Costume Design by:
- Joseph Porro ( notable efforts: Fright Night Part 2 (1988), Tombstone (1993), Stargate (1994), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), The Thirteenth Floor (1999) )
One of the first videogame adaptations,
Super Mario Bros. had languished in development hell with several different iterations of its script, and by the time it was filmed it had went from a more typical fantasy film to a science-fiction satire where the plumbers Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) find themselves in a dystopian parallel universe named 'Dinohattan'. The assigned directors were Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, who were most known for creating the character of Max Headroom and directing his series,
The Max Talking Headroom Show, as well as his introduction film
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. Morton and Jankel wouldn't be the only crew with a history on science-fiction productions, as the film's production designer, David L. Snyder, had also worked as art director on Ridley Scott's
Blade Runner.
Joseph Porro's costume designs for the movie utilize leather and vinyl, a sort of visual gag on how the denizens of Dinohattan are pretty much evolved reptiles - snakeskin leather, anyone? This is seen very clearly with the suit worn by Dinohattan's dictator President Koopa (Dennis Hopper). For most of the film, Koopa is clad in a shining black business suit, made of a snakeskin-like material, that itself is worn in some scenes with a plastic black tie that almost resembles a rattlesnake's tail.
Koopa's scheming wife, Lena (Fiona Shaw) is clad in some of the most inventive and memorable of the film's costumes (though always with that hairdo!), with a good many costume sketches for her that were rejected before filming. Lena's first outfit is a skintight bodysuit worn with a plastic piece around the chest (with cracks around the chest in a way resembling eggs cracking), and ending in a long dress, which is seen better in a publicity photo - an earlier design for this dress intended it to be entirely skintight with round egg-like holes around the arms and back.
Lena's second outfit worn when bathing in mud never gets any screentime proper, but production photos show that it was indeed a fully sized silver dress, with Porro having produced two sketches beforehand, both of them intended to utilize chainmail - not the chainmail cloak ending in a ball mace! This use of spiked and studded materials would be seen in many other costumes in the film - whilst possibly a reference to the heavy use of studded leather in post-apocalypse films, it was more likely inspired by how the Koopas in the actual
Super Mario games are giant turtles wearing studded straps and spiked shells.
Lena's third outfit is a tight blue dress with silver stripes, with a small blue top that also ends with cuffs that have silver rings around them, and completed with wearing jewellery consisting of silver rounded pieces.
Lena's fourth outfit again went through many iterations in Porro's sketches, all intending to utilize black shining materials and plastic ridging in some way or another, with a good few of them being much more skintight - the final film's iteration decided to make the plastic ridging the shining black material, over the chest and waist, with a small skirt piece around the waist, and snake-shaped pieces on the cuffs - sadly, this costume is only seen in full in production photos.
Princess Daisy (Samantha Mathis) is kidnapped on Koopa's orders and forced to stay in his tower, and through the whole time there is in a dress that starts off lavender at the top and fades to white, the most notable aspect being the crystalline pieces around the edges on the top - a nod to the character carrying the last piece of the meteorite rock that destroyed the dinosaurs, and an earlier sketch by Porro highlighting this with this version of the dress being made entirely out of crystalline material.
Koopa's two bumbling cousins, Iggy (Fisher Stevens) and Spike (Richard Edson), are both his main henchman and also the film's comic relief, with Iggy being the more notable outfit of a suit made entirely of grey triangular pattern - again, a nod to the characters reptilian origins.
Iggy and Spike's most fantastical outfits in the film however, are the clubbing suits they wear for their sequence in the Boom Boom Bar, with Iggy in a grey suit fixed with spiked metal pieces on the chest and buckles worn with red gloves and shoes, and Spike's in a much more dandy-like suit of a large blue coat made of ridged material fixed with small red pieces and worn over a bright red waistcoat, finished with a silver necklace.
The heavy use of spikes in the costumes is seen especially in the red dresses and jackets worn by Big Bertha (Francesca Roberts), whose jacket and dress are adorned with patches of spiked material, and even wearing studded red leather gloves and a leather spiked choker (which makes way for long spiked arm sleeves and a medallion in the Boom Boom Bar sequence), finishing the suit with black boots.
During the Boom Boom Bar scene, Mario and Luigi dress in some more classier wear to disguise themselves, Mario in a banana yellow suit and jumper (the suit fixed with triangular metal pieces) and Luigi in a red shirt worn over magenta undershirt. These are very different to Porro's initial costume sketches, which show the two in much more elaborate designs, both in blue and red suits (and Luigi's looking especially suited for a disco with the flares!) - possibly, this was changed to avoid confusion with the costumes of Iggy and Spike, or possibly they were two 'charismatic' for the relatively hapless characters.
Incidentally, one sequence set in the Boom Boom Bar was entirely cut - the
'Boom Boom Bar Rap' - thanks in part to the costumes used being considering far too risque, thanks in part to the very revealing outfits worn by the dancers, most of them being black bikinis with spiked pieces, and a very elaborate design consisting of a chestpiece fixed around the back in strips, revealing almost everything and ending in a reptilian tail - this costume is indeed seen in the final film, albeit very briefly in distant shots.
Speaking of rather kinky outfits, a mention has to be made of the game's rather odd takes on the 'Snifits' from the original games, who are now fully-encased leather uniforms fixed with studded patches and worn with breathing masks and red goggles. The reimagined 'Shyguys' similarly have red goggles, but are more designed more like hazmat suits with metal cages fitted on the sides.
There is also the uniforms of Koopa's police force, who are mostly clad the same as typical police, only their police uniforms have large spikes on the sleeves, as well as the word 'police' in studs on their backs, the hat now replaced with a helmet made of ridged metal, almost like a turtle shell. Notice also that they have the same serrated tie that Koopa wears.
Lastly are the overalls worn by Mario and Luigi as per the film's reimagining of the game designs; Mario wears a flat cap while Luigi wears a baseball cap, with the sleeves and pockets being blue against the respective red and green of the rest of the jumpsuit.
