Mario Goes Hollywood: A Collaborative Timeline

[Megafighter3]

October 1996 Film Releases

Before I get back to doing a full write-up for Mario 3 (mainly because I need to remember where I was gonna put it) I do have a special piece for 1996's October releases. Basically, three movies from OTL are getting moved to October releases; Hellraiser: Bloodline, Of Love and Death and Scream.

Hellraiser: Bloodline is the fourth movie in the franchise and does a little a bit better, making a round $10 million ITTL, though the franchise still goes straight to video from here. Release Date: October 8.

Of Love and Death is the dub of Dellamorte Dellamore (titled Cemetery Man in OTL) which becomes the favorite of goths all around for the Halloween season. I couldn't find anything relating to its box office, but I'll say it managed to make a good amount in the box office and remains a cult favorite. Release Date: October 13.

Scream was the big one that month, raking in $200 million ITTL (as opposed to OTL's $173 million) Release Date: October 18.

Not too much changed for either movies, just getting a bit more money and better marketing in October than being dumped off in the early months or in December.

 

[Megafighter3]

What are the list of movies that the Nintendo movies have decimated?

I usually list the movies that got affected in the write-ups, though sometimes a game movie might not do too much to the other releases at the time. The most brutal decimation came from Zelda II. Check back to that one to see just how that affected the box office that year.

 

[Ry Guy]

I usually list the movies that got affected in the write-ups, though sometimes a game movie might not do too much to the other releases at the time. The most brutal decimation came from Zelda II. Check back to that one to see just how that affected the box office that year.

Let’s see what movies that SMB3 slaughters.

 

[HonestAbe1809]

Hopefully, Doug Bradley's last appearance as Pinhead won't be in Hellworld ITTL.

Or that the franchise can successfully be rebooted after even the direct-to-video movies end.

 

[Megafighter3]

Super Mario Bros. 3

Directed By: Harold Ramis
Produced By: Jake Eberts/Roland Joffé
Written By: Tom S. Parker/Jim Jennewein
Based On: Super Mario Bros. by Nintendo

Cast
Bob Hoskins as Mario
Danny DeVito as Wario
John Leguizamo as Luigi
Kenny Baker as Toad
Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy
Brigitte Nielsen as Captain Syrup
Fiona Shaw as Pauline
Frank Welker as the voice of Junior

Release Date: June 7, 1996
Budget: $200 million
Box Office: $400 million​

So, this isn't a major winner for Nintendo. It's not a bomb (we'll get that in '98) but is the first movie to simply break even for Nintendo and Disney rather than be a box office smash hit.

For the plot, Mario once again is whisked back to adventure by his brother Luigi and Princess Daisy, bringing along Toad but leaving Pauline behind in what amounts to a cameo role for Fiona Shaw. This would be due to the producers wanting to give more focus on Mathis' Daisy as an action girl, resulting in Shaw leaving the franchise after this film. The new baddies facing off against the Mario Brothers are the Brown Sugar Pirates, led by Captain Syrup (played by a dyed red Brigitte Nielsen) who is on the hunt for the Six Golden Coins, six rare coins which would open the gate to an infinite treasure. Along with her sees the return of Wario, who has joined her crew looking for a few things; a big payday, revenge on Mario, and maybe a tour of the Captain's... private quarters.

Nielsen and DeVito have a lot of fun scenes together, such as one where Wario claims that Syrup is only taller than her because of her high-heeled boots, only for Syrup to take them off and still tower over Wario. Along with that, Hoskins and DeVito have their share of great comedy together, making the movie a very fun pirate romp. Meanwhile, Leguizamo and Mathis again carry the legwork of being the action stars of the film, which includes Luigi's attempts at being a swashbuckler and Daisy's fight with Captain Syrup. The fight is mostly a lot of slapstick, but it's good fun. The story is mainly focused on the hunt for the Six Golden Coins, traveling around various lands to find them (the set design was the most often praised part, though it mostly feels like set pieces) ending with Wario and Syrup unlocking the gate, only to end up locked into the realm of infinite treasure at the end while the brothers, Toad and Daisy ride off into the skies on Syrup's own airship.

This movie was not good by any stretch, but it had the Mario name and there's a lot to enjoy about it. However, it was not the big video game movie of 1996. For that, we have to turn from Nintendo...

To Sega.

EDIT: Been so far gone from this I forgot Pyro had pegged the Sonic movie for a June release. Slight tweak to put Mario in the crosshairs.

 

[Ry Guy]

Welp. The 3rd movie curse strikes again.

 

[Nivek]

Seems we got the writers fatigue and they just didn't know how to take the story in which direction, a shame, have potentials but you can feels they were exhausted, still sold...hope they fixed it for 4...

 

[Megafighter3]

Small change to the TL that's just a bit of wank to get out of the way: Old Town Road doesn't get dethroned by Bad Guy as it did OTL, going another two weeks before Lizzo's Truth Hurts with OTR going 21 weeks at #1. It's not much, just a little thing because it feels like Bad Guy only got #1 just to knock Old Town Road off the #1 spot.

 

[Megafighter3]

Sonic the Hedgehog

Directed By: Hajime Kamegaki
Written By: Ted Elliot and Terry Rossion
Produced By: SEGA/DreamWorks/Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Based On: Sonic the Hedgehog by SEGA

Cast
Jaleel White as Sonic the Hedgehog/Metal Sonic
Bradley Pierce as Miles "Tails" Prower
Christina Ricci as Amy Rose
Tim Curry as Dr. Ivo Robotnik
David Spade as Buzzbomber
Chris Farley as Motobug
Christopher Lee as Nyxus
Terrence C. Carson as Knuckles the Echidna

Release Date: June 14, 1996
Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $400 million​

The Console Wars between Nintendo and Sega spilled out into the cinemas with Sonic the Hedgehog's silver screen debut. Early drafts of the script revolved a plot where Sonic and his friends entered the real world that combined animation and live-action similar to Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Said scripts included a boy between 10-14 as a focus character for audiences to "relate to." However, Sega of Japan immediately vetoed the idea and insisted that the Sonic characters be the sole focus. As DreamWorks did not have its awn animation department until the acquisition of Amblimation in 1997, the company commissioned noted Japanese studio: Tokyo Movie Shinsha to animate the film.

While the film remains largely faithful to the source material by roughly adapting the plots of the first two games on the Sega Genesis along with elements Sonic the Hedgehog CD, screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossion slipped in some subtle adult humor. Particularly in the Blue Blur's banter with his arch-nemesis Dr. Ivo Robotnik as well as the bumbling duo of Buzzbomber and Motobug (voiced by Saturday Night Live alums David Spade and Chris Farley.) However, it largely remains an adventure film with Sonic and his friends racing to grab the last Chaos Emerald before Dr. Robotnik, who want to use all seven emeralds to power his ultimate weapon: the Death Egg.

Sonic the Hedgehog garnered praise from critics and audiences alike for the high quality of the animation. Particularly the sequence where Nyxus, the guardian of the seventh emerald, sends Sonic to the Special Zone riddled with traps to test his worthiness. Observant fans would recognize the sequence as similar to the half-pipe special stage from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Some critics even favorably compared Sonic the Hedgehog's quality to Disney's animated offering, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, despite having only a fraction of the budget. Indeed, some parents who found themselves concerned with Hunchback's bleaker and darker tone instead took their children to the much lighter Sonic instead.

Helping Sonic the Hedgehog's fortunes was the aggressive marketing campaign where Sega boldly declared 1996 to be "The Year of the Hedgehog" in anticipation of the film's summer release, and Sonic X-Treme's Holiday '96 release. Knowing of Disney and Nintendo's release of Super Mario Bros. 3 that year, both Sega and DreamWorks dared the plumber to top them in a campaign eerily similar to the former's "Genesis does what Nintendon't" from earlier that decade.

Write-Up courtesy of @Pyro

 

[Nivek]

Write-Up courtesy of @Pyro

Nice work @Pyro and the movie was nice, well executed and animated, great work buddy.

 

[Ry Guy]

Good job.

 

[eldandythedoubter]

Praise be to @Pyro

 

[Megafighter3]

Alright! Now, let's get to collecting any games slated for release in 1996. Here's what Nintendo's got for the possible last year of SNES-CD (Ultra NES I think released this year, but these projects were already on the table.)

• Final Fantasy Origins IV-VI: Remakes of the last three Final Fantasy Games (helping to fix the naming confusion that hit Final Fantasy early on) for the CD.
• Trials of Mana
• Earthbound 2: Basically Mother 2 on the CD.
• Zelda: War of Gamelon: A Zelda RPG developed by Squaresoft. The first playable appearance by Zelda (who acts the chief magic user) but also brings in a number of characters from Ocarina in earlier than OTL. Allows a rotation of either three or four characters.
  • Saria: Takes up the white mage spot with healing magic played on an ocarina.
  • Darunia: Hammer-wielding tank for the party.
  • Ruto: Bizarrely acts as the monk class, fighting only using her fists. Notoriously difficult to master and rarely used in rotations.
  • Impa: Spear-wielding ninja and the first game to use the more action-based Impa over the old maid version.
  • Nabooru: Dancer who actually does a lot of damage. Way more favored by players over Ruto.

As an added note, Millitron from the OTL CDi games is a boss and is regarded as one of the best boss fights in RPGs, especially given his tragic backstory (he was an aging hero of his hometown Koridia, who sought to fight off Ganon's invasion, but when he found he was too weak, Ganon offered him a chance to keep fighting by donning the Millitron armor, with the old man accepting. In his death, he declares Link to be a true warrior and gives Link a medallion to give to the old man's granddaughter so she can remember him as a hero.)

 

[eldandythedoubter]

There is the Rocket Knight Adventures game I wrote up earlier, along with Star Fox 3. (ttl's 64).

Rocket Knight Adventures 3: Rise of the Knightpack.





Publisher: Konami


Developer: Konami


Platform: SNES-CD, Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation


Release Date: August 17th, 1996 in Japan, October 22nd, 1996 in North America, December 18th,1996 in Europe.


# of Players: Up to 2 players for the story campaign, up to 4 players for battle mode.


Director and Lead Designer: Nobuya Nakazato.


Scenario and Script Writer: Nigel Kitching





Plot:





The game begins with a recreation of the final dungeon in SNES Sparkster. Our opossum knight grabs the golden sword and proceeds to head into battle.





5 years has passed since the invasion of Gedol. In those 5 years, Sparkster has taken on a new role as the knight captain of Zephyrus; training new knights in the ways of swordsmanship and rocket pack maintenance. But among st his current squad of recruits are 3 screwups who's drive for glory always tend to make things go awry:





Squire Shane “Gale” the Hog-Weapon: Lance while he throws a spreadshot when he shoot lasers.





Squire Dustin “Terra” the Lizard-Weapon: Mace for melee while he shoots armor piercing wave lasers.





Princess Tori “Blaze”-Weapon: Crossbow for melee while she shoots homing lasers.





Many of the other knights feel that the order does not need the three gloryhounds, but Sparkster knows they have a good heart behind this. So he sends the 3 of them off for a quest to recover an powerful ore that when smithed with a weapon. This is the ore of Hogore, a chunk of The Pig Star's core. They are in three separate locations around the kingdom and each of them must gather these ores alone.





Stage 1, 2, and 3 sees each of the knights go through a 3 act course of levels fighting monsters and bandits. But the strange thing is that these bandits are all yellow jacket hornets.





Meanwhile with Sparkster...





Zephyrus is once again under siege by a legion of the same yellow jacket hornets. We now know the identity of the enemy. These spiders are from the Dominion of the Orbweavers. They have come for Queen Sherry and for the Golden Sword, which Sparkster sealed away due to its sheer power. seeing no recourse as the entire castle is being occupied by the Orbweavers, Sparkster agrees and heads for the dungeon of Gold.

Stage 4 has you play as sparkster as he goes through each of the floors of the dungeon and disarming all of the major traps. Once he gets there, he manages to trip the spider who was going to ambush him, grabs the golden sword, and slaughter every single guard in that dungeon in a berserk rampage. The Golden Sword corrupts its user over time while holding it.





All 3 characters share the same ending.

Through stage 5-8, the 3 apprentices fight their way back to the kingdom. But the boss of stage 8 is the Orbweaver Queen, who in her desperation to match sparkster and his knights has cannibalized her guards to become a powerful beast. If you fight with Gale, Azure, or Blaze this will be the final fight. But if you choose Sparkster, he loses himself to the Golden Sword's corruption and that unlocks the final boss. A three stage boss fight with Sparkster

Phase 1: Rocket Knight Duel
Phase 2: Danmaku shooter against his giant mech
Phase 3: The golden sword grows into a horrible monster who works like a combination of the 2nd boss fight in DKC 2 and Kirby Super Star's Marx boss fight.

With the Golden Sword finally broken, Sparkster falls to the ground a barely living husk but looks upon his 3 apprentices with pride and happiness as he passes away. With the threat of the Orbweavers gone, Gedol begins a new era of peace.

 

[Nivek]

Zelda: War of Gamelon: A Zelda RPG

Hella nice and great use of that cgi characther, looks so well executed here, and the whole game give me vibes of hyrule warriors but in RPG form(and far different too, but that same spirit) amazing work with it.

@eldandythedoubter Very nice game too buddy

 

[Megafighter3]

There is the Rocket Knight Adventures game I wrote up earlier, along with Star Fox 3. (ttl's 64).

Sure, throw those in. Any other stuff I missed while I was out?

 

[eldandythedoubter]

How the n64 would be set up?

At 96 or 97, the base system would be released with discs as its formats backwards compatibility with snes-cd games. But in 98 or 99, the 64DD would be released adding online playability for 28.8k or 56k dial up support, boost the technical capabilities with a built in expansion pack, and finally the ability to expand earlier released games using the otl magnetic floppy disks a la f-zero x.

 

[Derpsternium]

-snip-​

YES NO SONIC CURSE!

 

[Nivek]

How the n64 would be set up?

At 96 or 97, the base system would be released with discs as its formats backwards compatibility with snes-cd games. But in 98 or 99, the 64DD would be released adding online playability for 28.8k or 56k dial up support, boost the technical capabilities with a built in expansion pack, and finally the ability to expand earlier released games using the otl magnetic floppy disks a la f-zero x.

I'm still wondering that, seems 97 is now the hard date to released it as SNES-CD have a good life and the add-on and integrated console to be released in 98 and 99 respectly.

 

[eldandythedoubter]

Alright! Now, let's get to collecting any games slated for release in 1996. Here's what Nintendo's got for the possible last year of SNES-CD (Ultra NES I think released this year, but these projects were already on the table.)

• Final Fantasy Origins IV-VI: Remakes of the last three Final Fantasy Games (helping to fix the naming confusion that hit Final Fantasy early on) for the CD.
• Trials of Mana
• Earthbound 2: Basically Mother 2 on the CD.
• Zelda: War of Gamelon:A Zelda RPG developed by Squaresoft. The first playable appearance by Zelda (who acts the chief magic user) but also brings in a number of characters from Ocarina in earlier than OTL. Allows a rotation of either three or four characters.
  • Saria: Takes up the white mage spot with healing magic played on an ocarina.
  • Darunia: Hammer-wielding tank for the party.
  • Ruto: Bizarrely acts as the monk class, fighting only using her fists. Notoriously difficult to master and rarely used in rotations.
  • Impa: Spear-wielding ninja and the first game to use the more action-based Impa over the old maid version.
  • Nabooru: Dancer who actually does a lot of damage. Way more favored by players over Ruto.

As an added note, Millitron from the OTL CDi games is a boss and is regarded as one of the best boss fights in RPGs, especially given his tragic backstory (he was an aging hero of his hometown Koridia, who sought to fight off Ganon's invasion, but when he found he was too weak, Ganon offered him a chance to keep fighting by donning the Millitron armor, with the old man accepting. In his death, he declares Link to be a true warrior and gives Link a medallion to give to the old man's granddaughter so she can remember him as a hero.)

I'm still wondering that, seems 97 is now the hard date to released it as SNES-CD have a good life and the add-on and integrated console to be released in 98 and 99 respectly.

Oh there's also Fire Emblem: Legacy of the Jugdral Crusade (Sigurd's campaign added alongside the twelve crusaders war against Loptyr). Seliph and Leif's campaign would be called Geneology of the Holy War and would be a Ultra title released alongside whatever movie Disney and Nintendo would want to do for Fire Emblem.