy finds her true place in the dino world. She doesn't stay with her in Luigi. She stays in dinosaur land. With her father who is fungus. She stays behind. Yeah, but until he turns back, he turns back into a human right at the very end.

Because evolution and devolution... But he's not only... Not only is he fungus, he somehow is fungus that is everywhere in the entire city that is like expanding to take over the whole city. Because he is rebelling as his fungal self. He's rebelling against King Coupa, and so he's growing as fungus to like overtake the city. And also the mushrooms and fungus help out the Mario brothers when they get to Dino Hatton.

They provide bobs and other power-ups as needed. So that's, it's, so it's literally the mushroom king, who is helping, helping out. Right. Although I think he's called Bowser on IMDB, although I'm not sure if anyone actually refers to him as Bowser. But I think, I don't think they call him Bowser. So it's like, okay. What? That doesn't make sense because King Cooper is Bowser. Wait, something about this movie doesn't make sense.

So here's a thing that I did, which is read through one of the scripts for this movie. And there were so many different scripts for this movie that it's actually really, really interesting. This is something I hear about more and more, listen to movie podcasts, the more I learn about movies. There's always these alternate treatments and rewrite. of pretty much every major, especially blockbuster movie that you see, there are all these different versions.

And increasingly, it's pretty easy to get them, especially for older movies. They're just around on the internet. And here there's a website that we can link in the show notes where they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different rewrites of this movie. And they're all really, some of them are really different. And they're by a variety of different people. There are two screenwriting teams that are responsible for a number of them. And as the story goes, this is also mostly going off of a collider story that kind of aggregates a bunch of reporting about the tortured development of this movie.

So I'll say that that's my source for this. I'm certainly no expert. But it sounds like this was just a total disaster from the beginning. But there were times where they had scripts that they thought were pretty good that they were going to make. And then for whatever reason, they would drop them. Either Nintendo would get involved and say this doesn't work for us. At one point, I think they got Disney distributing the movie and Disney kind of got involved. And it does sound from a variety of people as though Morton and Jankle were not the easiest directors to work.

Yeah, it's sort of funny to read this story and end up siding with like the Nintendo's and Disney's of the world. I know. Because like largely it's like, and then Nintendo got involved and was like, why is every character suddenly a fire hydrant now or whatever? It's like they'll step in when things are getting really weird and be like, we're worried that no one will watch this. I just want to point out that the guy's, the co-director's name is Rocky Morton, which are both characters in the Mario series. Rocky and Morton are two different characters. Wow. Great point. And Morton is one of Bowser's children, along with Iggy, who actually is in the movie.

Just a strange coincidence there. Food for thought. Did Morton write this movie? Did he direct it? It's sort of like Nintendo's president being named Doug Balfser. I know. Food for thought here. Oh, my gosh.

So Jankle and Martin were well known as the directors, or they were known for being the directors of Max Headroom. Did either of you ever see any Max Headroom stuff? A little. I'm familiar. Yeah. Tonally, and in terms of like the visual look, it actually has quite a bit in common with this movie, which is a wild pick for Mario, especially now with what Mario has become. But even then, it's not a fit for a colorful, silly, weird world full of adventure. Like, their vibe is much more this weird, you know, early CG pixel cyberpunk dark weird shit.

Like, it's just like not the vibe you would pick, but it is the vibe this movie has. So let me tell you a little bit of the script that I read, the one that I really read through, which is called the Mad Max treatment. There's a variety of different ones. There's the Ghostbusters treatment, the diehard treatment, where they all kind of take the template of these other popular movies and put the Mario Brothers. through it. Like you do. Right. Like I think the diehard one is really in that tower because Kupa lives at the top of a tower. He went to taking Daisy up there. There's a whole sequence where

they go through the tower and you could see that being a little diehardish. And it's Nakatomi Plaza. It's exactly the same. So the Mad Max one is a really interesting one to read and that is apparently the one that got a lot of the actors on board and it was kind of going to be the script for the movie and then there was a variety of additional meddling that happened and it got changed. It was so interesting to watch this movie and then go read the script because the script is really similar. A lot of the scenes are just one-to-one. A lot of the jokes, a lot of the one-offs, the setting, the setup, the whole idea is there. But there are these little differences and then toward the middle and the end, it really starts to change. So the beginning is about the same,

but there are these little differences, for example. So Daisy is still, she is digging up dinosaur bones so that she can afford to put herself through college because she hasn't gone to college. yet. So that's how she's raising money. In the final movie, she goes to NYU. She's in NYU student. Right. Which made me think of a good NYU joke, which is she must have gone to Gallatin, which for those of you don't understand it.

Which is most of us. You don't understand the NYU you were here. Gallatin is the school at NYU that's called the School of Individualized Study. It's where I went. It was a create your own major program. Got it. It was infamous for having people create the most ridiculous majors. You can think of like I knew one kid who had majored in evil.

And it's like that's his college major is evil. There was another person who majored in teenage mutant ninja turtles by studying like animation and like Renaissance studies and stuff like that. So Daisy to presumably to be digging up dinosaur bones in New York City, she probably went to Gallatin. Great. Great stuff. The thing about colleges it teaches you how to learn and that's the important thing. Exactly. So in this version you write, she's not a student. That's a pretty minor difference. I should say this script treatment is by Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenay, who's one of the pair of people who, like, wrote a few of these.

But there are some more significant differences at the beginning that I just think they just make it all hold together a little bit better, for starters. So Mario and Luigi, I believe, are just brothers. They are running their father's plumbing company, and he has died. And on the side of their truck, it says, like, Mario Brothers plumbing, but it used to say Mario and sons and it's exed out. So there's a whole thing where I think Luigi wants to change, but Mario wants to do things the way their dad did it. And that's just kind of their dynamic as brothers and their father is dead and they're trying to figure out who they are without him.

Pretty basic stuff, but makes more sense than what we got. It just has a, yeah, it feels a little, it's very screenwriterly. So wait a minute. Did Mario bring up Luigi? Are they brothers? Is he his father? Like, what's going on here? Why is Luigi an orphan?

That never really comes back. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Maddie, now that you bring that up, I really thought it was going to be like, oh, Luigi, like, they give each other a look. And Luigi is like, oh, yeah, I never knew my parents, too. Like, it seems like it was setting up for him to be from the dinosaur kingdom too.

But no, it's never brought up again. It's so funny. Oh, my goodness. So, okay, so there's a lot of stuff like that. And I think this provides an interesting insight into what must have happened because there's so many things like that where you think, okay, so they just cut this one idea and they didn't replace it with anything. So let me just, I'll just kind of quickly go through some of the differences. The other differences. The big one in the beginning is that the mafia guy, like the mob dude, I think his name is Eddie.

Right. I mean, it ends up being Scapelli or whatever, but yeah. Yeah. His sister is Daniela. So Mario is interested in dating his sister. So there's a whole relationship there where he is this scary mafia guy. Right. And Mario really likes Daniela and Daniela really likes Mario.

And there's like that kind of vibe. And then Eddie, I think his name is, he takes Mario and forces Mario to be the one to flood the dig site so that his work can get. back underway. See, that makes more sense. While that's happening, right. So while that's happening, Luigi is with Daisy

in the same site. They run into each other. So everything just kind of holds together. Because there's like an actual conflict that makes sense. Yeah, it makes movies sense and the characters have relationships. They go to the mushroom kingdom. A lot of that plays out similarly.

Some of it's a little bit different. But there's, you know, a lot of the same jokes, a lot of the same scenes. It's the same idea where they... Is it the evolution stuff in there? That's definitely the weirdest most horror movie aspect.

The stuff with Iggy and Spike, right, being evolved and they become good guys. that happens. A lot of this stuff still happens. So your theory is that the directors were just like impromptu, like changing things on the fly as they shot. Let me tell you the remaining things that change, which I think we're just cut for budget reasons. When

they wind up going to the desert, which happens after all the hijinks, they get arrested, they run into Cuba, they have a whole fighty, shows them to the De-Evolution gun, they escape. They go to the desert. They go to the desert. They have a whole car chase and a cop car. They get to the desert, and in the, sorry,

in the screenplay, there's like a whole bunch of stuff that happens in the desert. It's a whole extended sequence. This is why it's called Mad Max. There's all these car chases and there's like big armies of cars and it's kind of like Mario Kart. The idea is that they're doing a whole Mario cart thing where there's this death race going on and people are watching it on TV. So that's just a much more extended sequence. Then they make their way back into the into Dino Topoulos. Is that what's called Dino Hatton? But it's a... Dino Hatton. Dino Hatton. It's not Metropolis. Dynopoulos. It would probably make more sense. It rolls out the tongue work. But unfortunately it's Dino Hatton. Go on.

So they go back there. And it's a similar final set piece where Cupa has Daisy in the tower and they have to get in. So a lot of that stuff is still there. And then the big finale of the movie is that he reunites, you know, he reconnects the meteorite and the world start merging. And then there's a whole Ghostbusters thing where, you know, the climactic sequence of Ghostbusters, where they shut down the PKE meter. And you see all of New York as ghosts are invading everyone's lives. Bing! Kirk here, as I am editing the episode.

And I'm sure some of you noticed this. and I'm really disappointed with myself, and I wanted to offer a sincere apology for the fact that I just called the ectainment unit the PKE meter, which, I mean, my 12-year-old self is so disappointed with myself right now. It's not the PKEE meter.

That's the psychokinetic energy meter that Egon uses to detect ghosts out in the field. The ecot containment grid is what Peck shut off and Ghostbusters that caused the ghosts to break out. That's what I meant to say, the ecocontainment grid. Okay, back to the show. Bing. So there's like crazy dinosaur stuff

is just turning up in different places. So there's all these kind of in the script, there's these sequences. Oh, this happens and that happens in this part of town and that part of town. And you're getting this sense that all this wild stuff is happening. And then finally there's a showdown

on the Brooklyn Bridge between Cupa and Mario where like Cupa is like a, you know, monster like dinosaur. Yeah, he's not that big. I think he's not that big, but he's kind of big and they fight and then he like drops the babon into him and it blows him up. And it's like, so it kind of,

You can imagine that movie. And it's a really weird movie. And it is a like who framed Roger Rabbit style, wacky, bizarre film. But it would hold together a lot better. And then you see all of these changes and cuts and weird decisions that they made again and again and again. Until the movie that you're watching just, it's just so strange. It's this pastiche of ideas that aren't held together by anything. And you end up with some parts that just can't ever be explained.

Like why? Okay. So the whole de-evolution mechanic, I kind of love it. It's kind of amazing. She called it a mechanic. Mechanic. This is a video game. It is a mechanic.

So for unknown reasons, King Cooper has developed a machine that either evolves or devolves any being that he puts into it. So like he's devolved the king into fungus because the king has evolved from fungus. Okay, sure. Cool. And then he evolves his two henchmen. Iggy and Spike to be smart, which is very funny to me because then the two of them end up being like communists. Like they both get really into like intellectual. That's a genuinely funny. And they start accusing him of like corruption and like advocating on behalf of the proletariat,

like by becoming more intelligent the henchmen turn on Kupa, which is honestly really fun to me. Yeah, I really like that. But then also he famously devolves. Toad, a character named Toad and other characters into Gumbas. A character named Toad who is just like a guy? A guy. A guy. A musician guy. He has like a swirly haircut. Is that supposed to look like Toad looks in the game? I think so. There's a lot of haircuts. No, I know. Tote has a mushroom for a head or a hat. A mushroom hat. But the Gumbas don't look anything like Gumbas. I mean, you could say about anything in this movie where it's like they just came up with some new concepts. Like, okay, some things are very similar. Like, like,

Yoshi is a little velociraptor who's like super cute. Like, yeah, he's like a realistic velociraptor, but he's still a cute little guy. But like the Gubas are like really tall guys with like these huge like wool coats on. Like they look like Soviet cops or something. And like then they have really little teeny tiny tiny teeny teeny tiny heads. And usually they're little teeny tiny heads around. But like in the elevator scene, there's like one of them that has like a pterodactal head. Dinous.

Terradactal head. Yeah. Well, some of them devolve into like a little taradactal head and some of them devolve into like a little like Brontosaurus head I get. Like I don't even know. Like they were all different dinosaurs originally. A lot of this reminds me of the fifth element for whatever reason. It has kind of fifth element energy.

Another movie I love. Yeah, around the same time. The sequence where Luigi gets them all to dance in the elevator is like very fifth element and kind of lovely on its own just as a bizarre sequence. It is an example of something where I'm like... Fifth Element, by the way, was 1997, so maybe they were inspired by this. They could have been, honestly. Fifth Element at least has a plot that makes sense, which again, can't really be said of this movie.

More so than this movie, this movie, I'm like, why did the Gumbas love music? Like, why not, I guess? So I had a feeling that you guys might not know this because you guys didn't play Mario games growing up. Well, so Super Mario Bros. 3 has an item called the music box that lets you, like, put enemies to sleep, essentially, which is like what this is clearly, at least it seems clearly a reference to, because it makes them like sway like the way they're doing in the movie. And they're like sort of hypnotized and they like get into a little dance. I don't know if you guys know this, but Bertha is an enemy.

She's a big fish, big Bertha, also originated in Mario Brothers 3. A lot of this stuff because Mario Brothers 3 would have been, and World would have been the two most recent ones. So I guess that a lot of the references. I also read, I think that her boots are probably a reference maybe a reference to Caribo's shoes, which are an item that lets you just like stomp on enemies and stuff. Yeah. Although that's a little bit more of a stretch.

She's a fun side character, which is another example where I'm like, just from a screenwriting perspective, it's very odd to like have this character show up just in the middle of the movie, sort of be an antagonist briefly, side with the characters. She gets seduced by Mario in a pretty hilarious dance scene. It's wild. History is also incredible. Like you kind of root for them briefly. And then he like doesn't end up with her because he's already got a girlfriend. So it's like, why is Mario backing on this other lady? And it makes no sense.

Bob Hoskins has chemistry with everyone. He's incredible. He's incredible in this movie. He's so good. I will, he's like the most stereotypical Italian and he's British. I was my mind was frigging blown and I found out he was British. Like, no lie. He's so good in this movie, though.

I read on Wikipedia that Danny, DeVito was like considered for that role which it's uh yeah it's a shame that he didn't get it because imagining always sunny danny davido uh as mario is just similar energy like i feel like bob hoskins is kind of doing his version of a danny davido it is no no no i was going to say well i was going to say as much as i like imagining that bob hoskins is so perfect as mario that it's just it works very well um but we did miss out an opportunity to have mario come out and be like so anyway I started blasting. But I didn't take out his guns.

Yeah, I think, so I recently rewatched Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the first time in a long time because they were talking about Robert Zemeckis on Blank Check. I feel like I talked about it on the show. You did, yeah, yeah. You definitely did, yeah. Yeah, it's a great movie, a movie that has no right being good

because it has that same manic, you know, off-the-wall energy. And I think Alan Silvestri did the music for that. Alan Silvestri did the music for this movie. And this movie is so incoherent, even though there are sequences in it when they're driving and it's madcap chase sequence and there's this like alto sax stuff playing. And it really feels like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which has that same vibe. And then Who Framed Roger Rabbit similarly melds that with a really kind of hard-boiled noir storytell, like story style. And ultimately like a narrative that is really interesting and pretty good that holds together somehow by the end of it,

even though, you know, they don't get bogged down by all this wild technological stuff they were doing with the animation and whatever else. And Bob Hoskins carries that movie. I was so kind of just unaware of him. And rewatching Who Framed Roger Rabbit, first off, you're aware watching it now of how incredible what he's doing is in every scene. Do you remember the scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when the weasels come in and he's hiding Roger in the sink? Yes. So it's like this shot of Bob Hoskins and he has his hands in the same. sink because he's pretending to do the dishes.

And the weasels are searching his apartment and they're going to kill Roger if they find him. And then Roger will like burst up out of the water and need to take a breath. And then he like pushes him back down and he's talking to the weasels. And the whole thing is just Bob Hoskins in a room. There's no one there. Except for I think there's maybe, you know, there's some stuff like little things to tell him where things are.

Yeah. But he's and he's amazing. It's an amazingly constructed scene. And it's kind of a tribute to how good Robert Zemechus was as a director. at managing special effects and working with the actor to get him to see what's going on. But it really is also just,

it's a tribute to Bob Hoskins. He has that twinkle in his eye. He has an ability to just ride out these ridiculous scenes. And he does it in this movie too. His early scenes with Daniela, he has so much charm. Like he's such a believable version

of this, like you said, Jason's stereotypical kind of Brooklyn, you know, ah, like this kind of guy. But he's a gentleman, you know? I can't believe you spent the entire two-hour movie, without one saying, hey, I'm walking here. It does feel like a movie that would have that line in it. Like, it does have a have a nice trip to you next fall.

Like, there's a few like, why is this action movie one liner in this movie? That one doesn't even work. It doesn't even work. I know. Right before he's going into like the de-evolution chamber, he's not tripping or falling. I know. But it is what it is. Yeah, it's incredible.

Yeah, Bafa, he's, I wanted more of him and Dennis Hopper. because the two of them are just like kind of outclassing everybody else in the movie. It feels like they just don't belong here. It's like as if they brought in like I don't know like Philip Seymour Hoffman to do like a porn.

It's just like what are these like top notch actors doing in this movie? I feel similarly about Fiona Shaw in that in that way where like she Yeah, she's great too. I feel like people know her now. She hams it up in this movie. She knows what she's in in terms of hamming it up and like wearing her weird little corset dress

and she's also not based on a Mario character. I mean I was so confused about her. I was like is she going to turn out to be? No, she is definitely not based on the more. Is she going to turn out to be someone but no. In the movies there's I mean in the games I mean King Cupa which it's weird that

they never call him Bowser. It's weird that he's just Cooper. Well he's not Bowser's why Jason is because the other guy was Bowser. That doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't so hang on a second. Hang on I'm going to rewind to something you said a second ago, which is that Fiona Shaw is hamming it up and Dennis Hopper is not, which I don't agree with. I think the reason Dennis Hopper is great is because he's fully hamming it up. The guy is walking

around making T-Rex hands the entire time. He is making T-Rex. Because he is an evolved T-Rex. He is like totally unhinged in this movie in a way that isn't always coherent, but is extremely hammy. I mean, he and she as well. Like they both are fantastic at being very, very silly. But it's also like you know Dennis Hopper could be doing something. much more. So there is something to the energy of his performance where you're just like, why is this guy here? Like, I don't know. You kind of have that sense a lot. But there are also, at least for me, there were moments when it's like, oh, this is like Dennis Hopper. Like, he's really good at like playing this menacing guy, despite the ham. I don't know. I kind of saw, I saw some stuff in it. Maybe it's

just because I've seen Dennis Hopper and other stuff. And so I'm kind of, uh, extrapolating that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's as much the performance as it is that. directing in the screenplay. Like, there's a whole running bit where he's ordering a pizza. Like, there's a lot of stuff with his character. Yeah, and he's like, where his pizza never arrives, does it? He's like, and where's my pizza? It never actually comes.

Right. One, it's a weird bit. I expected it to come at the end. Like, that's another thing that was just never followed up on. That's what I'm saying. And so it's not so much. I mean, so Speed came out a year after this movie when, like, Dennis Hopper's great iconic villain turn in Speed.

And also, that's like one of the great screenplays. If you just want to look at a kick-ass action screenplay, speed is what you look at. It's just, it's so well done. And he has a really consistent character. He does exactly what he needs to do. And it's the same thing, like a menacing villain who's, you know, overseeing everything and is all powerful right until he isn't. And it works great.

And in this movie, it seems to me that he was going for it. I mean, he kind of, he was trying to deliver the lines, but it's just each scene. He's kind of in a different mode. It's just not really clear what he's supposed to be doing. because they kept cutting this stuff out and making changes to the screenplay to the point where whatever decision they'd made earlier wouldn't make any sense. There's so much stuff like these little weird incongruities in this movie. I was really aware of the jumping boots when I was a kid

because I assumed having seen the trailers and heard my friends talk about it that they were going to get the jumping boots and then do a bunch of jumping because that's Mario's whole thing is doing big high jumps. And then it basically never happens. Obviously the special effect is really difficult. or, you know, it seems that way since it only happens a couple of times. But also, like, there's a scene of them in the elevator where they're finally wearing green and red.

Yep. Not to get sidetracked, but another bizarre thing about this movie is that Mario is basically wearing a green jacket and Luigi is wearing red for most of the first half of the movie. Anyways, they're both wearing the green and red, and they're wearing the boots. And it's like, here we go, we're going to climb this tower. They're like high five. It's kind of iconic shot. And then in the very next scene, they don't even have the boots on.

they're trying to jump across that gap. The boots are gone and the boots don't even come back until way later. Yeah. Yeah. So there's so much stuff like that where it's just clear that things were cut and rearranged and lost in the edit. And like it's just nothing makes sense at all. So every performance has to suffer because of that as well. Do they ever explain how they get the overall's outfits?

I feel like I miss that. They were like in a locker room. Yeah, they're in a locker. It's actually Mario like, symbols of bottom. It's like, hey Luigi, like check this out. And then next scene they're wearing it, but it's not like actually, like, it just doesn't make any sense. None of it makes any sense. Yeah, because it's like, well, why are they wearing the, like, disco guy outfits in the prior scene that, like,

they make all the jokes about their disco outfits that they go in before they meet Bertha for that scene that I mentioned earlier, which I just want to, like, emphasize because I, like, started that thought and didn't finish it much like this movie. I think Bertha's really awesome. I don't know why she's in this film, but I think she's great. And like, I found her soul. But it's not clear why she steals from them in the first place. I know. It's like, why does she steal the necklace from them?

Like, there's sort of like a hint that there's something else going on with her. Like, what's her story? Why does she have her own motivations to get this necklace or not? Why does she have her own nightclub? Why does she have her own, like, cash of weaponry in the back room? And she, like, kind of realizes that they're both rebels. and it's like, okay, I'm going to help you out, but it's not like there's enough coherency to that scene

that that's some big reveal that she's like, oh, I didn't realize you were on my side. Like, even that would be more of a line than they give her. You just kind of have to put together from environmental storytelling that apparently she's against King Cupa and is like willing to help the Mario brothers out with their quest, which I don't know why. That combined with the decision to have Iggy and Spike kidnap a whole bunch of of random women before they kidnapped Daisy is just bizarre because then you have all these

random women in a tower for the entire movie, kind of just being hilarious, but it's like, why is that even here? That's why I kind of like that. The one lady who's just smoking a cigarette through the whole chase sequence, I thought that was funny. To Bertha, I think Bertha is a character who has rewritten a bunch of times. I believe there's a version of her where she was the chief of police or she was a police officer, and that's why she took their thing.

hard part, right? Like, she was kind of the character on the ground. I'm forgetting that guy's name. Al Powell. She was the Al Powell on the ground, like directing the Mario Brothers through their John McLean. It's a character that has gone through the filter of rewrites

until she makes no sense. I do agree that I love the nightclub scene also because it features Was Not Was the band in their song Walk the Dinosaur. Which is a banger and everyone should listen to that song. It's so good. And I just like that there was an extended action sequence set to walk the dinosaur.

Again, just extremely 80s, that whole sequence. Yeah. Yeah. It felt like it could have been, that whole sequence felt like it could have been in like one of those buddy cop movies from the 80s. I would say late 80s, early 90s because this also has big TMNT movie energy, which was also, I think, like, 1989 or 90. And actually, this movie kind of reminds me of idiocracy as well, that either of you

had notes of idiocry in this as well. Yeah, just like winding up in a weird world where a lot of stuff does not make sense. So then the funny thing is that idiocry, the whole joke of that is that the world is ridiculous on purpose because it's an idiocracy, right? And in this movie, it feels like that, but it's supposed to, you know, exist according to some sort of rules. It just doesn't because nothing makes sense because the screenplay doesn't make sense. So it still kind of feels like this just completely, you know, bananas. Well, I guess what they were going for is. is that it's supposed to be this bizarre world where people are a little bit more nasty

and a little bit more rough and tumble. But what also doesn't make sense is that like why do they want to get rid of King Kupa if they're all just kind of like these dinoes who like, like, why do they all, wouldn't they all feel like, hey, we want to get back to the world where we should belong and like be with the humans again? Like it just doesn't really make sense that, A, that they all hate King Kupa, B, that King Cuba is in control despite that, and C, that they all don't feel the same way.

Like, why is Cuba the only one who wants to merge the worlds? And, like, his sister- His girlfriend, yeah. Why are they the only ones who are- I don't really know why there's, like, disagreement between Lena and King Cooper about that? Well, she's jealous of the princess. Well, I get that.

But, like, then King Cooper seems kind of upset that she, like, takes the meteorite herself and is, like, I'm going to merge the worlds myself. myself. But then after the world's merge, he's really excited again. And he's like, great, the worlds are merged. And it's, it's kind of weird. Maybe he knew she was going to die. I don't know. None of it makes any sense, man. It's all just, well, yeah. It's so incoherent. I've never seen a weirder, like, more, maybe like artsy fartsy stuff. But this is the most commercial, like, weirdest commercial movie I've ever seen. It's, it's apparently there's a quote I was reading from

Reggie Fisa May where he talks about how like it bummed out developers at Nintendo and like people it took them a while and get past it and stuff like that. I can't imagine. It was really rough for people over there. Because it's such a strange downer of a movie. And Nintendo has not made a movie since until Mario Brothers coming this spring, which will be them trying to, I mean, presumably redeem the Nintendo, like start the new Nintendo Cinematic Universe and put this old one behind them.

The fact that it took them, it'll be 30 years between the two movies. It says a lot. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff going on there, just culturally, like in the way that video games have changed. Like, the role of video games in our culture has changed and the sort of accessibility of a video game movie. Because in the interim between this movie and now, you know, it's just been demonstrated that you can do this and it can work. There's the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, which don't actually do very much for me, but I know some people really like. But then there's been a million other ones. Mortal Kombat is like a gritty, realistic one.

And then there was Reckett Ralph. And I think that Reckett Ralph is, I feel like the tone of Reckett Ralph is going to be the closest thing maybe that this new Mario movie will do. Where we understand video game mechanics. Like when I say we, like broad audiences can just go to Reckett Ralph and get the jokes of that movie, which are all jokes of, well, you're inside of a video game now and here's what happens. And I'm guessing that this Mario movie isn't going to be he goes inside of a video game. It seems like he's going to go to a parallel world. But Mario was so established.

Like, there's just this literacy there that I don't think people could assume an audience had in 1993. Because it was, video games were pretty new. I mean, Nintendo had only just saved the video game industry, like, you know, five years earlier or something. So it really, there was just a lot less trust. So I think that was kind of the assumption as well. We got to just do something that works on its own as this sort of action fantasy movie. Yeah. Rather than let's really.

double down on the Nintendoiness of it all and make something that works on those terms. And they may have, I mean, I don't know if they were, I think maybe there were a no-win situation because I'm not sure that 1993 audiences would have been ready for something that was just pure, this is the video game in, you know, in a cinematic world that we just tell the story of. Yeah, I mean, the thing to consider here, the biggest, the biggest consideration here is that most people in the 90s who played video games were kids and it's only now that adults who grew up playing games are still playing games in addition to.

And this is, of course, generalizing. Obviously, there were still, there were adults who grew up in the 70s and 80s playing games too. But, like, for the most part, this audience of Nintendo fans would be children. And so the movie, yeah, like you said, Kurt, to your point, it's like, too scary. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting. It is, I mean, it's a little bit scary, but it is a kid's movie through and

through. And now I think you can make something that is a little bit more appealing to, both adults and kids if you're doing a Nintendo a Nintendo movie and you can trust that the audience will be there. Yeah. Although I also think that making a live action Mario movie is a doomed idea if it's not something like the wizard where it's like real life characters in our world playing Mario and it's not like about that.

Like the idea of putting the mushroom kingdom or whatever you want to call it, they are calling it something else, but that's essentially what this is in the real world. is horrifying because you have anthropomorphic mushrooms and dinosaurs working together. So if you want to make the dinosaurs look realistic in and of itself, you're going to have Yoshi looking like a little velociraptor. And like then you're going to match that with like a fully humanoid princess, princess to stowl. Like why is she a human?

So you're going to need to keep that in somehow. And then also the problem is that Mario is a cipher. Like he doesn't have a personality. But he's from, he's from Brooklyn. Come on. We know that much. So you got to keep that in somehow. So it's like the bizarreness of Mario games is part of what makes this movie not work at all.

Because it's like these are just cute images that when they're pixelated and little and cutesy and have little eyeballs on them, they work great because they're all of a piece. They're all part of the same Mario aesthetic. But when you put them in the real world, it's like horrified. fungus and like dinosaurs attacking you and then like a princess. I don't know. It just, it's crazy. Like, why would that all be there? It's.

I mean, to some extent, this is the nightmare of New Dog City in Super Mario Audit. This is why New Dong City feels like a nightmare hellscape. It does. Because it's a somewhat realistic looking city. It is, yeah. But it's like hilarious for Mario to stand next to like a real guy. Like that's the part of New Dog City that's so weird because you're like. And that's the joke of that level.

And it's a wonderful. It's very funny, but it's the thing you're talking about where the minute you start to merge a real world with the mushroom kingdom, you know, your sanity starts to come apart at the seams. Right. Because it's like, well, this animation style is purposefully exaggerated and like a little uncanny when you put it in the real world. It's like those real world Simpsons memes or whatever. Like I was trying to explain the beginning of the episode. It's like, why would you put something like uncanny and cartoonish into like it's a little, like, to have. real skin textures and like real hair. It's like that's how I feel when I look at like the fungus

creeping in this movie. I'm just like I don't I don't want to go to the mushroom kingdom. That sounds horrible and bad. Something else that I think really doesn't work about this movie and maybe one of the reasons we all felt so unsettled watching it is that like it doesn't really have any arcs or changes and the characters don't change. They're all just cartoons. The closest a character comes to like changing or overcoming an obstacle or anything like that is Daisy just kind of being like, oh, I have learned my place in this world and it turns out

I'm not from this world. But even that, you're never really, you don't learn enough about her in the pre-Dino-Hatton world to like, actually, for that actually to work as an arc. So Mario and Luigi are essentially in the same exact place they were at the beginning. Like when the movie ends, they're in the same place they were at the end, except now they're going to go on

another adventure with Daisy for some. And they to be on TV and now everybody knows about the parallel universe and how they saved everybody there. And Capelli is no more because he's a monkey now. But the point being, like when he terrifyingly gets transformed

into a monkey, like everyone present laughs at that. It's like as though they knew that was actually really scary and weird and bad. So they're like, okay, we're all gonna laugh.

Like this is the funniest thing. So yeah, I think it's like kind of disconcerting because most movies like the kind of fundamental role of, like, rule of movie making is you show the transformation, like a character starts in place point A and ends up in point B. And for that not to happen over the course of an entire like one and a half hour movie is just kind of weird. Yeah.

And when you look at that earlier screenplay and you see they've, they've done that basic screenwriterly thing. Because the arc of the Mario Brothers is they're learning how to create their own plumbing business and succeed without their father. And the end is the same end where they have. repainting their truck and it says, now we're the Super Mario Brothers. And they've, but it makes sense as part of their arc that they have now formed this new identity together. And when you cut that out, you, I mean, it's not like the biggest arc in the world,

but when you remove it, yeah, you just get a movie that's incoherent. And then that has happened to every single character. Yeah, it just feels so listless. Yeah, well, because Mario and Luigi never need to have an emotional arc. That isn't what the point of the Mario games is. Like, they're always just a restoration. But a movie needs to have that. But it could have worked.

But it could have worked. Like the movie used to have that. Well, they're going to have to come up with one for Chris Pratt to do. But like... Well, I'm sure they will. This movie is going to be like at the very least a solid. Like it's going to have a solid baseline. Like we're all probably going to leave being like, wow, Chris Pat, like he really...

He really, like, his voice sucked or whatever. But like at a baseline, it's going to be a competently made movie. Not like this. Like, it's not going to... You're not going to leave it just so confused the way that you might leave this. confused and like horrified and worried about whether you're okay or not yeah and part of me loves this movie as an artifact of that thing happening because that happens I know it's it still does happen but it feels like this type of disaster it's been a while since I saw a movie that was this

level of disaster and especially reading about it because usually you just wouldn't release it yeah yeah yeah but we've seen but we see a lot of games that are this level of disaster that's another interesting thing is that that happens a lot. That's true. That's true. Yeah, I don't know. There's just, there's something about the fact that this movie does exist and it is possible to watch it that I sort of just enjoy. Like, I really had a great time watching this. It's an hour and 45 minutes well spent in my opinion just because it was bizarre.

I just, Emily and I sat there on the couch just I was furiously writing notes. Is there anything in your notes that we didn't get to, by the way? Do you want to talk about how great Fiona Shaw is? She's iconic. Yeah, we should met. So Fiona Shaw, who anyone listening to this, probably knows, well, might know from Andor. She's now in Andor, which is really, she's great in that, but also was Aunt Petunia. Harry Potter, yeah, Mary Potter.

Yeah, and she's in Killing Eve. She's, like, the older woman secret service. Yeah, the handler in Killing Eve, a versatile, really cool actress with a very striking look. And it is bringing it in this movie for all that, as incoherent as her character is, the scene where she gets bride of Frankenstein hair and his stabbing. She's going for it and I really respect that about it. And she does a lot of like exaggerated body movements because she's a snake basically. Like she has a little pet snake and she does all these weird little head shakes and like sudden turns with her head to make herself look really scary and they add in all these sounds like little clicks and

stuff. I don't know why. I don't know why she's a snake. I don't know why she's in the movie, but I love it and I feel like she's really bringing it. And it's fun to have like another antagonist who's a woman because it's like not really something Mario games do. And like they're already kind of struggling with like the inherent sexism of the premise of like, okay, like a princess needs to be captured. She needs to be restored to the throne. Like it's all very like conservative and like a capital C classic story structure way. But they just like randomly add in this evil snake lady to be like, I have my own plans. They just happen to be, identical to the male antagonist's plans, but I'm also here.

It's just like, okay, sure, I guess. Why not? Yeah, really in the end, my advice to people is to read, I'd say read that Mad Max treatment. Like I said, well, Lincoln and Shuna, just because there are even the scenes between Cupa and Lena are also different. Like, there's a whole seduction scene in the mud that's really funny, where the mud scene in the movie is just like a weird, doesn't make sense. It's just like everything in the movie.

It'll put the movie into a very interesting context, reading that screenplay. Because I don't know that the screenplay would have been a good movie if they had just made that screenplay into a movie. But I do think it would have made more sense than the movie they made. And it makes the movie that they made make more sense, if that makes sense. I was just trying to figure out if Lena is a reference to anything, but I don't think it is. Like if anyone knows what it could be, but I just don't think having played a whole lot of all those barring games, I don't think it's right. I don't think she has either. I don't think she is either.

And I don't think Daniela, who is Mario's girlfriend in this, is a reference to anything. Her name is obviously not Peach or Pauline, which is what I would have done with. Also weird, yeah, that it's not Peach. And she's just kind of like stereotypical, like Italian woman. Yeah. I mean, I think she's hilarious. I also like that they worked in eating pasta in this movie. Like they work in eating pasta and they have a shot of just them putting cheese on the pasta.

Love it. Well, and a surprising amount of plumbing, which, is nice to see. And I like the scene when they rescue when they're rescuing all the girls and he's like

oh you're all the girls from Brooklyn and they're like well she's from Queens but she's all right there's a lot of Brooklyn's versus Queens in this movie

that I also enjoy. Some solid New York jokes there's a line what's the line is like like Mario I don't think we're in Brooklyn anymore

or something like that the Lizard of Oz thing yep yeah classic stuff well personally

as we're closing in on the end of this episode I still really kind of like this movie, even though it's weird and terrifying. I do like the idea of the Mario Brothers traveling from an alternate dimension, Brooklyn, into a mushroom world. And it does kind of sound like we all agree that'll probably still happen in the 2023 version. Will the Mario Brothers still be from Brooklyn? I kind of hope so. I'm also even hoping maybe there will be like some little references to this movie because I have a soft spot.

for it and I just would personally enjoy if Nintendo was a good enough sport to allow for that. But I'm not sure they would be. Also, I know after the whole Chris Pratt announcement thing, there were a lot of people out there because this movie has kind of gained some begrudging fans and also like a true cult following, but there were definitely some people who were like, well, Bob Hoskins is like how I always hear the Mario voice, you know, like for some people of Charles Martinette, but like, I don't know, for me it's Bob Hoskins. I feel like that's what Mario should sound like.

And it's because of this movie. Do you have any closing thoughts? Jason, go ahead. Yeah. So Bob Hoskins and Jean Laguizama. Linguishama. That's great. You can't say it.

Have talked about how they would show up drunk on set just to get through the day. That's how bad it was. And like all these, there are a bunch of stories out there about how troubled a production it was and how disastrous the directors were. I think the directors at some point were like asked to leave the set. That's how bad it got. So it's just like it's evidence that like when you're watching an incoherent movie like the behind the scene story is probably even more fascinating, which is the case with games too,

of course, as we've learned. The behind the scene story is more fascinating than the story of the game itself. But yeah, the Bob Hoskins is causing it, calling it like a fucking nightmare. So many kids. It's iconic. I'm sorry for him, R-A-P, but also, like, I'm so glad he made this movie because it's brought me a lot of joy. What's the quote? The Twitter quote, it's like, this is a terrible time for America, but it sure is good content.

Great content. Kirk, do you have any final thoughts? Are you glad that you finally saw this movie? I am glad that I finally saw this movie. I feel like a small part of me is now complete. Yeah, it's like he finally discovered the necklace around your neck what it truly meant all this time. Most importantly, you guys, trust the fungus.

Yeah, trust the fungus. It's a good moral, really, for the movie. And with that, we thank all of you for being Maxun supporters and coming along with us on this journey. Thanks for making this show possible. Bless those of you who bought a DVD of this. movie because I've seen folks in the triple click Discord saying that it's not streaming anywhere. So thanks for watching along with us.

I hope you had a great time. And thanks so much for joining Max Fun. We love all of you. And we appreciate all of you. Yeah, thanks. That's it. We did it again. See you guys.

See you guys next time. See you for the next one. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you're listening to this bonus episode, it means you're already a member. So thank you. We really appreciate your support. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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