When it comes to adapting non-cinematic media into films, people get antsy. So when I heard that the Nintendo game ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ was getting a cinematic polish to it, I was both excited and wary.
Excited, on one hand, to brush off the dust of the nostalgic memories I have of the game, and to relive them on the big screen. When I was younger, I had very fond memories of watching my dad, Wii-mote and nunchuck in hand, completing the various levels the game had to offer; in both the original game and its sequel. I also spent countless hours in front of our TV, browsing through all of the unlockable content, like music tracks and sound effects, and listening to them.
Wary, on another hand, due to my own personal experience of seeing a beloved thing of mine be butchered through a projector and broadcast to an audience on a screen. To name a couple examples for me, ‘The Minecraft Movie’ and ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ are two movies I point towards when it comes to things I hold dear being misrepresented or warped awfully through a projector lens.
I will give the movie this: it has beautiful effects, and a fitting soundtrack. They remix and add more to the basic Super Mario soundtrack, such as making the song that plays in the dungeon more intense and fitting to the scene. There’s little moments that make the movie feel a little less like a cash-grab for nostalgia-ridden folk and to fool too-young-to-know kids, and more like something actually bearable to watch.
I enjoyed some of the characterizations of the characters, like how Bowser simply just wants to be a good father to his kid, and cares deeply for Bowser Jr.
They do include some aspects of the original video game, with the meteor shower shown in the beginning of the game, along with Rosalina reading from a book to the Lumas. They make the first planet Mario, Luigi and Bowser crash land on to be a hefty reference to the game’s first galaxy, Honeyhive Galaxy. The next best thing they have is the Space Junk Galaxy, which in the movie serves as Bowser and Bowser Jr.’s base of operations with Planet Bowser. Additionally, there’s the fact that the movie uses the warp stars and the concept of planets. Yes, I wish I had more to say about the movie and to compliment it for being game accurate.
Unfortunately, I do not.
It could have been a stellar movie if it wanted to be, but they skimped out on arguably the worst portion of the story. The plot, the script, the practical backbone of movies. You can have the most stunning graphics and SFX, but if your plot is lackluster, then the rest of the movie will fall flat compensating for it.
The producers struggled to let the movie breathe. Any time a big or important moment happened, like Rosalina being captured two times in a row, they leave you at the most intense moment, and then immediately cut to something else less severe enough to give you theatrical whiplash.
They have cute little cameos from other characters, although the only connection they have to the Mario franchise is being in Super Smash. To name three characters: Fox McCloud, who exists solely to get Peach and the crew to the Space Junk Galaxy but gets an entire 2D animated cutscene to introduce himself; R.O.B, who operates as a slow and inconveniencing guide in the Gateway Galaxy; and Mr. Game and Watch who assists Luigi and Mario in defeating Bowser.
They somehow managed to mischaracterize their own characters, the most egregious being making Rosalina and Princess Peach sisters. In case you haven’t played the game, Rosalina as a character is meant to not have a family, to make room for the found family dynamic with the Lumas.
Princess Peach has her own family in the Toadstool Kingdom. It’s why she’s often called Princess Toadstool. Because she’s the princess of the kingdom, and has a family there. Even if they don’t look human like her.
They could have made the dynamic anything but sisters, and it wouldn’t feel as insulting. I feel like they made them sisters just so they could wedge in this whole “cosmic power” to set up how Peach saves Rosalina in the end. It’s a cheap trick, at the cost of sabotaging one character’s entire pre-existing lore.
It feels insulting to call this movie the “Super Mario Galaxy” movie, when it’s an overglorified sequel with galaxy elements at best, and really a Super Smash Bros movie at worst. At worst, it’s a disgrace to fans of the game, and a spit in the face to those who care even a sliver about the Super Mario games as a whole. If this were a movie I saw in theaters, as opposed to watching it at home, I would have walked out of the cinema.
