The Super Mario Bros. Movie is one of those watches where it is best not to get too bogged down in the lore of the whole thing — after all, this is a goofy intro to the Mario universe and not some David Attenborough deep-dive into the inner workings of the Mushroom Kingdom. But that hasn't stopped there from being some questions that need answering, such as, how on Earth do those brick blocks float?
Fortunately, one of the film's directors, Aaron Horvath, has offered an explanation for that very topic in a recent interview with Variety, and it's all thanks to an in-universe substance called "Floatanium" (thanks, Go Nintendo).
While the explanation never made it into the final movie script (don't worry, there are no spoilers here), Horvath outlined the basic principle to Variety, stating the following:
"Our idea was that there’s a mineral that’s natural to the Mushroom Kingdom, which we call ‘floatanium,’ because it sounded funny to us,” Horvath says. “The Toads mine it and transform it into these blocks and use them for construction purposes."
Now, can we really consider Floatanium 'canon' to the Mario Universe? No way — don't expect to see it mentioned in a 'Mario Historia', should we get one somewhere down the line — but it is a pretty neat explanation all the same. The thought of how certain blocks can float had never really entered our minds, so we can totally believe that there is some kind of rare mineral trade going on behind the scenes, with the Mushroom Kingdom's mining operation shipping out the goods to the Jungle Kingdom and beyond.
The Variety feature also contains insights from Shigeru Miyamoto, Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri and the film's cast. You can check out the full article here.