Why never was a Super Mario Bros timeline?

Kadok23

Kadok23

Goomba
if Zelda can have his own timeline why cant Mario too? i will loved too see a Canon in the Mario franchise i think we're all sure Donkey Kong will be the first game chronologically in the list
 
Other than Donkey Kong, Yoshi's Island, and probably Mario 1-3 and World, the timeline wouldn't really move far. (Even though it's implied often that Peach getting kidnapped by Bowser is a thing that happens frequently).
 
i just really wanna point out the "zelda can have his own timeline" part\\
anyway i dont think mario needs one. this series doesnt take itself seriously unlike zelda, and even mario canon is hardly A Thing
 
Honestly, I like the idea of a timeline, but also a good majority of the mainline games wouldn't be major/crucial events in it since they mostly repeat the same scenario. But since I consider the RPGs canon (at least up to SPM / Dream Team respectively), that's some good timeline material.
 
Well I've had this one lying around for a while so now it's time i guess lol

docs.google.com

Mario Timeline by MD

1982 1981 Rest of DK series happens. The DK in the original game grows up to be Cranky Kong Mario rescues Pauline from DK Donkey Kong Junior (son of the original DK) saves DK from Mario Mario dies in the ending, proving this was a different timeline to SMB1 DK Timeline
docs.google.com docs.google.com
 
I don't like the idea that the entire PM series exists only in a book because of Paper Jam, which had no content from any of them besides Sticker Star. I think at the very least, the events of the first three happened in "the" Mario world, and had book adaptations made in-universe, or the book was simply a gateway to a parallel dimension that happened to have been portrayed using the PM style in Paper Jam. But I don't like the idea that PJ is just an excuse to write off the entire PM series and not consider it for a timeline. (i might have been more open to it if the game had at least felt like a genuine loveletter to the series instead of typical 2010s sterile-as-can-be nonsense).

Heck I have trouble viewing PJ as the same canon as the other M&L games due to how it's the only game to just forget everything (sans Starlow) that isn't in a mainline game, where the other M&L games are really good about keeping continuity and recurring ideas/characters, even the remakes found a place for newer OCs in the series.
 
Because Mario barely has continuity let alone any kind of timeline.

Mira Nova said:
Honestly, I like the idea of a timeline, but also a good majority of the mainline games wouldn't be major/crucial events in it since they mostly repeat the same scenario.
Click to expand...

Also this is kinda BS, just because it generally involves the same basic scenario doesn't make the events any less "crucial or major" especially since most mainline games are what introduce the things, races and characters to which the other spin offs (including the rpgs) are derived from.
 
honestly i take a "kitchen sink" approach to the mario timeline, like, everything is canon (except for stuff made clear that it's an AU, like Paper Mario or Super Show)
 
The mainstream Super Mario series has never really been story-oriented. If anything, it focuses more on just the game play, which isn't necessarily bad when you consider that story-oriented games can be rather infamous for throwing cutscenes that can't be skipped at players.
 
I think a straightforward no-timeline no-canon approach works best for the series, since the series itself is supposed to be straightforward and designed to be versatile. Mario doesn't need to concern itself with such things, since that sort of learning lore can often detract from the overall experience and development time. Just because you don't have an established timeline doesn't mean you need one nor does it mean that your series even benefits from it.

Can Mario have more of a backstory? Sure. He's actually pretty unknown, something even Miyamoto has acknowledged. But it's not necessary to have an established timeline either if you want more interesting Mario characters and setpieces. You want a bit more story to Mario stuff, then maybe ask Nintendo to be making more movies/TV shows/manga/comics and whatnot.

IMO due to the loose noncanon episodal, even improvised feel of the Mario series, I believe it's a fool's errand to try to make sense of a "timeline" and chronology of the games. Even the Legend of Zelda games were designed with gameplay first, story then hackneyed around it, sprinkling references to other games and whatnot every now and then, and then the result's an incoherent timeline with a bunch of repetitive and trite as hell story telling. Take a drink whenever you see the word "seal" being mentioned in the stories. Not the aquatic animal.
 
The loose interpretation of Mario events in the series allows much more leeway for fan heacanons and imo that is much more interesting.
 
Kadok23 said:
if Zelda can have his own timeline why cant Mario too? i will loved too see a Canon in the Mario franchise i think we're all sure Donkey Kong will be the first game chronologically in the list
Click to expand...

This was already pointed out to you, but to make it more explicit: the protagonist's name in Legend of Zelda is Link, not Zelda. Zelda is the princess of Hyrule who goes by she/her pronouns. Haha.


Anyway, on-subject, I do believe that it's less that Miyamoto's busy and more that Mario himself is supposed to be malleable and multi-genre; he's designed with universal appeal, unlike Legend of Zelda, which has a more strict format. In addition to that, the vagueness of the timeline allows them to get away with things like SMB3's stageplay aesthetic, where one could theorize the entire thing is just a play that Mario is putting on for his friends to watch (or even someone acting as him?). It's less that Mario can't have a timeline and more that it is both unnecessary and would end up pigeonholing some of the plot threads.

Some games do have a loose timeline between them in through references toward each other. The Mario & Luigi RPG series is a good example of this, as the next in the series often makes reference to the one that came before it. Paper Mario is a little less explicit about this, but you can logically assume that every game within it comes in order. It should also be noted that as of Paper Jam, it's been made canon that Paper Mario exists as a story within the Mario & Luigi RPG universe (note: this doesn't mean the events of Paper Mario aren't real, just that they exist in storybooks in Mario & Luigi specifically). I think it can also be assumed every sports game follows this chronological order, too. Paper Mario 64 in particular likely takes place after the first two Mario Parties at the very least, because Luigi makes explicit reference to them in his diary. If you go with the logical follow-through that Mario & Luigi have PM as a story within its lore, that would place the M&L series ahead of those games, too.

There are some contradictory elements, though. Firstly, in Super Paper Mario, Bowser correctly identifies Luigi as Luigi by name (he greets him as Luigi if you come to find Bowser while currently playing as him), which, if you assume Dream Team comes after SPM's story would be published within M&L's narrative, makes no sense as that is the first game where Bowser finally acknowledges him. Even the little thread that has been created within M&L's timeline has therefore created a bit of an inconsistency issue, as apparently Luigi is well-known enough to have his name correctly identified within a story, but not when his main foe alongside Mario sees him in person. Simply put: these two series were never written to be meshed together, and it results in weird writing inconsistencies as a result.

This is a good example of why "timelines" in Mario should be kept mostly to direct sequels, because details like this will crop up as problems. And before you suggest that this particular detail is a minor one, not so: Luigi gaining recognition is a very big part of Dream Team's plot, and undermining it by suggesting he was already well known, just for some reason Bowser didn't call him by name, throws off Dream Team's emotional significance. (We could go into how Paper Jam in general undercuts Dream Team's development of Luigi, but that's a story for another thread.) This kind of changing of the timeline can retroactively hurt previous games, specifically the more story-driven ones.
 
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Mario is The Simpsons of videogames.
But I wonder if Sophie or Sean will pop in and share the one they made
 
Probably because the Stories are pretty self contained, I'm sure you could name a bunch of inter-game references, but the mario series usually doesn't do sequels.
 
Except for Baby Mario games, I guess most Mario games follow a very linear timeline. And didnt Miyamoto said recently that they are just actors?
 
miyamoto used the "troupe of actors" phrase more as a simile than anything. to paraphrase him, he said that mario games are designed to be "episodic" like a popeye cartoon, which facilitates characters changing roles inexplicably. he meant it in a "these characters, like actors in real life, change their behaviour based on what the context asks of them and can afford to be noncommital to a given position" sort of way.

of course, because mario fans are some of the biggest nerds on the internet, they ran with the "OHEMGEEEE SHIGGY-SAN JUST SAID MARIO AND BOWSER ARE HOLLYWOOD STARS??? 😱😱😱 WHAT ARE THE LORE RAMIFICATIONS???" but that's not the point. mario characters are true to themselves, they just do it in the way looney tunes and tom & jerry do it.
 
I'd like to point that despite what Miyamoto said in that interview, Nintendo as a whole has literally never actually treated the Mario characters as actors. For comparison, look at the way Disney treats the Mickey Mouse characters, or the way Warner Bros. treats the Looney Tunes characters, or for the most extreme example, look at the way the Muppets have always been portrayed outside of their shows and movies. Mario is nowhere near any of these respective franchise's levels.
 
BTW just because something like SMB3 is a play doesn't mean the events it was trying to tell didn't actually happen.
 
Thousand-Year Door ends with Flurrie going on to star in an adaptation of the game's events, so even though the game itself is presented as a play, it had to have actually happened in order for it to get adapted into a play in the first place.
 
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