Movie Super Mario Bros is one of those watches where it’s best not to get too bogged down in the science of the whole thing — after all, this is a silly introduction to the Mario universe, not some sort of David Attenborough deep dive into the inner workings of the Mushroom. Kingdom. But that didn’t stop some questions need answering, such as how on earth do those brick blocks float?
Fortunately, one of the film’s directors, Aaron Horvath, offered an explanation for just that topic in a recent interview with Diversityand it’s all thanks to a substance in space called “Floatanium” (thanks, Switch to Nintendo).
While the explanation never made it into the final film script (don’t worry, there are no spoilers here), Horvath outlined the basic principle to Variety, stating the following:
“Our idea was that there is a mineral that is natural to the Mushroom Kingdom, and we call it ‘floatanium,’ because it sounded funny to us,” says Horvath. “The frogs dig it up and turn it into these blocks and use them for building purposes.”
Now, can we really consider Floatanium ‘canon’ for the Mario Universe? No way – don’t expect to see him mentioned in ‘Mario Historia’ if we find him somewhere down the line – but it’s still a pretty neat explanation. The thought of certain blocks being able to float never really occurred to us, so we can fully believe that some sort of rare mineral trade is going on behind the scenes, with the Mushroom Kingdom’s mining operation delivering the goods to the Jungle Kingdom and Above.
The Variety feature also features insights from Shigeru Miyamoto, Illumination executive Chris Meledandri and the film’s cast. You can view the entire article here.
