Super Mario Bros. Movie - New Extended "Rough Cut" Restores 20 Minutes of Cut Footage

[koifish | 555]

Didn't see any threads about this news. The general story is that a group dedicated to the 1993 Super Mario Bros. Movie came into possession of an original tape containing additional footage which was left on the cutting room floor. They turned to a known film restoration expert, who in turn worked to create a cleaned up restoration of the footage on said tape. The new footage was then recut back into the home release, in this case using standard-definition releases (VHS and DVD), essentially restoring 20 minutes of cut footage from the final version. The group has released this restored cut for public viewing on archive.org, under the name of "Super Mario Bros Movie The Morton Jankel Rough Cut" as a tribute to the two directors, who apparently suffered some duress in post-production due to executive meddling.

I finished watching the restored version myself (you can stream it from the website) and I found myself somewhat impressed. My last viewing of the original release was quite a while ago, and I haven't had a chance now to watch the original release since watching the rough cut. All of that said, my memories of the original movie were of a very rapid, jumbled, and disjointed movie, that couldn't really figure out what it was trying to be. That was especially true with how it seemed as if plot details simply disappeared or came up with no justification.

I won't spoil the movie to anyone planning to see the rough cut for themselves, but I will say that in my perspective, the restored footage really answers a lot of open questions. I found that things which I remembered as coming from out of left field were now much better set up, and that some things that felt totally pointless in the original release now had a clearer purpose and intention.

Curious if any of you have seen this new version of the film, and if you've gone back and compared it to the theatrical release. Let us know what you thought of it!

 

[Gloves | 11,776]

Love this. Downloading.

[koifish | 555]

Sounds good, I'll be interested to hear what you think. Maybe sometime we could even have a group stream night of it on VGS!

[MegaMan52 | 2,442]

Watched the whole thing. I've already watched several of the deleted scenes on YouTube, but seeing them included in the movie makes me hopeful for an American Blu-Ray release that includes both the Theatrical and Extended versions.

I like that the Pipe sound effect from the games is included in that scene where Mario and the Brooklyn girls go down that pipe on a Mattress, and that there is an orchestra of both the SMB theme and level complete music after Mario and Luigi beat Koopa/Bowser. For over a decade now, I hoped that more music and some sound effects from the games would be included in the movie and it's finally happened. Hopefully a Blu-Ray release with these additions can also happen someday.

Edited June 12, 2021 by MegaMan52

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I heard about it, followed it to the archive but stopped there.  I was kind of hoping to hear it actually made sense before I bothered.

 

That said I never hated the movie, just hated they went too off the known details of the franchise at that point, but took it for what it was and enjoyed it enough.  I do vaguely remember what was said earlier, a bit of here and then there, stuff that just happen and you're like how or why.  If that's true the directors got screwed and forced by meddling suit losers to cut out vital plot and subplot points, sounds, etc for whatever brainless stooge reasoning they had, and this restores the original intent one could gather from these cuts...then great, the film must have easily been largely improved.  20minutes is no joke considering the run time so it would fill in a lot of gaps.

[koifish | 555]

14 hours ago, MegaMan52 said:

Watched the whole thing. I've already watched several of the deleted scenes on YouTube, but seeing them included in the movie makes me hopeful for an American Blu-Ray release that includes both the Theatrical and Extended versions.

I like that the Pipe sound effect from the games is included in that scene where Mario and the Brooklyn girls go down that pipe on a Mattress, and that there is an orchestra of both the SMB theme and level complete music after Mario and Luigi beat Koopa/Bowser. For over a decade now, I hoped that more music and some sound effects from the games would be included in the movie and it's finally happened. Hopefully a Blu-Ray release with these additions can also happen someday.

I enjoyed that too, and agreed, extended release would be cool. Who knows if it could happen though; Maybe for the 30th anniversary in two years? (Hopefully they wouldn't kibosh it for the new Super Mario movie coming out soon)

@Tanooki

I went ahead and copied a portion of the summary from the release page, which gives some insights into how the filming/production was altered by outside influences. In fairness, I will point out that this is text which was provided by the video uploaders, and I do not know if it has any input from the "other side" of the story, that being those calling the shots for production changes, or people who may be getting thrown under the bus in this summary. That said, it is my personal feeling that the restored cut speaks for itself as to the effects of outside involvement:

 

"The film was directed by the husband-and-wife team of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (Max Headroom), written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures through Hollywood Pictures. Its story follows the Mario brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) in their quest to rescue Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) from a dystopic parallel universe ruled by the ruthless President Koopa (Dennis Hopper).

 

Several weeks before shooting was to begin, Disney purchased the distribution rights to the film and demanded significant rewrites. Morton said the final result was a script that was not at all like the darker cyberpunk script that he, Jankel, and the cast had signed on to film, and that the tone of the new script was not at all compatible with the sets, which had already been built. Leguizamo said, "It's eight-year-olds who play the game and that's where the movie needed to be aimed ... But [the directors] kept trying to insert new material. They shot scenes with strippers and with other sexually-explicit content, which all got edited out anyway."

 

Morton said, "I was locked out of the editing room ... I had to get the DGA to come and help me get back into the editing room. I tried to get the editor to cut it digitally, but they refused. They wanted to edit on Moviola and Steenbeck machines, so the process was laboriously slow, which didn't help us get the special effect cut in on time."

 

Conceived as a dystopic cyberpunk fantasy (and probably aimed at teenagers), the final film is aimed at younger audiences, which gives it something of an identity crisis. The film remains controversial. The earlier workprint edit, unseen until now, is slower paced with many small extensions which bring back some necessary context to many scenes. There is also some borderline adult content, like the dancers in the Boom Boom bar, some language and a little more political satire. It will remain controversial whether this should have been part of a kids' film."

 

 

That's one other thing I may bring up; While I'm all for movies which have multiple layers to appreciate (so that adults aren't bored out of their minds by kid's TV and that older kids don't feel talked down to), there were perhaps some interesting intentions visible from what was edited out.

 

The one thing I will definitely agree with is that the pacing really improved. As stated earlier, it went up 20 minutes, or from 104 to 125 minutes. A 20% increase to the film length really made a big difference in how the flick felt as you watched it. Didn't feel like you were being rushed through the story, for one thing.

 

 

Not to drag on, but one other thing I never realized before was that the prison blocks being small cube-shaped cages were probably a reference to the NES SMB manual saying that koopa kidnapped the toads of the mushroom kingdom and turned them into blocks. Maybe I'm just reading too far into it however.

 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I'm getting excited to re-watch this. Hopefully I got a frozen pizza in the freezer, if so, I'll try to watch this tomorrow evening.