30 Years Later, The 1993 Super Mario Bros. Movie is Still the One We Need.
WARNING: 30 YEAR OLD MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE FILM, PLEASE DO SO OR READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993)
Ah, the Super Mario Bros. movie from the 90s. Without watching the movie, one might read reviews and assume it’s a cinematic disaster, but this movie might be worth a second look. After all, how many movies have an opening scene that takes place in Brooklyn, 65 Million Years ago?! I mean look, I’m not gonna spoil too much, but this movie has it all. Delicious Italian food, alternate dimensions, and more.
A cautionary tale of spiritual reckoning and dimensional struggle. A much needed ‘bitter truth’ for society.
Look at that spaghetti and meatballs… Mama mia.
What if I told you that there's more to this movie than meets the eye? What if I told you that the Super Mario Bros. (1993) is actually a hidden message of intuition, altered states of reality, and human liberation? Now, I know what you're thinking, "That sounds crazy!" But then again, so is this world in so many ways. While my desire is not to convince anyone, the evidence is all there.
Subtle foreshadowing of an alternate dimension.
As we are introduced to Mario and Luigi, a program Miraculous World is on TV, talking about a guy who went to another dimension. As Mario and Luigi head out to a plumbing gig near the Brooklyn Bridge, the movie opens with another duo. We uncover a plot where young ladies are being kidnapped by an evil force.
“Anything is Possible Mario…
You just gotta believe!” - Luigi
We meet this lady Daisy, she’s pretty cool. She’s a passionate archeologist. We find out she was an orphan mysteriously abandoned and raised by nuns. This lady, she’s in danger. A shady company blows up a dig site and finds dinosaur bones. These are no ordinary bones, they are never before seen dinosaurs with opposable thumbs, I mean wow. Things start getting strange and signs and intuition drive Luigi to cross her path.
An Archiologist named Daisy?
On a historic payphone.
Down the Pipe
As Daisy is on the run from two shady guys who seem to not be human, she runs into Luigi using a payphone. As fate would have it he lends her a quarter. They go on a lovely date. We find out an untrustworthy construction company Scrapelli’s has blown up a site that was a meteorite landing, and opened a rift between dimensions. One thing leads to another and Daisy is kidnapped!
A gritty visceral dystopia.
These two plumbers, Mario and Luigi, from Brooklyn, find themselves transported to a parallel dimension where they discover that dinosaurs never went extinct and evolved into super-intelligent creatures. But it gets more complicated. This alternate reality is an under-dimension of NYC surrounded by global wasteland. In this one city, Bowser, or King Koopa has created a dystopia where gene manipulation, lawlessness and corporate government rule unchecked.
The villain of the movie is King Koopa, played by Dennis Hopper. It is revealed Koopa is actually reptilian, a descendant or human evolution form of a dinosaur. It is revealed that Koopa wants to merge his under-dimension with ours gaining full power so he can rule over both. This may seem like a straightforward enough plot for a kids' movie, but adults can understand the forshadowing of social decay that Koopa can represent.
Trust the Fungus
In the Super Mario Bros. games, mushrooms are a power-up that give Mario various abilities, like growing bigger or shooting fireballs. In the movie, mushrooms take on a less forward and direct role. I would suspect that it would be quetionable for a children’s movie to have the main protagonist eating mushrooms that give him super powers.
A subtle message from the fungus.
In the movie, the fungus is portrayed as an omnipotent force watching over the Mario brothers. Instead of singular or freestanding mushrooms, the ‘super mushroom’ is rather portrayed as an omnipresent network of fungus that communicates and help Mario and Luigi. It seems to communicate without words, using intuition and extra-sensory messaging to aid the protagonists. Could this represent the deep-rooted connection between humans and fungi? This kinship not only underscores the significance of fungi in our natural world but also emphasizes the importance of fostering and maintaining a healthy microbiome.
We see throughout the film, King Koopa, a reptilian is constantly working to keep his world ‘fungus free’. Could this ‘sanitization’ of humans by the reptilian overlord symbolize a spiritual deadening that oppressive societies need to function? While Koopa sets the chess board for interdimensional conquest he is constantly at war with fungus, which represents the forces of good that have been transformed and driven into an underground neural network that keeps the revolution alive.
By highlighting the positive role of the fungus in the movie, the filmmakers subtly remind viewers of the crucial role that fungi and other micro-organisms play in maintaining our overall health and well-being, encouraging us to appreciate and nurture this often overlooked relationship.
Face The Incursion
Here is where things start to get interesting. Split dimensions? Evolved talking dinosaurs and lizard people? Is this a altered dimension real? Is this a dream state? Is this a mushroom world? The dimensional overahaul is one unique concept in the movie but then again, going down a tube between different worlds is also a present theme in the game.
Cultures around the world have often venerated a unique and sacred place for psychadelic mushrooms and their mind-expanding properties. By the Koopa Kingdom portraying mushrooms as the enemy, and using lobotomy as a form of control, the movie is sending a clear message: that the establishment is afraid of people who are capable of expanding their minds and thinking for themselves.
A merciless corporatist, Bowser, toys with evolution and genetic manipulation.
But it's not just the mushrooms that are a symbol of liberation. Mario and Luigi themselves represent the everyman, the working-class hero who rises up against the powers that be. By defeating Koopa and saving both dimensions, they're showing us that we too have the power to change the world if we band together and fight for what's right.
Things the New Super Mario Movie (2023) Probably won’t have:
Brooklyn.
An alternate dimension.
Babes from Brooklyn.
Indoor smoking.
A gene-spliced time-bending cyberpunk dystopia.
A gritty and edgy scene of Yoshi getting ‘shanked’.
Transmorphic Reptilian overlords staging an interdimensional coup of Earth.
While the Super Mario Bros. movie may have been critically and commercially unsung, it's actually rich with a substrate of spiritual messages. It dares to show visions of altering dimensions where the boundaries of time and technology are blurred.
Super Mario Bros. (1993) is a freedom cry to anyone who's ever felt oppressed by the establishment and a reminder that we all have the power to change the world if we're willing to fight for it. So the next time you watch this movie, keep an open mind and see if you can spot the hidden messages. Who knows, you might just find yourself inspired to start a spiritual revolution within.
