Mario (film character)

Mario Mario, played by the late Bob Hoskins, is the main character of the 1993 film Super Mario Bros. He is portrayed as a Brooklyn-born plumber and co-owner of Mario Bros. Plumbing, a family business, with his younger brother Luigi. While taking strong inspirations from Mario's video game franchise depiction, he has notable differences from his video game depictions. Unlike his in-game counterpart, Mario is portrayed in the film as grumpy, rude, and practical, and is initially the least willing to save Daisy of the two brothers. In addition to that, he is wary and skeptical of anything supernatural or other-wordly, continuously belittling Luigi for his superstitious nature.

According to director Rocky Morton, the film was meant to show the "real" story that the games were based off of, which is supported by the post-credits scene where Iggy and Spike are commissioned to make their own video game. Hoskins was once reported expressing personal distaste for his work in this role.

Name
Mario's character has the same first and last name, making his full name to be "Mario Mario". This is inspired by their video games referring to them as the "Mario brothers", and how it would be unusual to refer to a group of brothers by the first name of the older brother rather than referring to them by their last names. This naming convention is humorously pointed out in a scene where Mario and Luigi confuse Sergeant Simon by their unusual last names. In 2012, Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto dismissed this naming oddity featured in the film stating that the video game version of Mario did not have a last name. This was retconned a few years later in 2015, when he officially canonized "Mario Mario" being the full name of the video game character. Despite "Mario" being Mario's last name is commonly attributed to the Super Mario Bros. film, it was actually first established in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.

Backstory
As Mario and Luigi mention in one scene, Mario raised his younger brother, Luigi from a young age. Luigi mentions having never known his parents or family so he sees Mario as having fulfilled the role of mother, father, uncle and brother. It is not elaborated on the circumstances of what happened to the parents, though Mario mentions having learned plumbing knowledge from his father (who learned said knowledge from Mario's grandfather). As the two brothers grew older, Mario trained Luigi in the plumber business and the two have been working as plumbers in the "Mario Brothers Plumbing" but their business has been tapering and they have been running low on money.

Super Mario Bros. film
Mario is first introduced in the Super Mario Bros. film, taking a call from the Riverfront Cafe requesting their plumbing services. While preparing to leave, the two briefly argue regarding their financial problems. Mario complains to Luigi about his purchase of a newspaper, while Luigi expresses his concern over the article about various missing girls from Brooklyn. Mario does not care over these concerns, and the two head out to the Riverfront Cafe but are disappointed to see their competitors, Scapelli Construction have arrived before them.

The brothers' van breaks down on their drive back home, and Mario enlists Luigi to check a local payphone for possible plumbing jobs while he enters a store to get water to cool the van's radiator. As he is leaving the store, he sees Luigi hand the phone to a girl named Daisy. Mario encourages Luigi to talk to the woman and offer her a ride, which she agrees to. Later that night, Mario and his girlfriend, Daniella, along with Luigi and Daisy, have a double-date at an Italian restaurant called the Bella Napoli. Daisy discusses her excavation project where her team has found the possible location of the impact site of the meteor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. During dinner, as Daisy and Luigi display romantic chemistry, Mario decides that he and Daniella will take the van home, while Luigi and Daisy can walk home to get to know each other better. Mario and Daniella leave in the van, unaware that they are being followed by Iggy and Spike, two of President Koopa's minions, thinking that Daniella was Daisy in disguise. After Mario drops her off at her apartment, he does not hear her screams as she is kidnapped. While Mario is home, Luigi and Daisy arrive urgently asking for help as workers of Scapelli Construction have flooded the excavation team's tunnel. Mario and Luigi arrive to fix the pipelines, but are knocked out by Iggy and Spike and the pair kidnaps Daisy.

Noticing Daisy is gone after awaking, they follow Daisy's echos through the pipes to track her down. They arrive at a solid rock through which her voice and occasionally her face is emitting from. Luigi attempts to jump after her, but is held back by Mario. After Daisy's face reappears, Luigi attempts to reach out for her but only manages to take her rock necklace off her neck. Luigi successfully leaps through the solid rock and disappearing into it, and a confused and skeptical Mario tries to follow, accidentally falling into it.

The two unknowingly travel between parallel dimensions, arriving at the alternate Dinohattan dimension. They continue chasing after Daisy, who is taken into a cab and the car disappears. Two policemen pull the brothers away from the cab, and they take in their surroundings, finding themselves in Koopa Square. The brothers soon begin to realize their environment is a darker, hostile and grittier city, not resembling Brooklyn. An older lady approaches the brothers and warns them of the dangers of the city. After learning they are unarmed, she unexpectedly tasers them with a stun stick and attempts to mug them. She takes interest in Daisy's rock necklace and takes it from Luigi, before she is mugged by Big Bertha, who leaps away with the rock necklace in her Thwomp Stompers. The brothers then encounter Toad, a street musician who plays an anti-Koopa song for them. He is promptly arrested when two police cars arrive, and the brothers are taken with. At the police station, Mario and Luigi reveal to Sergeant Simon both their last names are "Mario" which confuses him, and are then taken to be de-fungused by the Fungus Unit. They are quarantined and placed into prison cages, with Toad in the cell above them playing a song for the brothers about how they are from a different dimension. Still confused, they ask Toad what he means and he begins to explain that the meteorite strike divided the universes into two parallel dimensions, and Mario and Luigi are from the other dimension. Sergeant Simon removes Mario and Luigi from their cells and takes them to an office room. There, President Koopa attempts to gain their trust by pretending to be their lawyer, for the intent of learning information as to where the "meteorite piece" is. As the brothers are unaware Daisy's necklace is a meteorite piece, they express that they don't know what he's referring to, and an angry President Koopa begins jamming his fingers into Luigi's eye. Mario pushes him off him before being stunned by Sergeant Simon. President Koopa takes the brothers to the Devo Chamber to threaten them as to what their fate will be if they don't reveal the meteorite piece's location. He demonstrates the Devo Chamber's abilities by turning Toad into a Goomba. Enraged over Toad's fate, Mario pushes Koopa into the Devo Chamber chair, and has a short fight with Sergeant Simon, punching him to the ground. Mario and Luigi escape out of the room, with Goombas following them and they hide behind support beams. Luigi finds a Bob-omb on growing fungus but Mario nudges him away before he takes it, and the two head into a police garage. They steal a police car with Mario behind the wheel and drive off as more police cars begin pursuing after them. After a short chase and battle with the opponent cars, they escape by driving into an unfinished tunnel. The car's navigation system warns them that there isn't a route to continue driving on and the car shuts down due to it leaving the city's power grid. The car continues driving straight and drives off the unfinished end of the tunnel, falling off a cliff. The overgrown fungus plaguing the city saves them from the fall, catching the vehicle and safely dragging it closer to the floor. They exit the car and realize they are in the barren and desolate Koopahari Desert, and become lost. They begin to argue over who is to blame for their situation.

They notice Iggy and Spike driving towards them in a six-wheeled vehicle. Mario and Luigi watch the duo drive off a cliff and they catch up to them and capture them, demanding more information as to what is going on. Iggy and Spike inform the brothers that Koopa wants Daisy's rock necklace to merge the two dimensions of Earth and Dinohattan to successfully conquer both of them. The four of them come to an agreement to work together with the brothers offering the rock pendant in exchange for Daisy. Iggy and Spike agree to the terms, and Luigi provides them with the description of who took the rock pendant, and they recognize her as Big Bertha. Iggy and Spike direct them to the Boom Boom Bar to get the necklace back from her, and the four hijack a Sludge Gulper truck from Snifits and begin their drive back to the city.

At the bar, Mario and Luigi disguise themselves in dancing clothes provided by Iggy and Spike to find Bertha. With Bertha wearing the rock necklace, Mario asks Bertha to dance and the two begin dancing with Mario making frequent attempts to rob her of the necklace without her noticing. He eventually successfully accomplishes to do so, but Lena and a group of Goombas arrive. In Mario and Luigi's attempt to not be noticed and escape the bar, Mario drops the rock pendant which is picked up by Lena. Big Bertha assists them in their escape, hiding the brothers in the "Hat Check" room and providing the brothers with Thwomp Stompers, kissing Mario before he leaves. The two take off in their Thwomp Stompers, followed by various policemen and Goombas. In their escape, they are offered a Bob-omb again by the fungus, and Luigi takes it. They take refuge from their pursuers hiding in the back of a moving Sludge Gulper. The garbage truck conveniently dumps them off at the entrance of Koopa's Tower, where Daisy, Daniella, Angelica and the other kidnapped women are held. Mario and Luigi infiltrate the building, and the brothers manage to shut off the building's heat pipeline system. An alarm sounds off, and as they begin to navigate the building, they come to a pair of mechanic outfits. They put on these outfits, which are more reminiscent of the iconic hat and overalls outfit Mario and Luigi wear in the video games. The brothers enter an elevator to hide in, though as the elevator continues upward deeper into Koopa's Tower, Goombas begin to file in. The Goombas are oblivious to the presence of the brothers. Luigi discovers they take a liking to the elevator music after Luigi begins rocking them back and forth and they begin to dance along to it. Mario and Luigi manage to get all the Goombas dancing to distract them and the two escape the elevaotr.

The brothers find Daisy in Devo 4, where she introduces them to The King, who is the de-evolved fungus that has been growing throughout the city. Mario then learns from Daisy that Daniella is being held prisoner as well, and Mario rushes off to save her. He eventually reaches the Goomba Barracks room they are held at, defeating the Goomba guarding it and saving the women inside. He places a barricade in front of the door, preventing more Goombas from entering, and he begins to work opening the ventilation shaft. Mario takes a mattress from the Goombas, sets it down on the pipe and he and all the kidnapped women ride it down the ventilation system. They escape out to Koopa Square, pursued by Goombas riding a mattress of their own and encounter Koopa himself. Koopa then approaches them with a flamethrower, declaring that he has won, but announcements from his communicator distract him. This gives Luigi enough time to grab a Thwomp Stomper's cartridge, which he gives to Mario. He then activates a Stomper, where it flies toward Koopa and knocks him onto a vat in the streets. Mario follows him down to fight, one of his hits knocking the meteorite piece, which was on Daisy's necklace, to the ground. Lena picks it up and runs off with it, and Daisy and Luigi follow her. Mario stays behind to fight Koopa on catwalks over the city, distracting him making him believe he is in possession of the rock pendant. To do so, he uses one of his shoelaces to wield the string to resemble a necklace.

As their fight on the catwalk continues, Mario pulls the Bob-omb out of his toolbag. He winds it and sends it toward Koopa, though it falls through a crack in the ground. Unknown to him, the Bob-omb continues its trajectory, and the fight continues. The dimensions merge after Lena successfully uses the meteorite piece, dying in the process. Mario and Koopa are transported to New York where a Goomba hands Koopa a De-evolution gun to shoot Mario with. Mario dodges the blast, which instead hits Anthony Scapelli, who is de-evolved into an ape. Koopa then fires at Mario again and he uses a mushroom to block the blast. The fungus then grows in size, eventually deflecting the blast, causing Koopa to fall over. The dimensions then become two again after Luigi and Daisy remove the meteorite piece from the meteorite chamber.

Back in Dinohattan, Luigi and Mario receive de-evolution guns from Toad and begin to use them against Koopa. The Bob-omb from earlier reappears under Koopa, blasting him into a suspended vat. Koopa emerges from the vat, now in the form of a tyrannosaurus. The brothers continue using the de-evolution gun, turning him into primordial ooze. The citizens of Dinohattan begin cheering and partying in the streets, celebrating the death and defeat of the Koopa dictatorship. Following their victory, Mario and Luigi bid Daisy goodbye and return to New York. Over the course of the next three weeks, Daniella moves in with the brothers and is seen making them dinner. As they are ready to go eat, Daisy enters their home wearing military clothing and wielding a flamethrower, asking them for help. The brothers put on their tool belts and follow after her.

Super Mario Makai Teikoku no Megami
Mario appears as a main character in the manga adaptation of the Super Mario Bros. film, Super Mario Makai Teikoku no Megami. The manga loosely follows the events of the film, while taking its own creative differences. The story begins with Daisy coming to the brothers' home to ask for help as her excavation dig site has been sabotaged and flooded. Mario and Luigi fix the underground pipelines, as Spike and Iggy kidnap her. Mario and Luigi follow, traversing through some pipes and arrive at a boulder with Daisy's cries and face protruding from it. Luigi reaches for her, as Mario attempts to tell him it is an illusion. Luigi snatches Daisy's meteorite necklace off her neck and proves to Mario it's not. The two agree to jump into the boulder, which teleports them to a parallel dimension.

The brothers arrive in the city of Koopa Kingdom (the manga's equivalent of Dinohattan), and the two begin exploring their unusual environment. Mario notices a sticky fungus layer over various city surfaces, and a city resident shares his personal belief that it is the former city's King's revenge for Koopa dethroning him. Mario plucks a mushroom off the fungus, and the man warns him it is an Exploding Mushroom as he walks away. Mario tosses it, laughing in disbelief, and the Exploding Mushroom blasts him, sending him flying and crashing near a woman pushing her unhatched egg child on a stroller. Mario is taken aback, realizing that the civilians in this city are born from eggs. Mario asks a different man who Koopa is, and the man points to a large billboard of him on a wall. Mario continues picking Exploding Mushrooms off the fungus despite Luigi's protests. Koopa arrives holding Daisy, with his Goomba army following behind. He shouts over a megaphone demands to get the meteorite back from the brothers. Daisy warns Mario and Luigi not to, explaining that the meteorite has the powers to combine the parallel dimensions giving Koopa the ability to conquer both worlds. Mario is surprised at the necklace's power, and creates a quick diversion, handing Koopa an Exploding Mushroom with a string tied to it to simulate the appearance of the meteorite necklace. This gives Daisy the ability to run away with Luigi and the real necklace. The Exploding Mushroom explodes in Koopa's hand, leaving behind a fungus residue he is disgusted at. He begins pleading for his Goombas to clean him off as Mario readies to throw another. Before he is able to, the dimensions of Earth and the Koopa Kingdom merge into one, teleporting Mario and Koopa to Earth.

Koopa begins using his Devo Gun on humans to turn them into monkeys. Mario throws an Exploding Mushroom at Koopa, who catches it and reveals that the mushroom becomes an ordinary mushroom incapable of exploding on Earth. The dimensions re-split, sending Mario and Koopa back to the Koopa Kingdom, where the Exploding Mushroom successfully explodes and dismembers Koopa's arm. Koopa reveals his species has regenerating powers, and regrows his limb. Mario continues pelting him, amputating a leg and his other arm. Koopa laughs and jokes that he should aim for the head, though Mario reveals the aim was intentional as it caused Koopa to drop his Devo Gun when he lost his arm. Mario picks up the Devo Gun and blasts Koopa, de-evolving him into primordial slime. Luigi and Daisy return to meet back up at Mario, who explains his next plan is to return to Earth and turn the de-evolved monkeys back to humans. The manga ends with Mario, Luigi and Daisy running back to the portal.

Other appearances
Mario briefly appears in the Kodansha Super Mario manga, next to his video game counterpart.