One other thing I forgot to mention about the Mario movie... The inclusion of licensed music felt incredibly jarring at times. And the fact that they were pulling songs largely from the 80s and 90s is further proof of GenX baiting (aside from "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" which... yes, we've seen Kill Bill too
).
I feel like Sony is perpetually stuck in this early 2000's mindset of "please take games seriously!" which I could've sworn the medium has largely moved on from in the last decade or so. Like when games are getting talked about on the late night shows or popping up in SNL skits, and adaptations into film and TV and happening with increasing regularity, the medium is officially "mainstream" (even if it's still only catering to less than 1% of the global population).
But like this mindset makes them appear somewhat insecure, where they're almost ashamed to have this playful side to them because "serious" means "sad dads" and "cinematic presentation" because they seem to think that in order to gain respect they have to be like Hollywood. Which, when Sony Pictures exists, makes some sense that there would be some cross-pollenation or pollution especially with the SIE branch being largely run out of the US rather than Japan.
I think Nintendo has always kinda done this but maybe it wasn't as clear cut back in the day? Like the Mother series largely came about because of Itoi itching the first game and Yamauchi wanting to create a space for outside creatives to make games which is how Ape Inc. got funded.
