The Super Mario Bros. Movie Directors Break Down That Mind-Blowing Rainbow Road Chase

When most folk head to the theater to take a look at The Super Mario Bros. Movie, they will in all probability expect a humorous and charming and really nice-looking animated film. But what they may not count on is a reasonably nice motion film. And whereas there are many extraordinarily sick motion sequences within the movie, the height is undeniably the Mad Max-esque Mario Kart chase on the Rainbow Road.

Warning: This article comprises some spoilers for The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The Rainbow Road sequence comes about two thirds of the way in which into the movie, after Mario and Peach have secured the assistance of your complete Kong household in opposition to Bowser. Everybody hundreds up of their kart of alternative and hits the Rainbow Road–a shortcut to Bowser’s Dark Land.

But Bowser sees them coming and is derived an ambush, and a wild chase ensues. And that comparability to Mad Max wasn’t simply descriptive–this sequence is definitely Fury Road-level good.

So when GameSpot sat down with administrators Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, we could not assist however choose their brains on how this unimaginable sequence got here collectively.

“Well, we definitely had like a blockbuster approach to making this movie. To me, this is a movie that’s been like 40 years in the making, you know, and I’ve always considered Mario more of an action game,” Horvath stated. “The characters look comedic, but the story is always high stakes, you gotta save the princess or save the world or whatever in the game. So we wanted to reflect that action sensibility.”

But that wasn’t all the time simple or intuitive, with “Michael and I coming from TV animation, where you have, like, no budget to do anything,” Horvath stated, laughing.

Their resolution? Bring in a few of their favourite artists they knew from TV, “who are always probably a little held back by the restrictions of TV,” and “we worked really closely with them to just create, like, the craziest action sequences that we could.”

The Rainbow Road sequence being a living proof.

“There’s a shot on Rainbow Road that Michael was pitching for months, and I think you almost broke the studio,” Horvath stated, referring to Micheal Jelenic, his directing companion on this movie and on Teen Titans. “When that shot happened, it was so many different people involved in one single shot, but it turned out like–it’s iconic and beautiful.”

Both Horvath and Jelenic talked about Unikitty creator Ed Skudder, who served because the Super Mario Bros. Movie’s head of story–that’s the one that’s in command of the movie’s storyboard artists–as being essential to creating the motion not solely work however shine. Jelenic particularly talked about that Skudder spent a really very long time understanding that prolonged one-shot on the Rainbow Road.

“He is just as good as anybody at moving the camera,” Jelenic stated. “And so even in the boards, the camera moves in just an incredible way. And he spent months doing that [on a single shot in the Rainbow Road sequence].”

“When you do that one-shot, it makes things exponentially more complicated, with animation and lighting and all these things. So it’s the resources and the talent and the dedication of everybody [that made it work],”Jelenic stated.

“I think that sequence was the most challenging. Definitely technically the most challenging, you know,” Horvath stated. “Like, the entire road is not like a solid element like a street that has an asphalt surface or something. It’s actually a visual effect because it’s always glowing and shimmering and there’s particle effects on it. So every single shot that’s in the Rainbow Road had to go through the visual effects department, which is super expensive and time consuming. So yeah, we were super ambitious with that whole sequence.”

But it was definitely worth the effort, Horvath stated.

“We knew it would be a standout moment in the movie if we really gave it our all. And yeah, the studio really got down with it, man. They backed us up.”

Which is sweet, Jelenic stated, “because we were really worried about that sequence.”

“I think there were moments where it was like, ‘We’re we’re not sure about this. We’re not sure this is gonna work,’ But I think when everything sort of locked in the final place, in terms of lighting and comp and all that stuff, everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, this is definitely cool.’ So we were so lucky to have that support from the studio,” Jelenic stated.

“There’s so many moments in this movie that, visually, I would put up against any live action superhero movie, or anything. The studio in France sort of just sort of set a new bar, I think when it comes to action adventure movies.”