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Super Mario Bros- LIVE FROM PAX EAST
19 Plays5 days ago
Our first live podcast episode! Recorded in May at PAX East in Boston. Thanks so much to everyone that came out to hear us talk a lot of nonsense about this movie! There's also video of our panel that you can find on youtube. We reference pictures of the characters a lot so if you want the full scope, check out the video.
Youtube: https://youtu.be/TGQ7rbGlmj8
Thanks friends! Stay tuned for Season 4 coming very shortly
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Hot Set' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:21
Speaker
Cool beans, hello, hello. oh my God, human faces, this is great, see? Hello, we've been doing this in our own living rooms for about a year and a half, so this is very informal. you are Thank you so much. Thank you. ah Thank you for joining us for this. It's gonna be a little unhinged, it's not gonna be academic at all. We are two costume nerds who work in theatrical costume, and so we just do this out of enthusiasm, and we are very glad to share this experience with you.
00:00:51
Speaker
So welcome.
Origins and Approach of the Podcast
00:00:57
Speaker
So more officially speaking, we are Hot Set Podcast and we are here to talk about costume design and film. please Yeah, I think for for both of us, it was um we were looking for a different creative outlet because we both work in the theater industry. But um obviously the last few years have have been different than previous. So we were i think both looking for kind of a new way to stay engaged with the concept of design, but maybe do it something a little different. So, um yeah, we decided to just ah nerd out about costumes and ask a lot of questions that maybe we don't know the answers to um and just like have a ah conversation about it and see, you know,
00:01:42
Speaker
what we what we could bring to this sort of like insider outsider perspective of knowing about design, but not working in the film industry. So um there's a lot of times where we are like, I don't know why this happened, but we will ask questions. We might not have very many answers. This is not super deeply researched. Yeah. Just a disclaimer, but yes.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, so, um yeah, just a little bit about us.
Backgrounds of the Hosts
00:02:08
Speaker
um ah Did y'all know you can do photo shoots at JCPenney still? Oh my gosh. Because you can. You can. And they will give you prompts that you never would have thought of before.
00:02:18
Speaker
Like, besties, kill your friend. Yes. It's fantastic. I highly recommend it. They gave us props to play with in the photo shoot. We had giant lollipops at one point. It's fantastic. It's very reasonably priced. So I recommend it to anyone. All right.
00:02:35
Speaker
So I'm a freak freelance costume designer and technician. Technician means that I'm a builder. i fabricate things. I sew things. I have been in professional and educational theater for about eight and a half years. And I'm an arts educator for youth in San Francisco and the Bay Area. And ah studied costume, studied illustration, and you are. And I'm also um a freelance designer and technician. So sometimes I'll work ah as a designer. Sometimes I'll, you know, assist or build things for another designer on their show.
00:03:06
Speaker
um i have an MFA in costume design from the University of Washington in Seattle and a bachelor's in drama from San Francisco State University. And I've been working in the industry for...
00:03:18
Speaker
About 15 years, but like I said, the last few years have been a little weird. So my um i haven't been full-time in it in a little while, but it's starting to come back. So that's starting to change. And that's great.
00:03:30
Speaker
So that's enough about us. That's us. But what we're here to talk about today...
Exploring 'Super Mario Brothers' Movie
00:03:35
Speaker
boy. Super Mario Brothers 1993. Yes! Yes! Oh,
00:03:43
Speaker
my God. I had not seen this movie in about 20 years. Same. and you remember a lot of things. Because like when you're 10 and you're watching this, you're like, this makes no sense. And then you're 30 something and you're like, this makes no sense. But it's so beautiful that it doesn't make any sense.
00:04:05
Speaker
Has everyone here, is is there is there anyone here who has not seen this movie at all? Okay, okay. Let us be your entryway. Highly recommend. Highly recommend. Oh my God. We are coming at this with a lot of love, a lot of enthusiasm, but this is insane.
00:04:24
Speaker
And it has so little to do with the games. So little to do with the games. so the enemy is Oh, so true. I know. the The, like, so stark contrast could not be more stark. um I think we're going to read the sort of log line from- Yeah, from IMDb. In case anyone ah is unfamiliar with the movie. So, two Brooklyn plumbers, Mario and Luigi, must travel to another dimension to rescue a princess from the evil dictator King Koopa and stop him from taking over the world.
00:05:00
Speaker
Okay, and now let's watch the trailer.
00:05:13
Speaker
so Okay. Yes. You're magic. You're magic. Coming to a theater near you. Does anybody else remember in the game that ah humanity began from dinosaurs and came from dinosaur DNA instead of apes? And then there was a parallel universe where we came from apes and then we intersected. And the dinosaurs 65 million years ago in the prologue have Brooklyn accents, which would support the theory that like your physical location dictates your accent and not the people that live there. And does anybody else remember that kind of like Rocky Horror, Night of the Roxbury crossover at like nightclubs in the in the video game? Because i I did not recall. That is my favorite part of the game. so
00:05:59
Speaker
This trailer tells you so much and so little because none of it goes from A to B. It goes all over the place.
Costume Design Analysis
00:06:05
Speaker
Two brothers who are plumbers. They show you a jumpsuit that those two those two lads are wearing.
00:06:11
Speaker
You don't see those until about an hour and 40 minutes in. Let me tell you right now, there are we're going to get into it, but there are white pants that are on for too long. They're jeans. Those are white jeans and they are crisp.
00:06:23
Speaker
but And let me tell you, I learned not to wear white pants in sixth grade from one time just sitting down. yeah And these guys are running around. Plumbing. wet, dank, dinosaur-laden-like dimension. yeah Plumbing. Plumbing.
00:06:39
Speaker
The plumbing in this movie is nonstop. And those pants, they see no harm, no foul. None. Nothing. So... I just going back into this rabbit hole is pretty crazy because like it truly is like a fever dream to watch this movie. There's a lot of vinyl, a lot of like PVC, a lot of plastic costumes that make no sense.
00:07:01
Speaker
I found that very strange because in our alternate dimension, which is called Dino Hatton, just in case you were unsure about that. um be Beautiful writing. I love it. um one I really do like it. There's...
00:07:17
Speaker
there's There's no fossil fuels because the people or beings or whatever you want to call them evolved from dinosaurs. So there's all these electric cars and other things. And yet everyone's in these PVC and plastic clothing, which is made with petroleum, petroleum which comes from fossil fuels. So I was sort of like, I don't really understand. So in a way they're cannibalizing themselves to create high fashion. It doesn't really quite make sense. It's amazing. Yeah.
00:07:45
Speaker
um my god Should we talk about yes our designer? our designer, who I say this with all the love in my heart and like genuine fondness. Took a perfect picture and is a little bit like a Star Trek villain. And I love that. I love him. For him.
00:08:01
Speaker
and this is a little bit of his CV with some notable examples of his work. And there is so much that happens. People refer to him as a peacock because of how he dresses.
00:08:12
Speaker
And so when you see a costume designer who takes this much enjoyment in their personal style, you know you're going on a great road on a great adventure. And he does not let you down. That list tells you he will not let you down. Absolutely. I mean, like, there's just so many classics and I love that it spans like so many genres, like everything from Stuart Little to like Tombstone.
00:08:33
Speaker
Stargate. Like it's everything. Like this is someone who can do anything. So one thing that we kind of talk about that comes up a lot in our podcast is that um ah to be a costume designer is to understand the story of what you're telling and be able to express that story. So,
00:08:52
Speaker
you don't have to stick to one genre. You just have to be a good storyteller and you can hop around and kind of do anything as long as you understand like the vision and like what you're trying to get across. And so it's always really fun to like, if you see a movie that you really liked the costumes, like look up the designer and see what else they've done. Cause you will be surprised. Like people jump around and they do all kinds of stuff and it's awesome.
00:09:19
Speaker
I'm curious, why is China, I've been next to, I'm curious. Great question. such an interest Thank you. That is such an interesting credit. So I found when I looked on his CV, so I guess we should say that when you're doing a film, generally in our modern times that we live in now, you have one costume designer and they're like managing the design of the entire film and working with a team of people to make those things real.
00:09:46
Speaker
And it's pretty rare in like American film to have more than one designer credited. It used to be a little bit more common, like in old Hollywood, when you'd have like a designer who like worked with a particular actor or something and would kind of style them.
00:10:03
Speaker
But it's not common anymore. You have one designer and they do everything. um So I was really interested to see this on his CV. um He had quite a few more contemporary movies like Iron Man 3, where he was listed as a designer, but only for things that were filmed online.
00:10:22
Speaker
in China. And there was a few movies like that. So um I think what I learned about Joseph is that he seems to kind of split his time and live at least part time in China and work there also.
00:10:34
Speaker
And so this might suggest that he is designing specifically for reshoots or for different editions that are specifically for a cultural group that like resonates with them differently than it does an American audience.
00:10:45
Speaker
But you don't really get to have access to that information on IMDb. You just get the parentheses and China. And so he's an international designer, which is pretty, pretty rad for him. um Yeah. Shall we?
00:10:57
Speaker
Next slide. Yeah, absolutely.
Production and Design Comparisons
00:10:58
Speaker
We like to spend time shouting out costumers and costume designers, costume workers, everybody who works behind the scenes, because you don't really hear about the hands that touch costumes. You don't hear about all the different types of jobs that there are in a costume shop or in different wardrobe studios.
00:11:15
Speaker
So some of the people who worked on this film that are listed are on the screen. Yeah. Yeah, so we have like, these are more people that would be, um a lot of these people would be like on set, especially our costume supervisor.
00:11:28
Speaker
So that's kind of like a like a managerial role, as you would imagine. So they're someone who's making sure that everything happens during shooting, which is a huge job. So yeah, we just like to shout out um all the people that make movies happen because it's, um it takes so many people. I mean, you watch a movie and the credits just like keep rolling and keep rolling, but we don't know very many of their names most of the time. So it's a really fun excuse for us to like learn more about these people just as we're like watching the film because we're interested and we just want to know more. And a lot of the time, customers don't get listed. The costume house that they work for gets listed, so their names never really make it onto the credit for a film, which is a little a little infuriating sometimes. So here we are.
00:12:16
Speaker
um I also really wanted to shout out our production designer on this film. So for people that have seen the movie, when we go to Dino Hatton, did anybody else feel like we were stepping into the Blade Runner universe? Yeah. Yes, right? I was watching it and I was like, why do I feel like I'm watching a low rent Blade Runner right now? like no No shade.
00:12:36
Speaker
But like it does feel like I'm watching Blade Runner. So I had to look up the production designer and wouldn't you know it, it's the same man. He was the production designer for Blade Runner. so There you go. And that's pretty amazing because that means you already have relationships built with rental warehouses. So you can just go back and re-rent some of your own stuff from your own productions because you know it worked for you last time to establish like a weird world.
00:12:59
Speaker
And so thanks for that crossover, David Snyder. Yeah. Thank you, David.
00:13:07
Speaker
We're high tech. We're so, high tech. In our living rooms, Google Slides. OK, so what we wanted to kind of go through is like shout out some of our personal like favorite looks. They're kind of in order, but I would say they're not really ranked in order.
00:13:20
Speaker
um But we kind of like we each put together like our favorites just to kind of talk about some of the characters in particular. So I'll let you kick it off. So my side are Spike and Iggy. And in the middle are the characters from the game that they present in the first time. And this is an interesting and amazing, phenomenal interpretation of those two little guys there.
00:13:40
Speaker
They look exactly the same. i I can't really tell the difference. I don't know. and for what Fisher Stevens is on the left with the amazing beard line and like the...
00:13:50
Speaker
that I can't even begin his hair is like, it takes such a journey. There's like, there's a ah lot with hair in this movie to try to kind of speak to spikes and like dinosaur themes. Yeah. Like, uh, exoskeleton or like horn. There's so much. And Fisher Stevens is carrying 90% of it.
00:14:12
Speaker
And this shirt that he's wearing is from the end of the movie. And underneath him, like the little Polaroid is one of the continuity shots that somebody's selling on eBay. So somebody could get lucky um buying these.
00:14:24
Speaker
ah And I just liked that there were continuity shots that we could get a hold of because there's not usually a lot of information unless it's a Star Wars or like ah an Avengers kind of situation where you get to see behind the scenes so much, especially not in 1993.
00:14:38
Speaker
when these folks were making a movie before video game movies were a thing. And so it was very much an experiment experimental thing. And they weren't really recording it the same, but they have so much still existing.
00:14:52
Speaker
I love this shirt because it makes me hope that Fisher Stevens never tripped and that his his co-actor never tripped into him um because they're constantly doing a lot of physical work but I like the eyelash kind of situation happening right and like he constantly has suits with a lot of texture a lot of texture is at play in this movie to kind of make you think of scales and make you think of non-human skin and um I just love that he also has red gloves for no reason because he's a party guy for style for style for style Yeah, there's so much um there's there's so much like construction of the costumes in Dino Hatton that like are really communicating to us that we are somewhere else. And doing that through like giving us really unexpected fabrics or like really unexpected textures and cuts and things where you're just like...
00:15:44
Speaker
Wow, that must have been so much fun to figure out and to make because it's crazy in the best way. Yeah, and it's crazy in the best way because usually when you are designing a production, you are looking at your source material.
00:15:58
Speaker
These two little guys. There we go. And you're trying to pull from that so that you're communicating this like union between the original art and then what you're making. There's nothing. to connect these guys none if There's no color palette to connect them. There's no secret little wink to like, oh, he's got maybe goggles or like, I guess we could go. He's got a fun hairstyle and we're going to go with that. He's always going to be different because his hair doing a lot, but I love I love it. I love it. It's just nuts.
00:16:28
Speaker
Spike next to him is played by Richard Edson. And I guess that his connection to his original character is that he's got like an undercut and shaved sides, but he's constantly wearing these jackets that are super loud, but also have like a very subtle sparkle to them. No matter what he's doing, they're always sparkly.
00:16:45
Speaker
And I'll get to another one of his jackets that has a great detail. But this one, he almost has like an underbust corset that's like built into a waistcoat. And I love these like metallic bones that he's wearing in this necklace.
Adapting Video Game Characters to Film
00:16:58
Speaker
There's no reason for it.
00:17:00
Speaker
But okay, I believe you. You're you're a predator. i'm I'm in it. I believe it. Yeah, there's so it's there's so much... um borrowing of like punk and um like club aesthetic in Dino Hatton.
00:17:18
Speaker
um And it's, it's so interesting. Like, I feel like that was really something that happened a lot in like the eighties into like the early nineties There was like, okay, we want to have this world feel different and it's maybe a little menacing and it's it's unfamiliar and it's strange and we don't know the rules. And so they they go to these like counterculture styles and like borrow them and like put that on everybody. And I'm just laughing because it's Super Mario Brothers. Because it's Super Mario Brothers. We got to get dark. We got to get dirty. We got to get into the clubs. Like we need to see what people are wearing at night.
00:17:53
Speaker
And I, well, it's phenomenal. I think that's what's so like, I don't know. kept going back and forth. i don't know if anyone else has had this experience where I'm like, this a good movie or a bad movie? I don't know.
00:18:07
Speaker
it's It is both. It's like if you had to have like the Venn diagram, it's like right in the middle. it's But it's one of those movies where you're like, who was the target audience of this movie in 1993?
00:18:19
Speaker
And the question will live as long as this movie does because like it just will always exist in the middle of like, if the game had not existed, this movie might have a different like legacy where people are like, this was landmark weird sci-fi fantasy question, action, cyberpunk, continue, continue, continue. But because there's the game, it's always going to have that relationship with its audience where audience is expecting something to connect that doesn't.
00:18:49
Speaker
but has some nods throughout the design that are subtle. Yeah, it's kind of baffling, but like, I'm okay with that. Like, I'm okay living in the uncertainty of it all. I'm constantly being shocked by this movie every 20 years. Every time. going to love it.
00:19:02
Speaker
um Yeah, I had to highlight ah the character, Lena. um She is like King Koopa's... Right hand slash girlfriend question mark assistant.
00:19:17
Speaker
I feel like her role is a little nebulous, but I love her. She has so many good costumes. I think she's going to show up again. Oh, she is. like you We don't think that she comes from any of the games. i don't I don't know Lena. I don't know her. Not familiar with her, but I i love her so much. And I think that she exists in the like grand tradition of the absolutely stylish villain woman, which... There's so many.
00:19:44
Speaker
like every I was trying to think of like, oh, all these movies with stylish villain woman. And I kept coming up with Disney, you know, like the Cruella de Vil, the Ursula, Yzma, like all of those people.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yes, Mother Gothel, thank you. Yes. And it's there's just something about like these um these sort of villainous characters where they just have to be absolutely stylish, absolutely beautiful, and um absolutely snatched in that dress. like i I love the shaping. There's clearly like a very intense corset situation happening underneath.
00:20:22
Speaker
this dress to create this line on her. But there's these like weird sort of like the like ah lines on it are some kind of like maybe vinyl like painted applique or something going on here.
00:20:37
Speaker
um And it's ah just like a fascinating ah look. And it's very early 90s. It looks like it's Like totally um taking from like fashion, couture, all of those things and like swirling it all together with this like Mario inspired thing. And what comes out the other side is Lena, who is absolutely fabulous. And constantly, constantly fabulous throughout the entire movie. Every single outfit is and amazing.
00:21:11
Speaker
All right, let's... Okay, okay. Okay. So the images are actually flipped. ah King Koopa is Melinda's favorite on this one. Yes, that is mine. And Toad the Goomba is my favorite.
00:21:29
Speaker
And on the bottom of the screen are all three of the original characters. That green guy is Bowser. Or no, is it Bowser? is Yeah. Yeah, Bowser who's inspiring King Koopa.
00:21:39
Speaker
Then there's Toad who becomes Goomba who is that angry looking little mushroom guy. These... These tiny headed. is They're like eight feet tall. Reptiles. And I included Princess Daisy for for scale.
00:21:57
Speaker
um These costumes had to be made, of course, for these giant, teeny, teeny, tiny-brained, de-evolved lizard fellas. And this little guy is so happy.
00:22:08
Speaker
He was a musician who was, like, fighting against King Koopa. And then he got he got shrunk and expanded at the same time. And every time we see them on the screen, i gets so emotional about it because who are you and why are you the police force?
00:22:25
Speaker
And how come it's so easy to distract you and get you to stop like attacking people by just teaching you how to dance? way in an el And he starts like blowing into that harmonica when he's really enthusiastic about something.
00:22:38
Speaker
But I loved watching these... Creatures move because obviously the actor's head is about the same height as Princess Daisy. And then there's this little animatronic that sits on top.
00:22:49
Speaker
And the costume is a whole structure that's built to disguise that. And I would love to have been on a team that had to work on all of these giant... giant costume pieces and see them in motion because they're heavy.
00:23:05
Speaker
Those are heavy. That's gotta be a wool and wool is a lot. And to have a structure underneath it, like if you think of like football players, like shoulder pads and stuff like that, I'm sure it's even more built up to support that with mechanics. And it's like,
00:23:17
Speaker
early nineties robotic animatronic technology. care if you can breathe or if you're hot under there, there's no ventilation. It's gonna be very heavy. It just has to And I think I love Toad in particular because we see him get transformed into Goomba and um his clothing changes with him underneath.
00:23:39
Speaker
It's a magic that is not explained ever. Because you would think if he was, you know, put in a machine and turned into this that like all of a sudden all of his clothing here would be just simply too small and the neck hole of his like top would be absolutely gaping because his head is so small but it like he comes out like fully formed in the uniform.
00:24:02
Speaker
So King Koopa has programmed this machine to retain modesty. Yes. Yes. Don't show those shoulders or those collarbones. We've got a costume for you. You've got the uniform.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. It just is part of their skin. Nothing underneath it. And it's absolutely fascinating because like, obviously our source material of what a Goomba looks like. I just, there's nothing. There's absolutely literally nothing. was Like we we don't even. The body massive.
00:24:35
Speaker
ah started in the spring because you were bad behind ah she I can see that. And so this point keeps coming up throughout the design of the film is that there are little winks to we see an original design here and we're going to kind of build off of like a color palette or we're going to pull off of a character that came from a game that came over to the US and became, I think, Super Mario Brothers 2 where there are characters called Sniffits.
00:24:59
Speaker
We're going to refer to that by having weird goon gas masks in a landfill and then someone might notice that. Maybe. They might connect the dots and might be interested. Which is such a an interesting take on design because usually you want to be able to like lead people to that part of the storytelling and like bring them into the world so that they recognize it and can understand how all the characters are living. And this is kind of purposefully tricking you around it the whole time.
00:25:28
Speaker
Is it something that's coming from this? How does it relate? We'll never know. so And I think that like, that's something that we were talking about was like beforehand was that, you know, this is 1993. The idea of making a video game movie at this point, it's sort of like the Wild West. Like there's not a formula, there's not a framework to follow.
00:25:48
Speaker
And sometimes when you get these movies that kind of like help create like a genre, like and in retrospect, they're just absolutely wild to see where now if you were making a video game movie, I mean, obviously, you know, we have so many more examples, like it would be a completely different experience. And, and it's kind of like, like some of the stuff, like ah making up stuff where they like talk to Bob Hoskins, and he's like,
00:26:12
Speaker
I didn't know what it was. Never heard of the game. Didn't know it. My kids told me to do it. And i don't think that would happen now. Like, I don't think you'd sign on to a project when you're like, I have no idea what it is.
00:26:23
Speaker
And I'm not going to learn about it either. I'm just going to show up for filming. Yeah. And if you have no idea about the connection of the audience to the piece, like Sonic, the Sonic movie, when it originally came out, the first trailer that came out, the design for Sonic was so, so bad. So sorry, but so, so different, shall we say that they had to go back and redo all of it because the attachment that people have to these original properties is real and they did not understand this at this time.
Cultural Impact and Divergence from Source Material
00:26:50
Speaker
Mm-mm.
00:26:53
Speaker
anyone on this film tried to understand that? I don't think there's any evidence that they really tried to... and that's That goes back to, like, who is this movie for? Because, I mean, Mario as a franchise is absolutely massive. Like, it cannot be understated the cultural impact that, the like, these games have and continue to have. And at this time, it's sort of like...
00:27:17
Speaker
why are you making this? What is this? like the gang like more with it of light Yeah. And it seems like there was like conflicting goals. Like it, I think that what makes this movie so wild is that, that like the filmmakers couldn't seem to agree. on what they were making. And some people wanted it to be this like totally different, like more adult, like fantasy themed movie. And other people were like, this is a game that the audience at this point was children mostly, and it should appeal to them. So they want to come see it.
00:27:49
Speaker
And it seems like no one could agree. And that seems to be like where the sort of like chaos comes from. um But I do, I have to shout out ah King Koopa. I love this suit so much. um I think we see it twice, but only once do we see it with his like articulated spinal exoskeleton hard plastic tie, um which I just love because it's so out there and so specific and not something that you're going to see in like any other movie. And it's such a strange thing to be like, we want to represent um this character
00:28:32
Speaker
of Bowser, who we're calling King Koopa in this movie, but we still gotta put him in a suit and make him look like a politician, i guess. um And so how do you do that? you know so um i don't know.
00:28:47
Speaker
This is what they came up with. This this was the decision. this i mean, I love thinking that the design kind of was inspired by the bracelet that the original Bowser character has. Like, oh, there's spikes. We're going to hold on to that and we're going to put spikes on everybody. And that into an entire wardrobe. I guess. I mean, yeah, that seems to be what happened here. um Shall we? Please.
00:29:09
Speaker
Okay. Now, my favorite for this one is definitely another Lena piece where this is a design rendering from Joseph Porro. And it's so almost like a Broadway dancer. Like there's like a cabaret-ness happening here, that theatricality where...
00:29:26
Speaker
We are so aware that this world is different from Brooklyn. And these two pictures can tell you that very quickly. In our real world of like New York, we are seeing people who are wearing work clothes, like nice clothes for the time to go out for like a dinner or go out to like the bar.
00:29:45
Speaker
But we're not seeing these ultra villain Vamp. Vamp. Like it's so, I don't know. My input here is just going to be vibes.
00:29:56
Speaker
I love this. I love her. She looks like a villain. She looks like she's going to stab you to death with her heels. And I love every single scene where she shows up. There's such a mix of plastic and softer fabrics that stretch to allow her wild movements.
00:30:09
Speaker
i don't know. This is like her Vader cloak and I'm all about it. And I had to go with this Daisy look. um There's not a lot of costumes from the the real world that made it onto our list, but I just, I had to shout this out because this movie came out the same summer as Jurassic Park.
00:30:31
Speaker
And it's fascinating because we have dinosaurs in both and we have archaeologists in both. And so this is Daisy. And when we meet her in the real world in Brooklyn, she is an archaeologist who has uncovered fossils like at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.
00:30:48
Speaker
And there's just something in the 90s about having like a lady scientist where you had to put her in this outfit. I think you were contractually obligated to dress her like this.
00:31:00
Speaker
um She looks like Ellie Sattler. And it's so interesting because obviously these productions were happening, you know, somewhat concurrently. So it's not like... ah One is borrowing from the other. they were They arrived at very similar ideas totally independently of each other.
00:31:18
Speaker
um an additional an additional little note that the two of us carry very close to our hearts is that Jurassic Park did not have a costume designer. That was a bunch of different people just trying to make it, which is pretty crazy. it's Yeah, I will never get over learning that fact. was so crazy.
00:31:34
Speaker
um But what I......fail his job.... he failed at his job
00:31:41
Speaker
um
00:31:45
Speaker
Thank you. I think my other favorite thing about this costume for Daisy is, so um we meet her, her her and John Leguizamo as Luigi, you know, immediately hearts in the eyes, like they're in love. It's a done deal.
00:32:02
Speaker
um They go on their first date, which is a double date, Mario and Daniela. And Luigi and Daisy and Daisy wears this outfit on the date. She comes straight from the archaeological dig to like a very stereotypical Italian restaurant for like a spaghetti dinner. but To be fair, look at how clean and crisp this archaeological dig outfit is. There is no dirt anywhere. There's no sweat stains like she is ready for that restaurant dinner.
00:32:34
Speaker
I just love it. there's just like It's so interesting to have like the different like representations of female characters in this movie in particular where you know we're we're using costumes to like code them in very particular ways. like You would never confuse the personality of Lena and Daisy just based on these images. You don't even have to see the movie. We have the vamp. We have the ingenue. We have our Disney plotline ready to go. Start singing.
00:33:06
Speaker
um it's It's absolutely fantastic. And it's it's such a fun contrast with Daisy and um Daniela, who's very much dressed for her date to be for her to be like,
00:33:19
Speaker
You can pick me up from the dig. It's fine. um I'll be in my like dusty clothes. It's okay. We'll go to dinner. um i just It's such a fascinating ah perspective on female characters in this era to have the, you know, take me seriously, has to have a particular look, um as opposed to just being a serious character. It's fascinating to me And from her origin origins in the game, Princess Daisy, she has a color palette of like yellow, basically. And we never see that. Never. um The same way that we almost never see Mario and Luigi in their red and green. They're always switched until they finally get those jumpsuits later in the movie.
00:34:00
Speaker
So that's another example of like playing with what do we know? What have we researched? How familiar are we with the game? And how much are we going to give that to you?
Character Specific Costume Analysis
00:34:09
Speaker
Or just like wink about it. She's interesting.
00:34:12
Speaker
Amazing. Okay. Okay. So we both agree. We both picked this one. This is the night at the Roxbury club scene where they're kind of supposed to be incognito.
00:34:25
Speaker
This is my, in my notes, I call this the in the club. We all found the outfit of the movie.
00:34:33
Speaker
um These suits are everything. They're so crazy. I love them. i mean, the lapel on Mario's jacket is like this jagged little edge that you don't see ever.
00:34:45
Speaker
And so it's like, thank you for that. That's a theme that recurs throughout the design of this movie are these like jagged sort of dino teeth shapes and Luigi. The typical Luigi outfit, hot pink, orange. Like a flavor-flav clock necklace, maybe. he's Ready to go plumbing. He's got like six buttons on his sleeve of his jacket where you would normally have like two or three. Don't know why. And he has, I think, no lapel either. So we're playing with that real hard. I think it's also like a zipper down the front of his top, maybe. Like, this is it's such an outfit. And it's so... ah it You know, it makes me think of the scene in um European Vacation where they have to go shopping in Italy um because all of their stuff gets stolen and they just end up in these, like, wild designer looks, if anyone knows what I'm talking about.
00:35:41
Speaker
um But it's just, like... Oh, and of course, we can't ignore the fact that Mario is wearing yellow gloves. Yellow leather gloves. For what? For why? For whom?
00:35:54
Speaker
It just would have been such an interesting opportunity to put them in red and green. And they said no. They said no no. We don't need that. At the beginning of the movie, we see Luigi in a red zip-up hoodie and we see Mario, I think, in a green like jacket or hoodie. And then we're just like so hungry.
00:36:10
Speaker
We're so hungry for those color identifications. Be like, show us those characters as we know them. And they just keep holding that, keep holding it. yeah And putting them in wild outfits one after the other. These are one of the biggest gift of the movie.
00:36:23
Speaker
Agreed. Because they they're so not fit for the characters. It's just showing how much they stand out in this world because they're trying to hide in a club by looking like other people in the club. Except for the one businessman that you see in the in the scene.
00:36:39
Speaker
He's just got a tie he looks like he just rolled out of Wall Street. Maybe he came through the portal. Yeah. but We don't know. We do have like gangsters in the Brooklyn world that are very also, again, like very stereotypical where you're like, okay, I guess that's what we're doing here. the Italian stereotypes are out of this world.
00:36:58
Speaker
um Should we talk about the fact that their names are Mario Mario and Luigi Mario? Yeah.
00:37:08
Speaker
I don't think it would be right if we didn't talk about that. And that Mario was a mother and a father to his brother, Luigi Mario. Is he related by blood? I love this question and I have no answers. It feels ambiguous in the movie. I don't think they really answer. I think it also is worth mentioning that in the sort of prologue scenes of the movie, we see Daisy hatch out of a dinosaur egg in a convent surrounded by nuns. And her mother, who is played by the same actress, is dressed as kind of like a cyberpunk witch. Yes.
00:37:44
Speaker
Who runs away in the night. And she's the queen. Yes. As she should be. Yes. Yes. i It makes perfect sense. I have no questions, no notes.
00:37:55
Speaker
I'm on board. This is the game that I'm very familiar with. The fact that we had to distill down and force ourselves into this format, because otherwise we would be here for way too long talking about way too many things.
00:38:06
Speaker
There... Watch this movie. Watch this movie. Watch it again. and Watch it tonight. um yeah I don't even know. It's like, I don't even know what else to say. um Beautiful tailoring, wonderful ideas, absolutely bonkers, but executed perfectly.
00:38:25
Speaker
What more could you ask for in a film? And forgetting, doesn't the yellow suit also have danglies? Oh, yeah. Oh. There's a theme of dangly things from Cuffs. Yes.
00:38:36
Speaker
They really wanted to catch light. And so a lot of these costumes with the PVC, the the vinyl, all that stuff, it's catching light in this dark, dank world. And so throwing rhinestones on Mario Mario is... Chef kiss. Throwing that Flava Flav clock on Luigi Mario. Amazing. How better to draw your eye to the zipper needing that.
00:38:59
Speaker
And it is, I mean, we should be very clear. It's never daytime Dino Hatton. It is always just a pitch black void in the sky, which is your number one indication that we're just filming this in a giant warehouse somewhere and we didn't do anything up there. It's so confusing to me watching that because i don't know why they made that decision.
00:39:21
Speaker
i don't know why they made any of the decisions. And that's why we exist in this space of I love you and i I'm so confused by you. Yeah. I think it's okay to love things that you don't understand. Thank you, Melinda. yeah thank you Okay.
00:39:37
Speaker
All right. Back to Spike and Iggy, our favorites. They are so good. yeah Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So you'll always know who's who and you'll always follow it.
00:39:51
Speaker
i I am so obsessed with the makeup and hair design on Fisher Stevens. The blocked out eyebrows for why? to make him look more like a lizard?
00:40:03
Speaker
I think so. oh and it it works for my heart. It does. This little lizard man in this this, the texture of the suit, we couldn't find ah good enough photo really to show the texture perfect like really clearly. This is like a pretty good one, the collector's card, in case you want one of those, they exist.
00:40:22
Speaker
But like, it kind of makes you think of scales. Yeah. A little bit because it's so busy and there's so much going on. But... But what's going on with this red jacket?
00:40:34
Speaker
Okay, I love this red jacket. And I had to include this particular photo, even though it's- The best part. Very grainy and not not the best quality photo. But I needed one that showed that this jacket was clearly like stolen from a department store because it's still got the security tag, the price tag. And sales And like those, those like, like label tags that you have to like pick off after you buy a suit jacket. It's got all of that. So clearly he like walked by a store, grabbed it and just continued on his way because he's bad. He's a bad guy. bad, but he's also so not a part of this world that he's like...
00:41:15
Speaker
I don't know, maybe that belongs there. And like, he keeps it. And you see him throughout the movie while he's wearing this jacket, kind of play with it. And there's like a little lizard that also eats half of it. But it's like a little feature for his character to play with. It's like stage business. And so it's not just like a bad boy.
00:41:33
Speaker
It's also like, I stand out and nobody's going to stop me because I'm just kind of flitting through this world, following my own rules, stalking young women who are dressed ready for an architurist. And kidnapping them yeah because you're like, ah, that must be Princess Daisy. She's got two legs and a head. So we'll keep trying. We'll keep trying. We'll keep trying. And we'll go through four women from Brooklyn until we hit the right one. Yeah, because there is like a thread throughout the the like ah Brooklyn part of this movie that there is like this...
00:42:00
Speaker
epidemic of of women going missing in Brooklyn that sort of just like played out on like newspaper headlines and like snippets of like the news that you like hear in the background. And then when Daisy ultimately gets kidnapped, she's like thrown in the cell with all of these other women who have been kidnapped out of Brooklyn. Who are dressed like the stereotypes of Brooklyn.
00:42:19
Speaker
The workout girl. Yeah. The artsy girl. Two party girls. And then the lady with a cigarette. And the never, never goes out. Endless supply. And there's a cut scene where she offers a pack of cigarettes to one of the coombas and he just snaps it right up and they cut that out.
00:42:35
Speaker
But it was beautiful because you see her in this like kind of like wedding guest attire with a little bolero jacket and like an A-line dress. And she's just constantly smoking one cigarette and it's always half burnt.
00:42:48
Speaker
It never goes anywhere. It's perfect. And she has no pockets. Where are those cigarettes? Yeah. We don't need to Again, we don't need to know. We just love. Yes. I think what I like so much about Spike and Iggy is this like design challenge that you'll have sometimes where you're like, we need these people to basically be aliens who don't understand the rules of the world that they are in And therefore, when they try to blend in they do it wrong. So there's nothing
00:43:21
Speaker
wrong inherently about all of the clothing that they're wearing, but they're not wearing it right. So they stand out and immediately you're like, these guys are not from here. Like they're like, um, the layering of like a burgundy windbreaker with the blazer on top, like,
00:43:43
Speaker
I don't think you would do that in everyday life. So you're immediately like, there's something wrong about that guy. He's not from here. And it's always fun to me, like when I'm working as a designer to be like, what are the things that I can do that aren't wrong, but they'll look incongruent and therefore look wrong to the audience and make someone look out of place and weird.
00:44:05
Speaker
And I love doing stuff like that. can be really subtle with it and still... it like If they had taken like the security tag off of that blazer, you'd probably be like, hey, he's a little quirky, but whatever.
00:44:17
Speaker
But when you leave it on, you're like, this guy's an alien or dinosaur. I mean, you know, but he's... Or he's just absolutely oblivious. And either way, he is other. Yeah. I love it so much. Okay. So we had to also include our honorable mentions. Okay. Miss Cigarette, I love you. i have no... I don't understand you.
00:44:39
Speaker
But the whole time that you've been kidnapped to another dimension and you're being watched by little tiny-headed Goomba men, you've got that cigarette, that comfort cigarette, and you're just minding your own damn business.
00:44:51
Speaker
Good for you. I mean, it really gives that like prison kind of smoke them if you got them kind of like vibe where you're just like, she's just, she's just waiting. You know, those prison boleros that they give you. Yeah. They're standard issue. They in 93. That's what forget. I, love.
00:45:07
Speaker
um i i love Luigi. So this look here that we see Luigi first of all, i do find it baffling that he spends half of his time in Brooklyn wearing a Yankees hat and the other half wearing a Mets hat. I don't know who he's rooting for.
00:45:25
Speaker
yeah He hasn't made up his mind. He just supports the general concept of baseball, I think. The way that Luigi's character journey has been told through baseball caps is... Like nuts and chef kiss both.
00:45:38
Speaker
The hat goes here. It goes here. It goes here. Business. I'm a little crazy. I'm young, but wise. Absolutely. We're at the end of the movie and I'm finally with the right team. I've learned some things. I found love. I saved the princess.
00:45:53
Speaker
It's so interesting to me that Luigi saves the princess in this movie and not Mario. Like they gave the romantic arc of this movie to Luigi and not to Mario. And Mario, Mario...
00:46:05
Speaker
is very, very, very invested in this romance, in like a like a mustache twitching. Well, it's he's his father and his mother mother and his brother and his cousins. and yeah He wants him to do be happy. This family structure. um But I also have to particularly call out this t-shirt that Luigi is wearing um because there were so many weird graphic shirts in the nineties.
00:46:33
Speaker
And it's one of those things that like, as you know, as we, as we age and we remember things that now become vintage and get sold in like vintage stores and we can point to and be like, I was there, man.
00:46:46
Speaker
um There's sort of like a flattening of what people think of as the 90s or like any decade, but we see it like a lot, like especially because it's this sort of like retro fashion thing. People are, you know, dressing in like 90s fashion now. It's like a thing you can do.
00:47:05
Speaker
um But stuff like this doesn't really seem to come back into the conversation the same way. Like everyone's wearing stuff that like the characters on Friends wore and nobody's wearing this. And this is a real shirt from the 90s.
00:47:20
Speaker
And I can like feel that like paint, that screen printed paint like crackle in my hands when I think about this shirt. um And, you know, those of us who lived through that decade will never forget. if came to a at one point Yeah, where he puts his face in it. Oh, I love that.
00:47:43
Speaker
Absolutely love those. so And the maybe my favorite detail about this shirt is because he's going on his big date with Daisy and he wants to impress her. So he's obviously going to change. He's not wearing his like dusty archaeology clothes like she is.
00:47:58
Speaker
He puts on the exact same shirt, but it's black. It has the exact same graphic on it. So that's how you know it's nighttime. You know, it's like you change into your tuxedo to go to the fancy event at night. You put on your black T-shirt with the flaming yin yang symbol on it for your date. That's your date night outfit. This is just daytime. But I think he might keep the same white jeans for both. Yes, because they go to this other dimension in white jeans and there's never anything that happens to those white jeans until they're in a trash truck and then they're real sticky and that's upsetting because you can feel it through through the low quality like footage.
00:48:39
Speaker
i i just love... This is a slight aside, but I love that with costuming, you kind of have accidental time capsules. This Ying Yang shirt is a perfect example of that. Like all of these tastes and all of these things are very, very heightened, but they are such a time capsule of like an understanding of what something futuristic or what something from a different dimension would look like.
00:48:59
Speaker
And so going back and seeing what gets picked from that comes back, like you said is really, really fascinating. And the fact that we haven't seen this Ying Yang shirt is a real shame. I mean, i I hope to see it at like Urban Outfitters tomorrow. I mean, I would love to see that. But I think we've actually moved past 90s into like 2000s era stuff that's coming back, which I don't really want to discuss that. But also we also had to include Daniela because she is Mario's sort of romantic interest character in this film.
00:49:31
Speaker
um And something that I found very confounding because I was like, I'm not familiar with Daniela. And I learned and that supposedly in the actual written script of the movie, she is Daniela Pauline, which Might be more familiar to people.
00:49:52
Speaker
ah However, that does not get spoken in the film. So that was just a little secret for the filmmakers to know. And none of us, apparently. We did not need to know that. There's so many things. I hope that everybody goes back and watches this at some point and looks for these little teeny tiny...
00:50:10
Speaker
urges towards an Easter egg of like knowledge about these video games. I personally did not know a lot of these things. I actually tapped into my husband who has played these games since the eighties.
00:50:22
Speaker
And like, ah there's just so many tiny little details hidden all over the place in masks, in the shapes of some costumes, in certain color palettes, in certain designs of spikes. Like they just appear randomly. And then...
00:50:37
Speaker
are never referred to. It's magic. And there's there's one thing that I do want to mention, which is the Koopa bucket that he ends up in in the end. So Bowser has this like vehicle that he travels around in that's like a i'm going to say bucket. And they just throw Dennis Hopper into one of these, but it's steel. It has no paint on it nothing. And they don't refer to it as something that happens normally. It's really an industrial bucket. Yeah, it's like a construction equipment something. middle of Dino Hatton. And that's where his like the end of his story happens, where he turns into a dinosaur.
00:51:12
Speaker
could yeah As you do. yeah He sort of has like flashes, but yeah, even like the photo that I used of him with like the, the dinosaur hands. I'm not a hundred percent sure that that like crisp image happens in the movie or like it flashes and they go back to like human. I don't remember a scene where he was threatening Mario, Mario, and the more like Mario doing my spirit fingers.
00:51:38
Speaker
I wish it was present, but I don't think it was happening. Yeah. um Yeah, I mean, like's like final thoughts?
Audience Expectations vs. Film Reality
00:51:47
Speaker
Final thoughts. This movie is going to haunt you. It's going to haunt you. You're going ask so many questions. You're never, ever going to get an answer.
00:51:54
Speaker
And I hope that it kind of inspires folks to look for more details from other films and things that they see. Because this is... crazy storytelling skills because you can't you can't say that these costumes and the other parts of the production design don't create worlds.
00:52:15
Speaker
They do. There are two worlds that exist, you believe it. you believe it. um But they don't tell the story that you're expecting. And so you have an emotional response to that, that you wouldn't normally have when you're watching a different film, because you're being told the story you're kind of expecting through the costume, through the production design, through the sound, all of that stuff.
00:52:34
Speaker
And this is just fighting with that constantly. so I don't know. It's ah it's a real one. I think that, yeah, that like tension maybe is like the word. It's good word. and like expectation and what you're delivered on screen certainly makes it an unforgettable movie.
00:52:53
Speaker
um But yeah, I think I just have to reiterate what I said before that like there wasn't really precedent for how to make a video game movie, I think at this point. And um it's it's just kind of bizarre because,
00:53:12
Speaker
I think that um that people would, like if you were making this movie now, I feel like there's every expectation that people that were making the movie would have grown up playing these games.
00:53:28
Speaker
Or that you would contractually have to meet certain things right based on the game. That's so true. Yes. kind And yeah, an example of what happens when you don't do that.
00:53:40
Speaker
But it's also an example of experimentation. But we are living in the after where now people actually do have to meet a certain expectation. Otherwise, this would not have made it to theaters today, i don't think. I don't think so. Like there's so much, um you know, like our pop culture is full of like IP, like franchises and things that, you know, are like made into like different forms and different mediums. And um they they didn't do that. They didn't do that. And i don't think that there was an expectation at all back then that you would do that because people hadn't done it before. And it's just sort of like it exists in this time when like filmmakers, I think, weren't beholden to the property that they were like referencing or like basing their thing off of. But
00:54:34
Speaker
i'm I'm not totally sure when that changed, but... I'm going to say right after this. think They're like, we got to do something that else. People who loved the IP asked a genuine question. What is this?
00:54:46
Speaker
and And why do you think I want this? And people couldn't answer it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's so... um Yeah. So thank you so much for coming. And yeah, you had a... but like time for forever so long Thank you. So we remember you were able to look at any interviews with the actors and actors.
Filming Challenges and Actor Experiences
00:55:05
Speaker
There's Oxford. Oh boy. um i did read some things and it seems like um it was not a positive no experience for the actors. I think a loose quote from Dennis Hopper was this was one of the most miserable experiences of his career. there There was ah accounts of maybe some some drinking before filming started of both him and John Leguizamo.
00:55:30
Speaker
I know they both got injured at various points and I've read things that if you look closely in certain scenes, you can see like, you know, they've got like a cast like on a finger that's like being masked and stuff like that. And I don't know how it doesn't sound like a great, um a great environment understand.
00:55:49
Speaker
be working in um It's kind of fascinating. I think one thing that we've maybe talked about in previous episodes of our podcast is as an actor, like you kind of have to be, you know, an ambassador and a marketer of your project when it comes out. And, know,
00:56:06
Speaker
if you don't feel good about it, you have to kind of go out there and sell it anyway. And it's only after time that people maybe start sharing their real feelings about a project. So um yeah, it doesn't sound like they had a very good time making the film. It sounded kind of chaotic. It sounded like there was a lot of last minute script rewrites and things being changed because it was going over time and over budget. So I think that you can see the evidence of that on the screen when you watch the film. We are almost out of time. So we just want to thank everybody really quick and so sorry, sir. But thank you so much. This was our first time doing this in front of anybody. So thank you very much for joining us.
00:56:47
Speaker
Thank you for coming. Yeah. We were...
00:56:55
Speaker
We really hope that you, that listening to us kind of yap about this, because we can yap about it passionately forever, some of us more academically than others. We hope that this kind of like enables you to go look at other properties now and ask some questions that maybe you didn't ask before about why was a decision made and how does it help progress the story or the development of character? one last thing, how can we watch as part of the movie for 93? We're happy.
00:57:21
Speaker
Oh, that is such a great question. We had it. um We had a copy of it. Yeah, we had a copy as well. I know there's a Riff Trax version because we also watched that one and I do recommend that one. So watch that one. Look for Riff Trax.
00:57:38
Speaker
There we go. Thank so much. no one's been any money there' in an art available there Thank you. Thank you. all right, everybody. Have a great night. Thank you very much for joining us.