In the Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer, penguins play a central role, but popular Nintendo characters are left out – but that could very well be.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie appears to have been divisive for a long time Mario fans, but the inclusion of the penguins is a promising sign for the film. Produced by Universal and Illumination Studios, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the first attempt at bringing Mario and Luigi to the big screen since the negatively-reviewed 1993 live-action Super Mario Bros adaptation starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. Nintendo has since tended not to adapt their video games to Hollywood blockbusters, but the success of the 2019 Detective Pikachu led to the highly anticipated cinematic return of the Mario Bros.
Chris Pratt’s Mario voice is the movie’s biggest talking point since the release of The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer. While Pratt’s voice is nothing like Mario from the video games, there’s still plenty of fun to come Super Mario Bros. Movie. Charlie Day is perfectly cast as Luigi and Jack Black’s Bowser already looks like this might be the best part of the movie. Perhaps more promising is the prominent role of the penguins in The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s first trailer.
Penguins are common in The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer despite being super obscure characters, and that’s great. It suggests that the film will dive deep into Mario Bros lore, which should reassure video game fans that the same mistakes the 1993 adaptation made won’t be repeated. The penguins may have no greater role than naively standing up to Bowser, the best part of Mario‘s trailer, but showing them opens the door to a series of unique characters and kingdoms that Mario and Luigi can visit during The Super Mario Bros. Movie and any future sequels.
Everything we know about the penguins in Super Mario Bros
The Penguin’s first video game adventure with Mario has arrived Super Mario 64, where they featured in two levels that would earn the mustachioed plumber a Power Star. Since then, the penguins have been a regular part of the super mario, Mario Kartand Mario party series as non-playable characters in the cold and icy kingdoms. Penguins are usually friendly in the Nintendo games, and some like to chat with Mario, but occasionally they act as obstacles to missions, even if they don’t intentionally cause damage.
In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the penguins get a nice supporting role. As seen in the first trailer, the penguins do battle with Jack Black’s Bowser in a battle they lose quite quickly, but they fight more than the passive penguins from the video games. The penguins are led by the brave but naive King Penguin, a character created for the film and voiced by Khary Payton, best known as The living Deadking Ezekiel. It is unlikely that the penguins will appear in The Super Mario Bros. Movie in a bigger capacity than the scene in the trailer, but showing them so early in the movie’s promotional material excitingly suggests more obscure characters and places could be featured.