Super Mario Galaxy:
The Movie — Analysis 🌟

The original Super Mario Bros: The Movie (2023) had something close to kishotenketsu in temperament — that Japanese narrative structure where the plot advances not through external conflict, but through a shift in perspective that changes the meaning of everything that came before. Mario's journey wasn't about beating obstacles; it was about Mario discovering who he is in that world.

Galaxy trades that for spectacle. It's a valid trade, and there are critics who argue it results in a better experience — more beautiful, more grand, more Wii. But it comes with a clear narrative cost. The question is whether that cost is worth what you get in return.

Before any formal introduction, Galaxy is already in full flight: the Comet Observatory opens with Rosalina telling stories to the Lumas while Bowser Jr. invades everything with his mechanical Megaleg and kidnaps her. It's an opening that only works because the film trusts — and the audience trusts — that no explanatory prologue is needed. That confidence, that decision to simply begin, is one of the sequel's greatest strengths.

Back in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario, Luigi and Peach are managing the aftermath of the first film. Bowser, shrunk to miniature by the first movie's mushroom, now paints watercolors of his handsome former self and makes soup in the castle. It's hilarious. It's charismatic. It's exactly the kind of subplot that steals every scene it's in — because Bowser stealing scenes was predictable, but nobody expected him to do it in a cooking apron.

This first, quieter act is where the film invests in what it does best: emotional narrative with density. The revelation that Rosalina is actually Peach's older sister unfolds gradually and genuinely beautifully. Both were born from cosmic dust, share a power called "force of the cosmos," and were separated in childhood so Peach could be kept safe in the Mushroom Kingdom. When Peach enters the Observatory and finds the storybook — a direct reference to the illustrated book Rosalina reads to the Lumas in the Wii game — the scene breathes. It has weight. It has silence.

Peach decides to go to space alone — with Toad — to rescue her sister. Mario and Luigi stay defending the kingdom in a "mission map" dynamic inspired by the games that is, genuinely, an enormous charm. The problem is that from this point on, the camera rises to space and the film begins, little by little, to lose itself in its own spectacle.

The structure is simple: action, reference, action, reference, more reference, more action. Each planet visited introduces a new character, a new Nintendo catalogue citation, an in-joke for fans. Individually, each of these moments is delicious. In sequence, for forty minutes, they form what one critic described ruthlessly as "a series of things just happening" — where the order of events barely matters to the plot.

Fox McCloud from Star Fox appears in a fully 2D-animated sequence that stands as one of the film's highlights — a hint at a future animated series or game, and a gift for anyone who spent the 90s in front of the Nintendo 64 with a joystick stuck to their hand. Wart, the villain from Super Mario Bros. 2, appears in an intergalactic casino and plays villain for an entire scene before vanishing without a trace. Mr. Game & Watch — one of Nintendo's most obscure catalogue characters, representing the Donkey Kong handheld era of the 80s — appears summoned by Luigi in the final battle, with his gorgeous monochromatic 2D look and absolutely zero context for anyone who doesn't know who he is. Birdo shows up, draws a smile, and disappears.

Rosalina suffers the biggest waste of Act 2. In the games, she's one of the most quietly melancholic figures Nintendo has ever created: a lost child in the cosmos who found a family among the stars, with a story told in an illustrated book that completely contrasts with the franchise's usual lightness — and contrasts magnificently. In the film, that potential is barely grazed. Rosalina exists more as a plot engine than a character. She's powerful, she's kidnapped, she's rescued. The emotional arc that could have made her one of the franchise's pillars remains suspended, waiting for space this Act 2 refuses to open.

The most coherent arc of Act 2 is, paradoxically, Bowser's — who is genuinely trying to change and finds himself caught between the son who wants to restore his legacy of terror and the version of himself that no longer wants to be a monster. There's something almost Shakespearean in that father-son tension. It's exactly the kind of dramatic layer the rest of the film needed more of — and it appears in the last character you'd expect to find it.

The film runs 98 minutes. That runtime, combined with the ambition of introducing a new universe, developing Rosalina, building Bowser Jr. as a new villain, giving Yoshi screen time, bringing Fox McCloud in, and finding room for Wart, Birdo and Mr. Game & Watch creates a numerically impossible equation. Something had to be cut. What was cut was the narrative.

The third act recovers what the second let slip: emotional presence. Peach and Rosalina finally truly meet, use the force of the cosmos together, and there's a flashback scene where both relive fragments of a childhood they never shared — referenced in the UK age rating as one of the film's emotionally densest sequences. Mario and Luigi arrive for the final battle. Bowser Jr. has a moment of hesitation that is genuinely well-written, caught between the father trying to redeem himself and the mission he himself created. Mr. Game & Watch appears in a completely absurd and delicious way, exactly how that character deserves to be used.

But all of this happens too fast. The impression is that the screenplay noticed at some point that it had spent too much time in Act 2 and needed to resolve four or five emotional points in fifteen minutes. The ending works — it closes the main arcs, delivers a cathartic moment, leaves the franchise in an interesting place with two post-credits scenes nodding toward the future — but it feels like you turned the last page before you'd finished reading the previous chapter.

The original Super Mario Bros: The Movie (2023) had a cleaner, more efficient — and more courageous — narrative structure in its very simplicity. It worked almost like a formation fable: Mario arrives in an unknown world, must prove his worth, builds bonds along the way, and finds the brother he was looking for. Every character had a clear role. The emotional beats breathed.

Galaxy trades that for spectacle. There are critics who defend this trade as resulting in a better film as an experience — more beautiful, more grand, more Wii. But the narrative cost is clear. As one sharp review put it: "there exists a version of Super Mario Galaxy that could have been more courageous... that version doesn't exist."

For anyone who grew up with Mario since the N64, played through the Wii era, played Galaxy with that controller you held sideways, knows who Wart is, recognizes Mr. Game & Watch, cheered for Fox McCloud in Star Fox 64: this film is a private party. It's an affective theme park that makes the person next to you stare in confusion while you try not to cry over a monochromatic sprite from 1980. Act 2 with all its narrative problems transforms into something completely tolerable because each new easter egg is a hug Nintendo gives you for the first time on the big screen.

For children who entered the franchise now, through recent games or the first film: the universe is beautiful, Yoshi is irresistible, Bowser in the kitchen is funny, the colors are breathtaking. But a large portion of the references will fly past without leaving a trace, and the broken rhythm of Act 2 can make the experience confusing in ways the first film never was. They'll have fun — but they'll probably enjoy it less than the adults sitting next to them.