From archive.org:
Super Mario Bros: The Morton Jankel Cut (VHS Extended Rough Cut 1.0) Movie 1993
From the official Super Mario Bros: The Movie Archive team, here's your first look at the previously-unseen extended rough cut of the controversial 1993 cyberpunk fantasy, Super Mario Bros.
Exploring the Super Mario Bros. (1993) Extended Rough Cut Special: Restoration Commentary!
On May 15th 2019, we discovered a tape containing an extended rough cut of the 1993 cult film Super Mario Bros. This version is about 15 minutes longer than ...
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The film as released runs 104 minutes. This extended version runs a full 125 minutes, with 20 minutes of additional scenes. The editing has also been reworked throughout, and restored by filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist, well known for his restoration of The Thief and the Cobbler and many Muppet projects.
This version uses VHS sources for most of the film, for consistency. Otherwise identical edits sourced from DVD and Blu-Ray also exist, as well as a general restored workprint. We are exploring our options and further work will be done on this film later. However, the Archive Team has decided to release this version of the edit early, for the film's anniversary, and see what the fans think of it.
Previously-unseen deleted scenes include the Mario Bros running afoul of the (probably Mafia-connected) Scapelli plumbing company, Koopa murdering a technician by de-evolving him into slime, and Iggy and Spike rapping about the overthrow of King Koopa at the Boom Boom Bar. There's more of Daniella and the Brookyln Girls. Most scenes are extended in this version, with a lot more of Dennis Hopper as Koopa, and the rest of the cast.
Release date: May 28, 1993 (USA)
Directors: Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel
Producers: Roland Joffé, Jake Eberts, Fred C. Caruso
Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi (the Mario Bros) get the shock of their lives when they discover a parallel world populated by the intelligent descendants of dinosaurs. It seems they weren't destroyed by a meteor millions of years ago but hurled into another dimension and, now, the evil King Koopa has plans to rule our world. It's up to our unlikely heroes to battle Koopa and his Goomba guards, free the plucky archaeologist Princess Daisy and save mankind in this adventure of a lifetime.
The film was directed by the husband-and-wife team of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (Max Headroom), written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon and distributed by Buena Vista Pictures through Hollywood Pictures. Its story follows the Mario brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) in their quest to rescue Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) from a dystopic parallel universe ruled by the ruthless President Koopa (Dennis Hopper).
Several weeks before shooting was to begin, Disney purchased the distribution rights to the film and demanded significant rewrites. Morton said the final result was a script that was not at all like the darker cyberpunk script that he, Jankel, and the cast had signed on to film, and that the tone of the new script was not at all compatible with the sets, which had already been built. Leguizamo said, "It's eight-year-olds who play the game and that's where the movie needed to be aimed ... But [the directors] kept trying to insert new material. They shot scenes with strippers and with other sexually-explicit content, which all got edited out anyway."
Morton said, "I was locked out of the editing room ... I had to get the DGA to come and help me get back into the editing room. I tried to get the editor to cut it digitally, but they refused. They wanted to edit on Moviola and Steenbeck machines, so the process was laboriously slow, which didn't help us get the special effect cut in on time."
Conceived as a dystopic cyberpunk fantasy (and probably aimed at teenagers), the final film is aimed at younger audiences, which gives it something of an identity crisis. The film remains controversial. The earlier workprint edit, unseen until now, is slower paced with many small extensions which bring back some necessary context to many scenes. There is also some borderline adult content, like the dancers in the Boom Boom bar, some language and a little more political satire. It will remain controversial whether this should have been part of a kids' film.
Ryan Hoss, a longtime fan of the film, launched the fansite Super Mario Bros: The Movie Archive in 2007, saying to Playboy for the film's 25th anniversary that "I had this collection, and the Internet was growing in terms of fansites during that era, the late '90s, and I always knew the Mario Bros. movie was misunderstood and a sore spot in people's minds ... It's a way to celebrate the film itself and showcase the work of all the people who had a part in it—warts and all, good and bad."
In 2010 Steven Applebaum joined the site as editor-in-chief to help collect production materials and organize interviews. He said, "Most of the [cast and crew] were very happy about it because, at the time, it was a very revolutionary movie ... They were introducing a lot of great special effects that hadn't been done before, and they had these really talented actors, and it was a project they were proud to work on ... Giving them a chance to talk about everything they did, it really helped them to share what they contributed and what they felt was important to the industry."
The Super Mario Bros Movie Archive team contributed greatly to DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the film.
On May 15th 2019, the Super Mario Bros Movie Archive Team (Ryan, Steven, etc) discovered a VHS videotape containing an extended, earlier rough cut of the 1993 cult film Super Mario Bros. This version includes about 20 minutes of previously unseen and extended scenes that expand backstory and strengthen character arcs. It originally belonged to producer Roland Joffé, and appears to be one of a kind.
Unfortunately, the tape had very poor image quality and required heavy restoration. For this task they turned to director/editor/artist Garrett Gilchrist.
Gilchrist is well known for his incredible work on The Recobbled Cut of The Thief and the Cobbler, on which he spent eight years from 2006 to 2013. This is perhaps the best and most comprehensive film restoration effort outside of official studio work.
For the Super Mario Bros. restoration, Gilchrist used Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, EBSynth, the Remini Photo app, Topaz AI Gigapixel, Virtualdub, EBSynth, and other tools, over a period of several weeks.
Gilchrist painted out dirt, splices, ghosting and damage frame by frame in many scenes, using Photoshop. The 60fps VHS was carefully adjusted down to 24fps, noise reduced and color graded. A low quality VHS of early concept trailers was also provided.
Some shots were recreated with more complex special effects. In certain key scenes, Garrett used the EBSynth AI style transfer program to match the look and quality of the VHS to that of the theatrical Blu-Ray as much as possible, or to our transfers of the trailers, or to frames whose quality had been enhanced (using the Remini app, Topaz upscaling and Photoshop corrections). He is planning to do more style-matching work like this to transition seamlessly between sources, but has not done so in this version.
Music and dialogue were split using Spleeter to reedit and extend the film's soundtrack audio.
Gilchrist feels that this is a superior version of the film.
For this version, an open matte retail VHS of the film was transferred and restored, and used for the visuals of most of the film. Gilchrist also prepared an (otherwise identical) edit of the film which used (downscaled) Blu-Ray video for most of the film, and a third edit (in progress) which used a rare open matte PAL DVD for the visuals.
There is still some debate about which source to use. In this early version, VHS sources have been used throughout and it does give the film a consistent visual quality.
More work can still be done, and it is likely that this work will continue, in anticipation of a possible official release of this version of the film, although we hope the progress so far demonstrates the viability of an extended edition.
Starring
Bob Hoskins
John Leguizamo
Dennis Hopper
Samantha Mathis
Fisher Stevens
Fiona Shaw
Richard Edson
with Mojo Nixon, Dana Kaminski, Francesca P Roberts and Lance Henriksen.
Music by Alan Silvestri
Cinematography Dean Semler
About 65 million years ago, a meteorite crashes into the Earth, killing the dinosaurs and splitting the universe into two parallel dimensions. The surviving dinosaurs cross into a new dimension and evolve into a humanoid race.
Twenty years ago, a mysterious woman leaves a large egg, along with a rock, at a Catholic orphanage. As she attempts to leave, she is accosted by President Koopa, who demands the location of the rock. Rocks then fall onto the woman, killing her. The egg hatches, containing an infant girl.
In the present, Italian-American plumbers Mario and Luigi live in Brooklyn, New York. They are on the verge of being driven out of business by the mafia-operated Scapelli Construction Company led by Anthony Scapelli. Luigi falls for NYU student Daisy, who is digging under the Brooklyn Bridge for dinosaur bones. After a date, Daisy takes Luigi back to the bridge only to witness two of Scapelli's men sabotaging it by leaving the water pipes open. Mario and Luigi manage to fix it but are knocked unconscious by Iggy and Spike, Koopa's henchmen and cousins, who kidnap Daisy. Mario and Luigi awaken and pursue them through an interdimensional portal that leads them to Dinohattan.
Iggy and Spike realize they didn't bring Daisy's rock, a meteorite fragment which Koopa is trying to get in order to merge his world with the human world. It is then revealed that Daisy is the long-lost princess of the other dimension. When Koopa overthrew Daisy's father as king and devolved him into fungus, her mother the queen took her to Brooklyn. The portal was then sealed, but Scapelli's men inadvertently reopened the portal when they blasted the cave. Koopa sends Spike and Iggy to find Daisy and the rock to merge the dimensions and make him dictator of both worlds. However, after Koopa subjects them to one of his experiments to make them more intelligent, Spike and Iggy realize Koopa's evil intentions and side with the Mario Bros. Daisy is taken to Koopa-Tower, where she meets Yoshi. Koopa informs Daisy that she descended from the dinosaurs, believing only Daisy can merge the worlds because of her royal heritage. Eventually, the Mario Bros. rescue Daisy with the help of Toad, a good-natured guitarist who was devolved into a Goomba as punishment.
Eventually, the two worlds merge and Koopa devolves Scapelli into a chimpanzee before going after Mario, but Luigi and Daisy manage to remove the fragment from the meteorite and the worlds separate again. In Dinohattan, Mario confronts Koopa and eventually defeats him when he and Luigi fire their devolution guns at Koopa and blast him with a Bob-omb. Koopa, now transformed into a ferocious, semi-humanoid Tyrannosaurus, attempts to kill the Mario Bros., but they destroy him once and for all by devolving him into an actual Tyrannosaurus rex, then primeval slime. Daisy's father is restored as king after Koopa's defeat. The citizens celebrate and immediately destroy anything with Koopa's likeness. Luigi professes his love for Daisy and wants her to come to Brooklyn with him, but Daisy, have found her both home and father, decides to stay in Dinohattan. Crestfallen, Luigi kisses Daisy goodbye as he and Mario return home to Brooklyn, with Daisy watching them leave. Three weeks later, the Mario Bros. are getting ready for dinner when their story comes on the news and the anchorman says they should be called the "Super Mario Bros." Daisy then arrives and asks the Mario Bros to help her on a new mission.
In a post-credits scene, two Japanese business executives propose making a video game based on Iggy and Spike, now on Earth, who decide on the title The Super Koopa Cousins.
You can download it now at archive.org.
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