SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” in theaters now.
With “The Super Mario Bros Movie,” Mario has officially entered Hollywood, as the adventurous mustachioed plumber takes on Bowser alongside Princess Peach for the first time on the big screen.
The animated blockbuster from Illumination, Nintendo and Universal has shoveled in a whopping $400 million and counting within its first week at the global box office, shattering records and scoring the biggest worldwide opening for an animated film. The last time Super Mario Bros. was adapted into a film was in 1993, when Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel’s gritty live-action take on the video game franchise strayed a little too far from the source material for general audiences.
In Variety‘s cover story featuring Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination, and Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros., “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” producers emphasized that their goal with the animated blockbuster was to emulate the player experience rather than “just following the plot points of the video games.”
“Without the involvement of the player, it won’t meet expectations,” Miyamoto said. “We recognized that each fan of the video game has a Mario in themself, as he is the avatar that represents the player.”
With that in mind, they captured the feeling of playing a Mario game, from the frustration of practicing platforming to the exhilaration of honing a Bullet Bill. Plus, the movie is overflowing with references to the games — both obscure and obvious — from music cues to retro Nintendo titles to a post-credits scene that teases the omission of a pivotal character and sets up a sequel.
Below are the top 10 easter eggs in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”
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Jumpman and Charles Martinet
Image Credit: Courtesy Image After Chris Pratt was revealed as the voice of Mario, many video game fans wondered why the movie didn’t recruit actor Charles Martinet, who has voiced the character in the games since 1991. In one of the opening scenes of the movie, Martinet does, in fact, make a cameo as an Italian man named Giuseppe, whose cartoonish Italian accent sounds very familiar. Plus, he’s playing an arcade game called Jumpman, which closely resembles 1981’s Donkey Kong, the first game to debut Mario as a character. Back then, he was named Jumpman.
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Luigi’s Ringtone
Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Col When Luigi gets a call for his and Mario’s first official plumbing job, Nintendo fans should recognize his ringtone as the GameCube start-up sound. Gamers would hear the short, memorable theme play whenever they would power up their console. The reference is fitting, as Luigi’s first solo spinoff game, Luigi’s Mansion, was one of the launch titles for the GameCube when it debuted in 2001. Toru Minegishi composed the original GameCube theme, and it’s one of many Mario jingles to appear in the movie.
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Punch-Out Pizzeria and Foreman Spike
Image Credit: Nintendo “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is chock-full of references to retro Nintendo games, and perhaps one of the most niche nods is to the Punch-Out!! series. At the beginning of the film, Mario and Luigi are admiring their own commercial for their new plumbing business while hanging out at their local Brooklyn eatery, Punch-Out Pizzeria. The walls of the restaurant are adorned with the enemies from the boxing franchise. Plus, Foreman Spike, Mario and Luigi’s opponent in 1985’s Wrecking Crew, is sitting at a table enjoying a meal when he grabs Mario, his former employee in the movie, and tells him, “You’re a joke, and you always will be.”
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Brooklyn Platforming
Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection Before Mario and Luigi get sucked into a warp pipe, they run through Brooklyn to get to their new company’s first plumbing job on time. As they dash across planks and hop over fences, eagle-eyed viewers might recognize that the New York construction site resembles the layout of Level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros., perhaps the most iconic video game level of all time. At the end, Mario slides down a metal sign post just as he would a flagpole signaling the end of each platforming level.
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Pauline
Image Credit: Nintendo One of Mario’s earliest love interests appears briefly in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” (Sorry, Peach!) In the original Donkey Kong arcade game, Mario seeks out to rescue Pauline, a pixelated brunette in a red dress, from his pet gorilla who has gone wild. She mostly disappeared and was replaced by Princess Peach in later games, but Pauline returned in the 2017 game Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of New Donk City. In the movie, she’s seen on TV being interviewed about the flooding in Brooklyn.
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Tostarena and Wild Yoshies
Image Credit: Universal/Nintendo From Brooklyn, N.Y., to Princess Peach’s castle in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario travels to several different worlds in the new movie, and video game fans should recognize many of them. There are the obvious ones, like Donkey Kong’s Jungle Kingdom, Rainbow Road from Mario Kart and the fiery Bowser’s Castle. And then there are quick looks at an underwater world filled with Cheep Cheep fish and Blooper squids, which looks like World 2 from the Super Mario Bros. game; the grassy, Bob-omb cannon-filled plains from Mario 64; and the sandy, desert town of Tostarena from Super Mario Odyssey. There’s even a glimpse at a horde of wild, multi-colored Yoshies running around. Notice there are pink, blue and yellow Yoshies but not green… perhaps setting up the introduction of Mario’s favorite sidekick in a sequel.
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Mario Kart Customization
Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection Before Mario and Co. take off racing on Rainbow Road, they customize karts in the Jungle Kingdom, selecting a vehicle body, wheels and a parasail just like you would with your controller before pressing “Start” on a Mario Kart grand prix. Toad suits up in a monster truck, while Peach drives a sleek sport bike and Mario rides in a classic kart. In his wide-ranging interview with Variety, Miyamoto said of the Mario Kart scene, “We thought that it would be interesting if the Kongs were very smart characters, like mechanics you might say. As we debated this, we managed to fuse the Jungle Kingdom with Mario Kart and fit them into the movie in a very well-balanced way.”
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Rainbow Road Shortcut
Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection As anyone who has played even one minute of Mario Kart knows, Rainbow Road is the most treacherous course in the series. Mario, Donkey Kong and the gang hop on some karts and brave the multicolored raceway in the movie, and it even keeps one of the shortcuts from the game intact. Mario Kart players looking to improve their time on Rainbow Road know that they can use a speed boost to launch over the side of the track and land on one of the lower stretches, which Mario accomplishes in the movie as he’s being chased by evil Koopas.
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Bowser’s ‘Underground Theme’
Image Credit: Universal/Nintendo In a scene midway through the movie, Bowser pines for Princess Peach with the piano ballad “Peaches” (which is officially eligible for best original song at the Oscars). After Kamek interrupts his song, Bowser asks the Magikoopa to “jam with me” on the piano, which is engraved with the brand name Ludwig von Koopa. Then, as the two villains devise a plot to win over the princess, they begin playing a spooky rendition of the “Underground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. It’s just one of the film’s many odes to Koji Kondo’s iconic original music.
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The Royal Wedding
Image Credit: Nintendo After Bowser acquires the Power Star, he plans to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom — unless, of course, Princess Peach agrees to marry him. This mirrors the plot of 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey, which climaxes with Mario breaking up King Koopa’s wedding with Peach at the last minute. In the movie, Bowser sports a white top hat and tux similar to his nuptial attire in Odyssey. And before Mario and Donkey Kong can come save the day, villains from across the game franchise pack the audience of the royal wedding, from King Bob-omb (Super Mario 64) to Petey Piranha (Super Mario Sunshine) to King Boo (Luigi’s Mansion).