Artists Statement:
The tale of Mario is essential both through a historical and a storytelling perspective. Historically speaking, Super Mario Bros. started the modern era of video games by popularizing the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), a console available at home rather than at an arcade. In fact, the NES was so popular it has gained the credit for revitalizing the US Video game industry from the video game crash of 1983, a recession in which the revenue for video games dropped from $3.2 billion in 1983 to $100 million by 1985. Building further on this point, our screenplay used montages of Mario traveling throughout the world as a metaphor for Nintendo expanding throughout the world due to the success of Super Mario Bros. Viewing at the world today, it is possible to see the popularity of video games, and how its influences has spanned across many countries, which, in a sense, has allowed for a unification of media interests throughout the world. We depicted this in our screenplay with the clash of two languages, Japanese and English. Now, with the cultures more closely intertwined through the media has encouraged the use and collaboration through both languages.
From a storytelling perspective, Mario is significant because it once again shows how stories can be retold, and still be successful. Although Mario does not compare to the skillful levels of the Shakespeare or Homer, Mario utilizes a similar method in which a writer retells and recycles a story, and it works. Mario always saves Princess Peach, the damsel in distress. Society tends to like that. In a similar way, we also decided to use the damsel in distress plot. However, we can view our work as a modernist and feminist critique of the concept of damsel in distress. We originally unintentionally included Peach as the only female character in our screenplay. Once we realized what we had done, we decided to keep it that way because it shows how we, as male writers and members of a patriarchal society, tend neglect female empowerment in the media. As the aforementioned paragraph stated, media occupies a large role in influencing society today. Thus, society identifies gender roles through with the damsel in distress plotline found in popular mediums such as video games.
After sharing our script with others we were able to receive some feedback and ideas on how to improve it. We added a scene to make it more clear on how and why Peach was kidnapped by Bowser’s spies. We also added more struggle to Mario’s journey chasing Bowser which heightened the stakes. By adding more conflict to the story we hope that the audience will feel more involved and want to know what will happen next. Other feedback that we received was to not to explain so much of the little details and symbolisms that it doesn’t leave room for the director to do the interpreting for the film, which is an important part of filmmaking.
To research for the writing of this historical film we had the diverting task of researching about Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. This included, but was not limited to, playing the game for a little while. Seeing the levels inside the game gave us ideas on how we could find similar landscapes in our real live world. We thought of how we could symbolize the enemies of the game to real life obstacles. We also did our best to study the dialogue that each of the characters uses in the game and then incorporate it into our script. The final level of the game is a lava level in which Mario battles Bowser. Coincidently the same year Super Mario Bro’s was released(1985) there was a volcano eruption in Columbia that tragically killed many people. We decided to stage the final battle scene between Mario and Bowser right in the middle of this historical event.
This screenplay, when combined with the artists’ statement, acts as a self-reflection, critique, and awareness of our familiarity with the damsel in distress plotline. Thus, our screenplay acts as an examination of history and its impacts on society, which constructs our perception, not only on a historical event, but also on our perception of ideology, and how it affects our values and cultures. We had a lot of fun writing this script because we felt nostalgic to the story and we both would love to see it be made into a film one day.
From a storytelling perspective, Mario is significant because it once again shows how stories can be retold, and still be successful. Although Mario does not compare to the skillful levels of the Shakespeare or Homer, Mario utilizes a similar method in which a writer retells and recycles a story, and it works. Mario always saves Princess Peach, the damsel in distress. Society tends to like that. In a similar way, we also decided to use the damsel in distress plot. However, we can view our work as a modernist and feminist critique of the concept of damsel in distress. We originally unintentionally included Peach as the only female character in our screenplay. Once we realized what we had done, we decided to keep it that way because it shows how we, as male writers and members of a patriarchal society, tend neglect female empowerment in the media. As the aforementioned paragraph stated, media occupies a large role in influencing society today. Thus, society identifies gender roles through with the damsel in distress plotline found in popular mediums such as video games.
After sharing our script with others we were able to receive some feedback and ideas on how to improve it. We added a scene to make it more clear on how and why Peach was kidnapped by Bowser’s spies. We also added more struggle to Mario’s journey chasing Bowser which heightened the stakes. By adding more conflict to the story we hope that the audience will feel more involved and want to know what will happen next. Other feedback that we received was to not to explain so much of the little details and symbolisms that it doesn’t leave room for the director to do the interpreting for the film, which is an important part of filmmaking.
To research for the writing of this historical film we had the diverting task of researching about Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. This included, but was not limited to, playing the game for a little while. Seeing the levels inside the game gave us ideas on how we could find similar landscapes in our real live world. We thought of how we could symbolize the enemies of the game to real life obstacles. We also did our best to study the dialogue that each of the characters uses in the game and then incorporate it into our script. The final level of the game is a lava level in which Mario battles Bowser. Coincidently the same year Super Mario Bro’s was released(1985) there was a volcano eruption in Columbia that tragically killed many people. We decided to stage the final battle scene between Mario and Bowser right in the middle of this historical event.
This screenplay, when combined with the artists’ statement, acts as a self-reflection, critique, and awareness of our familiarity with the damsel in distress plotline. Thus, our screenplay acts as an examination of history and its impacts on society, which constructs our perception, not only on a historical event, but also on our perception of ideology, and how it affects our values and cultures. We had a lot of fun writing this script because we felt nostalgic to the story and we both would love to see it be made into a film one day.
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