The following contains MAJOR SPOILERS for The Super Mario Bros. Movie. If you haven't seen the film, proceed at your own risk!
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is here, and anybody who’s a fan of the classic game is going to find a lot to enjoy about the film. The Mario games have been running for decades, so it’s not exactly a shock that people are already wondering if we could also see a sequel. The Super Mario Bros. Movie has a post-credits scene which is certainly teasing that possibility, but there’s actually an interesting path to Super Mario Bros. 2 that the new movie may be hinting at that has nothing to do with that scene and everything to do with another part of the game franchise: Super Mario Galaxy.
While Super Mario Galaxy is very similar to the rest of the Mario games that have come out since gaming went 3D, there are specific reasons to think that The Super Mario Bros. Movie was very intentionally hinting at going in this direction, as it could resolve one of the plot threads the movie left dangling regarding the origin of Princess Peach.
Peach Says There Are “A Lot Of Galaxies” Out There
One of the more interesting things that The Super Mario Bros. Movie does with its story is addressing the fact that the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom is human, despite the fact that there appear to be literally no other humans anywhere in the world she lives in. This is because Peach is from another world. She wandered into the Mushroom Kingdom as a baby, so she has no memory of where she is from.
This is why she’s instantly interested in Mario once they meet. Because he too is human and, as far as we know, the only other human she has seen since going through the Warp Zone. Mario himself suggests the obvious later, that she might be from his world. While Peach can’t discount the possibility, she also doesn't assume it is true. She says there are many other places she might be from, as the universe is vast full of “a lot of galaxies.”
This idea opens the door to a lot of different possibilities for a future sequel. If there are a lot of galaxies out there full of different kinds of beings, then we could see any number of Nintendo characters cross paths with the Mario Bros in the future. Perhaps we’ll get the Mario/Zelda Crossover that Anya Taylor-Joy has suggested. But the word "galaxy" in a Mario context is instantly going to conjure memories of the two Super Mario Galaxy video games to anybody who has played them, and there’s even more reason to think this is intentional.
A Luma Appears In The Super Mario Bros. Movie
We know that the world of Super Mario Galaxy exists within the greater universe that Peach references because we do get to meet one of its inhabitants in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Quite possibly the best side character in the film is a little star-shaped blob who has seemingly lost his mind and laughs all the way to the gallows, seemingly being disappointed when it doesn’t die.
This creature is a Luma, and the race of Lumas are a major part of Super Mario Galaxy. They’re not all insane in the game; in fact, they generally don’t talk much at all, but the existence of the one indicates that the rest of Super Mario Galaxy exists somewhere in the universe.
The fact that we only see one Luma is also potentially telling. All the characters in Bowser’s cells have been captured by his army. We see a lot of penguins and eventually a lot of Kongs, because we know Bowser conquered and captured them en masse. But we don't see an army of Lumas.
The fact that we only see one Luma implies that where it’s from is a world that has not been completely conquered. Perhaps, like Mario and Luigi, this one Luma wandered through a pipe and found itself in the Mushroom Kingdom, where Bowser captured it, and it’s been there alone for so long it’s gone mad.
This is all potentially important because another character from Super Mario Galaxy could hold the key to Peach’s origin.
Rosalina Is Human, Just Like Peach, And That Could Be Important
In the first Super Mario Galaxy game, Mario is aided in his quest to save Peach and defeat Bowser by Princess Rosalina. In the same way that Peach has become the leader of the Mushroom Kingdom, Rosalina is an adoptive mother to the Luma, and perhaps most importantly, Rosalina is also human.
If Peach isn’t originally from Earth like Mario and Luigi, then perhaps she is from whatever world Rosalina is from. In the game, Rosalina is also an orphan who gets lost and separated from her family. If the movie sequel were to use this backstory, perhaps both Peach and Rosalina were lost, but also separated, similar to what happened to Mario and Luigi when they went through the pipe.
In fact, at one point in the development of Super Mario Galaxy, Rosalina and Peach were going to be related, which resulted in the two being designed to look quite similar. While the game eventually dropped this idea, the physical likeness still exists, so there’s no reason the movie can’t run with it.
The fact is that the number of human characters in the Super Mario Bros. series is fairly small, so there aren’t a lot of directions for a future movie to go with Peach’s story – assuming that it will tie into the existing franchise in some way. The Super Mario Galaxy connection makes sense as a way to do that, and the first movie, whether intentionally or not, has already done a lot of the setup for exactly this.
At this point, it’s far too early to know if we’ll even get a Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel, and it will be years before we actually see it even if it happens. But Peach’s story is an obvious place for such a movie to focus and the stars feel like a great place to put it.
