Dinohattan’s inhabitants descend from the dinosaurs, while Manhattan’s descend from ape-like primates. The former was created some sixty-five million years ago by a meteorite impact which split the timeline. There are some interesting parallels to be drawn here.Īs mentioned in the film, Dinohattan and regular Manhattan exist as alternate universes to one another. Early concept art of a “meteor chamber” which, while existing in the film is very cut down, lends a clue to the source of Dinohattan’s energy – the very meteorite which created the pocket universe itself is being tapped as a source of energy by a towering device, strewn with cabling. Rather than guns, the police in the film use tasers, for instance – ammunition for regular weaponry apparently in short supply.Ĭuriously enough, there’s little to no visible signs of any power plants in the alternate universe, yet they clearly obtain power from somewhere. As a matter of fact, almost everything in the film seems to be electrically powered in some way or another. Gasoline for cars? Not a chance, the cars in Dinohattan all run off an overhead power grid and (not terribly well-maintained) electric motors. These limits make themselves known immediately. Confined to a few city blocks, with the rest of the planet being an “endless desert” (according to King Koopa, anyway), the ecological limits imposed on Dinohattan are much tighter, thus much more apparent, than they are on Earth. is not a film one would particularly expect to explore themes like this, and yet, it does so, if in an oblique way. Much has been made of what we, as humans, are doing to Planet Earth in a quest for ever more energy, and where that might lead us as a civilization – and what happens when energy that we are used to being able to obtain in abundance becomes scarce? Or when the ecological cost of obtaining it becomes too great? Guest Editorial: Ecology in Super Mario Bros.Įnergy powers every aspect of civilization – it drives vehicles, heats and lights our homes, gives life to all of our electronic devices from smartphones to televisions to supercomputers.

Super mario 64 damned fan art