It’s been nearly an entire year since Nintendo announced during a financial briefing that Illumination – the studio behind the Despicable Me films – is working on a Super Mario movie with Shigeru Miyamoto.
Since then, there’s been absolutely nothing. No casting news, no release date, not even a plot. Well, yer man Scullion can at least help with the last of those.
Here’s a hefty helping of potential plots for the Super Mario movie. And yes, all of them are deadly serious and must happen.
Warning: this article isn’t suitable for kids. Like I say, some of these plots are deadly serious.
1. Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser! Mario has to go and rescue her, accompanied by his brother Luigi. Along the way they bump into all manner of wacky characters and get into numerous mirthsome japes.
2. Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser! Mario and Luigi head out to rescue her but by the time they get there she’s standing at the front gate of his castle because she was more than capable of rescuing herself, thank you very much. Mario says “mamma mia” and they all laugh.
3. Princess Peach has kidnapped Bowser! Mario tries to persuade her that two wrongs don’t make a right, but she makes it clear that she’s been kidnapped numerous times so it’s more like 50 or 60 wrongs. It’s up to Bowser Jr to rescue his dad, accompanied by the Koopa Kids. Along the way they bump into all manner of wacky characters and get into numerous mirthsome japes.
4. Princess Peach has kidnapped herself! Tired of Bowser constantly bungling efforts to capture her, Peach decides to prove it really isn’t that difficult by locking herself in a cage in a far away castle. Mario and Bowser decide to race each other to see who can reach her first, but when they get there Peach explains that this wasn’t really the point she was trying to make, and the film ends with an awkward silence.
5. Princess Daisy has been kidnapped by Donkey Kong! Mario finds out about it the next day while reading the Mushroom Kingdom Gazette. Later that evening he gets a phone call from Peach asking if he needs help rescuing Daisy, but he replies that he isn’t going to rescue her because he can’t be arsed and nobody really likes Daisy anyway. Peach realises she can’t be arsed either so the two head out for burgers at Five Shy Guys instead.
6. The Sprixie Princess has been kidnapped by Triclyde! Mario and Peach call a Mushroom Kingdom meeting to see if any of the residents can actually remember who they were. After two hours of discussion they remember the Sprixies were in Super Mario 3D World and Triclyde was a boss in Super Mario Bros 2, but then Toadsworth argues that Mario 2 took place in a dream and so Triclyde shouldn’t technically exist. Then Birdo says “so what the fuck am I doing here” and a black hole suddenly swallows everyone up.
7. Nobody has been kidnapped by anybody! Keen to change that, Bowser decides to bait potential kidnap victims by taking out an advert in the Mushroom Kingdom Gazette and pretending to sell his pimped-up kart at a stupidly low price. By sheer coincidence Peach is interested, but because she doesn’t have a driving licence yet Mario decides to go with her so he can drive her home if she buys it. When Bowser discovers who’s turned up to look at the kart, he realises he doesn’t want to get into another fight with Mario and so has to go along with the charade, reluctantly selling his beloved kart at a bargain price.
8. The ‘X has been kidnapped by Y’ plot structure has been kidnapped and hidden behind the fourth wall! Yer man Scullion decides it’s probably for the best and pledges to switch to a new plot structure from number 9 onwards.
9. The King of World 5 launches a referendum to see if his citizens think they should withdraw from the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom. The Toads vote in favour of this ‘Fexit’ scheme, and two years later World 5 leaves the MK. It quickly becomes clear that there are issues, however, when it turns out that Mario – who is an Italian immigrant – is no longer allowed to cross the border. Weeks later, Bowser attacks and, unchallenged, proceeds to wreck the joint.
10. As cleaners tidy the remains of the last Blockbuster Video store in America, one of them discovers a DVD copy of the Super Mario Bros movie and throws it in a nearby dumpster. It turns out this dumpster is actually a magical portal to the Mushroom Kingdom, so the DVD ends up falling from the sky and landing in Mario’s garden. After watching it, Mario is both confused that someone would make a story of his life and infuriated that it’s almost entirely bullshit. He finds the portal and prepares to travel to the real world to fight his case, but upon learning that Bob Hoskins is dead he decides not to take further legal action, so as not to upset his estate.
11. One of the Toads in Peach’s Castle refers to Toadsworth as ‘Jobsworth’ as a joke, but Toadsworth decides to challenge him on it, asking for examples of situations in which he’s exhibited jobsworth-like behaviour. When the Toad says he was only joking, Toadsworth pins him to the wall and explains that “maybe when you’ve experienced the extreme pressure of taking on a high profile role working in a castle that’s constantly attacked, then you can comment on my fucking job performance”. Peach makes him publicly apologise the following week.
12. While trying to phone a takeaway, Mario dials the wrong number and ends up calling Charles Martinet instead. After the pair chat for around 10 minutes, Mario hangs up and confesses to his friends that even he was getting annoyed at Martinet doing ‘the voice’ constantly. “I’m sure he’s a nice guy but that “wahoo” patter every 10 seconds really gets on my tits”, he tells everyone. “He doesn’t even sound anything like me.”
13. Rosalina writes a new storybook, but this time it’s about a little girl who joins Interpol to help bring down sex trafficking groups. It’s decided by the Comet Observatory’s management that perhaps Rosalina’s no longer a suitable candidate to read stories to the baby Lumas, so they immediately post a job listing looking for new library staff.
14. Luigi decides to overcome his shyness issues by signing up for a hypnosis session. The session works too well, and Luigi becomes massively overconfident as a result. One evening, while Mario and friends are out for a meal, Luigi stands up at the table and starts shouting abuse at Mario, calling him “Billy Big-Baws” and accusing him of always forcing his way into the spotlight. Affronted, Mario leaves the restaurant and the brothers never speak again.
15. Professor E Gadd invents a special helmet that he can put on Donkey Kong’s head to find out what he’s thinking. He unveils it at a presentation at Peach’s Castle, and places it on DK’s head. His first message is “trans rights OK”, at which point a small group of arseholes storms out of the cinema claiming that Miyamoto is an SJW and that the concept of acceptance of all people has ruined their lives. They aren’t missed.
16. All those years spent swallowing countless enemies finally take their toll and Yoshi’s stomach ruptures, leaving him critically ill. It’s up to Dr Mario to take a bunch of Mini Mushrooms and shrink himself down to microscopic size, then enter Yoshi’s body in an attempt to find and repair the tear. While in there Mario discovers that Yoshi also swallowed Bob Hoskins at some point in the past, so he takes some time out to chastise Hoskins for his performance in the Mario movie. Hoskins apologises for nothing, so when Mario repairs Yoshi’s injury and escapes, he leaves Hoskins there.
17. Link visits the Mushroom Kingdom because he’d heard the evil Ganondorf had passed through recently. He’s told that he was mistaken, but that while he’s here it would be great if he came on the Mushroom Kingdom’s most popular chat show to talk about his time as an adventurer. The idea is quickly found to be a flawed one when it emerges that Link can’t speak, resulting in the show’s lowest ratings ever and subsequent cancellation.
18. It’s the annual bake-off, and Peach is certain she’s going to win – like she does every year – with another of her enormous multi-tiered cakes. Annoyed at the likelihood that Peach will once again get the prize, Waluigi decides to protest by entering the competition and dumping a couple of Greggs vegan sausage rolls onto a plate. The judges are amazed by this innovative idea and an unsuspecting Waluigi wins, much to Peach’s disbelief. When her complaints to the judges start to get a little too aggressive, a pair of Hammer Brothers are summoned to escort her from the tent, and she’s dragged away screaming “shove your fucking sausage rolls, you purple wank” at the top of her lungs.
19. Chlamydia has spread throughout the Mushroom Kingdom! But who was the one who origina<ARTICLE ENDS>
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Hehehe… Thanks for the laughs! By the way, you should ask Nintendo to let you write the movie’s plot. Except for the first two obvious plots from your list most part of the remaining ones are probably much better than what the actual movie would ever be. That’s more than true if you consider the horrendous Bob Hoskins movie or the childish cartoon series from the late 80’s to early 90’s, although I still love the latter with all my heart.
This is brilliant.