Releasing on Apr. 5 of this year, Universal Pictures, Illumination, and Nintendo found immense success on all fronts with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The computer-animated adventure vibrantly transported fan-favorite characters like Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, and many others to the big screen, and with household names like Chris Pratt, and Jack Black (whose portrayal of a musical-inclined Bowser went viral online shortly after), Anya Taylor-Joy and Keegan-Michael Key rounding out the voice cast, people of all ages crowded the movie theaters to see this wonderful adaptation.
Becoming the highest-grossing film based on a video game and totaling more than a billion dollars worldwide, there is no question that Nintendo has won at the box office. Considering the illustrious Japanese company has created many original characters over the years to accompany their home consoles, the question now becomes which of these video game IPs under Nintendo’s umbrella is next in line to see themselves in the movies.
The public’s overall consensus seems to be leaning towards the action-oriented, dungeon crawler Legend of Zelda. While it would definitely please action-oriented fans with main character Link, who is packing a sword, shield, and bombs, larger-than-life villains such as Ganon the Demon King, the literal Moon that has been corrupted by the evil power of Majora’s Mask and a storyline that could very well entertain nostalgic Game of Thrones fans, another older franchise that Nintendo has not touched in almost twenty years deserves a revival and the big screen is the best place for it.
An Epic Storyline That Spans Years
With gameplay made up of high-intensity racing, futuristic hovering vehicles, and some unique characters like a human octopus hybrid named Octoman, a former champion racer turned skeleton who goes by The Skull as well as Captain Falcon, the mascot space cop of the franchise, the series known as F-Zero began in 1991 with a first entry made for the Super Nintendo. Video game enthusiasts in the US and Japan were caught up in the revolutionary, fast-paced mechanics and demanded more.
Five years later, F Zero X came out for the Nintendo 64, boasting a 3D graphics spectacle. In 2001 and then in 2003, we had two quick sequels released after one another, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, which was a launch title for the Gameboy Advance, and F-Zero GX for the Nintendo Gamecube, which was considered to be one of the console’s best titles.
The last release in the series was F-Zero: GP Legend for the GBA in 2004. With each one of these releases building upon the lore of the last (which initially revolved around bored multi-billionaires creating new thrills for themselves from alien technology and a whole new breed of criminals, bounty hunters, and evil extraterrestrials coming out of this new endeavor), Nintendo definitely wouldn’t have to worry about a corresponding story for the adaptation.
An F-Zero Anime Proves That This Franchise Is Ready
Not only does F-Zero have many different games from which animation companies can draw from regarding storylines and character arcs, but there was also an entire racing anime series produced in Japan that ran for fifty-one episodes in 2003. Having the same title as the last game, the audience is reintroduced to a character from the latest game entry named Rick Wheeler, who is a police officer woken from cryogenic sleep to take down corrupt organizations.
Along the way and participating in various races, he meets iconic characters from the games, including Captain Falcon, Black Shadow, and Zoda. Mr. Wheeler could be the cool and confident character needed in a theatrical production to introduce the young, unfamiliar audience to the other wacky names that reside in the F-Zero universe.
With the themes of light and dark and good and evil mixed into this futuristic racing show, Nintendo could evolve the sub-genre left wide open when Disney decided to pull the plug on the animated Cars film series. With both not only aimed toward the younger demographic but also boasting a colorful cast of characters, the two distinct franchises have a lot more in common than one might think. With the third final theatrical feature released in 2017, loyal fans of the Cars franchise have been impatiently waiting for the next time we see Lightning McQueen and Mater in theaters.
But with no news on the horizon promising this, the next best bet for fans of the Pixar Animation Studios' produced films would instead definitely be a foray into a world where entire racetracks are balanced high in the air by anti-gravitational beams, and the sleek, long vehicles that compete with one another are capable of a speed that is faster than sound.
If Nintendo does decide to partner up with Illumination Studios and Universal Pictures once more on another adaptation of their original video game titles, the memorable and lasting legacy that F-Zero has made on the video game industry should rightfully make it a contender for the big screen.