This movie is my numbah 1 guilty pleasure flick!
I have an idea for a rebooted Mario flick. It pretty much beefs up the established universe and I think would work in live action or as a Pixar-Nintendo collaboration. I'll throw out my ideas here:
We open on Mario and his girlfriend Pauline on a date. Its established that they've been going out for a while now. The next day brings us to Mario Brothers Plumbing and the roles of the brothers are established: Mario does the office work and tool care, Luigi takes the jobs and phone calls. Mario is planning on proposing to Pauline, and the job they've got lined up should yield a big enough paycheck that, combined with his savings, give him some financial stability to support the marriage. On the job Mario is clearly distracted by the prospect of the proposal and the multiple ways it could turn out. Luigi shows his skills as an up and coming plumber. That night Mario gets spiffed up then he and Pauline go out for a night on the town ending with a walk in Central Park. Mario proposes, she accepts. On the way back home, Mario stops at a falaffel vendor and as he is paying for it, he hears a gunshot and turns. Pauline crumples to the ground. The vendor starts babbling in his native language; Mario fishes out her cell phone and calls an ambulance.
Our perspective shifts to Luigi on the bus heading for the hospital. He arrives to find a forlorn Mario walking out. They flag down a taxi and return to their flat. Mario turns to other means to overcome his grief: drugs and booze. All the while Luigi watches helpless as his brother falls into a downward spiral that leads to vicious cynicism. On the job Mario frequently wanders off to snort a line or have a few shots, leaving Luigi to do most of the work and develop his skills as a plumber. One day on the job when Mario wanders off, he hears a strange noise from deep in the sewers. He follows it to an old stony alcove and ends up getting caved in. Following it through a maze of ruined and dilapidated pipes, he hears a roaring sound and turns to see a wave of sewage barreling towards him. Meanwhile, Luigi feels a tremor ripple through the ground--an earthquake in Manhattan! As he is rushing to find Mario, he hears a rush of water and turns to find a flood of raw sewage heading straight for him.
We rejoin Mario, he wakes on a stony floor and sees a covered grate overhead. He emerges to find himself on a rocky roadside surrounded by scrub vegetation. He looks around daze and finds himself in a veritable warzone: Old cannons and armor melded into monstrous shapes and proportions. He wanders around aimlessly for a bit, nearly getting eaten by a thorny dark-green monstrosity he compares to Audrey II. The plant's vines pursue him into a dying forest, where he falls in with a band of six-foot tall turtle-like monsters that save him from the plant. Despite their imposing looks he decides to stick with them for now, even though his wrench and crowbar would'nt do much against their natural armor.
Luigi, meanwhile awakes at a lakeside. Behind him is a runoff drain emptying into the lake from a deserted factory-looking building. He decides to explore the place, and comes across a quadropedal creature that resembles a dog with an rough and bumpy oblong shell covering its entire body. Then he notices a fang-filled mouth on the "shell." He takes some hits at it with a piece of piping and finds that the "shell" is really more like a mushroom cap. A vine from under the shell-cap knocks the pipe away. As it is about to pounce, something leaps up from behind and sinks its teeth into the creature. Luigi watches awestruck as it wrestles with the goomba. Suddenly another of the dinosaur-like creatures appears and pounces on the goomba. In no time the goomba is dead and the dinosaurs feasting. Luigi backs away nervously and bumps into something--a larger relative of the dinosaur-like creatures! It vaguely resembles a T-rex, with a more rounded head and softer, almost newt-like skin that is a dark shade of forest green. It stands nine feet tall and is bipedal, with sandstone-colored claws on its foot that merge together to form a "shoe" or "toe." He is taken to their communal nest and learns of their plight as slave labor for the Koopa war-makers. Luigi decides to aide in the liberation of the Yoshis to prevent the monstrous Koopas from despoiling the beautiful Dinosaur Island.
Going back to Mario, we find him still slightly dazed as the turtle-like creatures (Koopas) lay waste to a camp of strange humanoid figures wearing what Mario thinks are "funky sombreros." In the aftermath of their attack, he finds a portrait of a women and is instantly snapped back to reality: she looks just like his Pauline! Inquiring as to who she is, one of the Koopas replies Peach Toadstool, Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario nods and goes along with the Koopas, gathering that for some reason they seek her capture. He comes to believe that he is here and has been given a second chance of sorts. Thus, he flees from the Koopas that found him and runs into a band of the "funky sombrero-wearing men" only to find that they aren't men at all. Wiry and limber and standing at six feet, their skin is gray-white and their faces entirely smooth, with a pair of large, slightly unnerving reflective black eyes that are impossible to read. Their "sombreros" are actually mushroom caps which contain a number of different pollens: a weaponizable type that they coat their spears, arrows, and blades with, a reproductive type emitted only when stimulated by a certain song, and a healing type that deploys as needed.
Thus the Brothers Mario set off on their quest in the Kingdom with very different objectives: Mario wishes to rescue this Princess that resembles his dead fiance and Luigi wishes to reunite with his brother.
The Characters:
Bowser Koopa: Once a member of the peaceful order of Magikoopas, he entered the trance all koopas must before attaining the title of Magikoopa. Rather than just hear the voice of Wart, he was taken to Subcon, the Koopa equivalent of Heaven and saw Wart in person. Returning from Subcon, Bowser's body had undergone a considerable change into the current videogame design. For too long had the Toads held the lands of Koopas, who they kept as slaves for countless years. It was time for freedom! Thus Bowser rallied the various Koopa Clans and won them to his cause with his sharp tongue and idealistic speeches. When Mario and Luigi arrive, the Koopas have thrown off their chains as slaves and returned from the Koopa Kingdom armed and ready for combat. They're currently in the process of establishing an alliance with the savage goomba species.
Goombas: They're slightly inferior to the Toads, as an ape would be to a human. They possess some manner of communication and intelligence, though when angered they go into blind rage. They've evolved in a variety of ways to suit their ecological needs. It is rumored that an Elder Goomba lives deep in Dinosaur Island, though no one has every come back alive to confirm its existence. Their hive-mind mentality is the main argument for the existence of an Elder Goomba.
Koopas: Turtle-like creatures that kind of resemble Tokka from TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze. They're intelligent and excellent strategists who have an industrious culture, thanks to their years as slaves to the Toads. Their Kingdom is rich in ore and minerals, making it a veritable weapons dump waiting to be exploited. They have a very gentle nature that is twisted with Bowser's rise to power.
Yoshis: Bipedal T-Rex-like dinosaurs that inhabit Dinosaur Island. They are ominvorous and easily dommesticated if raised from the egg. They are rarely seen in civilization, often as pets of nobles who can afford the price a hunter would charge in exchange for a Yoshi egg. In the wild, Yoshis are fiercely territorial though their intelligence is near that of a human's. Recent findings have shown them capable of fashioning extremely crude tools.
Toads: Asexual beings that inhabit the Mushroom Kingdom, the Toads stand anywhere from five to six and a half feet. Their skin is usually grayish-white, though some carry a light sandstone color. Peaceful and artistic, they take pride in their advanced civilization and skills with the pollen their mushroom caps produce. Strangely, their Princess isn't a Toad at all.
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