Libraribear's Nook

As a dad does, I went with my family to see the Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

It was cute. My children appreciated the script and the humor. I appreciated the soundtrack and the ability to flex the fact that 38 of my 42 years of existence were spent playing Nintendo games, and so it was enjoyable to recognize characters that were unfamiliar to the children. That was the real "adult" enjoyment of the movie for me - I mean, it's a Mario movie so I wasn't expecting some kind of deep feels or message the way I might get from a Pixar film.

I would describe it as enjoyable but not memorable - I can't remember more than two lines from the damn thing, but it was a colorful Nintendo-coated feast for the eyes.

All that said, the part I enjoyed the most, and the part I laugh the most about, came before the movie.

The scene:

I have consumed popcorn. We are snug in our seats. It is time for ten minutes of trailers, and I wonder if there are enough kids movies in the hopper to sustain. And then... it happens.

If you've seen the trailer you know the rest of what's coming three seconds in, but I will explain. We see a darkened bar. A grizzled Karl Urban in street clothes raising a glass. A random guy saying "You're Johnny Cage!"

Johnny Cage. Johnny Cage?! This is the Mortal Kombat 2 trailer!

(My older kids later commented that they weren't sure if they were in the right theater. I laughed.)

Me: OH MY GOD. (To be clear, I thought this, not said it out loud. This library bear employs good social etiquette.)

My reaction was not excited delight because I was unaware this movie was coming out. My reaction was because we were about to see a kids movie. I have watched the standard rated R trailer and the red band trailer for Mortal Kombat II, and I knew then that one way or the other, I was going to be entertained - either because an entire theater of children were about to be traumatized with ultra violence... or I was going to get to watch a trailer and smirk at the creative cuts as every drop of PG rating or higher violence and blood was edited out.

As I assumed, it was a sanitized version. I'm happy because I was trying to figure out how I was going to cover three kids' eyes with normal human arms while sitting on the edge before Noob Saibot gets chopped in half by Scorpion at the end of the trailer, or before that dude gets impaled by Shao Kahn in the beginning of the trailer, or...

Frankly, as a veteran of ancient children's public cartoons, where Dragon Ball Z had to sanitize any reference to death with "sending them to another dimension" instead, I'm surprised they were allowed to mention it was a death tournament in the Mortal Kombat trailer.

But still. Mortal Kombat?! I can guess the logic - Mario is a video game movie, in addition to kids, fans of video games are probably seeing this movie, fans of video games might be interested in seeing this movie and might have been unaware of it.

But still. This is before a movie where people Yoshi eats get turned into eggs that they escape/hatch out of, as opposed to the far darker reality where Yoshi just eats people and the eggs are the byproduct, as one might assume from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

At least I got to find out Mrs. Bear was a Jax main back in the old Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 days.

Was feeling fairly hopeless (I'm fine now, don't worry) the other day after reading a ridiculous viral AI-post which I shall not name because I've since read plenty of conflicting thoughts on.

The way this article ends is a gut punch.

"Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it… in person or virtually."