The Super Mario Bros. movie gets the games’ pathetic penguins just right
Nintendo debuted a new trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movieas part of a Direct on Thursday. In it, we get to to finally hear what Chris Pratt’s Mario voice sounds like, but the trailer also had a cameo from an relatively unknown set of characters. At the beginning, it shows Bowser and his Koopa army going up against a kingdom of penguins. The birds put up a good fight by flinging snowballs, but it’s no match for Bowser’s flames. The inclusion of the penguins comes as a surprise, mainly because they aren’t the most central Mario characters in previous games. However, they are a regular fixture in the franchise series so we decided to explain what the deal is with the penguins.
According to a Mario Wiki entry, penguins appear in the Mario series as early as 1984 as part of the Mario Pinball game. However, the first major appearance, and the one fans are most likely to remember is from Super Mario 64. There’s a set of levels set in a mountain themed world called Cool, Cool Mountain that feature the penguins prominently.
Multiple levels in the world have you interact with the monstrously big bipedal birds. In “Big Penguin Race,” you have to race against one down an ice slide to get a Star. In “Li’l Penguin Lost,” Mario is tasked with helping a penguin mom retrieve her lost penguin child. In the level, you have to navigate a slippery and treacherous terrain while holding the crying penguin. (The whiney crying sound of the baby penguins still haunts my mind to this day and people regularly joke about dropping the penguin off a cliff.)
The big twist of The Super Mario Bros Movie is gonna be when Mario joins Bowser to murder all the penguins pic.twitter.com/PyGSiFua0U
Since 64, Mario game have routinely incorporated
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