Home Forums Ganymede & Titan Forum PLUG: A new podcast about movies about toys

Viewing 39 posts - 1 through 39 (of 39 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #226946
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    My friend Molly and I have launched a new podcast, The Life Toyetic with Ben and Molly, wherein we watch a movie based on a toy and then talk about.

    What’s the fastest way to launch toys off of shelves and into the hands of eager, impressionable young consumers? Turning your toy franchise into a major motion picture, of course! Join Ben Paddon and Molly Alice Hoy as they boldly venture into the realm of “toyetic” cinema — movies that were conceived and produced solely to promote toys — and subject these glorified, feature-length commercials to a level of critical analysis that they were never intended to withstand.

    For our first episode we watched the 2016 Dreamsworks kink factory Trolls, which you can listen to here. Upcoming episodes include Masters of the Universe, Super Mario Bros.: The Movie, Transformers, and (eventually) every Barbie movie ever made. Yeah. We’re doing that.

    #226947
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Oh, the show is already listed on iTunes and Stitcher. We’re currently awaiting approval from Google Play. A sub and a review would really go a long way if you find this sort of thing interesting.

    #226948
    bloodteller
    Participant

    but Super Mario Bros: The Movie is based off video games and not toys

    #226949
    Hamish
    Participant

    > but Super Mario Bros: The Movie is based off video games and not toys

    And it ran on an “Entertainment System” rather than a video game console. What’s your point? ;-)

    #226960
    Phil
    Participant

    I think his point is that Super Mario Bros.: The Movie is based off video games and not toys.

    #226961
    Hamish
    Participant

    “More specifically, they did not market their new console, the NES (or Famicom in Japan) as a tech item or a computer. Rather, they marketed it as a toy, the next big plastic doohickey that your kid is going to want this holiday season. ”

    https://www.gamecrate.com/nes-classic-proves-nintendo-still-makes-toys-not-tech/15269

    #226966
    Dave
    Participant

    It is a computer, though.

    They could have marketed it as a tin of peas and it still would have been a computer.

    #226968
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Well, this is fun.

    #226973
    bloodteller
    Participant

    >I think his point is that Super Mario Bros.: The Movie is based off video games and not toys.

    that was indeed my point

    #226975
    Dave
    Participant

    Still, though, if it’s your podcast you get to choose what you talk about.

    #226980
    Hamish
    Participant

    > They could have marketed it as a tin of peas and it still would have been a computer.

    Yes, but it was marketed as a toy, and Ben’s project is about films that were made to market toys, so there is a certain symmetry there.

    #226982
    Dave
    Participant

    It’s interesting, I always thought of the Mario Bros movie as being one of the first of the videogame movies (maybe *the* first) that was made because someone thought they could make a good movie out of the property and gain an audience from the existing videogame fanbase, rather than being conceived as a glorified promotional tool for the videogame itself.

    I may be wrong there, but I never had the impression it was something initially driven by Nintendo as a marketing thing.

    #226984
    ori-STUDFARM
    Participant

    Really? I thought it was the first time they deliberately tried to make a turd out of a video game.

    #226985
    ori-STUDFARM
    Participant

    Oh, and thanks Ben! Now I’ve got to try find time to listen to another podcast! :)

    #226987
    bloodteller
    Participant

    >Really? I thought it was the first time they deliberately tried to make a turd out of a video game.

    bit mean, imo the Super Mario Bros. movie was actually really good. yes it’s nothing like the games but it’s built around an interesting sci-fi idea that feels well thought-out and is a pretty fun watch if you view it as its own thing. plus the exterior sets look really good. that one of the big city is really impressive even now

    also it has better dinosaurs than Pete Part 2

    #226988
    ori-STUDFARM
    Participant

    Yeah, I suppose it was a well polished turd…

    …Oh God! I’ve got to do a rewatch and reassessment now, don’t I?

    #226990
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Having rewatched the Mario movie very recently, and having come into it remember it being quite good, I have to say… it isn’t.

    #226991
    (deleted)
    Participant

    The documentary on the recent reissue is excellent.

    Also, the NES was a toy. A toy that played video games, but a toy. It was never sold as anything else, no TV consoles were until all the wanky Playstation ad campaigns arrived later on. Ben’s categorisation is correct.

    #226992
    Ridley
    Participant

    I am Mrs NESbitt!!

    #226994
    bloodteller
    Participant

    >Also, the NES was a toy. A toy that played video games, but a toy.

    but the mario bros. movie isn’t based off the NES, it was not a NES movie

    although they did use nintendo super scopes as guns in it i think so i guess you could count that

    #226995
    Dave
    Participant

    I love that people are having a sincere argument about whether Mario Bros is a videogame or not.

    I mean, clearly it’s not because you put it in a console that lies on a table, and you sit on chairs while you play it. So clearly Mario Bros is a piece of furniture.

    #226998
    flanl3
    Participant

    I am Mrs NESbitt!!

    I had a geography teacher called that

    #227001
    Hamish
    Participant

    I have it on reasonably good authority that all NES cartridges were in fact flutes, since people blew on them.

    #227049
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Episode 2 has dropped. We watched Masters of the Universe, and became masters of making terrible choices as a result.

    #227168
    Manbird
    Participant

    I’m looking forward to the BBC’s upcoming range of Classic Drama action figures. The Cathy Come Home set features a fully poseable Cathy with pram accessory, and the Social Services figurines come with authentic child-nets and scale paperwork. The Singing Detective one features two Michael Gambon toys (one psoriatic and bedbound, the other a ’40s gumshoe complete with microphone), and at least three Mark Binney/Finney variants.

    Sorry, got side-tracked there. We were talking about toys-?

    #227303
    Ben Paddon
    Participant
    #227331
    bloodteller
    Participant

    so i started listening to the podcast and already you say “they’re meant to be be brothers in this and they do not look like brothers” which is inaccurate because they are father and son in the movie- there’s a scene where luigi explicitly states that mario adopted him and brought him up.

    dunno if you cover that later in the podcast because i haven’t listened to it all but it was something i noticed

    #227332
    bloodteller
    Participant

    okay i am 16 minutes into this podcast and i have given up watching because it’s just descended into nitpicking about paleontologists not changing their outfits and various other arbitrary complaints

    #227347
    Ridley
    Participant

    Ear cataracts?

    #227378
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Luigi says Mario raised him, it’s never stated that Mario adopted Luigi.

    #227379
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    See also: The name of their plumbing company, and the name of the movie.

    #227385
    bloodteller
    Participant

    >Luigi says Mario raised him, it’s never stated that Mario adopted Luigi.

    well sure but you could arguably infer from this and the fact that they don’t resemble one another that they’re not actual brothers- they just have that kind of relationship.it’s like having a younger niece who calls you “big brother” even though you’re not her actual brother..

    either way, i felt it was a bit of an arbitary complaint to make, along with the other ones i heard during the 16 minutes i listened to. maybe it’s just because i have a huge soft spot for the movie (it’s one of my favourites), but making complaints about the “Brooklyn: Now” caption and various other trivial things didn’t really build a strong case towards disliking the movie, it just felt a bit like nitpicking. maybe that’s just the way i see it, i dunno

    #227395
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    You seem to be mistaking making a joke about an aspect of the film with complaining about it, which… yeah, I can’t help you there. Poking fun at “Brooklyn: Now” and Daisy not changing out of her paleontology duds for a date is patently ridiculous and we pointed those things out, but they weren’t complaints.

    But hey, y’know, to each their own.

    #227588
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Episode 4 is here! We watched Pokémon: The First Movie, a film which has no fewer than four subtitles.

    #228628
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    And here’s episode 5, which looks at a pair of long-forgotten Barbie animated specials from the 80s.

    #229780
    Dave
    Participant

    The Guardian has just posted this entertaining feature on the making of the Mario Bros movie.

    https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/mar/22/super-mario-bros-movie-killing-fields-chariots-fire-video-game

    This extract pretty much sums up the whole thing:

    On set, there was also a sense that nothing was certain. The production designers and special FX people didn’t know what they were building, the actors had arrived and they didn’t know what they were playing. There was just a general sense of ‘What the fuck is going on?’”

    #229786
    Ben Saunders
    Participant

    Are you sure that isn’t the writeup for Red Dwarf VIII?

    #229888
    Me Own Stunts
    Participant

    The Joel Schumacher ‘Batman and Robin’ movie is essentially a toy commercial.

    #229915
    Ben Paddon
    Participant

    Yep, and it’s on our list.

Viewing 39 posts - 1 through 39 (of 39 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.