Featured Image Credit: Nintendo
Topics: Mario
The Super Mario Galaxy movie is officially hitting theatres on April 1st. While the internet is busy losing its mind over the film remix of that gorgeous Gusty Garden Galaxy music from the game, the final trailer snuck in a deep cut that I’ve not seen anybody call out yet. More importantly, it might suggest how the Super Mario Galaxy movie ties into the wider Mushroom Kingdom universe.
So, what is it? It’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but in the final trailer, we see Princess Peach ditching the ballgown for her Strikers-inspired combat gear, taking on an army of Ninjis.
Pause, let’s rewind. What’s a Ninji, I hear you ask?
For the uninitiated, Ninjis are perhaps the least popular Mario enemy in existence. But forget your Thowmps and Chain Chomps - these black and star-shaped devil-like ninja creatures are the scariest of them all.
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They first appeared as enemies in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, which we Westerners know better as the NES classic Super Mario Bros. 2, first released in 1988.
Fun, if terrifying fact, the game manual states Ninjis are said to haunt the dreams of NES players. That’s a terrifying level of fourth-wall breaking you wouldn’t expect to see in a Mario game.
While they’ve popped up recently in Super Mario Bros. Wonder’s chaotic "Ninji Jump Party" level, Peach is fighting them in a glitzy-looking Casino in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, perfect for some of the more unexpected characters set to appear!
It feels like a blend of Casino Delfino from Super Mario Sunshine, the legendary, life-ruining Luigi’s Casino from the Super Mario 64 DS minigames, and the surreal, dream-like physics of Super Mario Galaxy’s own gravity-defying stages.
But this split-second reference could hint at Nintendo’s plans to revive the best Mario game of all time.
Yes. End of article.
Sure, Super Mario Bros. 2 is “the weird one with the turnips". But combine the Ninjis resurrection in Super Mario Bros Wonder with their appearance in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, it’d be weird not to remake one of the most influential games in the franchise. Without Super Mario Bros. 2, we don't have Peach as a playable character, seeing as this game is where she first got her iconic floaty jump that proves she doesn’t need a man to save her.
Imagine a world without Shy Guys, Birdo, and Bob-ombs? Super Mario Bros. 2 is to thank for introducing them.
We wouldn’t even have Super Mario Galaxy itself - Super Mario Bros. 2 was all about verticality and surreal landscapes. It taught us that a Mario game doesn't have to be a straight line through 1:1 to be brilliant.
If the filmmakers are willing to bring back the low-level grunts of Super Mario Bros. 2, it raises a massive question for the inevitable Super Mario Movie 3.
Subcon (short for subconscious) is the dream world setting of Super Mario Bros. 2, where Mario and his friends travel to defeat the villainous frog king, Wart. Now that the Super Mario Movie has established Bowser as the central, multiversal threat, there’s plenty of room for classic regional antagonists. If Peach is fighting a whole army of Ninjis in what is effectively a "dream" or cosmic landscape, is it too much to hope for a cameo from the actual King of Dreams Wart in Super Mario Movie 3?
At the end of the day, there's just one question. Why put a Super Mario Bros. 2 reference in a movie about Galaxy, if that's not the plan? Sure, it could just be a nice easter egg for the fans. Or, it could mean something more for the future of the Super Mario movies.
Forgive me for getting a bit pretentious about a children’s game, but both games share the same soul.
Super Mario Bros. 2 takes place entirely within a dream world called Subcon. Super Mario Galaxy takes place at the edge of the universe where reality is basically a suggestion. By featuring Ninjis in a cosmic casino, the filmmakers are subtly nodding to the idea that when Mario goes to space, the rules of reality break down, allowing the "dream world" of the past to bleed into the "star world" of the future.
Please Nintendo, just give us an accessible remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 and let everyone see what a masterpiece this game is for themselves.
If Super Mario Bros 2 isn't the strangest choice for a Mario remake you've heard today, why not check out our list that ranks the best Mario games based on the whole team's weird takes?