Super Mario Bros. Wonder's enhanced animations were driven by the Mario movie's success
Star of the small and big screen
Many thought The Super Mario Bros. Movie would be a big hit at theaters, and those people were correct. The thing is, the film ended up being a far bigger success than pretty much anyone dreamed, blowing away even the most sky-high expectations. That landed the film as one of the year’s highest-grossing releases, and one of animated cinema’s biggest titles of all-time.
Following that film’s hit status with a new Mario game was a no-brainer, as anyone could see that Nintendo would want to cash in on Mario’s latest wave of popularity with a fresh adventure. That led us to the reveal of Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which has obviously been in the works for quite some time. That said, some might be surprised to learn just how much influence The Super Mario Bros. Movie had on Mario’s next game.
In an interview with NPR, Nintendo’s Takahashi Tezuka commented on a number of things in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, including the game’s unique animations. Plenty have marveled at the new animations and personality Mario and the entire cast display when running about, and that didn’t come about by accident. We now know that the expanded personality in the animation department not only upped dev costs, but it was directly influenced by Mario’s hit movie.
“Traditionally, our development costs have gone into the gameplay experience itself. Of course that’s absolutely essential. But this time we really wanted to pour some of that into the animations. People who are coming from the Mario movie are going to see that and think ‘this is what Mario does, this is how Mario moves,’ and we wanted them to experience something similar to that.”
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vinlauria
7M agoHuh, I wonder if that does indeed mean they took a few notes from movie Peach for her updated look in Showtime.
I wonder if that means we're heading into a new visual era. For a while the big aesthetic delineator was Luigi's Mansion 1, as Mario's modern aesthetic largely started with that game (I wouldn't say GameCube as a whole because Melee still used their N64-era looks, just at higher fidelity). There was also a slight refresh of the series' aesthetic post-Odyssey, though mainly in their promo render models (see the difference between the NSMBU and NSMBUD renders). I guess now there's going to be pre-movie and post-movie?
Super Mario Odyssey also had great animations that were lively and so were many others.
The movie hardly does anything that makes the animations look lively. Infact the squash is just the typical illumination films.
As for Showtime, Kirby was a victim for changing the box art to appeal to the western audience. This same thing applies here because its Peach and the idea of playing as a female that isn't strong may not appeal to all the ages so they made those changes. All the other art remains the same.
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