Breaking Down The 12 Biggest Super Mario Galaxy Movie Cameos And References

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If you’re a casual Super Mario Bros. fan, you might have been kind of lost amidst the onslaught of cameos and references in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. I mean, that’s pretty much all the movie has going for it, and unless you have some pre-existing knowledge, a movie that’s basically an animated version of a Trivia section on a wiki is not gonna do much for you. Well, fear not. We’re here to break down some of the movie’s big cameos and references.

Spoiler Warning

Mr. Game & Watch

If you don’t play Super Smash Bros. and aren’t old enough to have experienced Nintendo’s early line of Game & Watch LCD games, you might have had no idea who this relatively obscure figure from Nintendo history was when Luigi summoned him at the end of the film. Mr. Game & Watch is a mascot who represents the generic player characters in the aforementioned Game & Watch devices from the ‘80s. Because of those LCD origins, he’s solid black and featureless (though surprisingly expressive), and his animations are very limited. His moves are all references to games that appeared on these handhelds, and while the Game & Watch line of games had run its course by the early ‘90s, the brand has resurfaced over the years as limited-edition products. Mr. Game & Watch has celebrated this legacy through appearances in Super Smash Bros. Melee, Brawl, Wii U/3DS and Ultimate. In the Galaxy Movie, he helps beat up Bowser and his son for a bit before getting straight-up murdered by the father/son duo.

Pikmin

The Pikmin cameo is brief, with these little guys showing up in the Gateway Galaxy just before Peach and Toad meet Fox McCloud. We only see a group of them land and deboard their tiny ship, and they don’t really contribute anything to the story, but Nintendo legend and Pikmin series Shigeru Miyamoto loves them and is trying to insert them into whatever projects he can. He said so himself.

Baby Mario and Luigi

In the latter half of the movie, Mario and Luigi get turned into babies by Bowser Jr. This might seem like a really odd, superfluous bit of difficulty for our group (it is), but it’s also a reference to both of the plumbers’ Baby forms which have appeared in various Mario games. The diapered duo first appeared in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, in which the dinosaur attempts to reunite the brothers after Kamek kidnaps Luigi. Since then, they’ve appeared in several spin-offs like the Mario Kart games and various sports titles.

Super Scope

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While this isn’t a character, the weapon that Bowser Jr. and later Yoshi wield is a Super Scope. This is a light gun Nintendo released in 1993 for the Super Nintendo. It has since appeared in other Nintendo games, most notably Super Smash Bros. where it’s a powerful item players can fire at enemies. It doesn’t usually have the power to de-age people, though. That’s new.

Honey Queen

Many of the characters in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie debuted in different Mario projects, but the Honey Queen is one of the few that actually originates from the 2007 Wii game the movie is ostensibly based on. The giant bee’s appearance in the movie is brief, with her acting as a minor antagonist to Mario and Luigi. In the Galaxy games, she’s an ally to Mario and the two help each other out in the Honeyhive Galaxy levels.

Mouser

Mouser is one of a handful of minor villains to show up in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie fighting Peach and Toad in the casino segment. Mouser was a boss in Super Mario Bros. 2, which was originally released in Japan as Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic before being reworked as a Mario game in other territories. Mouser has since made a few appearances over the course of the series, with the most prominent being as a villain in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show animated series that aired in 1989. So perhaps it’s fitting that he’d show up in animated form in Galaxy.

Birdo

One of the most criminally underutilized characters in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is Birdo. My girl doesn’t even get a speaking line. That’s no way to treat one of video games’ first trans icons. Like Mouser, Birdo initially debuted in Super Mario Bros. 2 as a boss character, but unlike her rodent ally, she went on to become a frequent playable character in spin-offs and sports games. Her gender has been a major point of discussion over the years, with the original Super Mario Bros. 2 manual referring to her with “he” pronouns and saying “he thinks he is a girl.” Nowadays Nintendo mostly does right by Birdo, referring to her with she/her pronouns in most appearances, so despite the insensitive phrasing in 1988, all interpretations lead to Birdo being a transgender woman.

Wart

Leading the trio of Super Mario Bros. 2 baddies is Wart, the main villain of the game who has, surprisingly, made himself pretty scarce in the years since its release. In The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, he appears as a sort of top dog criminal in the underground casino, and he has connections to Bowser and Bowser Jr. Prior to this, he’s shown up in some comics and manga, and there are some references to him in games like Mario Maker 2 and even The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, but The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is pretty much his big return to the spotlight, however brief it may be.

R.O.B.

The helpful robot Peach and Mario both ask for help in the Gateway Galaxy is R.O.B. This guy started off as a toy-like peripheral for the Nintendo Entertainment System, part of a marketing strategy by Nintendo to try to quell retailers’ fears about video games after the 1983 video game crash, and he helped get the console into homes because those retailers were willing to give shelf space to the sophisticated-looking toy. Though he was an early glimpse at Nintendo’s willingness to innovate and take risks, he also wasn’t much fun to actually use, and his life as a face for the console was short. Still, R.O.B. has stayed part of Nintendo’s legacy and appeared as a playable character in the Super Smash Bros. series and in Mario Kart DS.

Dry Bowser

In the movie’s final battle, Bowser is dropped into a pit of lava and emerges with his skin and scales burned off. The zombie-like version of Bowser, often called “Dry Bowser,” first appeared in New Super Mario Bros. after Mario tossed the big guy into some lava in the game’s first world. Bowser is able to revert to his regular form by the end of the game, but this transformation has appeared in several games over the years both as a boss and as a playable character.

Daisy

The final character we see in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is Daisy, who is seen in the film’s post-credits scene stopping a mischievous Ukiki from stealing someone’s belongings in the Gateway Galaxy. Daisy debuted in 1989’s Super Mario Land as the princess of Sarasaland, but was largely absent for most of the ‘90s until she returned as a playable character in Mario Tennis. Since then, she’s been a playable character in the Mario Kart and Party series, as well as most spin-offs. The movie hints at her arrival early on when Luigi mentions that he’s looking for love and hopes Peach has a friend for him, as Daisy and Luigi are portrayed as romantic interests throughout the game series. Since Nintendo and Illumination are too cowardly to portray Luigi and Bowser as the boyfriends they should be, maybe we’ll see a spark ignite between her and the plumber in the next movie.

Fox McCloud

Fox McCloud isn’t so much a “cameo” as he is a full-blown cast member, but as the pilot states in the film, he comes from a different universe: Nintendo’s space combat series Star Fox. He leads the titular space-faring group, and despite being beloved in the Super Smash Bros. series, Nintendo hasn’t given him a game of his own in a while, with the last being Star Fox Zero on the Wii U. Maybe the movie will nudge the company to finally give him a new game. It’s been too damn long.

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