Image Credits: Photo by Courtesy of Universal Pictures \u2013 \u00a9 Universal Pictures via IMDb<\/p>\n
Let me make something clear before I get into this: I was not a huge Mario fan growing up. I was more of a \u201cCall of Duty\u201d and \u201cMadden\u201d kid. I didn\u2019t play any Mario games growing up, the sole exception of \u201cMario Kart\u201d of course. With that being said, I very much enjoyed the movie and I think the reason for that is because I did not grow up with Mario.<\/span><\/p>\n First things first, this movie is gorgeous. The animation in this movie is obviously going to be good, considering the movie was made by Illumination. Every scene in the movie is good on the eyes and can be breathtaking at some points. Every character has a great design and all of the places they go are unique and you can clearly tell when they are on a new planet. Another thing with the animation is that it\u2019s fluid and doesn\u2019t get clumpy or get worse, it stays a consistent smooth animation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Something that bothered me with this movie was the lack of screen time for certain characters. Princess Rosalina who was very anticipated for this movie and who most people were excited to see doesn\u2019t get the most screen time, which was a bummer since she was a new character they introduced and her introduction was incredible. Some characters like Luigi and Toad didn\u2019t have much to do in this movie and it showed. While Princess Peach, Mario, Bowser, Bowser Jr. and Yoshi were the main characters of this film, in my opinion Princess Peach was by far the best character in the movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A lot of the heat this movie is getting is because of certain decisions this movie makes. This movie makes a lot of things canon in the movie universe that were the complete opposite in the games and their universe. They change a character\u2019s backstory and make it something completely different, and people have said that the decision ruined her character and more people can\u2019t relate to that certain character anymore because they related so much with the original backstory.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I interviewed Professor Waddell who is currently teaching a class on Games Culture and Theory that I am currently taking. She is very much into video games and has a huge amount of knowledge of video games and when asked if she liked the movie she said, \u201cI did, I liked it better than the first Mario movie. I think they did a really good job incorporating all of the Mario movies into it. I saw a bad guy from Mario 2, they incorporated a lot of the Mario from the Switch games, I mean it\u2019s based on Mario Galaxy, and I thought they did a really good job with that. I was really impressed with the music too.\u201d Coming from her, I found it odd how a lot of people didn\u2019t like the movie because it didn\u2019t resonate with the Mario fans and yet it included lots of Mario references from different games.<\/span><\/p>\n I also asked Dr. Waddell if \u201cLuigi\u2019s Mansion\u201d or \u201cMario Kart\u201d could be a good third movie for the franchise and she said, \u201c\u2018Luigi\u2019s Mansion\u2019 absolutely could be a separate movie. That movie has a full plot and could be very well developed.\u201d For \u201cMario Kart,\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t think so. There\u2019s not really a story there. You just kind of drive around.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In my opinion I think doing something like \u201cCars 2\u201d did with racing could be a great plot for a \u201cMario Kart\u201d movie and would make so much money. I think everyone would love it. Just keep the spy plot out of it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jackson Evans is a fourth-year Communications major with a minor in Journalism. JE1007049@wcupa.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n