History Film / SuperMarioBros1993

In 1993, Lightmotive, Creator/CinergiPictures, and Creator/{{Disney}} (under the Creator/HollywoodPictures label) made a LiveActionAdaptation out of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros''. That's right, an attempt was actually made to make a coherent narrative out of plumbers, killer turtles, and mushrooms -- and it did so by reimagining the franchise in a {{cyberpunk}} fashion.

* RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain: In the manga adaptation of the movie this is the only sure way to kill Koopa, as he regenerates from damage otherwise.

In 1993, Lightmotive and Creator/{{Disney}} (under the Creator/HollywoodPictures label) made a LiveActionAdaptation out of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros''. That's right, an attempt was actually made to make a coherent narrative out of plumbers, killer turtles, and mushrooms -- and it did so by reimagining the franchise in a {{cyberpunk}} fashion.

-->-- '''Opening narration'''

Mario Mario (Creator/BobHoskins) and his younger brother Luigi Mario (Creator/JohnLeguizamo) are Italian-American plumbers trying hard to earn a living in Brooklyn. A run-in with Daisy (Creator/SamanthaMathis), a paleontology student in her 20s, has Luigi very interested and the two quickly bond. However, all their lives are turned upside-down when Daisy, as well as Mario's girlfriend Daniella (Dana Kaminski), are kidnapped and taken through a mysterious portal in Daisy's dig site after it's sabotaged by rival plumbers from the Scapelli corporation, which is looking to build there.

This film is notable for two major firsts. The big one is that it was the first ever full-length, theatrical, live-action motion picture to be based on a video game, though it is ''not'' the first feature-length theatrical production based on a video game in general; that title is a tie between the obscure 1986 Japanese animated film ''Anime/TheGreatMissionToSavePrincessPeach'', which was also a Mario movie adaptation, and an animated ''VideoGame/StarSoldier'' film released the same day. The other groundbreaker is that the movie was the first to be edited with computer software, utilizing a digital intermediate and a beta version of Autodesk Flame that allowed the filmmakers to composite over 700 shots of complex effects, surpassing the capabilities of earlier optical counterparts. The results would be cited as pivotal in the film industry's transition from practical effects to CGI, alongside the similarly dinosaur-themed ''Film/JurassicPark'' the following month.

* BaitAndSwitch: The movie opens with the iconic overworld theme from the original, but then shows pixelated scenes very different from the games' art style before moving into live-action.

* AdaptationalBadass: The Marios are drawn less like 1990s Creator/BobHoskins and Creator/JohnLeguizamo, and more like badass 2010s action heroes.

* TerminalTransformation: [[BigBad President Koopa]]'s [[DevolutionDevice Devo Gun]] can devolve a sentient being into a more primitive stage of its evolutionary history (from a human to a chimp for example). [[spoiler: During the climax, though, President Koopa gets blasted with the Devo Gun, at first devolving him into a T-Rex and [[LastSecondVillainRecovery seemingly making him an even bigger threat]]... up until Mario and Luigi blast Koopa with two Devo Guns at full power, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard he melts into green slime that splatters across the street, effectively killing him]].]]

* MisplacedWildlife: The animated prologue shows ''Triceratops'' and an unidentified sauropod (likely ''Alamosaurus'') living on Manhattan Island during the late Cretaceous period. Both dinosaurs are only known from the western side of North America, which would've been separated from New York by an inland sea at the time.

* OffTheShelfFX: The de-evolution guns are Super Scopes (the SNES' light gun) painted black. This actually works pretty well, considering the Super Scope's sci-fi design.