40 years ago when Shigeru Miyamoto started creating iconic characters and games and Nintendo, he was often compared to Walt Disney, a comparison Miyamoto has always chafed at. But decades later, with Nintendo theme parks and now a feature-length, animated film based on Mario coming out, is the creative face of Nintendo willing to accept the comparison?
Not so fast, says Miyamoto, who sat down with IGN ahead of the premiere of The Super Mario Bros. Movie. “When this talk of comparing me to Walt Disney came out 20 years ago, I felt like, ‘no, please, I don’t deserve being compared.’”
At the time, the similarities were there, certainly. Both Disney and Miyamoto became the faces of companies famous for producing iconic characters as if it were easy. But Miyamoto has regularly bristled at the comparison, citing the longevity of Disney’s creations compared to the relative youth of Mario. Furthermore, Miyamoto pushes against the idea of a single creative vision responsible for any company’s success.
“There was one thing I did find very interesting and curious, and it’s that it’s not that Walt Disney himself is creating all of this, it’s Walt Disney and there’s a brand, Disney, that creates this thing,” Miyamoto rightly observes. “And I thought that concept was very interesting, in the same way that how can we create Nintendo as a brand?”
Today, Miyamoto is proud that Nintendo is a brand that people recognize as home to a lot of creativity. “I think we’ve been able to come to a place where there’s a lot of creative people, a lot of characters and talent that’s at Nintendo, and it’s come to a point where there’s a lot of creative products that come out that people recognize as being made by Nintendo,” Miyamoto says. “But that doesn’t mean there’s a person named Nintendo making this. It’s everybody, and everybody at Nintendo as part of Nintendo creating this product, and I thought that was really interesting and something that I strive to do.”
The Nintendo brand has arguably never been stronger. When the Wii was released in 2006 and broke all kinds of hardware sales records thanks to its innovative motion controls, later followed by the lackluster Wii U, there were certainly those who thought Nintendo may have peaked. But in 2023, following the success of the industry-changing Nintendo Switch, Nintendo has moved closer to Disney. The company has opened two Super Nintendo World theme parks and is on the verge of releasing a brand-new animated film in theaters based on Miyamoto’s most iconic character, Mario.
“When this talk of comparing me to Walt Disney came out 20 years ago, I felt like, ‘no, please, I don’t deserve being compared.'”
Nintendo and Illumination first met in 2014 and, according to Miyamoto, making a movie at all always required the talents of the animation giant. “So, this idea of making a movie out of games was something that came up and had other offers. And some people, also, maybe thought that because we create the story in the games and the visuals of the games all within our company, people thought, well, you can just go ahead and make a movie, right? It’s easy to direct a movie, which is very different and not true.”
The movie fleshes out Mario in a way that we haven’t seen before. While his design is iconic, Mario doesn’t really have a backstory, or really any kind of personality at all. But in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario is brought to life in a new way. He’s an ambitious go-getter who, alongside his brother Luigi, dreams of becoming a hero in his Brooklyn neighborhood, even if it’s just fixing the plumbing for citizens in need.
There’s an underdog quality to Mario this time around, and even a sadness of an unfulfilled life that only changes once he’s magically transported to the Mushroom Kingdom where, finally, he might become the hero he always thought he could be back home.
But all that, of course, is a subtext that can be gleaned in between the wonderful visuals, laugh-out-loud jokes, and delightfully fast-paced story. Mario was originally a vehicle for best-in-class platforming, not the avatar for the existential crisis of modernity. But if Mario’s icon status is derived purely from gameplay, how did he end up being one of the most recognized characters on Earth? And also, a canvas for narrative storytelling?
“This is a question that I’ve been asked previously. Before, I used to think it’s because it’s really the gameplay that made Mario who he is, and that as people play and enjoy the game, this experience of playing the game, and as an extension Mario, becomes a part of them,” Miyamoto muses.
“But now, seeing Mario in movie form, it really kind of drove home for me the point that this character is something that really could only come from the needs of creating a game. And so, when it became a movie, I felt like we were able to create a hero that’s really unique in that sense, because where else could you come up with this hero, other than to satisfy the needs of the gameplay? So, that was something that I was happy about.”
Not only is Mario different because of his origins as a purely interactive hero, but it turns out that bringing Mario to the big screen ended up unearthing a quality of Mario that was lost amid all the jumping and block-breaking. “Mario’s a blue-collar, he’s a regular person,” Miyamoto says. “So, even when he becomes Dr. Mario, there’s a sort of, like, ‘shadiness,’ like can I trust this person?” Miyamoto jokes. “That remained. And I think that’s the kind of image that’s carried down for generations as Mario. And to see that image kind of coincide, and then, evolve, into something of a hero is something that I’m really happy to see.”
Mario as the Everyman hero is a deft bit of creative storytelling thanks to the partnership between Nintendo and Illumination, who are the latest Hollywood company to successfully adapt video games for film and television.
“At Illumination, we’re always evolving our technical capabilities, but I think that what we talked about as an approach for the film was a real adherence and honoring of the core design elements that had been created for the game and that fans loved,” says Chris Meledandri, founder and CEO of the animation studio, Illumination “And the pathway to achieving that goal is through the subtlest details. So, when you see Mario or Peach, what you will see on the big screen are the characters that you’ve known. But when you begin to look closely, you begin to see just very, very subtle textures on the dress or how the folds of the dress create shadow.
And so, when you take that approach, what ends up happening is that the world that you’ve engaged with as playing the games, all of a sudden, starts to come alive, but it’s coming alive through looking at it through the smallest detail as opposed to changing any design language.”
“You know, I really feel like the important thing is that Mario lives on as a legacy, as a character, and so, I feel like I don’t even need to be a part of that equation.”
Illumination joins a growing list of Hollywood companies eager to work on video game adaptations. When asked about this trend, Meledandri says that while many studios have tried their hands at video game adaptations, nobody else has Miyamoto.
“Looking backward, there was this attraction from Hollywood to video games, but combined with the anxiety about whether or not they could translate into films…I believe that, in the past, that people struggled with that,” says Meledandri. “We took a very unique approach, which was that we determined from the outset that the creation of this movie would be a full partnership between Miyamoto-san and myself, and Nintendo, and the Illumination team.”
As with the team at Nintendo, Miyamoto praises the creative talent at Illumination. “A lot of them were really huge fans of Mario games. In fact, some of them, I felt, were even more knowledgeable than I was about them. And so, that was quite an experience as well.”
Together, Illumination and Nintendo and Miyamoto and Meledandri were able to evolve Mario for the next generation where IP is no longer stuck on single channels.
“I knew that Mario was a character that continually evolves,” Miyamoto explains. “And seeing Mario on the big screen, I feel like there is this new level of evolution that Mario has come to. And it’s not just about Mario… [At] Nintendo, we have many different characters, and I almost see us as a talent agency with many characters and many talents that we work with and kind of figuring out where they would fit best in what situation. And in that sense, within this movie, there’s a lot of characters that really made the evolution from a kind of puppet-class to a human-class. So that’s something I really want to encourage everybody who sees the movie to look out for.”
If Miyamoto was downplaying the singular creator’s role in creative success, Meledandri pushes back on this just a little bit. “We’ve seen studios go off without the creator and it hasn’t always been that successful. We’ve seen, at least one example I can think of, where the game company went off, made a movie, and it wasn’t that successful. This was many years ago, not Nintendo. But when you think about this, it just makes so much sense that you would create this type of partnership.”
And who would pass up a chance to work with Miyamoto? “Our directors, Aaron Hovarth and Michael Jelenic, I mean, it was such a thrill to them — And Matt Fogel, our writer, I mean, everybody down to… I used to say to Miyamoto-san that everybody at Illumination wants to work on Mario,” Meledandri jokes. “But the impact to the entire studio, whether an individual who was working on Mario or not, just the fact that we were working with Nintendo and Miyamoto-san, energized the entire creative community at Illumination, and I think you can feel that excitement in the movie itself.”
And so we come back to the idea of Miyamoto as an energizing, creative force, someone who is excited to work with others and get others excited to work with him — not unlike the Power Stars in Mario itself. It’s really hard to not make a Disney comparison here, no? No, of course not.
“You know, I really feel like the important thing is that Mario lives on as a legacy, as a character, and so, I feel like I don’t even need to be a part of that equation,” Miyamoto says when asked about how he’d like to reflect on his career which has seen him evolve from famous game designer to producer on theme parks and movies.
“What I realized working on the park and the movie as well was that we’re in a generation where all these people who grew up with Mario are now able to, then, gather other creative people and create something new. I think that’s what’s important. It’s sort of similar in the computer world where, initially, I think people who work on the gaming side of computers were maybe — not looked down upon — but kind of looked in a different way. But now, there are people who grew up with gaming that are in the industry, and I think everybody is seen as equals. I think that’s what makes me really happy.”
“And so, again, I’m good either way.”
Matt T.M. Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.
Some quotes have been edited or condensed for clarity.
For all the latest Games News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
