Super Mario Bros. is often referred to as the best video game of all time. With over 50 million copies sold worldwide, the game in itself is a legend. There have been many attempts to immortalize this famous game through reels and cinematography. The best anime adaptation of this game came in 1986 when Japan released Super Mario Bros.: The Great Rescue of Princess Peach. This Japanese anime film adaptation of Super Mario Bros. received wide acclamation by many gaming and film enthusiasts. Back then, the film was only released in Japan with no international exposure. Without a proper DVD version to preserve the film, many people dreaded its loss in time. But thankfully, a YouTuber named Carnivol decided to give the world a much-needed Mario break. Thanks to his untiring efforts and his team, Super Mario Bros.: The Great Rescue of Princess Peach is getting a 4K look.
Carnivol and his team are currently working on the project. They hope to revive the long-lost animated masterpiece and remaster it with 4K technology. Incidentally, many wouldn’t know that this Japanese adaptation of Super Mario Bros. is also the first anime adaptation of any video game. Super Mario fans all over the world are getting excited at the news of this exciting possibility. Certainly, many who have watched the film back then in 1986 would feel nostalgic to watch it again. No matter how many modern games come and go, Super Mario Bros. will always occupy a special place in everyone’s heart.
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About The Film
The 1986 adaptation of Super Mario Bros. was nothing short of genius. This Japanese animation film was the first one to adapt its story from a video game. After this, there have been many attempts to re-cast the magic of Super Mario Bros. on the big screen, but none were that successful. For those who haven’t yet watched the film, there is a spoiler alert!
The animated adaptation starts with the film’s lead character, Mario playing some Famicom video games. After a while, out of nowhere, Princess Peach would appear on the television and struggle with a group of Koopa Paratroopas and spinies. The struggle would come out of the television and whirl through Mario’s room. Soon the enemies kidnapped the princess and took her back through the television screen.
Nextday, Mario would find a necklace left behind by the princess. As he was staring at the ornament, a blue dog would appear in the grocery store. Mario and his brother Luigi would rush after the dog, only to get transported inside the magical world of the mushroom kingdom. The movie would continue to explore various adventures of Mario in his attempt to rescue Princess Peach. Filled with humor, comedy, and adventure, the movie delivers a powerful performance.
Remastering The Super Mario Bros Movie In 4K
Despite being such extraordinary work of art, the movie never got an international release. That fact, however, is soon going to change. Carnivol and his team have been working tirelessly for the past three years to complete this dream project. In their attempt to restore the film, they have already spent around $20000. Carnivol has detailed his journey on his YouTube page. In addition, he has reflected on how they have worked as a team to make this project successful. The whole process of the movie restoration started when Carnivol and his team retrieved two VHA copies of the original film.
A week earlier, Carnivol released a test copy of the film on his YouTube channel. He wrote, “An older test encode of my personal restoration of Super Mario Bros. The Great Rescue of Princess Peach. The scan is done from my own personal copy of the film reels. Sadly, rights for this movie appear to be a mess, and I and Adobe Premier seem to be having the occasional disagreement (after roughly every update), which is why this isn’t my most recent WIP of the restoration.” Carnivol also added that the version he released lacks cleanup on frames and color tweaking. “It does, however, still contain hundreds of tweaks courtesy of yours truly…but this is over a year and a half old test/archival encode.”
Collaboration With Femboyfilms
Carnivol reflected on how he has spent countless hours working on the project. “All in all, asset acquisition, software licenses, reel scans, etc. probably has set me back somewhere short of about 20000 USD (not counting hours tinkering with this project).” Finally, he confirmed his partnership with FemboyFilms to finish the project. Carnivol is very hopeful that people will like their work. However, he was unsure regarding how many more days it will take to complete it. “FemboyFilms will be helping out with finishing what I started. This project initially started with two VHS copies back in the early 00s, and the chances are that the digital transfer you’ve got of this movie (which isn’t in the DivX codec) is from the early inception of this project.”
Like Carnivol, all Super Mario Bros. fans eagerly await the full and final remastered copy of the film. This initiative has received praises from every part of the games community. Particularly, the older generation of closely followed Super Mario Bro. will be delighted with this work. All that is left now is the settlement of copyright issues. After that, people will storm the digital media to find out how Super Mario saves Princess Peach.
