Luigi has continued to rise in popularity over the decade. He's certainly earned it too, having played second fiddle to his older brother Mario since their inception. While he's been playable for some time, it's pretty telling where Nintendo's priorities lie when they keep naming their games "Mario Bros." This isn't the ill-fated Mario Bros. movie though, so there's no ridiculous reason for this like "both of our last names are Mario" to fall back on here.
Progress is progress though, and Luigi now has not one game starring him, but a respectable trio. It's also refreshing to see just how different this series is from the standard Mario fare. Gone are the stellar platforming sections and fire flowers, instead they've been replaced with spooky mansions and a decidedly slower pace. There's also a large amount of humor in the game, in part due to Luigi's hilarious mannerisms and constant scaredy-cat behavior but also due to the ghosts themselves he encounters and his allies that help him along the way.
Nintendo has been notoriously slow to expand their properties outside of games, only now starting to make movie deals with major studios as well as upcoming theme parks. Luigi's Mansion should be at the top of their list of adaptations. Just like the games themselves, there are many elements that would translate well to an animated series. Streaming services should take note of the following if they wish to pitch a Luigi's Mansion Halloween series to Nintendo.
Just like Spider-Man has Ned as his "guy in the chair," Luigi has Professor. E. Gadd. While the good Professor helps Luigi traverse haunted mansions with an assortment of hi-tech gadgets, he's also a large part of the game's driving comedic force. Any adaptation of Luigi's Mansion would have to include this character. After all, Luigi would probably have a pretty tough time capturing ghosts if his Poltergust Vacuum was never created.
He could drive the plot of many episodes by giving Luigi new inventions. Sometimes these inventions could help Luigi save the day, other times they could cause the ensuing chaos. There are also plenty of fun nods that could be thrown into the original series, the "Game Boy Horror" being a notable standout that would absolutely be the kind of Easter Egg that Nintendo fans would appreciate.
This may sound blasphemous, but Luigi can only stay in haunted mansions for so long. Not to say that a show about Luigi's Mansion wouldn't start with him helping to exorcise ghosts from a few mansions, but a show about the series would be able to step outside of the bounds of the games and give additional possibilities for episode plots. For example, the show could spoof and pay homage to other types of ghost shows as well as horror movies.
Take for example any of the run of the mill "paranormal investigator" types of shows where ghost experts go to different people's homes to look into claims of supernatural occurrences. Now replace the investigators with Professor E. Gadd and Luigi, going to different homes.
The special Luigi's Mansion twist on this formula? Instead of the average, regular Joe Shmoe's house, he should go to the homes of various Nintendo characters. Perhaps Link needs help hunting down ghosts in Hyrule Castle that he can't harm with the Master Sword. Maybe Samus needs help getting the ghost of a baby Metroid she mercilessly slaughtered to pass on to the afterlife. Or maybe someone thinks they saw a pink ghost coming out of their attic, but it turns out to just be Kirby trapped up there. It would be like Ghostbusters but with characters from all over the Nintendo pantheon showing up from time to time.
There's a reason fans love Luigi. He's hilarious without even trying. Countless memes have been spawned from just his facial expressions alone. The Luigi's Mansion series should focus on having more of his reactions and nervous behavior instead of giving him too much dialogue. Leave the talking to Professor E. Gadd, and have Luigi lend himself more to the physical humor aspect of the show.
For inspiration on more physical humor and less of a focus on dialogue, the creators of a Luigi's Mansion show should look to classic cartoons like Scooby-Doo! Where are You? for inspiration. Scooby speaks in broken sentences and never pronounces words correctly, but that's never held him back from being a comedic juggernaut for kids. Much like Luigi, he's in situations he doesn't really want to be in due to the occupation of his friends, but does the best he can. Again, just like Luigi, he's afraid of pretty much everything and has to enter frightening situations. Learning from shows like this but also including characters and worlds that only Nintendo can would make for a show that feels right at home while also being completely fresh and unique, establishing an identity all its own from the games.
from Game Rant - Feed https://ift.tt/3ouvfTa
Comments
Post a Comment