Character Round-Up: The Super Mario Bros. Galaxy Movie

The Super Mario Bros. and Friends

Super Mario Bros. rebuilt the video game industry after the Great Video Game Crash of 1984. The series began with a plumber trying to save a princess from a dragon-turtle, but has since become Nintendo’s flagship franchise.

Modern Mario games run the gamut from straightforward adventures to Olympics crossovers with Sonic the Hedgehog. But those games wouldn’t be as fun without their cast of colorful characters. So who is appearing in Universal’s new The Super Mario Bros. Galaxy Movie? Time to find out. Let’s a-go!

Mario

Voiced By: Charles Martinet, Chris Pratt, Captain Lou Albano

Mario debuted in 1981’s Donkey Kong. Shigeru Miyamoto created him as a stand-in for Popeye the Sailor Man after failing to license the character.

Mario is a plumber from The Mushroom Kingdom. King Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach and turned the inhabitants into stone. Mario battled his way through Bowser’s army and defeated him, sparking a lifelong grudge.

Mario has fought many other villains, including The Shadow Queen, magical madman Dimentio, and living sword Exor. He makes friends easily and discovers how to use their abilities in tandem with his own. Mario is kind and brave, but has a temper and rarely speaks beyond catchphrases.

A trove of power-ups fuel Mario. Super Mushrooms make him taller and stronger. He’s used so many Fire Flowers that he became inherently pyrokinetic. Cape Feathers and Wing Caps let him fly. We’d be here all day covering Mario’s many power-ups. Even without them, he swings a giant mallet and can leap great distances, stomping any enemies he lands on.

Fun Fact: After years of confusion, Nintendo confirmed in 2015 that Mario’s last name is the same as his first. He’s Mario Mario and his brother is Luigi Mario.

Luigi

Voiced By: Charlie Day, Danny Wells, John Leguizamo

Luigi had a humble video game beginning as Mario’s palette swap, the same character sprite painted green so that player two could tell them apart. Luigi slowly developed his own traits, such as jumping higher than his brother and being portrayed as a coward.

Luigi’s Mansion gave him the spotlight. Luigi used ghost-hunting equipment created by Professor E. Gadd to battle King Boo’s undead army and save Mario. Facing the ghosts boosted his confidence while helping his brother. Luigi’s heroism drew the eye of Princess Daisy, though they remain friends instead of a couple.

Luigi has Mario’s abilities and power-ups, plus a few unique tricks. Thunderhand empowers attacks with electricity. He could summon a magical void through hidden resentment at being in Mario’s shadow, but that idea was quickly abandoned. When all else fails, Luigi pulls out the Polturgust-5000 and becomes an amateur Ghostbuster.

Fun Fact: Luigi’s Mansion is where he became a coward, but he had acted that way before. An American commercial for Mario Bros showed him attacked by monsters and screaming for his brother, all set to a parody of the “Car 54, Where Are You?” theme song.

Princess Peach

Voiced By: Anna Taylor-Joy

Princess Peach is the Mushroom Kingdom’s wise ruler. Bowser kidnapped her because her magic could counteract his curses. He fell in love with her and became a franchise regular, kidnaping her in future stories. Mario and Luigi inevitably free her, resulting in Peach baking a cake to reward them. Rinse and repeat.

Peach took a larger role in modern times, directly opposing Bowser when she wasn’t kidnapped. She recently stepped into the spotlight for her own adventure, travelling into movies to battle the Sour Bunch, grape-themed monsters who had taken a theater full of innocents hostage.

Princess Peach focuses on healing magic. She can remove curses, heal injuries, and glide through the air. She briefly wielded the Vibe Scepter, which heightened and weaponized her emotions. Peach got cooler powers in her solo adventure, transforming into genre archetypes such as Kung-Fu, Detective, and Dashing Thief Peach to battle the Sour Bunch.

Super Mario Bros.: Toad

Voiced By: Keegan-Michael Key, Jen Taylor

Toad is one of the strangest Super Mario characters. He’s simultaneously an individual and an entire generic race based on which game he appears in. What remains consistent is that he’s Peach’s bodyguard and confidant.

The Toads are the Mushroom Kingdom’s dominant race. They live their days in peace and harmony. Toads become bystanders in emergencies, leaving the Super Mario Bros. and their princess to save the day. A handful of brave ones fight by their side, most notably a spunky girl named Toadette.

Toad rarely gets involved in adventures and has no specific power-ups. He’s strong, fast, and always willing to act as a human, er, a Toad shield for Princess Peach.

Yoshi

Voiced By: Kazumi Totaka

Yoshi was Mario’s very first ally. When a stork carrying the Super Mario Bros. dropped Baby Mario, this green dinosaur found him. Yoshi fought his way through an army of monsters and Mario’s incessant crying to deliver him to his family.

As an adult, Mario rides Yoshi into battle. Yoshi will protect the plumber from damage, but runs off in fear afterwards. He won’t enter Bowser’s castle because he’s scared of the evil king, but any minions after Mario will have to get through him first.

Yoshi can swallow anything with his extendable tongue that he then expels as an egg. He can breathe fire or sprout wings if he chows down on the right mook. Yoshi can hover with his Flutter Jump, hurl eggs with explosive force, and call other Yoshis for a stampede.

Rosalina

Voiced By: Brie Larson, Laura Faye Smith

Rosalina is one of the Super Mario Bros. newest allies. She lives on the Comet Observatory in outer space, watching over living stars called Lumas. One of Bowser’s schemes stole Power Stars that were needed to fuel her home. She called on Mario for help in exchange for aiding him in saving Peach.

She told The Lumas about her past as a bedtime story. Rosalina found a spaceship and a lost Luma. She travelled into space and helped find the rest of its species, building the Observatory to house them. Rosalina realized that her family had died during her travels and became a maternal figure to the Lumas, her new family.

Rosalina is Mario’s strongest ally, bordering on being godlike. She can teleport, manipulate gravity, create force fields, summon star showers, and speak telepathically. Rosalina has also hinted that she’s seen the universe end and start again several times, implying that she’s immortal.  

Fun Fact: During Super Mario Galaxy’s development, there were plans to make Rosalina a relative of Princess Peach to explain why they look similar. Those fell through, but the first movie had a line where Peach mentioned galaxies while musing on her missing family. Three guesses what the sequel might do, but the first two don’t count.

Super Mario Bros.: Bowser

Voiced By: Jack Black, Kenny James, Dennis Hopper

Bowser made our list of the Top 5 Video Game Villains for a reason. The king of the Koopa Kingdom has spent decades kidnapping Princess Peach in hopes that she’ll return his affection. He leads armies of Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Boos, and other minions, commanded by the Koopalings.

Bowser Jr.’s birth changed him. He still kidnapped Peach occasionally, but also allied with the Mushroom Kingdom against larger threats. Bowser’s plans also simmered down to standard conquer the world schemes instead of murder and devastation.

Few people want to mess with an eight foot tall, twelve hundred pound dragon-turtle. Bowser has super strength, breathes fires, casts black magic, and often steals artifacts of infinite power. Through his son’s magic, he can become the nearly invincible Fury Bowser at the cost of going berserk.

Bowser Jr.

Voiced By: Benny Safdie, Caety Sagoian

Bowser Junior was introduced to lighten Bowser’s image. He framed Mario for wrecking an island and attacked him with living graffiti. He believed that Mario was keeping him away from his mother, Princess Peach. Bowser later admitted that he had lied about Junior’s parentage, though the kid already knew. He had hoped that Peach would want to be his mom.

Junior joined his father in several evil schemes, often acting as the second in command as he battled the Super Mario Bros. He formed an entourage of minions and has occasionally gone on his own adventures, even teaming up with Mario the first time his dad transformed into Fury Bowser.

A magic paintbrush is Bowser Jr.’s weapon of choice. He can paint living creatures, cast spells with different shades of paint, and transform into Shadow Mario to masquerade as his dad’s enemy. Aside from paint, Bowser Junior also drives the Koopa Clown Car, a flying machine with dozens of weapons.

Fun Fact: No one knows who Bowser Jr.’s mom is. It’s confirmed not to be Peach and Bowser doesn’t have any other love interests. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto joked that he was Jr.’s mother, but the truth remains a mystery

Didya Get All That?

An army of allies and enemies surround the Super Mario Bros.

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures

Jared Bounacos

Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.