Small Details You Missed In The First Mario Movie Trailer
Nintendo and Illumination have shared the first trailer for "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and fans are reeling. The movie is being produced by Illumination, the animation studio behind "Despicable Me" and "Minions." This trailer is the first time the public has seen anything from the project, making it an anticipated event. The animated film has a star-studded cast, featuring Chris Pratt as Mario, Charlie Day as Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, and more. The casting of Pratt as the iconic Mario has led some fans to question if he is really the best pick for the role, but "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" producer Chris Meledandri made some bold claims prior to the trailer's release, saying that people wouldn't criticize the decision once they heard Pratt's performance.
"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" was originally scheduled to release during Holiday 2022, but has since been delayed to Spring 2023. This means it will have been roughly 30 years since the debut of the live-action "Super Mario Bros." movie with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. While Nintendo has been pretty tight-lipped about the new film up to this point, it already looks like a much more faithful adaptation. The teaser poster for the animated film featured a ton of small details that only true fans would catch, and the new preview follows suit. Here's what was revealed in the first trailer for "The Super Mario Bros. Movie."
Is that Joe Koopa?
Viewers may have noticed a Koopa with a red shell wearing an eyepatch in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" trailer. While this Koopa only gets a brief moment of screen time, their facial accessory does cause them to stand out. The Koopa in question may reference an obscure piece of fandom.
Nintendo players may be familiar with the Fantendo wiki, a website where people can make up and share their own fake video games and lore set in the worlds of the publisher. The community has invented and fleshed out entire titles and plots over the years involving franchises such as "Super Mario" and "Star fox." One character created by the group is an antagonist known as Joe Koopa. He appears in a fictional "Kirby" entry as the stepfather of Bowser and has an elaborate backstory involving a grudge against Kirby. While not cannon, Nintendo and Illumination may have decided to give a small nod to Joe with an Easter egg.
There are no adults in the penguin army
After Bowser's flying fortress lands in front of an unnamed ice city at the start of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" trailer, the "King of the Koopas" demands that the inhabitants "Open the gates." The doors part to reveal a small group of penguins led by a crowned figure (presumably their king). These unintimidating soldiers look like the baby penguin first introduced to the series in "Mario 64" – the same baby penguin so many players cruelly dropped off the side of Cool, Cool Mountain.
In "Mario 64," players have to bring one of these baby penguins back to their mother. But there's something off about the not-so-threatening penguin army in the trailer: there don't seem to be any adult penguins in sight. Not even the king is full-sized. This could explain why the group believes lobbing snowballs at Bowser and his forces will prevent the imminent invasion — or the animators simply wanted to go for maximum cute factor.
Mario is a newcomer
While the first half of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" trailer focuses on Bowser, fans finally get a glimpse of the star of the show when Mario shoots out of a classic green pipe onto a mushroom. He then looks around in wonder, clearly shocked by his surroundings, and asks "What is this place?" Mario, it seems, is a newcomer to this world.
While the ill-fated live-action "Mario" movie involved a plot where the Mario brothers stumble into another dimension for the first time, the established lore of the games is that Mario has always been a part of this magical reality. If "Yoshi's Island" is to be believed, Mario was there and helping save the day even as an infant and has, presumably, been there ever since. It seems that the movie will break with this backstory in some way to make Mario a stranger to the Mushroom Kingdom. Fortunately, it looks like he'll have Captain Toad as a guide along the way.
Luigi is still a coward
While the titular character has always served as the face of the "Super Mario" franchise, his brother, Luigi, is also a pivotal figure. Throughout the series, Luigi allows a second player to get in on the action, though he takes the lead in titles such as "Luigi's Mansion" and "Mario is Missing." Despite the siblings sharing the plumbing profession, Luigi has long been portrayed as more cowardly and timid than his slightly older fraternal twin. It doesn't look like that characterization will change in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie."
Towards the end of the film's reveal trailer, a large group of Dry Bones, a skeletal and ghostly variety of Koopa Troopas, chases Luigi. He evades the grasp of the Dry Bones in a spooky looking forest and hops across stones elevated above lava before retreating into an old lair/mansion where he desperately tries to shut the door on his pursuers. Mario appears much less bothered in the previous sequence when viewers witness his emergence from a green pipe into a potentially unknown world. Luigi isn't nearly as enthusiastic in his scene and would prefer to run away, though his predicament seems a bit more dire than his sibling's.
Super Mario items abound
While the teaser trailer provides just a brief taste of what "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" has in store, it packs in plenty of references to items from the "Super Mario" franchise. Once Bowser's floating fortress makes landfall, viewers get a glimpse of some spear-wielding Koopas that have a familiar looking flag attached to their weapons. That triangular flag with a nice Bowser-shaped insignia bears a strong resemblance to the Goal Poles that Mario and company take down within the "New Super Mario Bros." series. After the Koopa siege on the penguin stronghold, Bowser nabs the shiniest of item references: a Power Star. First seen in "Super Mario 64," Power Stars have popped up time and again throughout Mario's video game adventures, but it seems they're highly sought after by motion picture Bowser as well.
Following Bowser's moment in the limelight, Mario enters the scene via a classic green warp pipe. Even the original warp pipe sound effect plays right before Mario's face meets a spongey mushroom. While he takes in the sights, Mario stops to examine a smaller blue mushroom before Toad jumps out with the warning that touching said blue shroom will kill him. Toad recants this, however, stating it's "perfectly fine." While it won't kill Mario, it could possibly be a reference to the Mini Mushroom powerup that shrinks its user down to an itty-bitty size.