WATCH: Imagi Entertainment's failed pitch for a Legend of Zelda movie

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Two decades after its release, gamers still discuss 1993's Super Mario Bros. movie with a vitriol most people reserve for cockroaches or serial killers. Maybe that's why Nintendo has been so gun-shy about farming out its other big franchise, The Legend of Zelda, for a big-screen adaptation.

But while the video game giant hasn't taken any major steps toward a Zelda movie, Imagi Entertainment — a studio best known for its computer-animated takes on the Ninja Turtles and Astro Boy — mounted its own ultimately unsuccessful attempt in 2007 to convince Nintendo to let the studio bring the Zelda franchise to the big screen.

Imagi's just-released pitch reel for a possible Zelda movie, which is dated March 28, 2007 — just a few months after the release of the Gamecube/Wii game Twilight Princess — features a host of soldiers and shadowy creatures alongside series staples Link, Princess Zelda, and the villainous Ganondorf. Though the video is brief, it's fairly faithful to the video game series (right down to the fact that Link, the series' mute protagonist, doesn't speak a single line of dialogue). Zelda fans may lament the missed opportunity to see the popular series on the big screen, but perhaps it's for the best. Let's not forget what happened when Zelda showed up on the small screen in 1989:

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