Spoiler Warning
This article contains spoilers of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Crotchety Warning
This article also contains the ravings of a crotchety man with opinions about media for today’s youth. Readers be advised.
Start the Timer
First, lemme just put this chip right here on my shoulder. Up we go. There. Got it.
I’m a decades-long Mario fan. I’m a diehard Mario Kart enthusiast especially, but appreciator of all Mario branded videogames. I was a Nintendo kid. And in my top three core memories lives the moment when my Dad casually pulled a Super Nintendo off the shelf into the shopping cart, barely saying a word about it and home we went with it.
I loved that moment so much that little elementary-school-me wrote about it in sloppy handwriting in a journal. I found that journal last year and noticed the date of that memory was the day before my Dad’s OWN birthday, ha ha. Treat ya birthday self, Dad. Go on.
So, this is just to say I’m not a hater. Also, I defended the previous Mario movie from friends, family, and fools in comment threads alike, or anyone who criticized casting or story etc. OK we’ve established I’m Pro Mario. That’s important for Level 2 in this article.
The Good
Most importantly, my children (who are at the ‘magic elementary’ age) loved it. They loooooooved it. So whatever my opinion is, I’m contractually obligated to watch it with them at least two more times when it comes to Netflix. They responded to the action, the humor, and the emotional points. They recognized most of the cameos, even though my attempts to train them properly on vintage games like Mario Brothers 2 and StarFox 64, have been hit or miss over the years. Smash Brothers does a lot of heavy lifting to connect the dots.
As a parent, I appreciate that there were no themes too mature for an eight-year-old, cartoon violence aside. There are discussions of romantic affection and some light teasing, but it didn’t go too far.
And I found moments of personal delight as well. I like how they worked in overworld maps and 2D side-scroller action in a fun way. Also, Bowser Jr as the main antagonist was good for story and frankly the magic paintbrush was cool and exciting, even to me the adult viewer. Toad and Yoshi rivalry was good. Tons of nostalgic gags I won’t repeat here were great. There’s an occasional trope or borrowed gag (R.O.B. = The Zootopia DMV Sloth) (Fox = Han Solo), but hey, I’m hip. I’m with it. The showdown inside the ‘Game Cube’ was good, too. Understated puns go a long way with me.
The Euphemistically Less Good
This chip is getting heavy because saying nice things doesn’t get rid of it. Let me switch shoulders. Ahh that’s better.
I realize that they wanted to play a planet-hopping angle as part of the expression of Mario Galaxy. However, it was done in such a way that the story suffered, creating missed payoffs and resolutions left hanging. Overall, this movie felt like they took what might have been a 3-hour story and squished it down into the allotted time, but didn’t quite seal off all the dangling threads. Here are some examples.
1. What happened to the Kongs?
In the prior movie we are introduced to the Kong nation which has a supposedly powerful army. And Donkey Kong himself is used as the strong-but-hard-to-control type. But where are they? If Bowser Jr is going to rule the galaxy, why don’t we see any engagement with the Kongs? Why are there no Kongs involved at all? If we take a note from the Avengers movies, we recall that Hulk had to be absent for a while because ‘big oaf breaking stuff’ can’t be the solution always. But was there at least a line of dialogue giving a reason that option is gone like Donkey Kong? If there was, I missed it. Also, what happened to the other Yoshis? There was a flock of them in the first movie.
2. Oh Baby.
At one point Peach comments that they keep collecting dinosaurs. While the Baby-Fication scenes were good for suspenseful comedic action, there was a huge loose end here. This was my first thought leaving the theatre. They shrank a T-rex and had it with them, then somehow it just wasn’t there anymore? This was a missed opportunity. Because imagine the moment that could have been when they ‘un-babied’ a T-rex. It could have fought off a magic ink dragon, or it could have scared away the Mario Bros 2 bad guy gang. Something should have happened with the baby T-Rex.
3. Mario 2 Bad Guys are no problem.
Inside the Game Cube we see Wart, Mouser, and Birdo. It would have been fine if those characters were defeated and the story moved on. But the movie didn’t leave it alone soon enough. There’s this moment later of ‘uh oh, we’ve got other problems’ with a zoom in on Wart’s angry face on a camera feed. Apparently you do NOT have other problems because Wart and his crew will do nothing further. And the Game Cube, like every other destination along the way in this movie, loses relevance to the plot just as fast as it gains it. This crew could have appeared somewhere later in a showdown, perhaps representing a third position between Team Bowser Jr vs Team Mario. I must frantically move to my next point. Quick! Hurry!
4. How fast is star travel?
No seriously I want some numbers and distances because in the time it takes Peach to fly to one location, Mario has resolved multiple conflicts at multiple planets. Which, ok, sure, galaxies and all, big distance spacey stuff, sure, sure. I would accept that, but it seems like Bowser Jr can be everywhere at once. Does his tech have instantaneous travel across these same distances? You might think this is overanalyzing but when it cuts back to the still-traveling Peach, the little seven-year-old next me leaned over and said ‘what? they are still flying?’ as if that was a gag. It was not meant to be.
4B. Peach’s backstory slapped in at the end.
Originally, I skipped this point in this article, because it is sort of the opposite problem. Where there IS a big payoff moment in the climax, there is an underdeveloped setup to earn it. Peach’s origin story should have driven a lot more of the movie. It was there all along, but still felt rushed by the time we reach the climax. Peach is estranged from her home world. And it’s critically important to the movie in the end, but how many of the other characters seem to know or care at all? Do Mario or Toad even care?
5. Bowser’s redemption failure
Despite the father-son story line, I don’t need Bowser to turn a leaf. Let me say that again. I as in ME. I do not NEED Bowser to turn a leaf. I’m ok with Bowser staying rotten to the core. But please note that moments of goodness from Bowser fit in Mario lore, even if it’s just a frenemy situation to fight a common cause (I give you exhibit: Mario RPG).
But! I can not be the only one who felt the movie was going a different way. I was thinking, oh I see, I just wonder how they are going to do it. Will Bowser end up fighting his own son because of a misunderstanding about how he’s turned a new leaf? Or maybe… ah HA that Mario Brother’s 2 gang, Wart and Birdo and Mouser. They could be the true enemy later. Or maybe even Kamek was some sort of secret puppet master? Something? Hello?
As audience members, we had no other possible conclusion than Bowser being on a redemptive arc. It wasn’t just that he fooled Mario and Luigi when he persuaded them. We actually see him be self-sacrificial in front of the Queen Bee. This is uncharacteristic of Bowser as he’s in an unfamiliar place, with no advantage to gain. It’s perhaps the most altruistic moment in the entire movie. And yet, he turns back to old ways so fast later, essentially erasing any plot value or payout from that thread.
I thought Ok, I get it. Bowser volunteers for hard labor among the bees, but surely his tough shell makes him immune to stingers. He’ll rise up and take control of the workers as his new minions, then show up with a bee army and save the day. Redeemed! But nope. He’s off the planet before his first lunch break. The panicked pace of this movie immediately rips him out of that situation with an arbitrary rescue.
One more time to be clear. Bowser can stay two-faced and bad forever, but if so, we shouldn’t see any genuine altruism from him. His character arc in this movie had false promises. Kinda like when you smash your head on a question mark box in hopes of a racoon costume, but out pops a coin instead.
Why We Should Care
So what, it’s a movie, right? Even if a man-child fan boy is disappointed in some aspects, actual children had a blast. Right? That’s true, they had a blast. But parents should be concerned about the trends in media directed at children. In this case, it’s not violence, language, or mature content, but the story telling itself.
We need children to develop attention spans to engage in narratives with a measure of critical thinking. To build mental tools to anticipate what ought to happen next in a story. Doing so isn’t just for enjoyment, it has eventual real world implications about their future livelihood, and understanding of the news, political discourse, etc.
This movie used characters familiar to them, set the stage for deeper understanding, and then kind of dropped it into the pit, like a platform that’s been stood on too long.
Storytelling like this sets back a child’s ability to use deductive logic.
The rot is real.
Watch a YouTube of streamers playing Minecraft. You’ll see an overly vamped slathering of commentary to hype every possible second above the last. You’ll hear “ohmygoshwhat’sthis-ohlookathatohmygosh-whatishappeningohlook-atthisohwowlookout-heywhatwhatohmygosh” or something to the effect. Streamers do this to make it so your kid never clicks away. And it’s not hard to find examples on Netflix or elsewhere where characters grunt and fall down for twenty minutes straight, or videos of squishy brightly colored objects designed to entrance babies like the ending of A Clockwork Orange. Ok I’m exaggerating a little, but only a little. AI is coming for all our brains anyway, right?
The movie was entertaining, audio and visuals spectacular, well-acted, and Mario characters were handled in good faith. But I’m saddened to see the overall degradation of attention spans so present in this Mario Brother’s movie. My fear is that storytelling like this, where it feels like the writers were asked to get characters on and off X number of planets in the fastest ways possible, does a disservice to their comprehension of narratives.
Surely Nintendo could have invested some perspective into the continuity and speed of these beats. If it weren’t for reliance on familiar characters and nostalgia at every turn, this movie would probably have lot more criticism in this regard. Mario wields power in the minds of little kids, and we need to consider all angles of that influence.
Lastly, I care because I want my Mario to be Star-Power indestructible. I want him to hop over the Goombas of criticism and reach the flagpole of universal acclaim. I want his stories on the big screen to live on as strong as his games of yester yore. He made it to the final boss, but perhaps he took one shortcut too many on this level and missed a fire flower getting there.
Rich Kern is a prize-winning writer from the Chicago area, working in mediums of plays, poetry, songs, and stories. His works have been displayed and sold in art galleries, published in digital and printed magazines, and performed for audiences live on stage. He has also done music composition, production, and performance in ensembles, theater, and local bands.
Website: https://therichkern.com/
Substack: https://yuckitup.substack.com/
Instagram: @therichkern
Featured photo from IMP Awards
