The Radical Child

Movies based on video games have, until lately, tended to be mixed in quality, trending towards negative, especially since the original live-action Super Mario Bros. One reason is that film characters don’t spend significant time jumping around while collecting power-ups. Animated films based on them have tended to be better, and Illumination’s first film based on the Nintendo mascots’ respective franchise follows that trend, adding a bit to their origin in Brooklyn when they find a pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom, which they attempt to save from the villainous Bowser. The film is no masterpiece, but it beats the live-action adaptation from three decades ago and proves that video game movies have increased in quality.

The second Star Trek animated series since The Animated Series and the franchise's first comedic series, Lower Decks follows the lower-deck crew members of the U.S.S. Cerritos during the Next Generation era as they and the vessel's crew get into a series of misadventures across the galaxy, with no overreaching plot in initial episodes. However, season two ends with a cliffhanger the following season concludes. The overall aim of the show was to get audiences to laugh "with" Star Trek rather than "at" Star Trek, and I think it did a pretty good job in that regard and will continue watching it as future seasons release.

  

Focuses on the misadventures of the titular protagonist and his brother Mugman under the care of Elder Kettle. I actually enjoyed watching this more than playing the game that inspired it, it's a good homage to 1930s to 1940s theatrical cartoons, and as the last short ends on a cliffhanger I'll definitely continue watching it when more episodes release.