The Super Mario 64 Principle

I have always wanted to make an action movie based on the aesthetic of Shigeru Miyamoto-tono, the designer of Super Mario 64, and thus of the third person platformer. What’s that now? Well, I play video games, and I’m old, which means very few of my friends do. Consequently I have seen first hand how people become mesmerized watching someone who is, at best, an average player (this assertion merits a further nested parenthetical: I know that I am average having played cooperative Quake back in the old days in the times where I was the first person to have a dual ISDN connection. The other players, with dial-up (you’re too young, and that’s my third nested parenthetical by the way), were confused by my sudden appearance, shooting them in the head, and disappearance before they could even say ‘what the?’ Let’s just be glad a person like me doesn’t exist in real life).

From this, I can infer that watching play video games may be oddly interesting, and I think it’s because we identify with the character whose face we don’t see more than one who we do.

I still say that this is the way to make a great action sequence, and Mr. Cuarón has beat me to it.

I ain’t dead yet, Cuarón.