The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) - film and score (Brian Tyler)

[Faleel 5,349]

 

[Tydirium 1,167]

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/the-super-mario-bros-movie-shigeru-miyamoto-koji-kondo-nintendo-interview-easter-eggs-1234706449/

[Tydirium 1,167]

Jon Broxton’s review is up:

 

https://moviemusicuk.us/2023/04/12/the-super-mario-bros-movie-brian-tyler/

[Tydirium 1,167]

4 stars from Clemmensen:

 

https://www.filmtracks.com/titles/super_mario_movie.html

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

It’s very loud.

[mstrox 6,651]

Lol Christian rules

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the 2023 endeavor conjured mediocre critical reviews but amassed huge box office returns, proving again that nostalgia sells, even if propelled by idiocy.

 

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

Does he though? This is a bizarre line from the review:

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With the movie pounding towards a billion dollars in grosses, one has to imagine that its pornographic parodies will emerge before long, and they'll probably be equally intelligent

 

He seems to have a weird axe to grind about this film. I haven't seen it yet but the majority of critics I follow thought it was fine. Not great, and maybe not even good, but a not unpleasant way to spend 90 minutes. That's all the film really needed to be to be honest.

[Jay 37,364]

New video showcasing the references in the score

 

 

[Richard Penna 3,690]

Is Clemmenson not struggling a bit here by putting this under his negatives?

 

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bounces between countless, needle-dropped references to the game's music

 

He'd complain if Tyler did an entirely original score and didn't reference the games at all, or if he didn't compose any original material himself, so Tyler does a hybrid and.... he's still unhappy? I hate critics.

 

Does sound like a film where critics are up against audiences a bit. Looks like a fun movie to me.

[Edmilson 7,457]

This may be an impopular opinion, but I think good film music critics are in short supply. Clemmensen has a lot of knowledge, but he can be a bit of a prick. Broxton is good, but these days I find him to be "too easily pleased", like, he is too impressed with every moderately competent score. A recent example is Supercell, a passable orchestral score that, in his eyes, is comparable to the Williams/Horner/Goldsmith classics of the past. 

 

OTOH, JWFan is filled with people who can do a great analysis of film music! 

[Jay 37,364]

JWFan is better than everything

[Knight of Ren 789]

I'm resurrecting the thread to point out some thematic connections I found while revisiting the score that nobody else has seemingly commented as far as I know.

 

The first one is in the Opus track, at 1:06, which features a sort of emotional variation on Mario's theme but is not exactly the same, and it appears in a very similar style but slower in the second half of The Adventure Begins, at 2:33, acting as a sort of emotional variation on the theme specifically tied to the brothers' relationship. Also interesting to note is the piano section at 1:44 of the Opus, which as far as I can recall, it doesn't appear anywhere else in the rest of the score, so I don't really know what it means or what it could represent.

 

This latter track also presents a seemingly one-off melody that I realized pops up a couple of times more in the rest of the score. It's first heard at 1:21 of the track, in two complete statements, and it appears again in two other tracks. We hear it in a more energetic and lively arrangement at the beginning of Buckle Up, and then turns tragic at 0:17 of Blue Shelled. I think it's a sort of Journey / Adventure theme, but it's few uses don't really help in clarifying it.

 

 

And a similar thing happens with the next idea, which seems to also be related to the Journey / Adventure theme, sometimes playing after it, but other times playing totally separate from it. In Buckle Up, it can be heard at 0:08 right after the Journey / Adventure theme, and again at 0:31 in a more dramatic arrangement, and it only appears once again in one track in the score, but it's an important one, as it plays in The Super Mario Brothers, right after they have defeated Bowser, at 0:42. I thought it was just a nice melody that gets repeated twice without a clear purpose, but then I discovered it appears in one of the suite tracks, 2 Player Game, which serves as a suite for the three main themes, with this idea appearing twice at 1:04 and at 4:21. I don't know what it really means, but it's clear that is a separate idea from the other themes.

 

 

Perhaps some of these ideas are meant to be expanded in the sequel, in case it's scored by Tyler, and they're just hints of a bigger theme with a clearer purpose. Something similar happens with the brief melody that appears in the track Bonus Level, which corresponds to the end credits scene where a character is revealed, so perhaps it's a theme for that character in the sequel?

 

Anyway, just some details I found while listening to the score again, which so far is one of my favorites of 2023, and I think it will remain at least in a top 10 by the end of the year. Any thoughts on these themes and what they might represent?

[Bespin 8,483]

I watched this movie yesterday, mainly because the score was praised. I recognized all the classic themes; the composer did a good job of hinting at them here and there.

 

And, well, I got caught in a sort of nostalgia because I liked it. It was fun, and I anticipated many of the 'super powers' effects, as I've played several of the video games where Mario is involved (since the original Donkey Kong game!).

 

I'd rate it 9/10 for Nostalgia!

[Tallguy 3,392]

I have nearly 0 nostalgia for Mario. For me it's Donkey Kong / Donkey Kong Jr. / Mario Bros. and then ---> Playing Mario Kart with my children.

 

And I thought this was a hoot.

[Jay 37,364]

Nintendo & Illumination announced a sequel to this over the weekend, and it already has a release date of April 3rd 2026

 

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/new-animated-super-mario-bros-world-movie-nintendo-illumination-release-date-1235936648/