While The Super Mario Bros. Movie was certainly an easily accessible, enjoyable film, it failed to reach the heights of its biggest rival through two respective scenes. Upon the announcement of a Mario movie from Nintendo and Illumination, the reception was cautiously optimistic. Previous attempts at translating Mario onto film had been catastrophic failures, as have the decades of video game adaptations in general. From these elements to the somewhat controversial voice cast of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, audiences were trepidatious, to say the least.
That said, the movie released to an incredibly positive audience reception as evidenced by The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s groundbreaking box-office run. Given the $1.3 billion gross of the film, a Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 is all but guaranteed. The possibility of a sequel was also aided by The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s post-credit scene which provided an adequate tease for where the future of the franchise on film may go. That said, this tease failed to excite for a variety of reasons and even failed to surpass a similar element of The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s biggest rival.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s End-Credits Tease Was Disappointing
The end-credit scene of The Super Mario Bros. Movie teased the inclusion of one of the franchise’s biggest characters in the sequel: Yoshi. While this was somewhat exciting for anyone familiar with the Mario games, the tease fell flat for a few different reasons. For one, The Super Mario Bros. Movie made the mistake of including Yoshis earlier in the film. As Mario, Peach, and Toad are traveling across the world, they see a horde of Yoshis running by a river. This subliminally told audiences to expect the character in the films, rendering the end-credit scene as essentially dead on arrival.
Secondly, the nature of Yoshi’s character from the Mario games makes it hard to imagine what kind of role the dinosaur will have in a potential sequel. While the character is often portrayed with a degree of sentience, his role is often as a mount with more animalistic instincts for Mario and the other human characters to utilize. As such, it is difficult to pin down how his role in The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 will play out aside from being a plot convenience or a deus ex machina of sorts, further solidifying the somewhat disappointing feeling of Yoshi’s tease from the first film.
The Mario Movie’s End-Credits Scene Didn’t Reach The Heights Of Sonic 2’s Shadow Tease
Concerning the Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s failure to eclipse its rival, the film in question is Sonic the Hedgehog 2. While Mario dominated at the box office in comparison to Sonic, the tease at the end of Sonic 2 concerning Shadow the Hedgehog was much more exciting than the former’s setup of Yoshi. The reason for this stems from the impact Shadow will have on the plot, world, and characters of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe.
The story of Shadow from the Sonic games has a wealth of potential that can be used for not only Sonic the Hedgehog 3 but also potential solo spin-offs going forward. While Yoshi has some games in the Mario franchise in which he is a focus, it is often always as more of a tool for the other characters in games that lack clear narratives in the first place. All of this proves that, while exciting for fans of the games, The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s end-credit tease did not live up to the same excitement as that of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
