It feels like it was only yesterday when Shigeru Miyamoto pulled the goomba rug out from under our collective gamer asses with the surprise announcement of the bizarre Hollywood cast of the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie. While the casting of Chris Pratt in the starring role horrified many, it served as the inspiration for one visual artist to reimagine the Mushroom Kingdom with its own Pratt-as-Mario running amok.
First spotted by Eurogamer, a YouTuber named Re-Imagined Games uploaded a video of the original Super Mario Bros. being remade using the Unreal Engine. To give the trailer a little bit of added validity, Re-Imagined Games used an AI voice bot mimicking the Honest Trailer voice-over guy, John Bailey, to narrate the trailer. If youâre wanting to know how Re-Imagined Games, um, reimagined Super Mario Bros. with Pratt, youâre in luck because their YouTube channelâs only other videos have a behind-the-scenes look into how it came into being. Nintendo, hire this guy indeed
As far as gameplay is concerned, Re-Imagined Games did a great job reimagining all the bells and whistles that make for a Super Mario Bros. game, albeit with the realistic textures of the Unreal Engine. Youâve got your hyper-realistic giant turtle goombas, your floating mystery boxes, shimmering coins, and the iconic pipe tunnels. The only thing missing is a chimera-esque monstrosity of Jack Blackâs body Animorphed into Bowser. Thank god he only exists in the trailer as a sentient yellow block.
Instead of cowering in fear like the rest of us normies, Re-Imagined Games said that they are excited about the upcoming animated film. In fact, the filmâs announcement was the impetus for the digital artist to learn how to make video games using Unreal Engine because they really wanted to see what it would look like if Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Keegan-Michael Key, and Jack Black were wandering about in a realistic Mushroom Kingdom. Respect.
âWith zero game development experience, Iâm learning unreal engine from scratch and picking up any other skills that I can along the way, in an effort to make this a legitimately great action game,â Re-Imagined Games said in the videoâs description.
If you werenât emotionally scarred from watching this fan-made trailer and think youâve got enough in the tank for a quick update on the state of the actual trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, prepare yourself. Iâll give you a second to recover though. No one should be subjected to that much Chris Pratt in one sitting. All right, that was long enough. Letâs keep it moving.
Read More: Somebody Tried To Warn Us About Chris Pratt As Mario In 2020
Those fearing the initially planned holiday release of the Super Mario Bros. movie were able to breathe a collective sigh of relief as, back in April, it wasdelayed to April 2023. However, the filmâs delay wonât stop the high probability of us hearing Chris Prattâs Mario voice utter a single word come the debut of its first official trailer next week at New York Comic Con.
Join us October 6th at 4pm ET for the teaser trailer premiere of Nintendo & Illuminationâs upcoming Super Mario Bros. film, releasing April 7, 2023. pic.twitter.com/1jEFnlvCnU
— New York Comic Con (@NY_Comic_Con) September 22, 2022
After the Super Mario Bros. casting announcement, a minority of fans jokingly commented on the âItalian erasureâ happening due to Prattâs involvement. Said fears were further stoked after Pratt ominously declared his accent would be âunlike anything youâve heard in the Mario world beforeâ Chris Meledandri, CEO of animation studio Illumination, then felt the need to air out that the Hollywood actorâs vocal performance of the iconic character wonât be offensive to those of Italian heritage
For those of you who wonât be absorbing the upcoming New York Comic Con trailer with the expectation of coming away from experiencing the unbridled spectacle of Prattman as Mario forever changed like Moses descending from Mount Sinai, you can rest assured that we at Kotaku will serve as your security blanket and will scour said trailer for any details you mightâve missed come its release. We blog because we care
