Film Theory: Mario EXPOSED the Movie Industry! (Super Mario Movie)

You have recreations of classic moments, but with quite new faces and plots. Maleficent and Maleficent 2: Movies that started out as a familiar and beloved fairy tale, except told with a new twist. It's safe, it's nostalgic, but also a little new. That Lion King remake: despite its quality, it's the cinematic equivalent of a one-way trip to nostalgia city. Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales:   Not great, but audiences were clearly happy to revisit a fictional world they hadn't seen in a long time. And now just take a look at the other side. What do critics like and the public don't?

Things that seem too new, that do things too differently, that are too far apart, or that may be good one-off ideas that may not quite add up in the end. For the critic who watches the

movie

at least once a week, they put a lot of weight on things that are interesting. The Last Jedi is a perfect example of this, where audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes focus on "not feeling like Star Wars" or the characters not behaving in ways they would expect. Critics praise the

film

for shaking things up, trying to do new things, and taking the franchise in new directions.

Turning red is another one that falls into this group. It's a Pixar

movie

that most parents would take their kids to, thinking it will be a good family pastime. But then you have scenes about periods and pads, and suddenly the room with your kids gets a little uncomfortable. To a brave and necessary critic who tells stories about topics that do not appear on screen. For the father looking to spend a few hours with his son, that's an awkward conversation on the way home from the movies. I'm not saying it's good, I'm not saying it's bad, I'm saying it's the truth and it will affect your score.

Now, take all that information and watch Mario's movie. It's all these things rolled into one. It's mostly about pretty colors and fun action with a pretty thin plot. It's aimed at online communities and gaming scenes that reviewers don't typically interact with. And it hurtles its way through tons of Easter eggs and nostalgia bait. This movie is basically everything critics don't like, all in one convenient package. So I think that's a pretty good explanation of what's going on with this divide between audiences and critics when it comes to movies like Mario. But I'm still not entirely satisfied with the answer.

It's like, sure, maybe that's how it's happening, but why is it happening? And more importantly, why does it keep happening? This disparity between critics and audiences is a pretty big problem and happens so frequently that it's been on people's radar for at least a decade. You would think that by this point we would have discovered some way to solve this problem. I mean, shouldn't we all be on the same side here? Ideally, audiences want to get valuable information about movies before spending time and money on them, and critics need someone to read or watch their reviews for their work to exist.

So why should there be a difference between critics and audiences? Unless someone was benefiting from keeping this conflict going. Stay with me here, this is relevant, I promise. The idea of ​​review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes can basically be traced back to one place: a show called At The Movies hosted by a pair of critics named Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Their whole gimmick was that, instead of ratings, they both gave the movies a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Not only was it an entertaining show hosted by a couple of knowledgeable guys talking about their opinions on capital-O movies.

But as the years went by, audiences learned about Siskel and Ebert's personal tastes, to the point that they could even tell at a glance what kind of movie they were getting into depending on which direction their thumbs were pointing. This was great for consumers as it gave them a clear and concise way to get general information about the quality of a movie. But for the studies it was even better. The marketing value of this cannot be underestimated. If a movie could get these two to agree that it was good, that was huge. Overall, this system was a win-win during a time when information did not travel at the speed of the Internet.

And it sounds like what Rotten Tomatoes is supposed to be like these days, right? Let me see how good or bad a movie is at a glance. But there's a problem with the way Rotten Tomatoes handles things. Back when there were only two guys on TV, it was easy to keep track of their opinions and find out how they thought. But now there are thousands of critics with followers on many different platforms. And by expanding so much, adding so many people to the process, literally hundreds of critics in most cases. Well, you start to lose the nuance of individual opinion.

You no longer think, Oh, Roger Ebert, like this thing. I like the other things you recommended, so I'll like this one too. Now individual thoughts are basically removed from the process, flattened and combined with everyone else's until all you see is a number. Sometimes it will be a big number with a tomato next to it, sometimes it will be a small number with a little green slime next to it. Add audience reviews and you're in the numbers. And would you look at that? If they are both large, you have the new version of two thumbs up.

Everyone loves the movie and you, as a movie buff, should go see it immediately. And if they don't line up, well, now you have some conflict, and the defendants from all the advertising agencies have really been able to twist this in their favor. Marketing loves a good conflict narrative: Coca-Cola versus Pepsi, Apple versus Android, Xbox versus PlayStation. But what they love even more is how these conflicts make consumers sort them themselves into neat and tidy boxes to make it even easier to market. It's been happening forever. So if you end up with a movie that the critics don't feel but the audience does, the studio can turn around and say “the critics don't like our movie, but so what?” “Our

film

is for you, the average citizen.” And that can do wonders for creating a passionate fan base, an us-versus-them narrative.

You know how sometimes ads just include quotes from all kinds of different reviews? Well, when Batman v Superman flopped critically and at the box office, the film's official account began tweeting what appeared to be press quotes attributed to random Twitter users with the text: "See it for yourself." And even if you don't know it, the Mario movie is now doing exactly the same thing. They're leaning heavily on audience scoring, tweeting a web announcement and simply saying "the audience has spoken." And it is getting the desired effect. Literally the number one response to this is "Exactly, we don't care about critics' opinions." Either way, almost everyone who invests real money in this wins.

Nintendo and Universal have a movie that fans begin to defend in a surprisingly long speech; Critics and content creators can write articles and make videos like this, in effect arguing why critics are wrong or wrong. And Rotten Tomatoes gets clicks and traffic as people look up the ratings, defend their opinions on the title, review it themselves, and the entire website brand becomes part of the conversation, all without getting dragged through the mud. Because they are the intermediary. Or are they really the neutral intermediary? If you really want to start getting into the conspiracy

theory

, do you know who the real owner of Rotten Tomatoes is?

Do you like the actual company that runs the website? It's Fandango Media, a movie ticket retailer, and that makes a lot of sense. You're going to see how a movie has been reviewed, and if it catches your attention, here's a link to buy a ticket right at the bottom of the Rotten Tomatoes page. It's no big deal, right? But if you go one step further on that corporate ladder, Fandango Media is jointly owned by Warner Brothers Discovery and NBC Universal, who together own all of this. I'm not saying anything, but isn't it interesting that one of those companies just released an animated children's movie based on a popular video game that had a wildly different reception from critics and audiences, prompting this very conversation?

And Mario's movie is literally just a bad point for critics, not bad enough to seem terrible, but bad enough to fuel discourse in the community and episodes like this one. Like I said, that's taking it to the extreme, but I'm just putting that little bit of information out there for your consideration. So what are we loyal theorists doing here? How do we do it better? Well, I don't think the answer is to never pay attention to reviews, nor do I think it's to take the audience's word as gospel. Rather, I think that both things must be taken into account.

As I have shown here today, numbers can tell you a lot, data is a great way to visualize a story, but it is rarely the whole story. Personally, I'm a big believer in finding and following film critics whose personal tastes largely match your own. Personally, I love Jeremy Jahns' more casual reviews, Chris Stuckmann's cinematic sensibility, and Dan Murrell's general

industry

coverage, all here on YouTube.com. Is Chris Stuckmann sometimes too artistic for my taste? Yes. Is Jeremy sometimes a slightly apologetic franchise fan? Absolutely. Does Den Murell... Well actually, to be honest, I don't have many complaints with Dan, I generally agree with his perspective.

In any case, sometimes she evades his opinion too much. Anyway, between these three, I feel safe knowing I'm in good hands. Get a solid, comprehensive review from three professionals who look at a movie through their own unique lenses. And from there, I have the power to draw my own conclusions. There are dozens of amazing reviewers just like them here on YouTube. If you have some favorites that deserve attention, please tell them in the comments below so I and everyone else can go check them out. And as always, remember my friends, everything is just a

theory

. A FILM THEORY! aaaaaaaaand cut.

By the way, if you want four theories right now about the Super Mario movie, why don't you watch our video talking about how Mario is literally immortal in the mushroom kingdom or how Peach is actually a human star? That link   is on screen right now. And hey, if you want more reviews of some amazing movies, hit that subscribe button. Will you have the honor of becoming our 12,000,000th subscriber? Press the button to see if you win the jackpot. As always, my friends, see you next week.