President Koopa (also known simply as Koopa and King Koopa, and formerly General Koopa) is the main antagonist of the 1993 film Super Mario Bros., played by the late Dennis Hopper He is the counterpart and adaptation of Bowser, the main antagonist of the video game franchise on which the film was based.
History
Backstory
65 million years ago, a meteorite fell to Earth, somehow isolating a population of dinosaurs on an Earth that is in a parallel dimension to our Earth. It is in this dimension that dinosaurs continued to live and, like apes on Earth, evolved into human form. Koopa is one of them, Koopa is a dinohattanite, descended from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Originally serving as a military leader, Koopa eventually took control of King of Dinohattan, Koopa de-evolved King into a fungus with plans to use the meteorite piece to merge dimensions and allow him to take control of Earth as well.
Super Mario Bros. film
Millions of years later, in 1973, the Queen of Dinohattan and Daisy's mother manages to take her unborn and unhatched daughter inside an egg and the fragment through a portal to Earth, leaving them at the entrance of a cathedral before attempting to return to Dinohattan, but she is later captured by Koopa. Koopa had previously killed the guardian of the portal as part of his coup d'état, and now demands the meteorite fragment from her. In the ensuing fight, however, Koopa accidentally knocks over a support beam and the tunnel collapses, crushing and killing Daisy's mother and blocking the portal.
Physical description
President Koopa is quite different from his original counterpart of Bowser from the original games, instead of being a Koopa, President Koopa is a Dinohattanite that evolved from a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Koopa has an almost entirely human-like appearance, with blonde hair he gels in the shape of a crown. For his attire, he often wears a black business suit and tie; he is also sometimes shown wearing a green military dress uniform with spikes, as well as his left side featuring several ribbons in the film's prologue, due to how he had been a high-ranking general before usurping and betraying Daisy's father, the rightful king of Dinohattan, Koopa constantly has his arms dangling limply at chest height in reference to his Tyrannosaurus Rex origins. However, after being briefly exposed to his own Devo Chamber by Mario and Luigi, he began to occasionally possess some reptilian traits, such as a long forked tongue, reptilian eyes with slitted pupils. In some cases, his entire face briefly transforms to become more reptilian. Near the end of the film, when Koopa is forcibly de-evolved by Mario and Luigi, he becomes a "Lizardman" with definitive saurian and reptilian features. However, Bob-omb arrived just below Koopa and exploded, sending him flying into the empty tank. After a moment of silence, he emerged from the tank. Koopa becomes a semi-humanoid grayish-green Tyrannosaurus Rex, having some differences when de-evolved, such as having large arms and shoulders, instead of the T-Rex's small arms. The brothers then continually de-evolve Koopa, until he becomes a actual and regular T-Rex with small arms, and finally, he transforms into a large glob of primordial ooze.
Personality and traits
Koopa has a personality somewhat similar to his original game counterpart, Bowser, However, he is more tyrannical, brutal, and aggressive, much like the personality of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the dinosaur he evolved from. Koopa is also shown to have an understandable motive regarding the merging of both dimensions, stating that he intends to use Daisy to merge them for the future of his species, especially since his species has to go through various hardships that stem from the parallel world being an endless desert. Despite this, Koopa still sees himself as an evil person; while pretending to be a lawyer for Mario and Luigi, he claims that he is "one evil, egg-sucking son of a snake", and does not deny it and lies about it later, and after his true identity is finally revealed. Koopa is also shown to be very ruthless in his pursuit of his goals and power, as after evolving his cousins, Iggy and Spike, he threatened to personally execute them if they failed to retrieve Mario and Luigi and the meteorite piece, with Iggy and Spike previously suggesting when trying to locate Daisy that if they kidnapped the wrong girl once again, Koopa may end up doing much worse to them than simply executing them. Likewise, he also immediately ordered Lena to be arrested after deducing that she gave an order on his behalf to launch the invasion without his knowledge that she had retrieved the meteorite and kept it for herself. Koopa is also a germophobe. In his first appearance, when he is ranting and raving about how he is ruling a world overrun by fungi, germs, and slime, he even called Dinohattan a "Mushroom Kingdom". He is even seen dipping his hands in boiling mud in an attempt to sterilize them. When he first meets Mario and Luigi, he greets them with a handshake, but he wipes his hand with tissue paper afterwards; after assaulting Luigi shortly after, a police officer sprays his hands with disinfectant. In a deleted scene, he has a lab technician in the Devo Chamber who was turned into primordial ooze simply by sneezing near him. He is also seen relaxing in a slime Jacuzzi just before ordering Lena to bring Princess Daisy before him. Koopa is also somewhat xenophobic and a misanthrope, hating humans and mammals.
Trivia
- Being president with an unusual hairstyle, lavish lifestyle, skyscraper dwelling, and general demeanor are likely a parody of real-life New York City millionaire President Donald Trump, who was well known in time of filming, both have an aggressive personality and business tactics and also by mere coincidence. Incidentally, Trump himself would become highly controversial since his successful candidacy for president of the United States in 2016 and actions while as presidenr. Furthermore, there were memes comparing President Koopa with President Donald Trump.
- Koopa evolved from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, when it de-evolves, it gains some reptilian features, like a long forked tongue like a lizard or a snake, for example, but in real life, the Tyrannosaurus Rex did not have a forked tongue according to scientists, biologists and palentologists, actually, the T-Rex had a tongue attached to the base of its mouth, like a crocodile or alligator.