20 Things You Somehow Missed In Super Mario Bros: The Movie

16. The Devolution Guns Are Nintendo Super Scopes

Super Mario Bros
Buena Vista Pictures & Nintendo

King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) rocks a devolution gun later in the movie, which when fired reverts the target back to their base ancestral species, whether humans into chimps, or a Dinohattan resident into a reptilian dinosaur.

Hilariously, the weapon itself wasn't a bespoke prop created from scratch for the production, but actually a Nintendo peripheral sneaky inserted into the film.

The devolution gun is in fact the Nintendo Super Scope - a light-gun for the SNES released in 1992, the year before the movie came out.

But given that the art department sprayed the guns a darker shade of grey in order to achieve a more "realistic" weaponised look, you'd be forgiven for missing it.

On one hand it could be called a cynical product tie-in, but on the other, can it really be product placement if 99.8% of people didn't even notice it?

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.