The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Quietly Sets Up Nintendo's Answer to Star Wars

The Super Mario Galaxy Movieis certain to be one of the biggest movies of next year, but what is even more significant is how this story choice could allow Nintendo to set up aStar Warsfranchise of its own with a huge potential spinoff. The new film adapts some of the most popular games from the Nintendo Wii and sets up a new, cosmic side of the Mario universe. Audiences are already excited to see teased characters like Yoshi appear in the new film, drawing direct inspiration from the video gameSuper Mario Galaxy 2, where the dinosaur served as a mount for the titular hero. In addition to this, however, there are so many other Nintendo characters that the new film could bring into this universe.

Several other characters will be introduced in Mario Galaxy, with rumors pointing toward figures like Bowser Jr. and Wario. What is almost certain, however, is that the new film will bring in Rosalina. Rosalina is central to the story of the Mario Galaxy games, as she oversees the Lumas and watches over the stars. She teamed up with Mario in the games in order to take down Bowser. Since then, Rosalina has become an important part of the larger world of Mario characters, appearing in various spinoff games, including Mario Kart World and the Mario Party series. Still, there is an even bigger space-centric character who could be introduced in the new film.

Star Fox Could Easily Be Introduced In The New Mario Movie

The popular Nintendo character Star Fox could be brought into the galactic storytelling that is central to the new Mario sequel. Introduced in 1993 on the Super Nintendo console, Star Foxfeatured a cast of colorful animal characters in an exciting science fiction setting. Fox McCloud leads a team of intrepid adventurers as they take on dogfights through the dark depths of the Lylat System. The gameplay has been predominantly focused on air combat, where starships, including the iconic Arwing, have confronted evil forces in a rail-shooter system. The franchise has also expanded in recent years, exploring other genres, including third-person action adventure games.

Star Fox is a largely forgotten Nintendo franchise that needs to make a return, and including the character in Mario Galaxy would be an easy way to revitalize its characters in a fresh and exciting way. While Fox, Falco, Slippy, and Pepe are not generally depicted as existing in the same universe as Mario and Luigi, they have appeared together in some video games. This happens most notably in the Super Smash Bros. series, where multiple characters from Star Fox are playable. This sets an excellent precedent for the expansion of the Mario movie franchise, which could allow for these characters to be introduced.

Following the incredible success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, audiences have been hoping for other Nintendo properties to receive the same animated treatment from Illumination. The loose connections implied between universes by the Super Smash Bros. video games, as well as the increased use of multiversal storytelling across various film genres, from Spider-Man: No Way Home to Everything Everywhere All at Once, has proven that audiences would be receptive to seeing Star Fox and his team's entrance in the next Mario movie. With the new film already having a galactic focus in space, now could be the perfect time to debut a new animated iteration of Fox and his crew.

How Star Fox Can Be Even More Relevant Than Star Wars

Star Fox has great potential to become an enormous global brand, especially if it capitalizes on the skills and success of a studio like Illumination. Illumination's movies have found a shocking level of success, building multi-billion dollar franchises from characters like the Minions, who have featured in both Despicable Me and their own spin-off series, and making huge pop-cultural impacts with movies like Sing. Capitalizing on what people like about Star Wars, but specifically tailoring it to their audience, similarly to how The Super Mario Bros. Movie was made, could allow for great success without the many drawbacks that recent Star Wars efforts have faced.

Star Wars has been one of the most successful multimedia franchises of all time, but the brand has struggled in recent years. Despite Star Wars: The Force Awakens being the highest-grossing domestic film of all time, with a gross of $936 million from the US and Canada, and total worldwide earnings of $2.05 billion, perception around the brand has changed significantly since its 2015 release. The subsequent Skywalker Saga films grew more divisive, and their earnings dropped significantly with each chapter. Despite Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still grossing more than $1 billion worldwide, the film left a bad taste with many audiences.

Since then, Star Wars has reinvented itself multiple times on streaming with mixed success. While audiences enjoyed the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, the response to the third was far more mixed. Other series, including Ahsoka and Obi-Wan Kenobi, were not hated, but did not live up to what most audiences had hoped for from the massive series. Even well-reviewed shows like Skeleton Crew failed to garner significant viewership, largely because of difficulties with how the Star Wars brand has been received in recent years. Plagued by controversies sparked by fan expectations, Star Wars is in the midst of a crisis of identity.

Granted, the recent series Andor is beloved, but that is a very adult and divergent take on what Star Wars has tended to be. Conversely, with the new trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogubeing released, it is clear that Star Wars is still also trying to appeal to a much more general audience. Unfortunately, this far too diverse slate of content, with such mixed and inconsistent responses, has surely hurt the brand. It is still possible for Star Wars to become a cultural juggernaut once again, but a new Nintendo franchise like Star Fox has could use both its clean slate and its connections to the much-loved Super Mario Bros. Movie to build something even more successful.

The Potential For Nintendo's Cinematic Universe In Mario Galaxy Is Unlimited

Space may be the final frontier in Star Trek, but it appears to be only the beginning for this new universe of Nintendo characters. This new environment holds enormous potential, not just for the Mario series of films, but for the larger world of Nintendo as well. Characters, stories, and places like those from the Star Fox games might be the perfect opportunity to feature here in order to spin off the Mario series in a family-friendly direction with incredible space action. However, several other space-based Nintendo properties could also come into play during the events of the new film.

Arguably the biggest of the remaining science fiction properties for Nintendo is Metroid. That video game series will receive a new jolt of energy later this year when its newest entry, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, is finally released in December for the Nintendo Switch 2. The Metroid series is a much darker science fiction story, seeing Samus Aran taking on monstrous foes like the draconic space pirate Ridley, but there is certainly potential for a lighter spin on the material that is more accessible. While Illumination might not be the most obvious candidate to adapt the property, a Metroid movie that is connected to Super Mario Galaxycould help the property grow even more popular.

In addition, the F-Zero games could be featured in a Mario Galaxy sequence similar to the Mario Kart scene from the first film. F-Zero is a high-speed, futuristic, space-based racing game that was first released in 1990 and has had numerous subsequent installments through the decades. Characters like Captain Falcon originated in the game, but grew in popularity after appearances in Super Smash Bros., just like Samus did. While Nintendo and Illumination have not announced plans for an interconnected universe on the scale of the Smash Bros. games, there is simply too much potential there not to capitalize on, and F-Zerocould be a fun new property to feature in the story.

There will certainly be many more Nintendo movies to come in future years, including a possible Donkey Kong movie spinoff, and leaning hard into animation would be the most lucrative path for the studio. While the upcoming live-action Zelda movie might also be a huge success, the success of Illumination at the box office makes their partnership with Nintendo the most obvious choice to continue. However many characters might be introduced in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, there are dozens more that could become enormous franchises for the studio in subsequent stories and films. Kirby, the Ice Climbers, and the kids from Earthbound all have colorful and accessible designs that would fit perfectly within the style of Illumination's animation.

Nintendo has a great path forward with the space setting of Super Mario Galaxy, and they have tons of other properties that could be introduced within the events of this upcoming film. Of all of these, Star Fox is too obvious an opportunity for the studio to miss out on. Characters like Slippy and Falco could become excellent parts of Nintendo's supporting cast, and the stories from the games could feed into all kinds of exciting new narratives that capitalize on psychedelic, spacey imagery, without losing the animated heart that Illumination has become so well known for. Whether or not Fox McCloud is introduced in Mario Galaxy, he should be a major part of Nintendo's cinematic plans.