Super Mario Bros. (1993) - S10 E82 - Shoot The Hostage

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Shoot a Hostage with me, Dan, and my partner, Sarah. We're a movie podcast who talks about a different film each week based on a theme. We do swear and we do spoil the featured movie, so only ever listen if you've seen the film or you don't care too much about spoilers. If you're a regular listener, you can just skip forward until you hear the intro music cuz you've heard all of this before. But if you are new to the show and you do enjoy what you hear, there are a couple of things you can do to help support the show. Firstly, make sure that you're subscribed on your podcast player so you get notified when new shows drop on Mondays. Uh you could rate us five stars on Spotify, which couldn't be easier. You just hit the star icon below the show's artwork. Or if you have a spare few minutes, we'd love it if you could submit a review wherever you listen. Uh make sure you come follow us at ST_Pod on social media. We are active on Instagram, threads, and Tik Tok. And lastly, the biggest thing you can do to help is tell a friend about the show. So that's about it. That's enough preamble from me. Uh over to me and Sarah for this week's episode. D everybody. Is that how that bit goes?

(00:01):
Well, now I think I'm getting it mixed up with the snooker theme.
Snooker has a theme.
It did. I don't know if it still does.
I don't know if it's correct to answer your question because I have never owned a Nintendo gaming platform
really
or played a Super Mario game. Piss off.
No.
Piss all the way off.
I will not.
How did I not know this?
I don't know.
Well, I was going to ask you these questions anyway, but but anyone who hasn't read what this is, we're doing Super Mario Brothers last episode of the season. Blah blah blah flops. You don't have owned a Nintendo system.
Look,
or played a Mario game ever. Not even Mario Kart.
I may have played Mario Kart.
Okay.
In an arcade,
right?
Um, I'm pretty pretty confident that I've never played any other Mario game.
That's crazy.
I know. I've made it to the grand this grand old age, never having played any of them.

(00:22):
Now, I haven't played a Mario game in 30 years. Granted, I I I think I dropped off after the I dropped in for the NES and then dropped off after the NES.
Was it this film that killed your involvement in the games?
No, I think it was the PlayStation that that killed my involvement with Mario and his brother Luigi.
Distracted you.
Yeah. And I sort of never went back to Nintendo. But
I had a real fondness. I've still got my Nintendo. It's it's right on my head there.
Does it work?
I probably not. I mean, how how old is that? That's 35 years old at least.
Just a rather large paper weight then.
Yeah. I guess I just like to look at it. I don't keep much stuff, but for some reason I I like to keep my my old gaming systems. I've got my Mega Drive. I've got my Nest. I've got my first place Yeah, you don't need to make excuses to me. I'm literally surrounded by absolute useless pieces of crap that I collect.
Yeah, don't I know it.
I uh That's crazy. I can't believe that that passed you by. It's such a part of my like it was probably the first the NES was probably the first console that I got really into games.
Well, we were poor. My parents wouldn't get me a gaming console because they claimed we couldn't afford one.
Um and I begged and I begged and I begged and they finally got me a um a Master System when the Mega Drive had already come out. Mind,
right?
Um and I I loved it.
Yeah.
But never had a Nintendo.
I was gifted a Nintendo, but my by my parents' friends, I think when they upgraded to the SNES, they very kindly gifted their Nintendo to me
because I sort of when we went around their house, they'd let me play Mario and I got obsessed with it. So they're like, "There you go, have that." Very kind, very generous.
But my first console was was actually a Master System as well.

(00:43):
Okay.
I think my parents got it from um a boot sale.
Ah,
and it had the little gun with it. I think it had
do There was the dock shoot built-in game. And also there was a um
a motorbike racing one.
Road rash.
Something like that. I don't know.
Yeah.
But you never had a Nintendo.
No.
What? You're an Xbox person now?
Yes, I am. But I've never felt the need to sort of go backwards, I guess.
Yeah, I Me neither, really.
Who wants Super Mario when we've got Halo?
Yeah, you're a big Halo person.
Yeah,
I like to shoot things or dry things generally in my games. I don't really
So, you Mario Kart?
I actually never really played Mario Kart, funnily enough.
Okay. I I just assume that was always why you were throwing banana peels out the window when we're on the motorway.

(01:04):
Oh, is that where that comes from? It must have just absorbed it from the
Yeah,
from the general cultural vibe.
And you do like mushrooms.
I I like mushrooms as much as the next guy. Yeah, I like all types of mushrooms.
And you're dating somebody whose um name in Hebrew means princess. So
Oh, what you saying means mushroom.
Sarah quite famously means mushroom.
Oh, you're my daisy to my Luigi
apparently.
Very nice.
So I'm assuming since you have some knowledge of the games or at least more than me,
um this The story line in this movie is really close to the to the video games. Yeah.
So, I've heard
the story line in the games is uh as complex as it is in the movie.
Pretty indistinguishable.
So many moving parts. Yeah. You're definitely not just running around hitting your head on a block and then running up some steps and jumping on a flag.
No,
you're not doing that.
Too simplistic.
Yeah.

(01:25):
So, what are the games all about? I know I'm I'm being super sarcastic, but like is there an aim? Is there any sort of
rescue the princess?
Okay, that's always the an evil tortoise called Bowser.
Bowser. I know who Bowser is.
And sometimes you have little tortoises coming after you and you have to jump on their head and then you jump on them again and you you flip them and they the the the shells like bounce around the screen a bit.
How do you feel about that as an animal lover?
I I mean it's I never thought about it really at the time. I suppose it's not great.
I always think about it. I feel so guilty shooting scags in Borderlands and they're not even a real animal. So, we I feel like this is sort of the tone that we're going to continue with this episode because obviously this is this is rounding out our flop season. Do we need to ask why it flopped? Do we really need to address that question or is it is it pretty obvious?
I don't think it's a it's a No, it's not a mystery, is it? It's a a weird movie. Not really for for anyone in particular. Like it's not it's trying to do too many things. It's not really for kids. It's not really for adults.
Yeah. The the directors wanted to make a movie for adults. The studio wanted a movie for children.
Yeah. Okay.
Heads were buttered and this is what we were left with.
Fascinating. So, did you see this movie when it came out?
I think uh fairly soon after it came out, I'm pretty sure.
Mhm.
I got a My nan used to get deliveries. She used to pre-order movies sometimes and they would get delivered to our house while she was at work.
Oh. Would you would you get to them before she did?
Well, I had to I couldn't open them. I had to sit on them. I had to cuz I couldn't text her and be like, "I package it here. Can I open it?"
I uh so I just sit on them for a couple of days until the weekend and then hand them to my nan and then she would open them and I go, "Oh, can we watch that now?" And I think Mario Brothers was one of them. I think I was quite excited.
Didn't go to the cinema to see it. but did have a VHS of it and I wish I still had it.
It would be nice actually to put that on the shelf.

(01:46):
I wonder if that's uh hard to get hold of.
So I think I am in sort of a similar position. I definitely didn't see it at the cinema.
Did it get a cinema release over here?
Yeah, it must. Yes, definitely. It must have.
It made some money somewhere.
Well, it it was um it made 39 million.
Did it?
But a 48 million budget.
48 million.
Yep.
But I think No, it's not a mystery as to why this flop because it's just a weird movie. It's not very good. I I don't think it's as bad as some of the other movies we've covered this season.
I'm going to disagree with you quite heavily on this. I just want to go back a second. 48 million is sort that that rivals what that we've done this season? Battlefield Earth.
It's in between Tank Girl and Driven,
right? Okay.
Battlefield Earth I think was Oh, yeah. I suppose it probably was
not the reported 70 million. Yeah, you're right. It probably is about the same.
Yeah. And it's kind of wild to me cuz if you compare it to to recent releases, like there was that review that we read of Sinners and somebody was like, "Oh, how how many million? You can't see it on the screen." Yes, you f****** can. Can you see $48 million on the screen in Super Mario Brothers? Is my question.
Yes. Can you
100% I can. Yeah.
You've got Bob Hoskins.
Uhhuh.

(02:07):
You got Johnny Was he like demanding a decent cut back then?
Probably his most I mean is is this post Hook? Are we in a post SME world?
Just was Hook 92
maybe 9192. Yes. So it must be must be coming off the back of Hook.
Yeah, I do know that quite a few um or a handful of larger names were considered for the role and I did read somewhere that the the directors were under the impression he was more profitable actor.
Okay.
They thought he was a big a bigger draw than he actually was.
Oh, but they didn't actually research that.
No,
they just assumed.
Yeah.
Okay.
It didn't have um Wikipedia in 93.
I suppose not. No,
but you Dennis Hopper was well paid, I think, by all accounts.
Yeah,
there are some really impressive sets as particularly that the main one, I guess, in the kind of other World Brooklyn under
Dino Hatton.
Dino Hatton. Is that what it's called?
Yeah, that's what it's always referred to as online. Dino Hatton.
This reminds me a lot of the Flintstones movie for some reason. This does just cuz that's quite weird as well.

(02:28):
Yeah. No s***. But so was the cartoon.
Yeah. But I think to answer your question, yeah, I can see the money on screen, which is what makes it a little bit more frustrating if anything.
I I can see it. There's so many elements that separately you're like, "Oh, that would be a good idea. That would be a good idea." But Then they smash them all together and you end up with a bit of a s*** sandwich. But I'm not going to say I don't like it. I do enjoy watching it. But it's not very good. But it's not I don't think it's terrible. I don't think it's I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as Battlefield Earth.
No. Few films are
this to Tank Girl.
I It's funny because Tankirl is always the film that comes to mind when I think of Super Mario Brothers because a I think they'd make either a great or terrible double bill. and B, I think they've got so much in common.
Yeah. Based on a kind of a different media comic and games.
Yeah. Both adaptations both kind of had quite troubled productions.
Um, disagreements off the screen certainly. Uh, I don't know like even Dennis Hopper and Malcolm McDow sort of share some DNA.
Yeah, they both do very hammy villains, don't they?
Yeah. Although Kesley from Tank Girl has slightly less in common with Donald Trump.
Yeah, slightly.
But yeah, I don't know. The two films do sort of sit side by side in my in my brain for some reason.
But you prefer Tango, I'm guessing as a just a What would you prefer to watch right now? If you said you got to watch one of those.
Oh god, that's a really interesting question because obviously we've seen them both in the last month. If I hadn't seen either, for a while. My answer might be different,
right?
Pro.
Yeah, probably Tank Girl because that to me it's more about nostalgia factor. I did watch Super Mario Brothers quite a bit when I was a kid as well.
And also, one obviously has kangaroo men, another one has lizard men.
There's a similar level of weirdness going on, I think.
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.

(02:49):
A lot of parallels that can be drawn.
Yeah. Both a little bit Cron and Bergian. There's some body horror in both of them, isn't there? Like you've got the genetic engineering of the kangaroo people in Tank Girl and draining people from for their water
and draining people. And in Mario Brothers, you can turn someone into fungus.
That's
and you can deevolve them.
Yeah. That if that's feels very weird to me, like very up that Croninberg street, which is why it's like why did you think that that was a good idea? It's something that I enjoy about this, but why do you think that that was the thing to do in this kids movie? Apart from funded by Disney. I think
it was. Yeah. Um,
it's never going to work.
It's so strange because it sounds like the original script, which is what most of the actors read before signing on, um, had some really interesting ideas in it. It sounded like quite adult, quite indepth, quite plot driven.
And then the studio came on board and were just like, they just kept demanding changes because they wanted a kids film. They thought that's where the money was. And the directors were really really at odds with them about that. Really disagreed. And apparently at one point there were rewrites every day.
Oh wow.
To the point where the cast just stopped paying attention.
Yeah.
Until they land the the script landed in their hands.
Yeah. I watched the the there's an hour documentary on the second site Blu-ray that I paid actual money for. And uh Johnny Legs is saying like uh it was about halfway through the shoot. They were like, "Oh no." So I'm surprised that it took that long, but I think other people were aware that it was going to be an issue earlier on in the process. The editor, Mark Goldblat, he said that someone came to him on day one and said, "I think we've got a problem."
Just the one.
Yeah. But it's it seems like um everyone signed up to this original idea, which was good, including the people that financed it. Like I'll never understand that. It's like you knew what it was.
Why come in? Cuz money that's the answer, isn't it?
But everyone knew what what that was going to be and then they come in and interfere with with it and trying to make it more kid-friendly. And I'm not saying that it shouldn't be a kid-friendly film. It is a computer game movie called Super Mario Brothers, but at that stage, like uh apparently, like you say, so many rewrites leading up to the project and then during the project. It's just crazy.
And you can see that on screen. I remember thinking while we were watching it this time, just how disjointed everything feels, how like it just feel it feels like they made it up. Yeah.
As they went along,

(03:10):
it sounds that It's like that's pretty much what happened.
It's like let's build these really incredible sets by the way,
but we're not really sure what we're going to do with them yet.
Yeah, that's exactly what happened from what I've read.
Yeah.
Um the point at which changes started being made. The entire sets have been built. Everything had sort of been decided.
Yeah.
And then Yeah, it does sound like some of that perhaps went to waste.
And that's why it's so frustrating cuz I feel like there's so much good stuff in here. There's so many good ideas. I like the casting. Although it's a bit weird to have have two nonItalian actors playing Italian plumbers.
Yeah. Two men of completely different ethnicities.
But I tell you what, I'll take uh Bob Hoskins over Chris Pratt.
What? Even now?
Well, he he did the cartoon, didn't he? Oh, Bob Hoskins is no longer with us.
Yeah. I mean, I would still take Bob Hoskins now.
Over Chris Pratt.
I would take Corpse Bob Hoskins, too, over Chris Pratt. Yeah. I haven't seen that cartoon Mario movie. I'll be honest. It didn't really interest me.
No, but again, I think that's more to do with the fact that I never played the games. So, I've got no investment in in that sort of thing beyond this film, which
is probably uh sacrilege to any actual Super Mario fans.
Well, it is a bit, but we'll get past it. What?
You'll forgive me.
I suppose Hoskins is a funny one for me cuz he's a bit of a blind spot. Like, uh I must have seen Roger Rabbit at that point. Definitely, of course, saw Hook, but didn't understand that that was Bob Hoskins.

(03:31):
Well, those those two films that you've just mentioned are why he signed on to do a more adultorientated film because he'd done kids films. Oh,
okay.
So, he was sort of over it by that point and was so frustrated to wind up in this scenario,
I bet. And he hated this movie like he he he went on record
all the time just saying how much of a s*** show it was.
Everyone did.
Johnny Legs broke his hand during the making of it.
Johnny Legs broke his hand. Um, do you want to know What happened to Bob Hoskins?
Yeah. I mean, Johnny Legs broke Bob Hoskins hand.
Oh, yeah. And he had to wear like a painted umint cast. They painted it pink.
Yeah. They used they they like bought the jacket sleeves down to cover his hand a bit as well.
Yeah. But um funnily enough, Johnny Legs broke a leg.
No, I did not know that
during this. Yeah.
Is that why it's called Johnny Legs?
It is. Yeah, apparently. But yeah, so allegedly John Lazamo broke a leg after being hit by a car on set. whilst drunk.
He was drunk or the car was drunk.
He was the car wasn't drunk. I don't think that's possible. Um, yeah, he So, he's Did you know that Johnny Legs has written several books?
No, I did not. I know he's a man of many talents,
including a memoir.
Okay,

(03:52):
bear that in mind. Put a pin in that for a second.
Are we going to come back to the Johnny Legs memoir?
We're going to come back to Johnny Legs. Yeah. So, there was that scenario. He did write in in his memoir that he and Hoskins were pretty much drunk through about production from about like the midway point on they were just like this is terrible let's just start drinking
I
and they did to get through it
I think that was the right call
well it was except one of them ended up with a broken leg as the result
yeah suppose
Johnny leg
but Bob Hoskins broke a finger which he forgave was my for immediately
it was an accident
he cursed him out and then immediately went it's fine English. Imagine like you're big shot
and you're next to like star of Roger Rabbit and other things.
Um,
and you break their hand.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Apparently, he was also stabbed four times.
What?
By what? I don't know. He was electrocuted and he almost drowned.
Blimey.

(04:13):
So, Hoskins had a lot of reasons for hating this movie.
A lot. Um, he was quoted at one point as saying it was a f****** nightmare to par paraphrase. It had a husband and wife team whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent.
Really?
Yep.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah. Um Oh, Dennis Hopper also said it was a nightmare. It was a husband and wife directing team who were both control freaks.
So, do you know much about the directors to this?
Yeah, almost nothing. I They were on the Talking Heads Blu-ray extra and they were quite uh Annabelle Jangle and Morton
Annabelle Jenkle was very
positive about Bob Hoskins and was like, "Oh, yeah, I know he hated the movie, but he was great and he like really
was very professional at the time.
Just not after the fact.
Yeah.
Interesting. Okay. How did they seem? Did they seem like affable people or?"
Yeah.
Bit off. I know. They seemed all right. Like it's difficult to tell really, isn't it? Because you're seeing the the the best parts of you don't know what was cut out of them going f****** Yeah,
shoot me properly. Just the light's not on my face or whatever.
I don't know much about Bob Bob Hoskins, but I know enough about Dennis Hopper that if he badmouththed me, I probably wouldn't take it too seriously.
Right.
But if it's coming from more than one source, I I would be more inclined to to believe there was something to it, I think. So,
yeah, maybe they were just awful on set.

(04:34):
Perhaps perhaps, but I don't know anything else about them. I know that they created Did they create or direct or whatever?
Max Hedra Max.
Did they create that then? Did they come up with it?
I believe so. I believe so. I think that was their brainchild. Yeah.
I was surprised that they were British because I just assumed Max Headroom was an American thing. I'd never heard of it until I think you told me about it a few years ago.
Yeah.
Okay. Well, Matt Fruer was Max Headroom, right? And he's Canadian, I think.
But yeah, I guess I always associated it with being more of an American thing.
It was popular in the States, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Was it more popular over there than it was over here.
Um, possibly cuz I don't know that many people that are very well verssed in Max Headroom.
I wonder if in America they have the signs that say Max Headroom.
Um, if they don't then it's immediately unfunny, right?
Yeah.
I think it's probably it sadly became most famous for the Max Headroom incident which was like um a really infamous sort of I don't I don't want to call it hacking. I guess it was a sort of hacking, like a a cable broadcast that was intercepted. So, it sort of became notorious with that. It became a bit of an online mystery. People trying to figure out who'd hijacked the broadcast of Max Headroom,
right?
But that's what most people associate it with these days.
Okay. Okay. Like the end of Wayne's World.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(04:55):
Just like that. Yeah. So, we don't know much about them outside of that. And I guess Guess this film sort of seems to have um not necessarily killed their careers, although it kind of seemed to for a while, right?
I honestly have no idea. I didn't I I saw them on documentary. I didn't look up anything else about them. I don't believe they directed another feature.
No,
but um I don't Maybe they did. Did they Did they not then?
Um I mean I had a look on letter boxed on IMDb and their credits seem pretty scant.
Nothing on um like TV or cuz did they come from music videos? Were they a bit of a Fincher?
Oh, maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Although their careers turned out very differently.
This could have been Fincher if all he'd made was Alien 3.
Yeah. Imagine if Fincher had made Super Mario Brothers. That would have been good. I think
would Dino Hatton have been um a a spacecraft/prison.
Yeah. Yeah. Made out of wood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, I would watch that. So, in terms of other people that are involved, we've got some heavy hitters.
Yeah, I
some uh some big names.
Some huge names. Like I didn't even I always thought Fisher Stevens was brown until this movie.
I did. I is the honest truth.
You were led astray by Short Circuit.
I was deceived. Yeah.

(05:16):
That terrible, terrible decision to make him do that accent.
Yeah. I was most offended by that out of everyone. I was most offended by that.
Were you?
Yeah.
It's No,
it affected you the most.
Affected me the most. Yeah. No, it's nuts. Isn't it though? That
it's a hate crime.
Ridiculous.
It's awful.
I can't believe that that's a thing. But
but Hank Kazaria was doing a poo on the Simpsons for
way way longer.
Yeah.
Way way after the short circuit thing. So um yeah, we didn't learn our lessons immediately. No,
that's for sure.
Uh so yeah, you got a Fisher Stevens
and I think years later he popped up in Succession, didn't he? As well.
Yes. Yeah.
And random stuff in in between including one of your use the term guilty pleasures right what's
yeah you know I hate the term guilty pleasure but I do enjoy hackers I don't feel any guilt

(05:37):
I know you do I well you don't feel guilt but I know you do love it
yeah it's s*** though
yeah
but it's also great
was it a flop
yeah
we could have had that on this season were you considering it
no
okay
there are so many other themes that could go into
yeah
um Yeah, I I guess um who's the who was the DP? Was it uh Semler?
Dean Semler. Dean Semler, who we've covered one of his movies before,
Water World.
Yeah. Um but yeah, another another pretty heavy hitter.
Yeah.
He actually replaced the original DP whose name I can't remember after production had already begun. And about a week into it, he knew he'd made a terrible mistake.
Yeah. Alan Sylvestri.
Hell yeah. Sylvestri on the score. And it's a bizarre score though. It's not
It's not a very Sylvesty score, is it?
It's not a very anything score. It's so inconsistent and just different in different places.

(05:58):
It's a bit plinky plunky Goonies.
Yeah.
In some places.
The bit when they're driving a truck when they're trying to get to the job.
Yeah.
Where all the plumbers apparently just head to one job and whoever gets there first gets the job. Not heard of the tendering system in in Mario World. The music there is going I think there's even a
very capery.
Yeah. And then you get like the Hellraiser type stuff like that. You get that stuff. You get a little bit of the computer game music.
Yeah.
You get some crazy pieces of music in the film. There's a song. What song has got the word dinosaur in it?
Open the door. Get on the floor. Everyone walk the dinosaur. We got to have that in a movie about dinosaurs.
But also that doesn't make any sense. Everybody walk the dinosaur.
Open a door. or get on the floor. Let's start there. You You open the door.
The floor or the door.
Both.
Maybe there's carpet on the door.
Maybe. Who knows?
You have to vacuum through the doors.
None of None of it is. There's no specificity. I need to know these things.
If your door has carpet on, is that also floor?
So, if you open a door, can you get on it and then that's also the floor?

(06:19):
No. If it functions as a door, it's a door,
right? So, is the implication there then you open a door, the dinosaur comes in, you're on the And then you've got to get up and walk the dinosaur.
Yeah.
What's the next instruction? It's very confusing.
It is. It is.
Right.
I don't understand how how that song had legs.
I uh I think the next instruction is boom boom aaka boom boom boom boom boom.
Is it? Yeah. That's even more confusing in that case.
Yeah. Let's break down what that means.
But that they've got that in this movie and it sticks out like a sore sore thumb. The music is wildly inconsistent. It's not Sylvester's best.
No,
it's weird, but it
it sort of feels like it's been assembled from leftovers.
Yeah, it does feel thrown together and it
I suppose it's it fits the movie very well really when you think about it in that respect
cuz it all just feels like, oh, this thing, that thing, let's throw all this in. But not really thought about any consistency. At least how that's how it plays.
Yeah. It's like if somebody had five jigsaws, dumped all the pieces on table together and just went, "Go on then. Make sense of that."
Yeah.
No, you can't. It can't be done. Clearly,
Mark Goldblat, who's the best person at puzzles, get him in to to figure out how to put these pieces together.

(06:40):
Some of the pieces have giant boots on them.
Yeah.
Some of the pieces,
you say boots.
Boots.
Boots. Right. Yeah.
Some of the pieces have men with tiny dinosaur heads on them.
Like the Beetlejuice guy.
Yeah. I It made me think of that. Was he called Bob?
I have no idea. head guy.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, same principle, right?
Big man, small head.
I was thinking more like suit that covers the actor's actual head than just a tiny head popped on top.
I guess so. When you think about it, it must be a It must be people in those suits.
Yeah,
they're not. Uh,
who else could sway that realistically?
Yeah, you've got dancers in there. Dr. Beverly Crusher is doing a choreography,
is she?
Yeah. But speaking of about Labyrinth last week. Actually, the puppet connections in this. Yeah.

(07:01):
I did make a note about that. Yeah,
Yoshi's a really impressive puppet.
I do love Yoshi. Yoshi is the highlight for me. Yoshi's not in it enough.
Okay. Most important person.
Oh,
MIP.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely. Absolutely. This movie should have been about Yoshi,
I guess. So, it is supposed to be about dinosaurs.
Yeah.
So, to have a dinosaur, it feelAnd it's not. It's about plumbers. which is way less interesting.
Yeah.
Nine people to control that puppet.
Yeah, I read that. I read that. Like coils of um uh what do you call it inside it just to I don't know
control puppets puppet strings just
puppet wire.
I Yeah, something or other like just coiled up inside it because there were so many different mechanisms.
Um but yeah, we said what five people to puppet hoggle last week.
Yep. Yep. Five and nine this time.
Nine for Yoshi.

(07:22):
Yeah. Just seven years later.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah. But maybe the best looking thing in the film.
Looks great.
Yeah.
Half of the budget probably went on that.
Yeah.
It's uh
the other thousands were um Goomba dicks that never made it to a
Yeah. Goomba. It's a weird It was a weird decision to make them um to make them dance, but I think that that was sort of made up on a on a day Yeah, much like everything else it sounds like.
Yeah,
I can't imagine that was in the script and Bob Hoskins went, "Yeah, sign me up for this s***."
This is really well thought out actually. I They were talking about the directors that they had this elevator scene and they didn't know how to make it interesting because they just got in the elevator. They're like, "What should we do in the elevator?" Like, "Well, we could have thought of that maybe a while ago."
Yeah. In pre-production perhaps.
Yeah. But um and they're like, "Oh, let's let's go let's think about this and rewrite the scene." And what they came up with let's make them dance a bit and that distracts them like um I believe the example was like a snake charmer like you can hypnotize reptiles in that way and that was the the thought process behind that. It's not without thought
but it it's an odd decision and that's what this movie is.
It's just a series of odd decisions.
Yeah,
that should have been the tab tagline.
Yeah.

(07:43):
What was the tagline?
You will never believe a man can jump. Was it really? No, it wasn't.
Um I think it was just simply
wasn't like trust the fungus or something.
It should have been trust the fungus, shouldn't it?
Yeah. Good advice in the Super Mario Brothers. Terrible advice in the Last of Us.
Yeah.
Context.
Don't trust that fungus.
Don't trust that one. That's a bad one.
It is. Yeah.
But it reveals itself pretty early as a bad one.
Yeah.
The fungus in in the Mario Brothers, you're not quite sure of its motives. for the longest time.
It's just like benevolent fungus for for the most of the run time.
You're not sure though. Like it could go either way. You're like, "This could be an evil fungus." And then when the fungus gifts Luigi a bomb,
you're like, "Oh, this is a good fungus."
Do you know what it took on the until this rewatch of Super Mario Brothers for me to understand the band name reference in Super in um Scott Pilgrim?
What's the band name reference?
The band name is called Sex Bomb.
Oh, right. Okay. I didn't even click that when we watched that. movie

(08:04):
and I've always just thought it was like a quirky name, but I'm an idiot because of all the f****** video game references in that movie that I didn't put that together in
Everything's a video game reference in it, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I'm stupid.
Is that a video game movie?
Scott Pilgrim.
Yeah.
If we were doing a video game season, which we will one day,
would would you could I justify putting that in?
Yes, because we get to decide the parameters of themes.
But is it strictly speaking a video game movie? No, it's a comic book movie.
It's an adaptation of a comic book.
Yeah.
But it is a computer game.
Yeah. Embraces video games to such a degree that I think you could include it in.
Yeah. Like Gran Turismo would be a difficult one as well because it it's not really about a video. It's about a guy that played the game.
Yeah, that absolutely counts though.
Yeah. No, it would count for me like because uh we're going to do this I think one day just so we can cover Gran Turismo Need for Speed. Oh, no. It's both. Both in one season.
When else am I going to get to put Need for Speed on?
Coin Exegg Ramy Malik season or something.

(08:25):
It's unlikely, isn't it?
Eight really diverse performances.
It's very different in all of them.
Yeah, he's a really gifted performer that just doesn't do wide eyes. And
this one is different. He's playing Freddy Mercury.
Yeah, this one he's got big teeth.
Totally unlike any other performance. I will get to a video game movie at some point. It sounds like it's probably going to be more.
We have We're doing one right now.
Oh, video game season only. Yeah, I guess we can't have Mario Brothers on it again.
What a shame.
We could cover things again or we could do the new Mario,
I suppose. Yeah.
So, Samantha Matthysse, you much of a Mafis head?
Um, not really, but I knew I knew who she was when I was a kid. did because I was obsessed with River Phoenix.
Oh, Little Women. Is is River Phoenix in Little Women?
No.
What am I thinking of it?
I've not got a clue.
Never mind. What are you saying?
Um, it's funny. This has been mentioned twice this season. Actually, we brought this up in the Empire Record show. Samantha Matthysse was in a film with River Phoenix, I think in ' 91 or '92, called The Thing Called Love,
um, about country singers, which is why I've never suggested to you, let's watch The Thing Called Love, cuz I feel like you'd hate it. Um, but it was one of the only three films written by the the woman who did Empire Records,

(08:46):
right?
And they started dating after they were in that together. And she was with him when he died.
Okay.
So, that was sort of my introduction to Samantha Matthysse
after Super Mario Brothers. And then she's sort of popped up in a bunch of stuff, hasn't she? Like Broken Arrow and
Broken Arrow is the thing that I know her most from
the Thomas Jane Punisher movie briefly. Oh, was she? We watched that quite recently and I don't remember her in it.
Well, she's not in it for very long. That's why. Jesus's wife.
Yeah. I uh
Spoilers for that.
Uh uh. Was she in um Pump Up the Volume? Was she in it?
Mhm.
Okay.
That might have been the first film she was in.
Oh, really?
1990.
Okay.
Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. So, I don't know. She's She's still knocking about. She's still doing stuff. She's um I think At one point she was sort of headed for or people assumed she was kind of headed for big things, but her career didn't necessarily take off like people thought it might.
Maybe it was because of this.
I don't think this did anyone any favors really, did it?
Not for a while. Certainly.

(09:07):
Johnny Legs. I mean, I this I guess this must have been the first time I saw him in a movie.
Let's talk about Johnny Legs, shall we? Because you're a big fan of John Leguisamo.
Yeah. When I saw this movie when I was a kid, I and for years thought his name was John Luismo.
Okay.
Uh and then we saw him in Romeo and Juliet. I watched that at school was ah it's Luigi. Uh but I'm a big fan of Johnny Legs. Yeah. I think he's a a fun actor
and author
and or and proclaimed author.
I don't know about proclaimed
and author.
Yeah. So he's written I could find listings for four books on Goodreads. One of which seem to be a compendium of um four of his oneman shows.
Oh yeah, I know. He he does a bit of standup as well and one man show stuff.
I had no idea.
Man of many talents.
He is. Yeah. So his books are called He wrote one called Ghetto Clown with a K, a graphic memoir. He also wrote Freak, a semi-demquasy pseudo autobiography. He also wrote Pimps, Hoes, Player Haters, and all the rest of my Hollywood friends. He seems to like writing books that have really unwieldy titles.
Yeah.
But yeah, I've never read any of them, but they are rated very highly on good readads.
Are they?
So
maybe you should then.
Maybe I should.
Maybe you should have in preparation for the show.

(09:28):
Well, it's a bit late now, isn't it?
Late now.
I'll try and find an audio book, but only if he narrates it.
This is also our second Lance Henrikson movie that we've covered.
The first being Near Dark.
Yep.
And uh he's in this a lot.
He's in it loads. He's basically the protagonist.
He's always around. really when you think about it.
Yeah. Even when you can't see him.
Yeah. Met his met one of his I don't know how many times he's been married, but he met a wife
on this set, but she wasn't his wife at the time. They met then and then they got married after. That's how that works.
They didn't just turn up to work at the same time and he met her.
No, you didn't. They didn't meet on a set and go, "Oh, aren't we married?
I know you."
The other way around. Yeah. That that but uh married for about 10 years, I think. But um
Okay.
Yeah. Lance Henrix. I always forget that he's in this movie.
Yeah, cuz he's basically not.
Yeah. I I I would like to seen a sequel and see where that goes.
It was just a curious choice to have Lance Henrikson be the the fungus.

(09:49):
Yeah.
What was the What was the thinking behind that? I'd love to know.
I think it was a bit of a favor.
Oh, that would make sense.
I think perhaps he knew a producer or something on the movie and they were like, "Do you fancy doing this?" He was like, "Yeah, go. All right. Go on then. Go on then. You need a king. King Cooper. No, that's that's Dennis Hopper. Bow. Who's Bowser then?
Bowser is the king. Cooper is the the turtle guy, right?
I've never played the games. Don't look to me for confirmation.
Cooper is Dennis Hopper cuz he's always banging on about Cooper coins.
Yeah.
And the Koopa King and the Cooper Cousins.
I did read somewhere that it's rumored that he was actually loosely based on Donald Trump.
Really? Well, this this version of uh not the original news.
No, no, no, no. This this Dennis Hopper version of Cooper.
Yeah, you can see it, can't you?
But I Yeah, it's funny because we both made that comment as we were watching the film, like the ego maniacal s***, just waffling, talking nonsense, gesticulating with his hands quite a lot. There are so many even the way he talks,
like the specific kind of mannerisms.
Yeah,
we both made that observation and so I don't know finding that like it's rumored blah blah blah was just sort of confirmation bias for me.
That could have been written by somebody who'd done what we did and watched it with hindsight and gone, "Oh, the similarities are glaring."
I think to watch it at this point, the sim similarities are glaring.
Yeah.

(10:10):
Uh back then when this film came out, he was just a failing businessman really, wasn't he?
Well, I'll be honest, like we didn't really get the apprentice. Like we had a we have our own version of the apprentice over here.
Yeah, we had the first one. Yeah, with Allan Sugar.
Yeah,
but uh
that's right. Oh, yeah. I was thinking of dragons then. I was thinking he wasn't in that, but yeah, he was he was Yeah, of course.
So, we didn't get that version of The Apprentice and No,
until 2016. I was sort of mostly blissfully unaware of Trump.
He was always that guy that popped up in he sometimes pops up in movies and it was more of a reference in film
like a Home Alone 2 Exactly. scenario. Yeah. Yeah. But that was that was the extent of my knowledge. He was just a wealthy guy
in my pop up on Terry Wogan or something. You're like, "Who's that guy?" Oh, he did a cameo in Home Alone, too.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, watching this now,
given where we are, it's like the the similarities are insane. They both um descended from the T-Rex. Both reptiles,
so there's that most obvious one. There's a lot of consistency in in the hairstyles of both of them.
Oh god.
Cooper is less orange of the face.
Slightly less orange. They both bathe in mud. They both have a bizarrely long tongue.
That's not something I cared to think about.
They both at some point in their lives have screamed, "We're merging." And then laughed manically. He probably does it. Trump probably does it when he's having sex.
Oh no.

(10:31):
I made a joke.
I don't think Trump does have sex.
I don't I don't want to think about it. Why did we do Why did we go down that road?
You went down that road.
So I apologize.
There's no way.
Well, there is. There is a way he pays women for it.
Well, there's that. Yeah.
Apparently, allegedly, Melania has fees, appearance fees, which is why they're seldom together because he has to pay her so much money to appear with him in public.
I would not be at all surprised if that were true.
No, not at all.
Humiliation fee.
So, did did you not think that the V VFX were really um advanced in this movie then? Did you not believe that Dennis Popper and Bob Hoskins were merging.
Uh, I thought it was quite good actually.
Did you?
Now you ask me what were in there at the end of the movie where they're going to they're merging with two realities together. Yeah.
I thought it was quite good.
Did you?
Disappearing like hands and stuff
and people jumping through a rock.
Yeah. Yeah.

(10:52):
You thought that was dead good, did you?
I thought it was all right for the time.
The same year as Jurassic Park. You thought that was something that would pass muster.
I think. Yeah. I Jurassic Park's the probably the best example you could use is they both got dinosaurs in
the benchmark. Yeah.
Both took 65 million years to make.
But I think I think they're different movies though. Like Jurassic Park is uh it's a great example, but Jurassic Park is is it's using the effects that it has wisely. In Mario Brothers, I think they're trying to do a bit too much, but I think it doesn't look terrible. Like it
You think between Super Mario Brothers and Jurassic Park that Super Mario Brothers is the one that was too ambitious
for what they had at their disposal. Yes. To to a degree.
Do we know what the budget for Jurassic Park was? Obviously.
No. Well,
seriously.
It's a few few quid, I reckon. Let's have a guess. I'm going to guess 110 million.
Oh, I was going to say 100.
1993.
Oh, blime me.
What was it?
63 million.
f*** off.
Yeah. Apparently
15 million more than Super Mario Brothers.

(11:13):
Yeah,
there's no excuse.
7 million less than driven.
Isn't that nuts?
But there is a vast difference. There seems to be quite a big jump between like like the ' 90s and 2000 in how much things cost. That would that would have been considered really big budget, I guess.
Yeah. But also there's a vast difference between the talents of Steven Spielberg and Renie Harland.
You can't really compare the two.
Some would some would agree with that. Yeah. When I say some, every person has eyeballs
Yeah.
or ears
and isn't a massive fan of Cutthroat Island.
I haven't seen Cutthroat Island. I want to watch it actually. Let's do a pirate season.
Oh god, so many seasons.
Muppet Treasure Island, Cutthroat Island, the island of Dr. Maro. No pirates in there. Or are there pirates? No pirates.
But aren't they pirates?
There's no pirates.
Okay.
But um yeah, I they don't Okay, so I some of the effects don't look amazing. Some of the visual effects don't look amazing, but I I can kind of forgive it that and and I think part of it is that I they make such weird off thebeaten track decisions in this that it could be really terrible and I think I would still kind of forgive it cuz like it's about the ambition and just I don't know. There's some really weird ideas that I just kind of respect, I guess.
But I sort of feel the same way about Tank Girl, but I still think that's a pile of s***.
Yeah.
I mean, to its credit, at least Super Mario Brothers didn't fill in the blanks with pictures.

(11:34):
Yeah. I suppose
we didn't film this. Just I don't know, put a picture up.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did you know that things got so tense on set at one point, particularly between Bob Hoskins and Rocky Morton and Remind me.
Annabelle Jangle.
Janle. Why do I keep wanting to say Frankle? Annabelle Jangle. That Bob Hoskins affectionately referred to them as the c*** and the cow to the point where some crew members allegedly had um
t-shirts made.
T-shirts made that written on it.
They always have f****** t-shirts made
which I can imagine would have exacerbated tensions on set somewhat.
I might do. Did they wear them on set? Uh, I don't know.
They didn't specify.
They would have been fired immediately, right? That's mean.
Yeah. I don't know. It sounds It just sounds like the directors and everybody else who had any involvement were on very different pages throughout cuz I know Rocky Morton at one point said he he found Dennis Hopper really difficult to work with.
Kel Priest,
as many people have documented. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, and he described the entire process as humiliating. So,
it sounds like there's not a lot of love lost on on either side there.
Dennis Hopper was pretending to be a dinosaur.
Did you notice in a lot of his footage as well, he's doing the little hands thing? Like he's holding like a file like that, like like he's got his hands over like a D. Apparently, he would walk a little bit like a T-Rex on set and stuff and people like, "Who's this clown?"
I did not notice that. I'll be honest.

(11:55):
I didn't notice it at the time, but it's um they brought it up in a documentary.
But also, I don't know that that would have stuck out as glaringly weird to me because um there's a thing known as like the autistic and ADHD T-Rex hands,
right?
Just like
I don't know something to do with blood flow or just awkwardness, but a lot of a lot of us kind of hold our hands high and definitely when we're sleeping.
Okay,
I'm doing it, but nobody can see.
I trust you.
You can see.
I I can see you. I don't need to trust you.
I can tell the listener you can trust us.
Why? our uh our crypto. We've got some sweet crypto out. It's not a scam.
We don't. But we do have a Patreon.
Shameless.
Well, you've got to be. You have to be. If we're enjoying these terrible movies.
Yeah.
I think we should be uh rewarded in some small way.
We're going on a break soon, so there's not going to be an episode out for a couple of weeks, but there probably
We're not going on a break. We're still going to be recording.
Well, we are. I know. But I mean, if you're a listener, you have a couple of weeks, but like there's not been an episode out like full episode out for a while because we're we're on a break. We're like you say we're still recording and maybe we'll be releasing stuff over on our Patreon.
We definitely will be.

(12:16):
We will be.
That was shameless.
That was definitely shameless. That was way more shameless than what I said. I am so interested to know if the original script is anywhere online. I want to know if it's accessible because I'd love to read it.
All things must be available online.
Not necessarily.
I mean, maybe that was disappeared on purpose.
I There is a a fan edit of the movie. You aware of this?
I'm not. No,
it's called the uh Morton and Jangle cut. And
And it's a fan edit.
I I believe it's a fan edit. I found out about this during my research this week listening to an episode of um one of the guys from Auntie Donner has got another John Lequazamo podcast and it's and it's called um I think it's called Zach's legislI love it.
And uh they do a John Leguismo thing every week.
Okay.
And Super Mario Brothers was their first one. But then they did another one where they spoke about the fan edit called the Morton and Jenkle Cup.
Okay.
And apparently it has 20 minutes. And apparently you don't need those extra 20 minutes.
No s***. I don't think anybody watched this film when I wish that was longer.
I would I wanted to watch it though. If I had time, I would have watched it.
But did you know that the um the original script had kind of Mad Max influences.
You can see it.
And political more political satire. And

(12:37):
you can see some of that, too.
You can see some of it. It's weirdly sort of anti-corporate, anti- capitalist, anti- um
dictator.
Yeah.
Anti- dinosaur.
There is a decent amount of that stuff still left over.
But it does that just sort of serves to make me more frustrated about what could have been.
But I couldn't agree more. Like I I do love this movie, I think.
Do you?
Yeah.
Unabashedly, this isn't a guilty pleasure. This is just a pleasure for you.
I kind It kind of is a guilty pleasure because it's not like I said before, it's not great.
And I I can see that, but in in it's it's not great in in the way that it's just so inconsistent and it's weird. But that's also the stuff that I kind of like about it. It's always it's always changing. There's a new thing like every every few minutes they're like, "Oh, we got to get to this job." Now, there's this this this archaeologist they're digging up. But there's also this this evil building contractor that's like the most unnecessary thing in the world. Like, why why is this a thing? Oh, we've got to turn him into a monkey in a fun. Yeah, let's leave that in then. And then they jump through the rock and then they're they're in the in the in the I realize I'm just doing a walkthrough of the plot, but just to exemplify
some people nuts some people do big numbers with that s***. on YouTube.
Maybe we should do it.
But like it's my point is every every few minutes there's a change. It's like they're in the police station now. There's rocket boots and there's a bomb and there's a mushroom. You got to trust it. And now we're going to put the suits on. There's an elevator. What should we do in the elevator? Let's make them dance a bit. There's a water slide moment where they're going through the the tunnels on the mattress. It's it's crazy the stuff that happens in this. But that's part of where I'm like just like ah this is so weird. And I I think that's great. cuz you just wouldn't get it now. It's too like
true. Yeah.
And this was the first computer game movie. So, I believe it was the first feature live action
I think you're right. Yeah.
movie based on a on a video game. And it didn't really have a template. And it's it's weird because it felt like it took two or three decades for them to figure out a template for video game movies because
Oh, they figured it out. Did they? Was Eli Roth's excuse then?

(12:58):
What did he do? How Oh lord, I forgot about that. Um, yeah, House of the Dead. That was Uve Ball, I think, wasn't it? It was.
Yeah.
I uh No, awful movie. You're right. I don't know if there are any that I think are like they hit it out of the park. Brilliant movies, but I love um Need for Speed, Gran Turismo. This Street Fighter is a piece of s***.
I think personally that the um TV shows we're getting now have been a lot more successful with the material.
100% Fallout.
Fallout Last of Us. You've already mentioned um Halo.
Halo was okay.
I enjoyed Halo. I enjoyed series one a lot more than the second series.
Did you finish the second series?
I did.
Okay.
But yeah, I was I was more invested in series 1. Like that got me really excited.
Yeah.
And then I think they kind of squandered some of the potential in series 2.
The problem with that is that they were touting that project for years. It was like Peter Jackson's going to do it. Oh, okay. The the rings guy.
And then they were like Neil Blumamp's going to do it. And I was like, oh, I like the sound of that. And that never happened.
Have you seen anything he's done recently?
Gran Turisbo.
Oh yeah. f***. That's so weird.
This is best movie since District 9 though.
That's Did you watch any of the Oats Studio stuff?

(13:19):
Oh, I did actually. And I did like some of that.
Some of that. But but for that guy to go on and do Gran Turismo is wild to me.
Is it such a weird thing? Yeah. But it worked. It worked.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think a lot of the best stuff has been limited series time. TV show. And I wonder why that is because
yeah, I don't think when I say they nailed the template, what I mean by that is they figured out how to make a billion dollars from a video game movie. And obviously the suit I think does the the the Chris Pratt Mario Brothers did extremely well.
That did really big numbers and there's going to be a sequel to that. Obviously
Minecraft, wasn't that a big thing recently?
Um I think it did pretty well. Yeah. I don't again I know nothing about Minecraft. inecraft. I' I play Minecraft Dungeons, but that's a totally different game.
Um I think the answer is put Jack Black in it probably, isn't it?
Unless Unless it's I was just going to say again, it didn't work well for that.
Yeah.
Jesus Christ.
But I guess this was the first one to try and do it. So it was always going to be a risk. It probably was never going to work in whatever way. You've got to make so many mistakes. And like I said, took years for them. You had this, you had Street Fighter,
Street Was that a year later?
Yeah. 94. Also a troubled production. And we will we'll definitely get to that one day. Good in our Vanam season.
Can't wait.
Van Damage. Uh what else you got? Like u the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies 2001ish.
And then we had a bunch of weird stuff like Eon Flux. Was that was that video game?
I don't know actually.
Was that its own thing?

(13:40):
I no idea. It's probably based on something. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I ever watched it actually. Um, Warcraft, which I think a lot of people were excited for but ended up not doing very well. I think that may have been a flop as well.
It was Pants. Um, and then we just had a bunch of weird s*** over the years like Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed.
Oh, Assassin's Creed is a movie that I never finished.
Unmemorable crap.
Did you watch Assassin's Creed?
No.
No. I heard it was terrible. So, cuz I was quite excited for it and then I heard it was terrible and was like, I'm not going to watch that then. Look, if somebody makes a 10 shoe stealth assassin movie, then you're talking Okay.
I've never played Assassin's Creed.
Yeah.
Gears of War. Somebody needs to to do a Gears of War project.
They've been talking about that for years as well, and it's always been Batista that's touted around for that.
Yeah. And they need to get on it before he's too f****** old.
100%. I mean, it's still good to play it now. Yeah.
But let's Yeah, let's get it made. I think I did read something recently about them kind of confirming that's happening at Netflix, I think.
Okay.
Yeah,
we need John Bernthal as Dom.
Okay. Put John Bernthal in anything. No, really. I think
Yeah. But I just I think he'd be good at that role. And it's a shame that um Michael Clark Duncan's no longer around to be El Train.
Okay.
Sorry. I'll stop fan casting a completely different game now and get back to talking about Super Mario Brothers.

(14:01):
But that would be good though. I I've been excited for that for for years as well.
Yeah. Do you think if anybody were to sort of attack this project again from the uh more adult leaning angle that you'd be interested.
Yeah, definitely.
Do you think they should Are they going to do a remake of this 93 version or just a complete reimagining like cuztotal reimagining based on the original?
It's never going to be uh a riskier project like this 93 version though. Is it It's always going to be
a just like the animated one that we had recently because they want all four quadrants. They want all the money, all the bombs and seats from I heard the best thing I heard about that movie is it was fine and I just I ain't got time for that. And uh I would be interested but only if they were like we're going to come at it from a like a weird British comic book angle like like a Judge Dread sort of thing cuz this is kind of feels a bit like this another movie that we spoke about in our Tangirl episode was uh was Judge Dread but I also put Mario Brothers Judge Dread Tang Girl in that same kind of They are in their own category.
Yeah,
for sure.
Is it cyberpunk or steampunk? And what is the difference? Cuz I don't think I know.
It's not really steampunk. No.
Okay.
Cyberpunk.
No, it's not futuristic enough to be cyberpunk either.
Yeah. Brakes on their cars, do they? So, there's that.
Sort of its own thing.
Everything's a gun.
Yeah. Mario is a gun.
Yeah.
What's it trying to say? I don't know.
So, you think Ultimately, this is a movie with a message.
Yeah, it kind of is in in a way, I guess. But what that message is is is unclear. There are many different things.

(14:22):
It's like a multiplepronged message.
Yeah, maybe. Um, how how plausible is it that when the asteroid hit that our dimensions split in two?
How plausible is it?
Yeah.
I mean, nothing's impossible
cuz I think the explanation on the documentary I watched was sound waves.
Okay.
Yeah,
that sounds legit. Yeah. wondered if that was that was possible if you're a scientist. Brian Cox, if you're listening, the scientist, not the actor. If you're the actor, he's already switched off going, "f*** off. f*** off."
Yeah.
I mean, it's a crazy concept. Like,
the fact that dinosaurs evolved into humanoids
wouldn't happen.
Well, of course not.
No.
Insane.
But that's another decision that I'm like, "Oh, this is weird." Like, how do you even come up with this? And I I think that was an very early premise I think of the producer kind of went to Nintendo and was like this is the basic premise of this asteroid hit 65 million years ago dimension split in two dinosaurs went away and humans sort of evolved the other way
but I think Nintendo was sort of on board for some of these ideas.
Yeah.
Like even the um like Luigi and Daisy's relationship apparently was sort of made cannon after this film. So they they clearly approved of of some parts.
I I think that they didn't give a s***. I' I've heard that they were a little bit like

(14:43):
Yeah, they were getting offers from big studios. It kind of ended up being a smaller affair and the producer something Joffrey, I believe his name was. He went over Roland, that sounds right. Yeah,
Joffy, I think.
Joffy.
Mhm.
He went to Japan and they sort of had a handshake and he said, "This is my idea. Dinosaurs would went this way and humans went that way." And they kind of were like, "Yeah, all right. Let's fine." I like the cut of your jib, sir. Let's go for it. And I guess it was un It was a It hadn't happened before. It hadn't been a video game movie,
big budget, released at the cinema type movie. So, I guess they were like, "Yeah, sure. Have the rights to make the movie. Thank you for the money."
Um,
they weren't saying that after the fact.
Um, I mean, obviously Nintendo had other productions over the years, but I believe they were all animated.
I think They've been very protective over it since.
Yeah, they haven't. They didn't make another liveaction movie until um Detective Pikachu, I think.
Oh, really?
I believe so.
Is that a live action movie? I thought that was uh animated for some reason.
Combination of the two.
Okay.
It's in like a live It's Do you know what? It's all right.
I've heard that it's all right. And I've That's got to be I quite fancy watching it actually.
I would watch that. It'd be a good Sunday watch.
A good Sunday watch. Yeah. All right.
Yeah, let's do it.

(15:04):
It's all right. Like it's a kids movie.
Yeah. Yeah.
Um, Jimmy from You're the worst is in it.
Is he?
Yeah.
All right. Well, I'm in now.
Okay. But you do have to put up with Ryan Reynolds stick.
Yeah. But that was a while ago now. So, was he less stickicky than he is now?
No. Oh,
very much. No. But yeah, they they were so upset, not just at the financial flop that this turned out to be, but the critical reception as well.
Yeah.
So, they Yeah. As you say, became wildly protective of their IP. Funny because yeah, initially they were like, "Yeah, go on then. That sounds like a crazy idea. Why don't you do it?" And then afterwards they were like, "f***, why don't we do it?"
That's why Yeah, that's why we hadn't done it yet.
They overcorrected though, I think, cuz it took them so long to to make anything else. And it wasn't another Mario movie out for for 30 years.
Yeah, they were still pumping out animated content in the interim.
Yeah, but they've got all that sweet Nintendo money, so like they don't need to worry about the movies so much. It's about protecting their What is the Nintendo thing? Now it's the Switch, isn't it?
Yeah, I guess so.
It's still going strong.
Yeah. And I mean, God, stuff like Super Mario is so must be one of the most heavily merchandised properties in the world.
Yeah.
So, they're doing all right.

(15:25):
Yeah.
They're not short of a bobble or two.
Every time we buy a pack of mushrooms from Asdas and get 25% Yeah. of the profit.
That's just it gets a little bit siphoned off to L center. Yeah.
So, Super Mario Brothers. Have we covered everything you want to talk about?
Yeah, I I think so.
I mean, the only thing I haven't mentioned is Luigi's sweet rainbow belt. He was an ally all the way back in 199.
Yeah.
Oh, nice. No, I didn't clock that.
Yeah, I was quite fond of that.
Yeah. So, this is something that I I'm guessing you will continue to revisit and enjoy.
When I bought the Blu-ray,
so you have to now to make it worthwhile.
I kind of did anyway.
Yeah. big period there where I didn't revisit movies for for a while in my my 20s and early 30s. But yeah, I've seen this a few times since being an adult. I've seen it three two or three times I think in the last like five years.
Yeah.
So
I've seen it two or three times with you in the last few years.
Okay. It's not quite a yearly. It's not quite Driven,
but yeah, I do return to it quite a lot.
I'm sorry. I'm still so tickled that Driven is a yearly watch for you. I know. It's like when do I when do I just don't care about what I'm watching, but I want something that feels like a warm comfort blanket. Yeah. Let's call Joe Tanzo. It's not quite a yearly watch, but it's um it's not far off. It's probably like a by-early watch, I would say. So, yeah, the the investment in a in a brewway was was probably probably wise, although it's it's free on Amazon to watch at the moment.

(15:46):
But then you wouldn't have had that sweet hourong documentary.
No, exactly. I was hoping for a commentary, but sadly there wasn't one on it.
Yeah, cuz you're a nerd.
You had a Blu-ray show up to the house today and you looked quickly looked on the back and then looked up at me and went, "Yes."
Yes, I did. You
So, you love a commentary.
I do love a commentary, but that would to be fair that's that was specifically for an episode of the show.
And uh I do like a commentary in general, but when I procure a disc and it's for something that we're going to be It is like an extra, oh, there's more thing here that I can consume and and learn about the thing. But obviously, we can't say what that what that is yet cuz we haven't even announced the next season or or what we're doing.
Well, on that note, I guess this sort of brings us to the end of Flops. And I have to say, I know I I kind of say this a lot. I didn't say this last season cuz I was all Nicholas Caged out, but this time round, I am very sad to be moving on. We've watched a lot of Stinkers, but it's been So much fun throughout.
We have I I love the Nicholas Cage season. It was my season. And I think you
look I I think the films that you chose were great. It was just a lot.
It was. Yeah, it was a lot. I suppose you're right. This one has been more I guess because it's flops. There's a bit more range in what you can choose.
And we've done some terrible movies. We've done some great movies. And we've done I've done
really good first time watch for both of us.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And um I think that I'm going to miss talking so so much about movies that I love like to especially when they're bad and trying to figure out what it is that I love about them. I've enjoyed that aspect of it.
But also just kind of sherking that off and just being passionate about a thing that you like for no reason.
Yeah,
that's fun, too.
Yeah, cuz it's got a fast car.
Yeah,
that was my my one really, was it?

(16:07):
But yeah, we we have cometh to the end now and uh we're moving on to season 11, aren't we? In a couple of weeks, June the 23rd, I think our first episode is
um
Okay.
Because I Why did we choose decide that next season's going to be your choice?
Because you did the last season. You did Nicholas Cage. This one's been both of us.
Got you.
So now it's me.
So now you're Now you're odds and I'm evens.
Yeah.
Yeah. That's confusing.
I've always been odds baby.
You Yeah, that's true. But what um should we announce what the theme is for next season?
Sure. Let's go for it. What have you gone for?
It's a thing that you know nothing about. The theme is drugs.
We're going to do drugs.
We're going to do drugs.
I'm devastated by that.
Well, um I don't know how I don't think I will be doing drugs during this
during this season. Um but we will be talking about drugs, specifically films about drugs.
Interesting. Okay.
Or that feature drugs heavily.

(16:28):
And we're going to go back to eight episodes, aren't we?
We are. Yeah.
Just done 10 because it was our 10th and celebration season. We're going to go back to a regular eight. And you've programmed in eight movies about drugs.
Mhm.
Or or the drugs are a thing in the movie. A central thing.
That's the same thing I said, but longer.
Yeah.
Yes, I have.
What's the Can we announce the first one that we're going to do?
Sure. Yeah. We're kicking off with Train Spotting because we kind of have to. If you're doing a season about drugs, you have to talk about train spotting.
We do have to talk about train spotting. Yeah, you're right. And it's a Danny Bole movie. And uh there's a there's a another Danny Bole movie coming out soon. Isn't there?
There is, which I'm quite excited about.
What a coincidence.
I know, isn't it? Fortuitous.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I'm quite excited to do something a little bit different this time.
Yeah. Great. Let's do drugs.

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Super Mario Bros. (1993) - S10 E82

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Super Mario Bros. (1993) - S10 E82