Zelda the Movie Shows Nintendo Has Learned Its Lessons
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
TBH after how successful (and decent) Mario was I woulda argue if they learned anything they would have gone to the same team that made that work.
If anything giving up too much creative control and Nintendo not being hard to work with could also be a problem.
It will never cease to amaze how how a paragraph of information from Nintendo (or anyone) can be turned into a long article likely focused on SEO that doesn't really say anything.
Giving up creative control was what led to the original 1993 Mario film, which certainly made use of that creative freedom but was head-scratchingly bizarre (and a flop).
I have also heard that in its development there were the designs of a much darker cyberpunk world which was ultimately vetoed somewhere up the ladder, that sort of explains some of the weird choices.
That is only going to get more common, until a time (which may never come) that both the general public and search/index algorithms are entirely numb to it. There are a few outlets that keep getting promoted at me by facebook (“suggested for you” links despite the fact I've shown little or no interest in the past, in fact actively hidden previous content) where when I do look at the article it reads like it is either AI generated or is deliberately written to appear like some automated construct put together by an entity that didn't understand, or even hasn't seen, the event/show/what-ever it is reporting on. The volume of that sort of thing has increased significantly (or maybe is just being promoted to me significantly more) in the last year or so.
1. Some gister app scans your favorite site for new articles
2. Gister sends LLM the news outlets you're interested in
3. LLM gives you the gist without the sensation of all the news.
...all before a single human can read a single word.
But also, this guy is being incredibly hyperbolic. It's a really fun game, but this guy just REALLY likes it
Hollywood formula will suck for it.
It'll be cartoonish meh with typical Disney plots and dreck writing (It's about believing in yourself! And your friends! You can do it! etc.)
Also, its surprising Nintendo hasnt allowed Mario to be used for Viagra commercials...
I liked watching this movie for the good animation and how the franchise was nicely respected but it have barely anything more.
It can be done, it just has to be tasteful. In writing anything, never give the audience what they expect. It's lame and boring.
Nintendo's IP has both great quality and quantity. They have only scratched the surface of what they could do with it with the recent SMB movie.
Remember the story that Nintendo used to be a trading card company? Are they now a video game company as it says on Wikipedia? What is the full name of the NES? Nintendo is an entertainment company. With some well-executed strategy, I can totally see Nintendo becoming a Disney-like behemoth in the not so distant future.
Just imagine something like a Nintendo+ service full with movies and tv shows from their universe. "Hurr durr, but they've done lame stuff in the past ..." Yes ... and? They have all the cash in the world to produce great content and they definitely know how to make fun stuff as well. They can pull it off and I'll glady pay for that!
Reads like: "Obviously its dangerous to make a $1000 million movie by yourself. Teaming up with Sony and Marvel and making generic super-cape movies people are tired of is the correct money choice. Making movies with quirky superhero people like Teen Titans writers is obviously failure."
Its effectively an appeal to authority argument based on popularity.
Unfortunately, its the cursed incentive Hollywood always seems to do. Make high quality product, get endless grief while people try to steal everything not nailed down, and swindle you every way imaginable. Make endless junk copies of junk copies, and play the game to churn out cash, everybody's happy.
I do wonder how long it can last as, while I thought the Mario movie wasn't bad as a generic kid's movie, it also relied heavily on nostalgia and references to keep parents entertained. And comic books seem to have a much deeper pool of nostalgic characters to draw from before they start scraping the bottom of the barrel for you-don't-know-who-this-is-unless-you're-a-hardcore-fan characters like Shang-Chi or Ms. Marvel.
For games, after Mario, Link and Sonic, you've got Pikachu/Pokemon, Master Chief, Lara Croft... and then a pretty sharp fall-off after that. Like yeah, I love Metal Gear, but is Solid Snake really a cultural icon the same way Magneto or Mario is?
Let them make fan art, fan videos without issuing takedown requests or stealing their monetization
Perhaps even grant them license for little silly mods of old games.
Lean into Smash Melee. It has a huge competitive scene. Support this. You can keep modern Smash and legacy competitive Smash alive simultaneously without cannibalizing sales. They could even launch a Melee refresh.
A. Nintendo doesn't care about the primary audience for Melee. They view the Melee players as being, in many ways, harmful to the brand; which considering the dozens of pedophile and sexual assault allegations, they might have a point.
Before anyone says the above is an exaggeration or unfair: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/hjfv0y/summary_o... and https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/hlyrgs/regarding_...
B. Any change, no matter how slight, would get screams of being "unplayable!" Just one frame of increased or decreased lag because it's different hardware? "Unplayable!" It doesn't work with the actual original 2003 GameCube controller instead of the Switch reproduction? "Unplayable!" It doesn't support the hacks the community has added? "Unplayable!" And on and on... If you literally could never make the community happy because it's not 2003 anymore, what's the point?
There were far more of those in Ultimate than Melee…
The latter argument is why they shouldn't be involved. But they should stay uninvolved.
[1] Pretty much no modern game is comparable to Melee. It's a strange thing, but if you like Melee, every 2D platformer and fighting game feels worse than it. It's such a highly interactive and dynamic game.
The original Mario speedrun is so optimized that every level except the final one is played perfectly.
For Mario 64 there's a single guy that has the world record in 3 of the 4 major speedrunning categories.
Nintendo could celebrate these incredible achievements by their most devoted fans. There's also a definite interest in this kind of thing, consider the vitality of speedrunning content on YouTube.
If they committed all of their artists to making a movie they wouldn't be able to produce any cutscenes for their games.
Also, there's a world of difference between a one minute cutscene and a full-feature length film.
> Once regarded as a notoriously hard company to work with, it has clearly learned its lessons. Increasingly, it’s partnering with others to boost revenue from its vast catalog of intellectual property, from Pokemon Go maker Niantic Inc., to Nintendo-themed areas at Universal Studios theme parks across the world.
This isn't entirely true though, many are aware of the terrible animated Zelda show in the 90s, and the Super Mario Super Show and original Super Mario Bros. movie.
I think this is probably a similar story to early Ghibli partnerships with western media — their early distributors didn't "get" movies like Princess Mononoke and tried to completely butcher the initial US release. This put Ghibli off of partnerships for a while, but they eventually re-approached and are doing wonderful dubbing work with Disney.
Nintendo has partnered with a ton of companies in the past. I don't think that partnering with some more proves anything about difficult or ease of working with Nintendo.