Why a Super Smash Bros. Movie Sequel Doesn’t Make Sense

Many Nintendo fans want a Super Smash Bros. sequel after watching The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, but unfortunately, it wouldn’t make that much sense. For those who don’t know what the Super Smash Bros. franchise is about, it’s a popular fighting game series that has characters from the entire Nintendo universe (and beyond) brawl against each other. And the latest Super Mario film introduces a lot of elements that would lend itself to a Smash Bros. concept, like characters coming from other universes (like Fox McCloud), a significant number of cameos, and numerous fighting scenes. However, while a Super Smash Bros sequel is a enticing thought experiment, there are several reasons why it wouldn’t really work.

Not even Miyamoto thinks a Super Smash Bros. movie would work

One of the largest hurdles that a potential Super Smash Bros. movie sequel would need to overcome is the overwhelming number of franchises it would need to include.

If we’re being generous and consider just the original 12-character roster for the series on Nintendo 64, which we imagine would be the bare minimum for any Smash Bros. movie to include, Illumination’s two Super Mario films already feature Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Fox. That means seven characters are absent and would need to be introduced at some point: Link from The Legend of Zelda, Samus from Metroid, Kirby from (well) the Kirby series, Captain Falcon from F-Zero, Ness from Earthbound, and the two Pokemon Pikachu and Jigglypuff.

That’s already a lot of ground that a movie would need to cover, and that’s not mentioning that there is a total of 89 playable characters across all of Smash Bros. games. Now, many of these wouldn’t need to be included, and some of them have already appeared between the pair of Super Mario movies, like Bowser, Bowser Jr., Daisy, Falco, Peach, R.O.B, and Rosalina. Still, if we’re thinking about the crossover madness that a Smash Bros. sequel would require for it to feel right, it would be overwhelming for casual audiences.

Even Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator and game designer behind many of Nintendo’s most beloved franchises, can’t envision a narrative that would involve so many characters at once. In an interview with Polygon, he says, “Right off the bat, I’ll say that unlike something like Super Smash Bros., I don’t think you’ll have a situation [where] all Nintendo characters would be joining.” Coming from Miyamoto, that’s a pretty hard no.

During the same interview, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri said that the conversation behind who would appear in the Super Mario movies is more “about what would be fun within a certain scene in the movie.” If the team has a fun idea on a cameo, then they “look to Miyamoto-san to just make his own judgment about whether or not it feels right to him, but it’s much more incidental than strategic.” In other words, the setup in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie where characters from the Nintendo universe can appear at any time is more about giving the moviemakers the ability to have cameos for a short period of time and less about having them appear all at once — which a Super Smash Bros. concept would require.

A Super Smash Bros. movie would be constraining and tiresome

Then there’s the narrative constraint that a Super Smash Bros. movie would need to be a proper adaptation. The best part of a Smash Bros. video game is having Nintendo’s roster of family-friendly characters punch, kick, and throw each other around. This makes sense if you’re using game logic, but a film would need to explain why they are fighting each other in the first place when the majority of them are ostensibly on the same side. It would be like DC’s Batman v Superman movie where the two superheroes are forced to smack each other around (because reasons) until they realize that it’s unnecessary and they should be working together. The first Super Mario movie does something similar with the battle between Mario and Donkey Kong, but imagine having to do that multiple times in the same film. It would get tiring fast.

More to the point, “The Super Smash Bros. Movie” wouldn’t have the same draw as a film that features “Super Mario” in the title. Video game adaptations are already a niche genre to begin with, and the everyday person would likely be confused about what this is about in the first place. This is something that the moviemakers inherently understand, particularly with Princess Daisy appearing in the post-game credits for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie that naturally sets up a future adventure with the Mario gang going to her homeland of Sarasaland. There are also a lot of other Super Mario games, like Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Odyssey, that the films could cover over a potential fighting mashup.

In fact, it would be more lucrative for Nintendo and Illumination to have spinoff movies based on a single character, with The Super Mario films using cameos as a gateway for other productions. Case in point, Fox McCloud, who controversially gets about the same amount of screentime as Rosalina does in the movie, steals the show in a way that lends himself to being the leading man in his own full-fledged Star Fox film. More important than making a Super Smash Bros. movie would be first creating a Nintendo Cinematic Universe, which much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe would help give other important characters in the Nintendo family some room to shine. That would include Link, Samus, and Donkey Kong, who all deserve their own animated films before a Super Smash Bros. movie is ever greenlit.

Source: Comingsoon.net