Last week Nintendo shocked the world by revealing that Fox McCloud is going to appear in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. There was plenty of fan speculation and a ton of theories about such a cameo happening, and it turned out that the conjecture was right. This week brings us talk of yet another Star Fox fan theory, but now we know this one is flat-out false.
Have you heard about the Star Fox “amputation” theory? This one has been running for decades and it ties to the legs of the Star Fox crew. Long story short, cover art from a classic issue of Nintendo Power made it look like Fox McCloud didn’t have any feet, and instead had metal prosthetics. This same style was then seen in other members of the Star Fox crew, which led to a theory that they had all had their legs removed/replaced. This all stemmed from the hypothesis that pilots who do not have legs can stand more Gs than others as they don’t have legs for blood to pool in.
Believe it or not, this theory made it all the way back to Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Star Fox. According to former Nintendo employee Kit Ellis, when Miyamoto heard of this theory, “the look on his face was a combination of ‘wait, what?’/’get me out of here’/’are you nuts.’” In other words, while Star Fox fans sniffed out Fox’s appearance in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, their guesswork that Fox and crew had their legs amputated for better flight abilities is as far from true as possible.