It’s-a-weird, Mario: Pratt’s vocal performance distracts from movie trailer
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I appreciate Kyle's take here, and it matters because Nintendo and Illumination had options for how to introduce arguably the biggest splash yet for the world's most recognizable fictional character. Only like two lines? Really, y'all? Kyle's child is absolutely not the exception to how an avg kid will react to this.
Still, my trailer-based optimism comes from everything that the 2:30 video did *not* do to match usual Illumination style, particularly in terms of sloppy, gross-out physical comedy. Jack Black sounded like he was projecting a distinct personality onto Bowser, and Keegan-Michael Key's effort and performance shone in an incredibly brief moment. (I'm ready for Nintendo's awwwwwwful Toad voice actor to be retired after this film launches.) As one Ars commenter already pointed out, this seems like at worst a tolerable family film and at best possibly one that parents might actually like taking their kids to see. For my money, it just has to be better than Sonic 1.
Still, my trailer-based optimism comes from everything that the 2:30 video did *not* do to match usual Illumination style, particularly in terms of sloppy, gross-out physical comedy. Jack Black sounded like he was projecting a distinct personality onto Bowser, and Keegan-Michael Key's effort and performance shone in an incredibly brief moment. (I'm ready for Nintendo's awwwwwwful Toad voice actor to be retired after this film launches.) As one Ars commenter already pointed out, this seems like at worst a tolerable family film and at best possibly one that parents might actually like taking their kids to see. For my money, it just has to be better than Sonic 1.
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Honestly I wouldn't care as much, but there was such an uproar over the casting, and Pratt coming out and saying it was going to be unlike anything we've heard, and to be super excited for it, and then for it to just be his absolutely normal voice? It's so funny it's sad.
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It seems everyone forgets Charles Martinet can tone it down. He's a professional voice actor and could do a more mild Mario voice with the occasional excited outburst of classic Mario. But he doesn't have the pull of a current Hollywood actor so that's my guess why it ended up with Chris Pratt.
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RE: Linda Belcher... I literally cannot unhear her voice in the original trailer now that it's been pointed out.
https://twitter.com/DavidToons_/status/1578353380363501568
https://twitter.com/DavidToons_/status/1578353380363501568
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As much as I'm generally a Chris Pratt fan... Mario definitely sounds weird. Hopefully once the movie gets going you'll kind of forget and it won't be so jarring.
I did however love seeing that the penguins are there.
I have pretty high hopes for this movie. Fingers crossed.
I did however love seeing that the penguins are there.
I have pretty high hopes for this movie. Fingers crossed.
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Why even have these celebrities voice these roles? Personally I don't understand the appeal of following a certain actor, I almost would rather every movie use fairly unknown people so I can see the character as someone within the movie. But I get that isn't the case for most blockbuster movies.
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I don't know, seems fine enough for a light hearted kids movie. I don't think we need 90 minutes of squeaky quasi-Italian inflection
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I completely agree. I think it is an unfortunately side-effect of our celebrity-obsesses culture. Just having a famous name slapped on the poster or commercial fills seats at the theater and drives sales.
I would absolutely love it if we stopped using so many (non-trained-voice-actor) celebs and instead let trained voice actors reprise the roles. Especially when most animated films are already done by studios whose reputation itself is what usually gets me to see the movie.
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It's a Mario movie. Why do you need the pull of a Hollywood actor for it to work? Tons of people know who Mario is and like Mario.
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Obviously it doesn't sound like traditional Mario but i didn't really think it sounded like Chris Pratt either. You can hear he does put a bit of something on it and for the length of a movie it'll probably be fine.
I also thought Bowser's voice fit nicely, although I can definitely hear Jack Black's normal voice slip through at times.
I also thought Bowser's voice fit nicely, although I can definitely hear Jack Black's normal voice slip through at times.
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Name recognition puts butts in seats. At least, as far as traditional wisdom goes.
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Because video game adaptations don't have a great record. Especially Mario in particular.
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It's like any movie with Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks always just sounds like Tom Hanks, but he still gets into the character and once you get into the movie you follow him into the illusion in very short order
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Yeah, I was hoping to hear something a bit more like Mario's voice from the Super Mario Super Show from decades past. Sometimes I think people forget that Martinet wasn't the only existing interpretation of Mario's voice.
I'm not too put off by Pratt though.
https://youtu.be/nKqFEV9rA1U?t=317
I'm not too put off by Pratt though.
https://youtu.be/nKqFEV9rA1U?t=317
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The Italian dub for Mario sounds so much better!
I think everything from the trailer was surprisingly good, except for Mario - he looks wrong, the animation looked wrong, and his voice was underwhelming normal.
I think everything from the trailer was surprisingly good, except for Mario - he looks wrong, the animation looked wrong, and his voice was underwhelming normal.
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We have heard 5s. I think its fine. I as pleased it isn't an "Itss a Me a Mario" style performance. That would be annoying.
Pretty sure it won't bother any children. Movie looks fun. Jack Blacks voice work seems top notch. This one is going to make some bank assuming the movie lives up to the first teaser.
Pretty sure it won't bother any children. Movie looks fun. Jack Blacks voice work seems top notch. This one is going to make some bank assuming the movie lives up to the first teaser.
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The fact it was only a handful of lines and one was whispered is actually why I'm trying *not* to judge. It isn't necessarily representative.
But agreed - I actually liked what we saw. Gorgeous visually, no already dated pop culture references, and I actually laughed at both the penguin attack and Toad's appearance. They at least didn't screw up the easy things.
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My impression is that studio heads look at previous animated movies that did well, realize they had celebrity voice casts, and assume that THEY also needs celebrity names to get parent butts in seats. Whether that correlation is causation or not, execs seem to THINK it is, so here we are.
Arguably goes back to Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in Toy Story.
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Out of all the things that could have gone wrong in the trailer, my only real issue is the choice of Chris Pratt for Mario. Everything else was spot on but they failed at the one thing that should have been an easy win.
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Depends... are you going to say the 1993 movie was underrated or are you going to be correct?
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Pratt aside, it's unfortunate, though understandable, that big name actors are used instead of voice actors. So much incredible talent out there in voice acting but instead we just get someone just doing their normal voice.
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Nope, still time to get someone better to redo it. Also, I agree Mario should have some curves.
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Yeah, I mention this in the piece. And I do think giving Martinet a major movie role would be a good reward for his stewardship of this character.
That said, I'm not sure asking him to "tone it down" for an entire movie would lead to the best results either. Being good at enthusiastic 2-second voice snippets and being able to do a whole movie with complex dialogue are very different things, and Martinet has only proven his ability to do the former...
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Question for Sam and Kyle... If you had to choose between "very" and "extremely", how disappointed are you that Toad doesn't sound like Sunshine Toad?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwVkXVHIqg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDwVkXVHIqg
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Of the many, many problems with the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie (my love for that movie doesn't excuse how bad it is, I just like bad movies sometimes)... Bob Hoskins' voice wasn't one of them.
His voice was great, absolutely what I would have wanted from a grittier, live-action Mario. It's a shame the rest of the movie was such an off the rails disaster.
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Reminds me of trying to overdub Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice using Mel Gibson's from Mad Max.
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His /voice/ was fine, but his performance (and general casting) was... questionable.
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Funnily enough, I frequently see posts on my Twitter feed of people just now realizing the genius of Mel Blanc's voice acting. There's a lot of people waking up to the fact that voice acting is indeed an art worth appreciating, but the way things are going with animated films and the looming wave of artificially synthesized voices, things are only going to get worse for VAs as time goes on.
Hell, I've had random people, apropos of nothing, tell me I should try my hand at voice acting, but that's mostly because I normally sound like a radio host. I don't have nearly the range required to actually make it anywhere.
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That's a fair assessment. I'm still disappointed in their choice though. Even though it's just a movie it pulls my nostalgia and gets me too emotionally involved.
I really want to hear how the French dub version sounds with more dialogue though.
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Mario's voice could only sound weird when compared to the games where he almost never speaks in any sustained way. They clearly cast Pratt because he has the current "generic leading man" voice and would move tickets.
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Given how much of a trainwreck that movie was behind the scenes, can you really blame him if his performance wasn't his best work?
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Video game adaptations have traditionally had a horrible rep, true. But I think recent hits like Detective Pikachu and the Sonics are changing that perception somewhat among studios and younger audiences. It's been 30 years since Bob Hoskins Mario, after all...
More to the point, I think when a studio exec looks at "Super Mario movie" vs. "Super Mario movie but also with big celebrity voice cast" and tries to determine which one they'd rather fund/market, they'll always pick the latter.
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