Quick thoughts about the Super Mario Galaxy movie
Wrote this for the reader chat, but it's now a mini newsletter, too!
Some quick Mario movie thoughts (while I’m otherwise on vacation)…
I took my kids to a 1:20pm matinee yesterday. Only one other family in the theater, but it’s spring break and lots of people are traveling.
The kids (both 9) had a good time. They tend not to be critical of the movies we see and were amused. There’s a dinosaur part that my daughter enjoyed, and she was proud of herself for predicting a revelation about a couple of the characters.
Aside from that, it was one of the most lightweight movies I’ve seen with them. We watch a lot of movies and TV shows together and it’s really striking how little either of these Mario movies accomplish in terms of character development, underlying themes, or providing any heft beyond offering piles of references to parts of Nintendo games.
Sure, there are some creative action scenes, but the kids and I have been watching through the late-2000s Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar The Last Airbender, which is just as action-packed but has something to say about people and how they relate to each other. Frozen is arthouse cinema compared to the Mario Galaxy movie.
All that said, across two Mario movies, it sure feels like the people writing these movies want to be telling Princess Peach and Bowser stories. Mario is the least interesting part of his movies (and Luigi isn’t much better).
It’ll be interesting to see how the Zelda movie compares next year. Right now, I can’t tell if these Mario movies are a byproduct of Nintendo itself wanting its films to be as void of narrative and thematic texture as possible ... or if this is just Nintendo and Illumination’s assessment of what a Mario movie should be like. After all, Mario games also are all-action and have nothing to say about people--which is fine with me when I’m playing a Mario game! But it also makes for really flimsy films, judged against other kids’ entertainment or otherwise.
Sounds like the first movie! Also sounds like the games! I just finished playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the first time last week and as in most Mario games, the story is meaningless. There's zero reason to read even one word of dialogue--the plump purple star guy says some silly things here and there, but it's not like there's character development or anything.
So my expectations are already very low! I'd love for these movies to deliver The Lego Movie experience and be actually good stories, but I'm also okay with them being lightweight reference-fests. That said, my kids are older now and have not expressed an urgent need to see this in the theaters, so I'm happy to save the $75 (movie theaters are expensive these days y'all) and wait for streaming.
I had an argument with a friend after the first movie that said something similar. He, and others, vehemently defended it saying "it was just for kids, and to just have fun." I have no issue with that concept, but I wondered why it couldn't be more like a Pixar movie that did a great job on 2 levels, rather than just one
Sounds like the second movie is more of the same. We're going to see it on Sat and I'm sure it will be fine, but really hoped for more