Overly Analyzing the Super Mario 3D World story intro
So I've been playing Super Mario 3D World a lot, and since I haven't seen many people talk about the opening cutscene, I wanted to do that since it contains a lot of very cute animations!
This will kinda be a scene by scene analysis with me just pointing out things I like, but if you'd like to see the full cutscene in better quality than my screenshots, you can watch it here!
The scene starts off with all of the main playable characters going for a walk under a starry sky filled with fireworks. I know blue/yellow Toads have been staples of Mario games now, since they colour code the main characters and Mario is obviously red, but its does delight me that Blue Toad is just invited on this little walk with them.
(Also if you listen closely, you can hear Mario say "Ah Princess, what a beautiful evening!" and I thought that was cute)
Their walk is interrupted by Toad noticing something offscreen, and they run ahead to see a broken pipe in the middle of the path! Mario and Luigi closely examine it, and then we get...
ACTUAL PLUMBING FROM THE SUPER MARIO BROS!
Real talk, the more the series goes on the less relevant their status as plumbers often becomes, so anything that references it or shows them actually using their plumbing skills makes me so happy. And their tools are colour coordinated!
A bunch of power ups and the green Sprixie Princess pop out, and we get some classic 2d artwork, which I absolutely adore. More of this in every 3d game, please.
The ground and pipe start rumbling, and this is where I really wanna focus on the character animation of the main four here. All four of them start looking around for the source of the tremors, and we see both Peach and Luigi lifting their hands up, Luigi looking more anxious.
Bowser suddenly pops out of the pipe and roars, startling all four main characters. We can see very different reactions from all of them.
Toad and Peach jump before covering their ears, very clearly intimidated by Bowser's roar.
Luigi is the only one to fall over completely from Bowser's appearance. He stays on the ground and holds one hand up in front of his face, flinching when Bowser roars. Dude is clearly terrified by Bowser.
Mario does jump in surprise when Bowser pops up, but he's the only one who doesn't cower when Bowser roars. Instead, he immediately gets into a confrontational pose, with one hand held out protectively towards Peach. This isn't his first time dealing with Bowser, obviously, and his instincts are to prepare for a fight and to protect Peach.
However, Bowser's target this time isn't Peach, but instead the green Sprixie Princess. A lot of people poke fun at the set up for this game - "if Princess Peach isn't in danger, why do any of them care?" - but I always like when Mario & Luigi and the others try to rescue others simply because it's the right thing to do.
Bowser turns to glare at Peach and Mario, taunting them to react. Peach and Mario are both upset by the capture of the Sprixie Princess, but neither react too strongly to Bowser. Both of them have interacted with him enough to know what he's like.
Conversely, both Luigi and Blue Toad react much more when Bowser turns to them. Blue Toad stumbles onto one foot, while Luigi cowers back further, keeping his hand raised defensively, which seems to be a common mannerism of his when he's frightened. Bowser seems to be grinning a bit more in this pose, as if he knows he can get a bigger reaction out of these two.
When Bowser disappears down the pipe, all four of them regain their bearings and jump back up, reaching out for the green Sprixie Princess.
Peach is the first one to rush forward to the pipe. She sort of flounders on the edge of the pipe before she slips down it - yeah, I don't think she had a game plan there outside of trying to rescue the green Sprixie Princess. But proactive Peach being included on the adventure is always a win!
Before Luigi even lands his startled jump, Mario is already rushing forward to follow Peach down the pipe, and Toad is right behind him. I'd say it's out of mostly courage on Mario's end, and mostly out of loyalty to the princess on Toad's.
Then we get to my favourite animation of this scene (can you tell I'm biased?)
While Mario and Toad follow Peach down the pipe, Luigi pulls himself together and slaps his cheeks twice to hype himself up. It's one of my favourite quirks for characters to do, and it's doubly endearing on characters who are timid in nature. Luigi was arguably the most started and scared by Bowser's appearance, but he knows he has to do something! Totally adopting this as a common mannerism of his
Luigi then follows the others down the pipe, and they travel to the first world of the game, bringing the opening cutscene to a close.
Fun fact; since I've only ever played this game solo, and since I main Luigi, I assumed that his animation of landing on his stomach outside of the pipe was unique to him, since he's established as quite clumsy.
But in 4 player mode, you can see all of them coming out of the pipe together, and Mario lands on his stomach too. Just thought that was a cute detail.
So that's the opening cutscene of Super Mario 3D World! It's not terribly complex, but I've always adored it for showcasing a lot of personality with the main characters, and since I didn't really see any discussions on it, I wanted to highlight it!
I do recommend you watch the cutscene since a lot of the nuances and details can't be shown in screenshots - or better yet, play the game yourself! It's a ton of fun ^^
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