President Koopa

President Koopa (also referred to as simply Koopa and King Koopa, and formerly General Koopa) is the primary antagonist of the Super Mario Bros. film, portrayed by the late Dennis Hopper. He represents Bowser, the main antagonist of the video game franchise on which the film was based (though earlier scripts of the film named the King as Bowser). The character is portrayed as the corrupt, unopposed ruler and self-proclaimed "president" of Dinohattan. Unlike his in-game counterpart who is a Koopa, President Koopa, like the other inhabitants of Dinohattan, is a humanoid of reptilian origin, descending from the Tyrannosaurus rex.

He is portrayed as a former subject of Dinohattan's rightful king, who revolted and took control of the realm from him. He later plotted a full-scale assault and takeover of Earth, which he would achieve by reuniting and merging the two dimensions into one by inserting the meteorite piece owned by Princess Daisy back into its proper place.

Background
Sixty-five million years ago, a meteorite crashed onto Earth, somehow isolating a population of dinosaurs in an Earth that is in a dimension parallel to our Earth. It is in this dimension that the dinosaurs continued to live, and, like the apes on Earth, evolved into a human form. Koopa is one such humanoid dinosaur, having descended from a Tyrannosaurus rex. Originally serving as a top military leader, Koopa eventually seized control of Dinohattan from The King, whom he turned into fungus, with plans to use a shard of the meteorite to reunite the dimensions and allow him to take over Earth as well.

Super Mario Bros. film
In the film's introduction, the Queen manages to take her unborn and unhatched daughter (Daisy) and the shard through a portal to Earth, leaving them at the entrance to a cathedral before trying to return to Dinohatten, only to be captured by Koopa. Earlier, he killed the portal's keeper as part of his coup d'état, and now demands the meteorite piece from her. In the ensuing struggle, however, Koopa accidentally knocks over a support beam and the tunnel collapses, crushing Daisy's mother and blocking off the portal.

Several years later, when the portal is finally reopened, Koopa assigns his cousins Iggy and Spike, who are also his minions, to retrieve Princess Daisy so he can use the meteorite piece she carries for his master plan. However, his bumbling cousins continuously deliver him the wrong girls, until finally succeeding in kidnapping Daisy. They barge into his office after he had done a routine de-germification of his palms. However, it turns out that they lost the meteorite piece to Mario and Luigi in the process of capturing Daisy.

Later, after Mario and Luigi are arrested, they are taken to see their lawyer, who is actually Koopa under an alias. He tries to trick the brothers into handing over the necklace, which has the meteorite piece on it and which they don't have anymore, eventually reaching the point where he physically assaults the brothers and orders them and Toad to be de-evolved. In the de-evolution chamber, Koopa witnesses as Toad is turned from a human-like state to a Goomba, a strong, large, and stupid being loyal to Koopa. He then orders the brothers to tell him where the necklace is, or face de-evolution. After a technician ended up sneezing, Koopa, because of his germophobic nature, as well as to do a further demonstration to the Mario Bros. regarding the properties of the de-evolution chamber, has the technician executed by turning him into primordial slime. However, the brothers escape, pushing Koopa into the de-evolution device, defeating all of his minions, and setting the machine for the Jurassic period. While the de-evolution ends prematurely and Koopa remains in his human-like form, his eye briefly becoming more reptilian hints that he had in fact been affected by the machine. He then angrily demands that they recapture the Mario Bros.

Iggy and Spike later break-in on Koopa and Lena's mud bath, reporting that Mario and Luigi are in the Koopahari Desert. Koopa orders Lena to bring him Daisy, and has Iggy and Spike taken to the de-evolution chamber. However, instead of de-evolving them, Koopa has his cousins evolved, which results in the pair becoming smarter. He then orders the pair to capture Mario and Luigi and retrieve the meteorite piece or be killed, also specifying that he himself will execute his cousins in person.

Koopa is discussing training his Goombas with the de-evolution gun when Lena arrives, telling him that Daisy is ready. He is then finally introduced to Daisy, who is in another room with Yoshi, a baby. He surprises Daisy by entering the room and telling her Yoshi is a dinosaur. Ignoring her pleas for the whereabouts of her father, Koopa tells her that she also descended from dinosaurs, and, afterward, his head begins to show dinosaur-like traits and he nearly seduces her. A frightened Daisy then runs away but is caught by Toad, whom Koopa demands to take Daisy away.

At another point, he enters Devo 4, the holding chamber for Daisy's father, where he engages in small-talk with the fungus. He eventually states that his rebellion will have been in vain after the dimensions have been united.

Lena later enters Koopa's quarters, secretly possessing the meteorite piece, with Iggy and Spike as her prisoners. She convinces Koopa that they were now against him, and he orders them to be killed. He then walks off with Lena, who tries to reveal that she has the meteorite piece, only to be ignored. She bemoans the fact that Koopa only cares about Daisy now, while he states that he only cares for the future of their species and leaves, whereupon Lena decides to take action on her own.

Koopa is later told by the police chief that the army is ready for the invasion of earth. Alarmed by this, Koopa demands to know who gave the order, to which the chief states that he did, according to Lena. Koopa then figures out that she has the shard, and demands her arrest. He, along with a Goomba entourage, later run into Luigi and Daisy and capture the duo. Afterward, he orders the preparation for the invasion of earth. Eventually, the police chief captures Lena and delivers the shard to Koopa, and he then orders to prepare for the invasion.

Outside, Koopa and a small group of Goombas are distracted as Mario, as well as the missing girls from Brooklyn, fly out of a ventilation shaft on a mattress, allowing Luigi and Daisy to rejoin Mario. However, Koopa then approaches the brothers with a fireball gun, declaring he had won, and gives several commands through a communicator. The distracted Koopa does not notice Luigi grab a Thwomp Stomper's cartridge from a local shop, which Mario loads into a stomper and activates it. The stomper knocks Koopa into an empty vat above the streets. Mario, using some fungus as a vine, leaps onto the bottom of the vat, climbs on top of it, and hits Koopa, knocking the shard out of his hand. Not being able to locate the shard, Mario is able to trick Koopa into thinking he has it.

They continue the fight on a catwalk, Mario pulling out the Bob-omb the brothers retrieved earlier and winds it, though the bomb falls through a hole. Unaware that the Bob-omb is still on its trek, the two dimensions begin merging before their eyes. Mario, Koopa, and his legion of Goombas appear at the excavation site after Koopa's tower merges with the World Trade Center. Casting aside the fireball gun, which no longer functions, Koopa takes a de-evolution gun from a Goomba and fires at Mario, though he dodges the blast, which accidentally hits Anthony Scapelli, a business owner, and turns him into an ape. He tries firing at him again, but Mario pulls out a mushroom the brothers found earlier to absorb the blast. The mushroom starts to grow, eventually becoming really large, and Mario uses it to attack Koopa, knocking the gun out of his hand.

Thanks to the efforts of Luigi and Daisy, the dimensions are split again, and Mario is joined by Luigi, who hands him a de-evolution gun. He attempts to have his accompanying troops shoot him, but the Goombas end up failing to obey the order by dancing thanks to Toad playing the harmonica, exploiting an earlier weakness of the Goombas, causing Koopa to angrily punch them down dominoes-style. The brothers then fire the guns at him after he attempts to strike them with his now functioning fireball gun (the latter missing them and instead hitting a Koopa propaganda poster depicting him kissing a baby), which began de-evolving him, granting him definite saurian features just as the Bob-omb arrives right beneath Koopa and explodes, sending him flying into the empty vat. After a moment of silence, he emerges from the vat, having de-evolved into a semi-humanoid Tyrannosaurus. The brothers then defeat him by continuously blasting Koopa again until he finally de-evolves into primeval slime.

Deleted scenes
In one of the deleted scenes for the film, then-General Koopa briefly explored the upper levels of New York City while attempting to hunt down Daisy's mother and the meteorite, and briefly saw the skyscrapers of New York City, which would have explained why he had the capital of his dimension renovated to resemble Manhattan.

Another deleted scene has Iggy, Spike, Mario and Luigi in the Sludge Gulper conversing about the presidency of Koopa. Here, it is revealed that Koopa runs for presidency unopposed, instead opting to run against himself under different names (or alter-egos, similar to his various names in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!), representing different aspects of his personality (albeit made to sound more positive). Various names he has chosen to run for president under include "Koopa the Sportsman," "Koopa the Environmentalist," "Koopa the Stud" and finally, "Koopa the Sensitive" (who Spike reveals only got 2% of the vote). It is not made clear if the "winner" influences what Koopa focuses on, or if it is merely intended to feed his ego. Iggy states no one is allowed to run against him because he "doesn't like that." While this conversation is removed in the final cut, propaganda posters featuring the various egos of Koopa can be seen canvased in various places.

Super Mario: Makai Teikoku no Megami
In the simplified manga adaption of the Super Mario Bros. film titled Super Mario: Makai Teikoku no Megami, President Koopa reprises his role of the antagonist. Various plot and character elements differ from the film in this incarnation of President Koopa. His appearance, though mostly human, takes a more reptilian appearance appearing with scales drawn on his blue-tinted skin. He has green spiked hair, large lips and a long tongue he shows off to intimidate. Like the film, Koopa is the tyrant that took over the parallel dimensions (not referred to as Dinohattan in the manga). It is implied that Koopa de-evolved the King into fungus like the film's storyline, but aside from being briefly mentioned as a rumor from a city resident, there is no confirmation of this.

Like his film character, he enlists Spike and Iggy to bring him back Daisy and the meteorite piece. Upon Daisy's arrival, he begins explaining the circumstances of the parallel dimensions to her, and that they are both descendant from dinosaurs. Furthermore, Koopa explains that his plans to merge the two dimensions and take them over was previously thwarted by a woman who escaped to Earth with her newborn daughter and the meteorite piece needed to complete said merge. He reveals the woman was Daisy's mother, and demands that Daisy hand over the meteorite. Spike and Iggy inform him that Mario and Luigi were able to confiscate it, and he becomes enraged and turns Spike and Iggy into Goombas to demonstrate his Devo Gun capabilities.

He takes to Koopa Square with Daisy and his Goomba army to seek Mario and Luigi. Mario fools and distracts Koopa into thinking he is holding the meteorite by handing him a string tied to an exploding mushroom, while Luigi and Daisy run off with the real meteorite piece. The Mushroom explodes in his hand, which disgusts him and he asks one of his Goombas to clean him, offering Koopons in return. As soon as Mario readies to throw another exploding mushroom, the dimension merge happens. Now on Earth, Koopa begins de-evolving humans into monkeys with the Devo Gun and Mario discovers his exploding mushrooms are just normal mushrooms on Earth that don't affect Koopa.

The dimensions re-split, and Mario tosses an exploding mushroom which explodes and dismembers Koopa's left arm. Koopa reveals his species has regenerating powers and he regrows said arm. Mario continues throwing exploding mushrooms at Koopa, removing his other arm and left leg. Koopa mocks him, suggesting he should aim for the head instead. As Koopa's arm carrying the Devo Gun is dismembered, Mario reveals his aim was intentional. Mario shoots Koopa and de-evolves him to primordial slime.

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

Personality
Koopa has a similar personality to that of his game counterpart, Bowser. However, he also is shown to have an understandable motive in regards to remerging both dimensions, citing that he intends to use Daisy to merge them for the future of his species, especially since his species has to go through several hardships that stem from the parallel world being a near-complete wasteland. Despite this, Koopa still sees himself as an evil person; while pretending to be a lawyer for Mario and Luigi, he tells them that he "is one evil, egg-sucking son of a snake," and does not deny this after his true identity is revealed. Koopa is also shown to be very ruthless in the pursuit of his goals, as after "evolving" his cousins Iggy and Spike, he threatened to personally execute them if they fail to retrieve both the Mario Bros. and the meteorite, with Iggy and Spike earlier implying when trying to locate Daisy that, should they abduct the wrong girl yet again, Koopa may end up doing far worse to them than simply have them executed. Likewise, he also immediately ordered for Lena arrested after deducing from her giving an order in his name to start the invasion without his knowledge that she had retrieved the meteorite and kept it for herself.

Koopa has also been shown to be a germophobe. In his first appearance when he is ranting about how he is ruling a world overwhelmed with fungus and slime, he is seen dunking his hands in boiling mud in an attempt to sterilize them. When he first meets the Mario brothers, he shakes their hands, but wipes his hand off with tissues afterward; after assaulting Luigi soon afterward, a police officer sprays his hands with disinfectant, and even later he has a lab technician devolved into primordial ooze simply for sneezing in his presence. He also is seen relaxing in a mud Jacuzzi right before ordering Lena to bring Princess Daisy before him.

Physical appearance
President Koopa is almost entirely human in appearance, with blonde hair he gels in the shape of a crown, and he frequently wears a black business suit and tie. Koopa constantly has his arms dangling limp at chest level in reference to his origins as a tyrannosaurus rex. However, after being briefly exposed to his own Devo machine by the Mario Bros., he started occasionally possessing some reptilian traits, such as a long, pointed tongue, slitted pupils, and in a few instances his entire face briefly morphing to become more reptilian. Near the end of the film, when Koopa is forcibly de-evolved, he becomes a grayish-green Tyrannosaurus rex, though he has a few differences when de-evolved such as having big arms instead of the small arms from the actual T-rex, though they become small before he turns into a large glob of primordial ooze.

ERTL Action Figure file card
SOCIETY HIT PARADE! ''In this portion of The Times, we honor a citizen of Dinohatten, who has made a statement, left an impression, stood out above the rest, been different. These good people are not necessarily good. Some are, some aren't. You be the judge.''

This day, we honor Koopa. ''Hometown: Dinohattan ''Occupation: Ruler ''Ancestor: Tyranasaurus [sic] Rex ''Personality Trait: Evil ''Favorite Bath: Mud ''Favorite Food: Snake on a stick ''Favorite Saying: "I guess I'm not a good guy" ''Contribution to Society: Ruler of the reptilian city of Dinohattan. He exhibits excellence in all facets of leadership. He specializes in the smashing of all attempts at turning Dinohattan into a democratic society, which has included sliming and devolving some of his closest friends.''

Trivia

 * Koopa's unusual hairstyle, lavish lifestyle, skyscraper dwelling, and general demeanor are likely a parody of real-life New York City millionaire, who was well known at the time of filming for his aggressive personality and business tactics. Incidentally, Trump himself would go on to become a highly controversial president in 2016.