Well Pixar movies tend to be about a couple of people trying to go somewhere while meeting interesting people and surviving  stuff along the way (Toy Story 1-3/Up/Finding Nemo/Wall-E) so yeah.  Here's the plot

• Mario and Luigi are brothers.  Luigi is always doing the hard work but Mario always gets the credit.  Everybody loves Mario and thinks he's awesome.  Luigi is unappreciated.
• Somehow both of them wind up in the Mushroom Kingdom.  Everyone thinks Mario is awesome and ignore Luigi.  Mario is the legendary savior who will save the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser's evil.
• Bowser kidnaps the princess.  Mario and Luigi rescue her.  Even though Luigi does all of the work, Mario takes the credit.  His face is put on the gold coin.  Mario will soon be king.  Luigi gets pissed off and leaves.
• Bowser kidnaps the princess AGAIN!
• Mario tries to save the princess but realizes that he can't do it without Luigi.  The two have a heart to heart moment.
• The Mario Bros. save Princess Peach by working together.  Mario shows some surprising courage (he's been a bit of an asshole, the whole movie) but Luigi still saves the day.
• Everyone thinks that Mario is the hero but Mario tells everyone that the real hero is Luigi.  Nobody believes Mario is telling the truth and that he's just being modest to make Luigi look good.
• Mario becomes king and Luigi is appointed Mario's plumber.
• Mario clogs up the toilet and Luigi has to clean up the poop.
• The end.

Mario to Video games is like porn to movies.

Mario movie is like porn without the porn.

There are a few core problems with videogame movies ...

First off, (much like books) videogames are much larger experiences than movies and are much more personal in nature so it is difficult/impossible to adapt them to be as large and meaningful to individuals as the videogame was. When you end up having a game series (like Mass Effect as an example) that has multiple 40 hour games each being filled with countless decisions and multiple ways to play through it, how do you filter this down to a 2 hour experience?

The bulk of story elements that can be taken from videogames to make a movie are "after-thoughts" (for lack of a better word). Many/most major videogame franchises date back to primitive hardware and the game was designed entirely with the gameplay elements in mind; and characters, plot, and environment were afterthoughts or could have been created because of limitations in the hardware. In Super Mario Brothers (for example) Goombas were originally supposed to be chestnuts, but because of the limitations in the hardware everyone saw them as mushrooms.

Finally, Hollywood has lost the ability to actually effectively tell a story. How many successful, critically acclaimed, or popular movies that come out of Hollywood are original creations; and not the adaptation of a comic book, novel, TV show, remake of a movie, or a remake of a foreign film? Of those that are "original works" how many do not blatantly rip off storylines or plot elements of popular or successful movies? Don't get me wrong, I accept the argument that all stories have been told before and you can show similarities in all stories to previous stories that have been told forever; but what I'm talking about is movies that (seem to) take a script written a few years ago, rename a few characters and update the slang to re-release it as a new movie. This is such a problem for videogames in particular because you have to have a good understanding of storytelling to take a format as unconventional as a videogame and translate it into a movie; and the writers in Hollywood simply aren't that good.

Pixar is physically incapable of making a bad movie.  So yes

/Thread?

The burning questions:  How come a normal person is Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom when everybody there is half mushroom?  Why does Bowser kidnap Peach so much?  Why do some mushrooms give you power when you eat them but other mushrooms (AKA Goombas) kill you?  Why is it that sometimes lava kills you instantly but other times, it only sets your ass on fire?  Who the hell is the KING of the Mushroom Kingdom?  Is it Bowser?  How is Yoshi a boy but he lays eggs?  Is Wart real or just a dream?  How does shoving a racoon up your ass (and yes, there is an entire racoon shoved up their asses) but leaving the tail hanging out give you the power to fly?  Why defend these castles so hard if the princess is in another one?  Just tell me that she's not in this castle and I won't kill all of your soldiers and wear myself out fighting them--it's a win/win situation!  Why does some quicksand kill you but other quicksand lets you sink without dying.  Who packed that gold coin inside of a brick?

A movie could answer all of these questions.  Or better yet, a Mushroom Scientist/Philosopher could say "Oh, there's a simple explanation for all of this....." and then, before he answers, he gets killed when Lakitu hits him with a Spiny.

The thing is that the game had a bad story to begin with, which is why I'm saying that turning Mortal Kombat into a movie is a stupid ideea. Sticking to a game's story is pretty pointless when the story sucks. If Hollywood wants to create a successful video game adaptation, the first step is to choose a game with a story worth telling.

Generally, Hollywood just chooses games based on their popularity (Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Doom etc.), instead of thinking wether said game would make a good movie or not. Despite not being a huge hit as a game, an animated movie based off Grim Fandango's or Psychonaut's storyline would get better reviews and (with the right PR from Disney and Pixar) would make more money than any Mortal Kombat movie could ever, yet Hollywood has little common sense to see that and keeps trying to adapt fighting games into movies.

I'd like to see all of the usual suspects but I'd like cameos by the lesser known guys, too.  Toss in some Tatanga (stealing cows in his ship), Wart (in a dream sequence), Fawful, and anybody else that would make fans go crazy while other people don't get the joke.  It'll never happen in a million years but I like the idea of a good Mario movie.

wait a minute! you stole that plot from "Cars"

Animation -- undoubtedly.

Plot -- hopefully. But that has always been the problem with video game movies.

Mike from Morgantown