A rough extended workprint cut of the 1993 film Super Mario Bros. provided by the SMB Movie Archive. In May 2019, an eBay user named enjovu listed countless items for sale from the estate of the film's producer Roland Joffé. Among his catalogue was a VHS tape labelled "Super Mario Bros. Cut Footage 12-1 Version." The tape was acquired by Echoes, a preservationist. After getting into contact with the Super Mario Bros. Movie Archive, the existence of said tape was announced to the public on May 15th, 2019. This workprint contains some deleted scenes that were trimmed, many of which had expanded on the storyline. None of the deleted scenes have appeared on the DVD or Blu-ray. The workprint also has an alternate temporary soundtrack, a burnt in timecode, and reel changes. Judging by the video quality, it seems this tape was created from a camcorder recording of a projector displaying the original film. The label suggests this specific cut of the film dates back to December 1st, 1992 - as none of the VFX have been finished (besides a single shot of Koopa's eye-turning lizard) and a number of late reshoots (such as Lance Henriksen's cameo as King Bowser) are absent. The film's editor Mark Goldblatt once referred to the first cut of the film being around 2 hours and 10 minutes; a good amount of footage is still missing, so this cut can be viewed as a transitional piece to the theatrical cut. This early version of the film features a temp score from other films such as: Darkman, Beetlejuice, Peewee's Big Adventure, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Echoes digitized the tape on May 28th, 2019 - the 26th anniversary of the film. Throughout the following year, several clips were shared on the SMB Movie Archive's YouTube channel, as the team continued to commission several more captures of the tape in order to restore the footage. Christian Deitering (Mother to Earth producer, SMB Movie prop exhibit coordinator) and Skip Elsheimer (AV Geeks) provided a handful of new captures which were sent forward to filmmaker and editor Garrett Gilchrist. In 2020, Gilchrist began work on restoring the footage frame-by-frame using Photoshop, Remini, and EB Synth. A commentary of his restoration process was published on the SMB Movie YouTube. On June 1st, 2021, Gilchrist uploaded his extended cut of the film early to Internet Archive, as a response to a low-quality reddit leak of Echoes' rip of the tape. Dubbed, "The Morton and Jankel Cut", A number of months later, Gilchrist's original upload was removed from the Internet Archive, but third-party sources have preserved it with another reupload. Four months later on October 6th, Umbrella Entertainment released Super Mario Bros. on Blu-ray in Australia, featuring the original rough cut as a special feature on the disc. This also marked the first region-free Blu-ray release of the film. The following year on September 26th, 2022, Echoes uploaded the raw rip of his original transfer of the tape to Internet Archive. Technical Information: Super Mario Bros. 12-1 Version Framerate: NTSC 60 FPS Running time: 111 mins Capture Software: AmarecTV Version 2.31 Capture Hardware: Happauge USB-Live2, JVC HM-DH40000u D-VHS Video Codec: HuffyUV File Size: 39.7 GB Super Mario Bros. is owned by Hollywood Pictures, Lightmotive and Nintendo. This video is for entertainment and archival purposes only.
