When Mario and Luigi approach the location of the burst pipe, Mario is taking large confident strides through the flood, looking stern and determined. Luigi, on the other hand, appears anxious, nervously clutching at the strap of the tool bag as he surveys the unfolding chaos before him.
The whole emergency department is all-hands-on-deck, but despite the scope of his problem Mario is completely confident. This is destiny after all!
“Ha ha, they’re not even looking in the right place!”
When Mario says this, Luigi looks at him and smiles. He has full faith in his brother, but when Mario turns his back on the work crew and heads toward a nearby manhole, Luigi becomes confused.
His confusion grows when Mario lifts the manhole cover and creates a swirling whirlpool into the sewer system. Luigi glances rapidly back and forth between his brother and the vortex, desperately hoping that Mario isn’t thinking what he thinks he’s thinking…
“You are not seriously considering–”
Mario doesn’t even let him finish the sentence. His attention is fixed, he is brimming with confidence and excitement– They’re finally going to prove themselves! They’re going to be heroes! They’re going to save Brooklyn!
He hands off the crowbar and leaps into the manhole, much to Luigi’s distress.
“Mario!”
Luigi sounds completely exasperated. Nonetheless, after some anxious fidgeting to work up his courage, he holds his nose and leaps in, yelling in fear the whole way down.
Gonna take a moment to admire Luigi’s guts here. They’re plumbers, but it seems like most of Luigi’s experience is in residential plumbing, not commercial plumbing.
If my sibling pulled a stunt like this, I would’ve just contacted the surrounding work crew, explained the situation, and asked for someone actually trained in sewer maintenance to follow my sibling underground and make sure they didn’t kill themselves, but Luigi my man... he is ride or die… he knows Mario has a plan, and has complete faith in him.
At the same time, Mario knows Luigi well enough to know he wouldn’t be far behind. When Luigi lands in the sewers Mario’s looking over his shoulder, waiting for him. Once his brother arrives Mario forges ahead, pointing to their destination:
“We’ve got to get to that pressure valve!”
“Mama Mia”
I’m glad Luigi got at least one patented ‘Mama Mia’ in the film. I don’t know if this is just me… but he sounds kinda like Danny Wells’ Luigi from the Super Mario Brothers Super Show in his delivery.
I wonder if that was intentional.
Unfortunately, their only immediate path to the valve is a long slender pipe, and without thought or hesitation Mario takes hold of it and begins shuffling across toward his target. Luigi– actually taking a moment to think this through– looks down and assesses the situation.
The sewage pit below is vast and deadly. If they fell, it would be potentially fatal.
And yet, he follows anyway.
Okay, look.
If I had enough faith in any of my siblings to follow them down a flooded manhole, this is where my sense of self-preservation would’ve fully kicked in. Mario didn’t even ask for Luigi to follow him across the pipe, Luigi didn’t even know if his tools were required complete this task! but he still keeps close behind his brother.
“Luigi’s a coward.” Nah man, he just has a basic sense of self preservation and wears his heart on his sleeve, but at the end of the day that guy has proven he has serious guts, even before his big climactic stunt with the manhole cover at the end of the film.
It’s interesting to see Mario and Luigi’s different ways of traversing the pipe: Mario climbs across with smooth, efficient strides, one hand over the other. Luigi is slower, gripping and scooting his whole body along in spurts– it looks awkward, but it prioritizes maintaining firm grip, which is probably for the best since he still has the heavy load of tools hanging off of him.
Mario grabs the valve and tries to turn it, but ends up just popping it off like a loose-fitting lego piece.
I don’t know wtf this accomplished. Who knows if what Mario did “Saved Brooklyn” or just broke things more, but long story short that pipe could not hold Mario and Luigi’s weight, and the two end up being flung through a (thankfully crumbling) brick wall below them.
L: “I knew saving Brooklyn was a bad idea…”
M: “… C’mon.”
Mario, despite being the second one to regain his senses, is the first one on his feet, and after surveying his surroundings his first goal is to help his brother up.
Luigi, once standing, checks himself over to ensure he didn’t break damage anything in the fall. Mario, on the other hand, has had his attention stolen away by the large underground pipework he has accidentally stumbled upon. He is enamored, his adventurous nature sparking despite his recent brush with danger.
Luigi eventually comes around to a shared curiosity. Both brothers walk to the edge of a platform, looking over at the massive hidden pipe network below. Luigi carefully kicks a pebble over the edge, gauging just how deep it goes. Mario looks at his brother, and nods his head toward the nearby stairwell, silently asking him if he wants to go deeper.
Luigi apparently agrees. All throughout their descent he makes no argument about going home, nor does he make any further mention of how dangerous their recent escapade was… he simply trails behind his brother and looks around, just as taken by the discovery as his sibling.
For most of the journey, Luigi lets Mario lead the way. There is only one time where he allows himself to get sidetracked… he glances off into one outward-facing tunnel, echoing with a strange whooshing sound.
OKAY... I want to take a moment to discuss the change from the original concept art:
It seems like the warp pipe was at one point going to be this big shiny mystical thing that screamed “I lead to a magical world.”
Look at the way Luigi is putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder. It looks like Mario was going to test his luck again… once more forging ahead despite Luigi’s worries, inevitably getting them both isekaid.
But as much as I find the concept visually interesting, I sort of like what they went with instead. We’ve seen enough to understand the dynamic: Mario has the “let’s-a-go” attitude, while Luigi is cautious, but has enough faith in his brother to follow him into perilous situations.
But in the movie, Luigi… careful as he is… just happened to pause and look into one of the many hundreds of surrounding pipes... one that didn’t even look all that important or unusual. Though it was Mario’s brashness that brought them there, it was Luigi’s luck that sealed the deal. The inciting incident was a group effort– a combination of Mario’s zeal and Luigi’s uncanny ability to attract trouble.
The moment Mario and Luigi are distracted from each other, Luigi gets sucked away like a dust bunny in a vacuum commercial. Mario only hears a light clatter of a falling tool, but his radar immediately goes off. He turns around, and sure enough... his brother’s gone.
“Luigi?”
No response. He looks into the pipe where Luigi last stood.
He climbs up into it, getting a little more anxious.
“Weegie, are you in there?”
The silence is getting to him. On the ground he sees a wrench. He picks it up and examines it, and recognizes it as the one from the tool kit Luigi was carrying...
... and Luigi is shown to be very careful about not losing any of their tools.
Mario calls his brother’s name again, this time louder and a bit more urgently.
“Luigi!”
Suddenly, the wrench is sucked from his grip. Mario’s whole body shakes as he feels himself being pulled forward. Frightened, he stretches out his arms and legs, trying to maintain balance or find something to hold on to, but it’s no use. He is flung forward, head over heels, through the barrier of his own world into the open in-between dimension of glimmering pathways and glowing pipes.
When he regains his bearings, Mario’s terror turns into awe as he is overcome by the strange beauty of his surroundings.
Then he hears Luigi’s yelps of terror, and all of the magic is immediately replaced by worry. In the flow of the warp pipe Mario has found his balance, but Luigi is spiraling in every sense of the word, spinning around wildly just ahead.
M: “Luigi!”
L: “Mario!”
Mario wastes no time getting to his brother. He dives forward, arms outstretched to clasp Luigi’s hands, giving him some sort of center of gravity as they both hold tight to each other and spin in circles.
Mario puts all his focus into calming Luigi down.
M: “It’s all going to be okay!”
L: “HOW IS THIS GOING TO BE OKAY!?”
M: “I’m telling you, nothing can hurt us as long as we’re together!”
You can tell by the look on Mario’s face that he believes every word. His confidence is infectious, and as usual Luigi can’t help but believe him.
After all, he’s trusted him this far, and though they’ve had some bumps in the road things have always turned out in the end.
They have each other’s backs. Wherever this leads, that’s all that matters.
He smiles just as a darkness overtakes him. Luigi realizes something is wrong for a split second before he is violently yanked backwards, ripped out of his brother’s grip, and dragged unwillingly down a separate path.
Both of them look terrified as they scramble fruitlessly to try and grab onto each other again. Luigi is once more out of balance, whirling about with redoubled fear as he falls into the most threatening looking warp pipe possible.
Mario panics. He tries to turn around... swim back, fight the current, get to his brother somehow!
But it is all futile. There is no undoing what has just happened.
“Nothing can hurt us as long as we’re together”
But the universe had different plans.
