For some reason, Nintendo decided to hold a “Direct” presentation on a Sunday about the upcoming Super Mario Galaxy Movie. In it, we get a new trailer showcasing a few new Mario characters joining the cast in the sequel, though we didn’t get any confirmation on whether big celebrity actors are voicing them like they are rest of the crew. Yoshi and Birdo will both make their cinematic debut in the movie when it premieres on April 1.
The trailer opens with Mario and Luigi investigating a pipe that apparently has some kind of monster trapped inside. The two activate their Fire Flowers and get ready for a fight, only to find that there’s no monster in there, just a scared little dino guy. Aww. Thus begins the beautiful onscreen friendship between the Brooklyn plumbers and a prehistoric sidekick that eats baddies and poops them out into eggs. Though this is the first official reveal of the character, we saw what he would look like back in November after a cookie dough box revealed his movie look early.
We also see Birdo and Peach fighting in a brief action montage, but it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss it shot, so there’s not much to glean from it just yet. Nevertheless, the cast of characters for the second Mario movie is growing pretty substantially, with Bowser Jr. and Rosalina also joining, as revealed back in the first trailer last year. We even see a glimpse of Baby Mario and Baby Luigi in this latest tease, but it’s unclear if those will be distinct characters or just some kind of transformation state that the brothers go through during their next adventure.
At the end of the direct, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri said that all animation on the film is complete, and it has officially entered post production, focusing on sound design and finishing up the score. Does that mean it’s too late for them to fix whatever the hell is going on with those gross, bulging eyes on Bowser Jr.? Probably. Super Mario Galaxy Movie isn’t out for another couple of months though, so who knows what other surprises Nintendo still has waiting in the wings.
