Mario is a simple franchise; clear cut heroes and villains, a cute art style, tunes that could easily be mistaken for jazz standards. In the internet’s ongoing attempt to imagine the Mario Bros into a full feature length narrative format, I’ve seen many ideas which try to add needlessly grandiose and complex stories and themes into what ought to be a tale as old as time; hence, “the musical.” With so many video game films suddenly becoming creative in their genre interpretation—Detective Pikachu as a neo-noire mystery, Rampage as a bonkers Kaiju flick, and Mortal Kombat as a violent martial arts fantasy film—a musical for Mario just makes sense.
