On October 6th, 2022, the first trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released. The trailer gives us our first look at how some of the main characters look and sound. This trailer also calmed some people’s worries about the level of quality being put into the movie. But what did it go over specifically, and how does it live up to the full year we’ve been waiting to hear more news?
In September of 2021, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was first announced. At the time, there were no clues as to what the movie would look like, and we didn’t even know what it would officially be called at the time. What we did know, however, was the cast. Most of the mixed reactions seemed to come from the fact that Chris Pratt was voicing the popular plumber. The casting that people were happiest with seemed to be Jack Black as Bowser, with many people saying that he fit the role well. Alongside this initial announcement, Nintendo attached a holiday 2022 release date to the movie that, unfortunately, didn’t pan out. We would not get any more major news until more than a year later.
On October 4th of 2022, a new movie poster was revealed along with the announcement of the movie’s first teaser trailer, which would be shown through a Nintendo Direct presentation on October 6th. Many were excited to see what the trailer could offer, fervently hoping that the movie would be good.
The trailer, though short, showed off a lot of new information, much of which has received a lot of praise throughout the internet. First, it showed off the voices of some well-known characters including Bowser, Kamek, Toad, and Mario himself. People loved most of these voices, particularly Jack Black’s Bowser, as his performance seems to breathe new life into the character. However, some aren’t so appreciative of the way that Chris Pratt voices Mario. Many people say that he isn’t putting in the effort to sound like the titular plumber at all, but that it’s too similar to how he sounds just talking normally. Others disagree, stating that an overdone Mario impression might get hard to listen to during the course of a full movie, commenting that the slight Brooklyn accent makes more sense for the character. The internet is divided on this issue, and it seems no definitive conclusion will be made until we hear more of Mario’s dialogue in the movie.
This trailer also gave us our first actual look at the aesthetics of the movie. Upon hearing that Illumination would be the ones to animate this movie, many were hesitant about whether it would look good, given the hatred that the studio has amassed over the years. However, many of these worries were relieved upon seeing how incredible the poster looked, and upon seeing the fantastic animation that was shown off in the teaser trailer. The movie blends together a style of cartoonish realism, where it’s just real enough to look visually appealing, yet not enough to where the characters look unsettling.
The movie has been slated to release on April 7th of 2023, so it remains to be seen whether or not this film will live up to the hype it’s created.
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