Super Mario Brothers

[lynn]

The Mario Brothers movie. It was terrible. Now here's a creative excercise; How would you make that little platform game with crazy mushroom headed turtle plummer men into a movie?
Would it end with "sorry Mario, but our princess is in another castle"?

[Scary Gary]

I remember when this came out and I thought the trailer looked absurd. I think they tried too soon to cash in on this. Our generation, now as adults, should have been the target for this film.

I have no real idea for the story, as I really don't recall the story of neither the game nor the original movie. I'd consider an animated Mario in the real world (i.e. Roger Rabbit). Maybe a real life bad-guy kidnaps the Princess and Mario needs to adapt to the real world while trying to rescue her. I can see him being perplexed that our world has neither man-eating plants nor secret warps hiding in our pipes. And the ability to walk back to the left is shocking to him.

Sorry, my ideas on this one are tin.

[professordave]

How 'bout this:
Mario lives in a 3rd floor, two bedroom flat in Brooklyn with his brother Luigi. We see him live a normal life. He goes to work as a plumber, hates his boss (some cigar-chomping jerk named Bowzer), he stops by the local restaurant/bar after work for a couple beers, he goes out with his girlfriend to movies on the weekend, smokes, snacks while watching TV, then goes to bed. The kicker is that all this is filmed as a two-dimensional, 32bit videogame. There is cheery electonic msic playing, everyone talks using thought bubbles, emotions are played out with jumping up and down, exclamation points flying off the head, and a single large tear for sadness.
However, when Mario falls asleep he dreams in live action, his dream life a CGI adventure filled with mushrooms, pipes, man-eating plants, killer turtles, and giant bullets, and he's always rescuing his girlfriend from a crazy mad turtle named Bowzer.
Some event causes the two worlds in Mario's life to collide, and his dream world starts to intrude into the waking one. But which world is the real one? Can Mario figure out what's really going on?

[Gilberto]

If we are even serious here, I think we need to see Mario in the fantasy world he lives in. The kingdom needs plumbers, they're not savages. The good princess is taken prisoner by a monster trying to taken over the world, but no one can get into the fortress to stop him.

Except guess who? Two plumbers! Why? Because the sewer system is the only way they never thought to defend. Kind of like Die Hard meets the rock with Italian plumbers stomping on CG snapping turtles.

[lynn]

I love the idea of watching an everyday joe going through life as a video game, that's awesome. But I also love the Die Hard with turtles idea. You can have him sliding down flagpoles and everything.

[Gilberto]

Keep it grassroots, but don't forget the comedy. maybe Jack Black and KG could play Mario and Luigi.

[lynn]

You can have a scene in the beginning where his dad shows him how to deal with Giant snapping turtles; just tap on their back and they curl up, thinking you're a predator. Also, in one scene they can be crawling around under the castle and Mario can hit his head on a brick and money falls down, and they check it out and find they're crawling under the treasury. and they steal heaps of coins. Because usually in these things they are all honourable and don't take the treasure, but not Mario!
I like the Jack Black and KG idea.
We can make it like a Brenden Fraser movie, only good.

[Gilberto]

I say full realism. The snapping turtles should be photorealistic CG monsters that he stomps to death in a horrific display of gore.

[lynn]

And then does a guitar riff