Sonic Blog: Let's Talk About Mario

 Welcome to the Sonic Blog...where we talk about Mario?
Well. This time at least. (But, of course, it's related to Sonic somehow...) As the blog well-knows I am an absolute ANTI-fan of the Sonic Movie. It, and the sad sequel remain a bundle of poopy choices that are sullying of Sonic's good name. However, on the heels of the 2nd movie, comes the Super Mario Movie. And they actually.....gasp...RESPECTED MARIO??? Could it be??

We need to inspect harder. 
Respect? Yes.
Controversy? There is one. 
What will happen? Who knows. (It's not out till next year) 
History? There's tons. 

As you know, this isn't "The" super Mario movie, it is the 2nd one. There was naturally one before it, which was live action, horrible, and made no sense at all. However, you must also know that it was 100% a product of its time. At that time, there was no "Mario lore", his games barely got deeper than run to right to try and make a bowser fall into something unfortunate. And maybe a bit of a puzzle. So, as you've heard before they had ZERO plot to go on to draw from in the games other than 'rescue princess, Bowser is being bad'. And when you let grown ups at something like that, they're bound to just go bonkers and put anything and so they did. And it super-failed because it stunk. It was very 'un-mario-like'. Well deserved, move on. The next step was Nintendo having a rightful huge fit and banning Mario from any more movies FOREVER^ because boy that really ruined his image for a long time.
*Go look this thing up if you weren't alive at the time or were too young. It's bonkers! You can completely understand Nintendo's ire, the fans confusion, and how hard it would have been to be "assigned to make a movie about a guy who runs to the right". 

Sonic is also a guy who runs to the right.
Yes, he is! And yes, he started with the same amount of plot as Mario did, but instead of rescue princess he had 'stop Eggman from ruining the world/animals'. It's the same simple formula for a 16 bit era of games. That sort of thing doesn't easily lend itself to an arc for movie plots. Understandable that is un-cash-in-able in a state like that. 
Of course Sonic quickly went beyond all that as soon as like...SA1 (or even Sonic CD) came out, adding characters, enriching the world, and giving plenty of cool stuff for everyone to do. But, there was no attempt (that succeeded) to get a Sonic movie going BEFORE he had enough lore/characters/world-building to back him up. So unlike Mario, he did not get disrespected in that era, but that was just a happenstance: they did try--see the unused script for more.

What's the Mario Contraversy?
It's that he's voiced in the main US release by Chris Pratt, a guy who is not a voice actor (but is a regular actor) and his voice is very normal and he does not sound "Italian" or "New-york-ish" as one might expect a Mario to sound. The problems are easily solve-able but Illumination just...didn't.

Why is this a problem?
1. Because Mario has had 1 steady VA for about forever (unlike Sonic & co) 
2. Mario has a 'wacky voice'
3. Mario has few full sentence lines in his games
4. There is an expectation of fans to how he would sound
5. Voice actors SPECIFICALLY train to have a thing called 'vocal range & versatility'. 

Everyone agrees that the mini clip voices "whaa hoo/it's-a-me/etc" for Mario are great for his limited games speeches but would not be fabulous to hear constantly thru a whole movie. So the "no original VA" camp argues that his original actor would be horrible because 'wacky voice'. 
BUT
That does not hold up for even 1 second because remember...his actor IS a VA! The entire point of professional VAs is that they have range and can generally do voices so different you might not even suspect it's them! As in Optimus Prime and Sad Donkey Winnie the Pooh is the same guy! So, asking someone like that to 'tone down' the voice to make it normal but recognizable for the movie would be like asking Michael Jordan if he could dribble a ball. It's literally the easiest thing for a professional to do. 
Conclusion: The complainers are right- They shouldn't have picked a random big name guy and put him in there. 

R E S P E C T
Find out what it means right here. 
Part of my big beef with the Sonic movie (and why I respect the Mario movie more instantly and will even be inclined to see it in the theaters) is that they RESPECTED his world and character enough to make a movie BE ABOUT MARIO in HIS WORLD. They thought The Mushroom Kingdom was interesting enough, and that Bowser/Koopas whatever were entertaining enough, and that Mario himself was GOOD ENOUGH to actually have a movie about. They also treated the designs as good enough that they didn't change them into ugly trash. They respected the franchise. 

Notice how they didn't do any of that for Sonic.
The Sonic Movie people HATED SONIC franchise:
1. They change his entire look/character design because they hated how he looked in the games.
2. He becomes some stupid guy's side kick (because Sonic is so inferior no one wants to watch him)
3. It's about "Earth Now", and the humans have a starring role instead of Sonic. (because Sonic's world and characters are so boring nobody would watch it)
4. There's nothing about the fascinating planet, and they got rid of all the badnicks (Because the earth is more interesting than floating islands & etc.)
5. Threw out all the world building and characters so we could have Sonic growing up alone and screwing up on Earth while some stupid man tries to get a girl friend and calling himself 'donut lord' and other irrelevant swill because that is more interesting than actual Sonic characters doing anything. 

They didn't think that Sonic could carry a movie on his own.
They thought his world was so boring and ugly that they got rid of it completely
They thought all the other characters were trash so they deleted them all
They wanted humans to be the stars of the show and made a shitty CG goblin of our hero
They did not respect anything Sonic had, they just wanted his name and his fame on their stupid posters and to raid people for money because 'hes in it'. 

There's "A" Sonic in the movies, but he is not THE Sonic. They did not respect him, his world, or anything that came with him. He was a blue cash grab, and the very very awful first-version of him that everyone screamed the internet down about is another big piece of proof. 

Role Reversal:
Can you imagine having like a realistic Gollum-Like CG Mario doing the stuff that Sonic did in his movies? Having him in Ugg Boots (because tie in!), and like Tommy Hilfiger overalls that are the wrong color, and he only gets the hat like half-way through. How Mario has to help a guy get a girl friend or else a different human man who is painted green will elude to someday becoming "koopa king"??? And mushrooms, koopas or goombas or the whole mushroom kingdom literally never appears in the movie, and at the end Peach comes out but she's a normal human woman and a stripper (because adults think peaches=butts) but she falls for this Gollum-Mario right away to create a happy ending but it's funny because he is this distorted creature and she is super beautiful. 
That's what Sonic fans had to go through with their movie, Mario fans should consider themselves lucky they only got his voice wrong.

^Obviously the 'forever' thing Nintendo had going has worn off. Illumination must have been really ultra convincing on their pitch because Nintendo watches Mario's IP harder than a flock of hawks. Notice how Sonic is the 'crazy fluctuation one' where he has huge flops, stupid blunders, awful merch and then amazing successes and stunning cool stuff. Mario is very solid and steady. He doesn't have the shocking highs or lows: he is very stable, well managed, and a solid front.