Note: There are lots of spoilers contained below for both Mother 3and “Cloud Atlas.” If you’ve yet to read David Mitchell’s wonderful book, please steer clear of this blog post (for now)!
I would really love to be wrong on this one, but I don’t see how the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of “Cloud Atlas” can be anything besides an ambitious failure. From the Hollywood casting to the very literal interpretation of the book’s chatten kostenlos device, everything in the recently released trailer suggests that this seemingly unfilmable book is exactly that. I admire the effort, but the structure and scope are simply too much for an 164 minute running time. Thankfully, even when the “Cloud Atlas” film does eventually crash, there’s a perfectly great spiritual companion already available – it just so happens to be in the form of the Japanese Game Boy Advance game, Mother 3.
Mother 3, Shigesato Itoi’s seminal RPG, tells the story of the town of Tazmily, a rural outpost that is gradually transformed into a garish, neon metropolis by the end of the game. Though much of the time players will control the young psychic, Lucas, entire chapters are devoted to Flint, his father; Boney, his dog; Salsa, an enslaved monkey; Duster, a “master” thief; and Kumatora, a princess. At least at the outset, it’s unclear how their fates are intertwined, but the Pigmask Army threat and frequent visits to Tazmily are enough to hold Mother 3 together in the early chapters.
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