The Super Mario Bros. Movie premiered earlier this week, and viewers were quick to take note of the movie’s star-studded soundtrack, which features licensed songs by AC/DC, Beastie Boys and Electric Light Orchestra. While listening to the movie’s complete soundtrack, however, viewers were quick to notice that one of the movie’s original tracks might have been cut at the last minute to make room for A-ha’s “Take On Me.”
Shortly after the movie’s premiere, viewers noticed that the track “Drivin’ Me Bananas” was fully cut from the movie despite its interesting interpolation of both the Donkey Kong Country theme and the game’s “DK Island Swing,” which Twitter user @KRoolKountry pointed out.
Twitter user @_Slunky then edited the track into the driving scene from the movie that’s soundtracked by “Take On Me.” In their video, the jazzy, energetic song appears to perfectly line up with the scene, fueling speculation that it was made for this scene but cut at the last minute and replaced by A-ha’s song.
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It had to have been a last minute decision, this track was literally tailor made FOR this scene there was NO reason to replace it with “Take on me” when they had a way better fit track made. I am garfunkled pic.twitter.com/BNCsP4VMYo— sluhn kee (@_Slunky) April 7, 2023
“It had to have been a last minute decision, this track was literally tailor made FOR this scene there was NO reason to replace it with ‘Take On Me’ when they had a way better fit track made,” @_Slunky said.
Other fans joined in, calling the Mario movie’s reliance on licensed tracks over its own soundtrack “lazy.”
“It’s completely unnecessary when Mario has so many amazing tracks to sample, it’s needlessly distracting from the tone, and it’s just stupidly derivative cuz they use songs used in famous movies first,” Twitter user @hEnereyG said.
Mario spoilers:
No joke, this awesome piece of music isn’t in the movie, it was cut to instead play Take On Me. That obvious song choice was one of the most painfully lazy moments in the film, and it’s even more annoying knowing they previously had a great score it replaced https://t.co/MhLalyTAF2
— Henry Gilbert (@hEnereyG) April 7, 2023
IGN has reached out to Universal for comment.
In our 8/10 review, we said the Super Mario Bros. Movie “delights with its infectious energy and smart implementations of video game callbacks.” Universal estimated that the movie will make $141 million by the end of its opening weekend, though some viewers haven’t liked its plot, and one composer is upset about his work going uncredited in the movie.
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.
