Retronauts - 764: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

The rumors are true: they made another Super Mario movie. And, as licensed podcasters, we're legally obligated to see it and report back. On this installment of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, Stuart Gipp, Drew Mackie (from Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games), and Jess O'Brien (AKA Voidburger) as the crew uses their most powerful analytical skills to fully deconstruct a movie made for preverbal audiences. Will Illumination survive?Retronauts is a completely fan-funded operation. To support the show, and get two full-length exclusive episodes every month, as well as access to 100+ previous bonus episodes, please visit the official Retronauts Patreon at patreon.com/retronauts.

This week on Retronauts, we celebrate the animation debut of Mouser. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie. And this week, we are talking about the Super Mario Galaxy movie. You see, three years ago, we all gathered to celebrate a landmark occasion, and that was the first Super Mario movie in 30 years. And then all of our very powerful and correct opinions seem to anger the masses. So we are assembling once again to discuss this inevitable sequel and asking the questions,

Have we warmed up to this animated Mario or do we think he should be buried in an unmarked minion grave? So before I go on any further today, who is here with me today? We've got a packed Zencaster Studio here. Let's go down the list in my notes. Who is here with me today? Coming to you today with 80% fewer licensed musical tracks, Henry Gilbert. Yes, Henry will not be asking you to take him on this time around. Who else do we have?

Still trusting the fungus. It's Jess Voidberger O'Brien over here. Excellent. Who else is here? Gay for Wart, Drew Mackey. Very nice. And who is last but not least on this podcast? Hello, I'm Stuart Jip, and I've thought of something pithy too. It's funny. We can circle back to you, Stuart. There's lots of fertile ground in this Mario Galaxy movie.

I was asleep like 15 minutes ago. I got nothing. That's funny. This movie released, I think, literally a week ago, so we are still living in the world of Super Mario Galaxy. It's its world. We're just living in it. So there's not a whole lot of context to establish here about the legacy of this movie and what we all think of it to this very day. So to kick things off, I want to go around and ask everybody what are our general thoughts on this movie in a minute or less? Just to let everyone know where each of us stand before we jump into our discussion of the film. A very short capsule review.

And I will be timing you. If you go over a minute, I'm kicking you from the call. So let's go in the same order we went in. for the roll call. Henry. I am a single issue voter, and on that, it was, I let the fucking music play in this movie, and they did that, so I give this a thumbs up compared to the previous one, even though my letterbox score actually is lower than the first one,

which really just means I overrated the first one. Also, I like that they do away with daddy issues or any other story stuff, and they just get straight to just, it's a pile of action, and I liked it. It also is nothing. It's a nothing movie of no plot. But yes. And Jess, how about you? I felt like a friend of mine described the first movie as a feature-length TikTok.

And I feel like this felt less like that. It felt more like a movie. It resembled a film. I was not offended. And I was actually surprised in a lot of places that I found it very funny. But maybe that was because I was watching it with a whole bunch of Finnish people who don't laugh at anything in movies. Oh, my God, it's weird. There were, there were like 12-year-olds.

They are not laughing at stuff. And I was like an adult like going pat at like two or three things. Were they at least clicking their wooden clocks together in appreciation? I think that's what Finland is, right? Something like that. Yeah. Okay. Drew, how about you?

Exhausting. Beautiful to look at. Beautiful to listen to. Weirdly, like paradoxically has fewer story elements than the first one did when I thought the first one was underdeveloped. Yet somehow I enjoyed it more. is not what I was expecting. If you told me, strip down story, but like, I'll like it more, I would say that's wrong.

But somehow, I think it does work. But it's also ominous about our intellectual processes as Americans that's doing so well. Me too. Me too. Stuart, how about you? To my genuine visceral, personal disgust, I actually did quite

like this movie. I came to it. I was so, you know, I was on Blue Sky. Like, ah, shit. Mariener movie, I, ha, ha. like I usually am, you know, my terrible tweets. And then I saw it. And I'm sitting there thinking like, that's weird.

I'm not really pissed off. I'm kind of enjoying myself what's going on. Like right from the beginning, I was just sitting there thinking, okay, you know, this is not, this is going to sound so arrogant, but it's true. This isn't cinema, is it? It's a fucking burger. It's a hamburger, you know? But I thought that this was pandering fan service,

done quite right and with a bit of verve and a fast moving and no as henry said they got rid of the daddy issues they got rid of a beaten up mario crying in pain from his injuries um and they had just fun things they had cameos yes but the cameos all sort of kind of served the story or made sense when they happened and i laughed a couple of times and i was like that was fine it was entertaining it was shit but it was fine you know i didn't come away for it wanting to destroy cinema as an aspiration. Yeah, I think we're all in a much better mood on this podcast because I also like this movie. I didn't love it.

I gave it a three out of five on Letterbox. I think I gave the last one a 2.5 out of five. And I honestly think I overrated that one. But I like how this is just essentially a series of Super Mario Brothers music videos set to an amazing symphonic soundtrack, a rearrangement of all the great Mario music we've known and loved over the years. And I feel the problem with the first movie is they, we're trying to fit it into the animated kids movie box. Like, okay, what is an animated kids movie need?

And this does not resemble that in many ways, in that there are no dad issues. We're not doing an origin story. Mario is just Mario from the outset. He's not getting dunked on by Peach for the first 45 minutes of the movie. So I feel like this is kind of the Mario movie I always wanted in 1993. Like, let's just start in the Mushroom Kingdom. We know who these characters are.

Let's see them do fun things, jump on a bunch of enemies, and end the movie. And really nothing will stick with you. But you're kind of having fun in the moment. So yeah, I thought I was going to hate this movie. And I thought we all were. And I thought we were going to alienate our audience even more. I thought the Patreon was going to dip after this episode.

I thought we were all going to fight. Like, I was the only one that kind of liked it. And everybody else was like. I want to alienate the audience at the outset. May I have the chance to do that? Yes. But you have to donate the amount of money we lose from the patrons who are dropping out after the show. I'll send you a check.

Okay. So I have to say I was. not on the first Mario movie episode. I listened to it like most everyone else did. And then I was following along with the response in on like the response on Patreon basically is what I was seeing. And I was so dismayed with how your listeners reacted to that first movie because their defense of the movie I felt was in opposition to what retronauts is all about where they're being like, well, my kid liked it so I liked it. Or like, what do you guys expect that it should be like good? There shouldn't be, there doesn't need to be stories. Like everything people, not everything. Most of what

people were saying we're defending it in terms of being a kid's movie in that they thought that kids deserved less. And this is a podcast about adult revisiting old video games with like added wisdom and maturity that time has given them and evaluating whether or not the thing actually holds up. To say that like the movie doesn't have to be good if kids like it is just like the opposite of yeah what everyone else is trying to say. Sorry, I got something weird flashed on my computer when that happened. It's a cyber attack. They've heard you. They're coming for you. Yeah. It's just very dismaying because I want retronauts listeners to be more enlightened. And that discussion was really bad. You guys were very negative. I like the first movie more than you guys did. But the response was even worse than what you guys did.

You know, Drew, I'm glad you pointed that out because on the first movie podcast, we told people it's okay to like a movie. It's okay if you like this. We're not insulting you if you liked it. That's not our intent. But before this sequel even came out, I noticed that there was a wave of let people enjoy things that really irked me because suddenly this movie does not have to play by the rules of every other animated movie. It's just like, oh, who cares if it makes kids happy? And I think, well, you know, I saw Hoppers three or four weeks ago. And that is a much better movie than this.

and it's probably going to get nominated for an Oscar. We have a category for these kind of movies. So I feel like I have to pay money to see this. I should have the expectations of a regular movie going into it. So I find it strange that a lot of people are saying, oh, just give it a chance. And I'm thinking it has to follow the rules of a movie. It's really like such a disturbance to children to say that they deserve not a classic movie structure.

Like this is the time that they're supposed to be learning like what a classic movie structure and story structure is around this time and it's like you're just going to give them like slop like this is bad to do actually we should have standards about that. I've never seen a defense of the original Mario

movie that didn't seem like defensive. I know it's a, you know what I mean? It's like I've never seen anyone say like well it's good because of this. It's always just like well you're mean. Yes. Yes. Or what do you expect in Shakespeare? I will point out that kids also like

picking their nose and eating it. It doesn't mean that that's actually good. That's just something kids do. And eventually, you learn not to do that as often. Yeah, kids also like putting their hands down their pants and you got to kind of like yank it out of there and say, hey, no, no, no, no. No, no, no more needle drops. Stop it. Yes.

Yes. But yeah. So we just won't let everyone know that we like this movie. But I feel like we have to judge it by the standards of a movie because it is a 90-minute entertainment experience you pay $15 to see at a little special. building called a movie theater. So I feel like, yes, we have to evaluate this as a movie, not as a whatever

your standards might be if you disagree with us. So yes. So I think we're all working together on the same page here and there will be spoilers. And I wonder like if it's possible to spoil a movie without a story, but I guess we're going to find it.

It has a little bit. There's a couple. Unlike the first movie, there are things you can spoil in Not that Nintendo or just the filmmakers decided to spoil through promotion ahead of time. But like there is a twist that, or well, twist is strong word, but a revelation that is not in the games and would surprise a person who didn't, who's only played the video game. For example, if you wanted to know what trans actor they hired to play burdo, the answer is no one. Yes.

Yep. Yeah, I was waiting for Burdo's speak. Cowards. Yeah, I should say that I saw this movie. in a 19 plus theater in Vancouver because I did not want to experience the joy of children. I wanted to experience the joy of half-drunk people in their 20s to 40s reacting to characters

appearing on the screen. And it worked. I did see this, if we're taking account of who we saw it with. I saw this on opening night, Wednesday night, with a packed IMAX crowd of families. I also, I should say, I live in the area where, like, Nintendo and Microsoft often all of this is based, so it was actually a pretty like weeb or even professional audience. So if I'm like, oh, these kids knew who like Star Fox was or who all these references were,

it could just be that they all have like uncles who literally work in Nintendo in the audience. They're all the Nintendo nephews in attendance. Do you think we could mutually agree that like if they hadn't told everyone that Star Fox was in the movie, we'd all have liked the movie quite a bit more just for the absolute joy of them showing up? No, you're right. I was very disappointed to see that revealed as a poster as just part of the promotion because there are people in my theater. Let's call them normal people who are not online. And they're like, oh, as soon as Star Fox appeared, they didn't know he was coming. But I was like, I've been waiting the entire movie when is Star Fox showing up because that's what all of the ads are showing me online. So it's our fault. You're saying it's our fault that we didn't. Yes. No, it's the fault of our audience for making us have to pay attention to these things. So I'm placing the blame on you, the listener. The naughties are really getting it in the neck this episode.

We're really turning things around on our audience in this episode. Puging them in the crosshairs. If I can clarify the Star Fox point for a second, we would have been better if we were fully surprised, but just knowing nothing about his role in the movie, I was surprised that he was a major character who is not just a cameo. He's like the fifth member of the team, which I wouldn't have bet a million dollars would have been the case.

But that was very surprising. Yeah, yeah. I did like seeing him. I did look at some introduction. Let's move on to just some basic facts about the movie. Then we can get into the discussion about the film itself. So we have to establish a tiny amount of context for this in case you're not sure what the Super Mario Galaxy movie is, why it exists. Well, there's not much history.

We are like a month out from the original release when this goes live. So there's not really a lot to talk about. But of course, there is the 2023 Super Mario Brothers movie, which we covered on Retronuts. Check that out. It's a previous episode. And for a time, it was the third highest grossing animated movie of all time. So people really like this movie. Now it's number six because the way things work that whenever there's new animated movie,

that immediately becomes like number one or number two just because everyone is seeing these movies. And they like giving them lots of money. So this movie will probably be in that top five by the time this podcast comes out. We are a week out from release. And this movie has made $400 million. So I think it's safe to say this is going to be a mega hit. it's a very healthy film I guess there's no other

it doesn't have like kids movie competition for like a month or something right like I mean if you're a video gamer you're already buying your tickets for Mortal Kombat 2 coming out in a few weeks but I forgot about that yeah I guess everyone has seen hoppers or the hoppers crowd went to hoppers already this is more than a month

after that movie and Illumination the company who made this movie didn't really shake things up with the sequel so it's got the same writers the same director the same director, the same composer, and the same voice cast. And there are also some new cast members that include some fitting and inexplicable choices.

We'll talk about those. But not a lot has changed. They did not mess with the formula that much outside of sort of zinging from the traditional animated movie formula, like that first movie so slavishly followed. And weirdly enough, we all seem to enjoy this movie. It is reviewing much worse, which really gave me low expectations.

People are being like very hyperbolic and I think it's because a lot of the critics they might have seen the first ones like oh well it does all the animated movie stuff I don't really care but whatever. Then they walk into this one which like I said I think is a series of Mario music videos they don't know what to make of it.

They just think like this is just an AI screen saver for babies. That was the one that that Guardian review which I saw the headline and then read it like that that was the one that felt the most like unfairly Like to say it's like, well, it's not made by AI, but it may as well be for how it looks. I was like, I don't think that reviewer knows what AI Slop looks like enough to know what, like, this does not look like AI Slop, imitating what the Mario movie looks like, which there's many examples of that you can find out there.

Like, I thought, I thought that was like one of the most wrongheaded negative spin. That's very, that's very strange. And I also think it's like misremembering how how kids movies look. how technology is getting better, better. Of course, it's going to get more and more razzle, the more it's possible to do so. Remember how gorgeous Furngolly was when you first saw it as a kid? Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, and I think it's unfortunate that AI, the popular AI models are mimicking these very popular

styles. So when you get AI slop, it's going to look like the Pixar house style. It's going to look like the Illumination House style. And there's really nothing they can do about that. I'm not a mega fan of how Mario and the human characters look in. this movie and the previous one, but I think it's just the matter of their style being so popular that it is what is copied the most by the slot machine. Yeah, I mean, I think that the success of this movie is the fact that it does get so far away

from a traditional film in some ways. And I mean, I don't like it when it's compared to AI slot because whether or not you like Illuminations movies, which, I mean, honestly, broadly, I kind of do like them. they have a kind of a European look to them. There is a style there. I believe that's a French studio. Yeah, yeah. And the movies do have a distinct look,

regardless of how one actually feels about it. So calling it worse than AI is actually really funny as a criticism, but also it's The Guardian, so fuck them. Yes, yes. If I could respond to the AI thing a little bit, I'm not defending The Guardian exactly, But if you get away from the specific aesthetic of the movie and you talk about how this movie works, it is actually somewhat like AI in that like AI slop can repurpose characters that are familiar in new situations.

And that's part of the people that like AI are like, oh, like I'm seeing this thing I never saw before. That's sort of what this movie is doing where it's like, oh, it's Star Fox. And like, look, Burdo's back and Mouser's there. There is an element of it just like regurgitating a bunch of familiar things at the screen in an effort to entertain you on a very base level. that does remind me of AI. I'm not saying this movie looks like AI, and I'm not accusing it of being AI, but that comparison does exist for me.

I feel like that's every movie that has fan service. Like, you know, every time Pyramid Head is on screen, you're supposed to go, oh, wow, it's pyramid head, you know. I've had to see this trailer a bunch of times now, but like I did hear people say about the upcoming, well, I guess you'd call it an Amazon movie,

but MGM release of a He-Man movie, people just say like, well, this looks very expensive, but also it does, kind of look like a prompt said, make me a live action he man movie. I guess it's a flawed criticism because as Drew said,

like the point of AI is to try and recreate something coherent. And it doesn't work, really, but something as simple as the Mario movie where there really is no story. Yeah, you could generate that with an AI prompt probably, but the fact is they didn't. So it's, what are you going to do?

No, I think you're right. I think it is the fact that AI content is often like incomprehensible and just not a bunch of non sequiters and that to the untrained eye this movie does resemble that if you're not familiar with the Mario characters and the different worlds they run through so in in a sense I can see the comparison it's also like slightly unfair but in any case critics very very down on this movie which really lowered the bar for me I'm thinking like well how could it be worse than that first movie but by by just being a new kind of movie experience I guess um for like pre-verbal audience

I feel like it kept me entertained. And I know like a Mario movie can only be so good. Maybe that's just my low expectations. But like what else can you do with these characters? And I think they found what works. And this movie actually does remind me a lot of the Super Mario anime movie, which we recently covered. In that movie, it's just here are a bunch of Mario set pieces.

Yes, there's an origin story because it was necessary then. But until we get to Bowser at the end, here are all the things you do in a Mario game. And I found that to be very charming. And that is kind of what's happening here. In a different sense. I feel like the games, like, don't have stories either. Like, Miyamoto is, like, scared of stories practically. Like, you know, what are you supposed to do?

You know, it's in an adaptation. Like, it would be very interesting, but very strange, to suddenly have, like, a capital S story and a Mario thing. I think it would be interesting. And I think there could be a way to do that. We just haven't seen it because Miyamoto's so involved with these movies. I think he might be the reason that there is such a lot of, a lack of story and character arcs.

And maybe that's his involvement with the movies that's helping the games have more of that element perhaps. And maybe we should encourage Miamato to keep making movies. So he allows more stories and games. I don't know. Who do you think is responsible for this movie's lack of story? Is it illumination? No, I do think it's, I think it is Miamoto.

I like that theory. I, I subscribe a bit to it too that I think that Miamoto is very involved in these movies. Like, he is like the third name you see or something in the credits. It's very early. Like I think, and I do think he may be in the first movie lost some battles of like, okay, you need to know who Mario's family is. You need to see the home he's from. You got to see he's from America.

All right. You can have a dad story, all this background stuff. And then for this movie, I think he's like, no, they're just going to go to levels from multiple of the games and they're going to have a bunch of action scenes. Like, it's just going to be a ton of action scenes and characters are going to hit their moments. Like the only thing in the movie of story-wise is that, felt to me different than a choice Miyamoto would make in one of his games because

it actually answers a question and creates lore is the Rosalina and Peach situation. Yeah, and I remember Yoshiaki Koizumi put a lot of story into Mario Galaxy. The game this movie is kind of based on, and when Miyamoto found out, he basically let him

and everyone else know that will never happen again. So that is sort of his stance on story, although it is funny. The story he hated so much is the kind of the backbone of this movie in a way. the whole Rosalina, the observatory, and the Lumas. Although they do change a lot of it to involve Peach. The opening of this movie is the opening of Mario Galaxy.

It's just scenes from the reading of the storybook. That's illumination noticing, like, I think what was a great story sequence in that game. So why not make it the introduction to the movie? Also, I think they knew the kids. Kids loved the kid-voiced Luma. singular Luma that was in the first movie, so they expanded it quite a lot. There's a lot of kids in this movie.

There's a lot of childlike characters in this movie. Although they saved the disturbing dark Luma for the mid-credit's teaser or whatever that was stinger. Yeah. I hate that guy. I hate that fucker. I thought the teaser with him in this movie was better for just being a kind of a little like go-home thing, weirdly enough. I don't know. But I still don't think he's particularly a.

funny idea. I mean, we need to investigate Mushroom Kingdom prisons. There's some severe abuse going on inside of those walls. What is Peach doing? What kind of government is Peach running? I don't know. We need to overthrow her. It's a dictatorship. That's what happens in these royal, you know, it's a monarchy. Yeah, monarchy, yeah. Point of

clarification, I think that nihilistic Luma is actually a female character, which makes me hate them, hate her slightly less. And I'm like, okay, well, you made it a girl who's nihilistic. That's something you don't see in movies all that often. More female prison Luma. She's the Ilsa of this movie

Moving on, I don't want to explain that any further. Moving on to our discussion questions. I'm sure we're going to cover a lot of topics in ground organically, but I do want to kick things off by comparing this to the first movie. So how do we think it compares to the 2023 Mario movie? What's improved? What still needs improvement? I've given my thoughts.

I want to elaborate on those further, but I want to take a back seat now. Does anyone else want to jump in? Talk about comparisons. Henry? I have to the it was the music was such a huge thing for me in the first one like it drove me crazy that they kept playing the most obvious song for all these sequences in my opinion detracted from what made them visually interesting and now this felt to me like such a great AB comparison of just like if they're the sequences that just had you know new orchestrations or symphonic remixes of classic galaxy or odyssey or other Mario music in it, if you replace those with just like a, you know, Eye of the Tiger or some other A's hit, they'd have been worse. They'd have been worse scenes.

Like, and it was just so, I got so scared at the start of the movie in the first Yoshi scene where it's playing that Biggie song. I was like, ah, fuck, they're going to do it again. It's going to be the whole movie. Yeah. And then I thought that was, and that was good. Like, that was kind of fun, cute little sequence. And the first time that I found myself going,

wait a minute, well, am I enjoying myself with what's going on? And I think it's the, only needle drop in the movie? There's one at Peaches party where everyone's dancing, but I don't think you hear lyric. I can't remember what song it is, but like they're listening to a real world song there. Hey, I want to point out about that biggie song. It's not the biggie song. It's the song that biggie song samples. So they went for the cheaper version. And we're like, no, we're going to suggest the biggie song by getting the cheaper original 70s composition,

which I loved. I want to go back to what Henry was saying. They did make some obvious choices in the first movie, but I also think they made some inexplicable choices. And things like Take On Me were chosen because they were popular songs that kids and adults like. It had nothing to do with racing and Mario Kart. So I feel like that really showed a lack of confidence in the first movie. And this movie does show a lot more confidence to the point where they cut out an entire Bowser's song. You can find it on YouTube. It's part of the soundtrack.

Peaches was the chicken jockey of its time. And the fact that they did not try to replicate that success makes me respect them a lot. More than I thought I would. I would. Just because you could have just had another Bowser song like here. comes here's the next song you're going to be listening to in your car for the next four months, mom and dad. But no, they decided we're just going to leave

it on the soundtrack. We don't need to do the same thing over again. So yeah, when he's in prison, like he's about to throw to a song. I didn't even read and then they cut it. I was like, or they stopped the song. I was like, oh, I was sure I was going to hear the Peach's sequel song. Now to know that they literally recorded it

and still chose not to have a movie. That is I'm even more impressed by that choice. That's like a good decision but also at the same time. I feel like I could have had like a little bit more Bowser in this movie. Yes. You know, so I'm kind of like a little bit lamenting the loss of the song just because it's less Bowser for me. Perhaps if they didn't try to fit in a hundred things into this movie, maybe Bowser could have gotten like 20% more to do.

A lot of things happened. The best character. He's the best character in the movie. He's so damn funny, you know. Yeah. Now, Bowser does enter the movie extremely late. Unfortunately, heanders the movie via scene I saw a billion times as the trailer for this film. So I was already bored when he showed up.

And then they make a very strange choice in that because he is shrunk down, he talks in a high-pitched voice for about what feels like 20 minutes of the movie. And I think that is because a high-pitched voice is funny. That is the working theory I have at least. And I saw they make the exact same mistake in the movie up with the talking dogs in that, oh, the dogs can talk, except they can only talk in high-pitched voices. And that is a choice that remains for the rest of the movie. I got so tired of it in that movie. I did a small thing, but I did like the joke right near the beginning when he's in his little. kind of tiny prison.

And the fact that he still hates Mario, but his own sort of reasonably cordial terms with Luigi, I thought was quite a amusing. That was actually fucking funny. And they kept coming back to revisiting that core joke that like Luigi gets along with Bowser. It's cute and it's funny. I can't be mad at that.

That's funny. If you've gone to the theaters a lot in the past, like couple months, you would have seen that Bowser establishing scenes a lot because that was just the trailer for the movie. Sorry, Drew. So I don't go to movies as often as you do. So this worked out better for me.

But I think the Mario Bowser relationship is a, like, surprisingly successful retread of the Mario is a jerk theme from the first movie, which I didn't love. It was like, why is Mario such an asshole the entire time? And in this new movie, there was less of it. And it was mostly focused on Bowser. And I was like, actually, this kind of makes sense. This kind of makes sense is where they would be emotionally compared to the first movie. If I want to credit, like, the vague ghost of a character arc in this movie. It was a gift to Luigi Bowser Shippers, as well.

well online. But it, well, too, I thought they, well, it was weird that when I said there were no daddy issues, I should take that back because you do get a little of that with Bowser and Bowser Jr. That's, like, Bowser Jr's entire thing is daddy issues. That's all he has. It's just like not resolved. It wasn't like a conflict conflict that could have been like a bigger division in the, in the casting

crew. Like, it could have been a betrayal situation with like, Bowser being too nice now. like Bowser goes back to being a bad guy as all things ought to be, the status quo. Oh, I didn't take it as the stock daddy issues I normally see in all these animated movies. I took it more as like, oh, this is an interesting dynamic because it's usually played for jokes, the fact that Bowser is a terrible father, not that these characters need to go through arcs or anything like that. They end up in prison together at the end of the movie. And yeah, I got the sense, like, whenever I experienced these daddy issues in these animated movies, I can just sense the animation writer whose dad wanted him to play football and he's just getting it all out on the page.

This time, I did not sense that at all. It's like, okay, this is a fun dynamic. And Bowser Jr. is an interesting character. It's weird that Bowser has a son. Jess. I want to shout out my favorite scene in the film, which is a Bowser telling a bedtime story to Bowser Jr. With all the puppets. I was killing me that I like wasn't socially allowed to like laugh out loud for

real. Like it was, I was dying. It was funny. It was cute. all the physics of the puppets were like strangely realistic and like so much effort was put in. And great credits because the credits, it's all, I guess, CGI approximations of puppets retelling the story. They didn't have to do that. I'm sure children were confused by this. But it's such a great little touch and I did like that too. So cute.

I mean, to get back to the question, if I made, that was rude. That sounded like people were just like ignoring the question. We want to talk about puppets, Stuart. I want to talk about puppets. I just I mean how does it improve on the 2023 one I mean for me literally in every possible way that they could have improved it like again this is not a masterpiece

but this is a very strong example of pandering and there were there were things in the movie that just okay there's one scene towards the end spoilers obviously kinder where Mario and Peach are approaching Bowser's castle and baby Bowser excuse me Bowser Jr. they're the same kind of guy,

is sort of constructing a castle stage on a computer sort of thing, and it's played out like you see them as 2D sprites, but then they replicate it and, you know, mind-melting the expensive CGI-I, Mario and Peach dodging firebars, big spinning blades,

swinging axes, lava, bar-bombs and everything, and in my heart, I'm just like, this got, this has the Mario juice. Like, this is the Geneseiqua right here. This scene, is just exactly what they should have been doing all the time. Just Millhouse sitting there going, hey, it's Mario, and he's doing stuff. That's all I wanted.

And it made the cockles of my heart warm slightly and pounced in a gross way. It was it was Mario. That was it. I was so happy with that. And the whole movie just felt like they'd seen everything that's sucked ass about the first one, which was almost every single thing that happens. And gone, you know what, let's, let's move away from that. Let's just pander, but let's pander really well. One of the things that they didn't, I feel like they took, like, the criticism to heart,

like, there was a couple of different things where it's just like, oh, they didn't do this. Thank God. And like, for example, like, you know, there's a lot of equal opportunity ass kicking. I feel like everybody gets like a really like decadent action set piece that's like really oddly well choreographed and like interesting visually and all that stuff. And like also like Peach doesn't change outfits so that she can be more of a girl boss or anything like that. It's just like little things like that that people nitpicked about. But like huge things, little things. Like all of this is just like straight up better than the first movie for me.

Drew. I would like to point out something that we've been like tap dancing around. I was on another podcast talking about this movie already. And Nintendo Croftred Society pointed out that this movie does. doesn't play it safe. It is pandering, but it is not playing it safe for like, it's like, sorry, mom, you're not going to know what the fuck is going on. Yeah. But the kids are going to be, like, good about it. And that seems like a choice I would dislike. And I might dislike it, but overall, it does make this movie thoroughly watchable in a way the first one wasn't. And that is,

like, this is very much pandering, but like, they really truly did take that risk of making a movie It's confident. It's actually like, hey, you're here to see Mario stuff. You're not here to see this bullshit Pixar crap. You're here to see Mario doing Mario stuff. You're not here to see Mario's stupid-looking family. No, no, no. They completely forgot about that family.

They're like, who cares? We'll never see him again. I don't care. There's one short scene in the real, in our quotes, the real world with Yoshi, and it's funny and sweet. And I dug it. I also, real quick, I also really like the way they can textual? realized, like, what does Mario do all day every day in that short montage of Mario just doing

Mario levels, but as chores, like putting fires out and all that sort of thing, I was just sitting there thinking, so that's what he's doing when he's not on adventures. Yeah, I can buy that. It's like the first responder or something. Now, I want to go back to something I think Voidberger was talking about in terms of Peach and other characters. So we mentioned we didn't like Girl Boss Peach in the first movie. And I find, that even in this movie, Peach is a very boring character, just like she is capable but good. She's strong

but honest. It's just like she is every good quality. And at least in this movie, I will say she's not established as well. She's in a magic space baby who's better than Mario in every way. In fact, who needs Mario? Screw him. She goes off on her own adventure and that's fine. But I feel like in general, I think

a slight downgrade in this movie is that the characters are very flattened. And I like that they're not going through, you know, your usual animated movie arcs like Mario had to go through in the last movie with his parents and his brother and that's fine. But I feel like nobody really has a distinct personality in this movie. And the dialogue is very superfluous and unnecessary. This could play like as a silent movie for the most part.

You would understand everything that's happening. And I feel like that could be a cynical attempt to appeal to people who aren't necessarily always looking at the screen, perhaps, to make this a popular movie. But all I know is that because there is such little plot and such a little bit of. characterization. My mind was really wandering in the movie theater. And I'd realize like, oh, I have not been paying attention for two minutes. I've been thinking about like emails and stuff. And then I go back to the movie and I'm thinking, oh, I didn't miss anything. I literally miss nothing. This is a real folder laundry feature cat, a change the litter box kind of movie, I think. It's, it's definitely lacking in in characterization and such. But my defense, I suppose, for that is, and on no way

attack on you, Bob, whatsoever. Because if, but if this is what you go to the cinema for, then, like, you know, go see another movie. It's really not for the... It reminds me of that Penny Arcade comic where they say about how Jersey Girl is not for critics. It's the Sumari Galaxy movie. It's not for you if you're a critic. It's not the case.

Perhaps I only ordered one beer at the adult theater. Maybe I should have went for two. I would have gotten more into it. No, I... The Peach characterization, I did like the... Well, subtle shift, at least, in that they... I think they smartly, like, just stole from Empire Strikes Back of like, okay, these characters, there's two people over it,

there's two groups doing their thing. Mario Luigi and Yoshi are doing their thing. And Peach, Toad, and Star Fox, Fox McLeod, they're all doing their thing. And so they, and then they meet in the middle eventually. It lets them all have stuff to do. And it's, well, who's Peach going to overshadow in her story? Toad, nobody cares.

Like, Toad is barely, if there's one character that gets the shaft here, it's Toad. Like, he has nothing to do other than dislike Yoshi. Which I thought was funny, though. I did find that amusing. I mean, the central arc of the movie is that Mario wants to kiss Princess Peach. Like, he's shy. You know, that is the closest thing to a story.

To the movie's credit, I want to shout out that it did not nauseate me with the romance plot thing going on. It was mentioned, like, once or twice, it was a little bit in the background of, like, just very normal, awkward stuff, not, like, falling over your. yourself awkward like fucking what's her face Anna in Frozen oh god like I hated her characterization so much like constantly falling down like oh sorry I'm nervous you're hot and like they don't do that in this movie

I actually really thought that like there's a scene where Mario and Peach are like running away from folks in the amusement park Bowser Jr. land and they hide behind a ferris wheel like car that's moving and I thought a million percent like I was so sure they were going to hide in the Ferris wheel and have like a romantic they're trapped together romantic scene final fantasy seven thing where they like have to have an awkward little confession about their relationship and they fucking didn't do it they kept running the action kept going and I said thank fucking God and then at the end of the movie they just kind of like you know peach gave him a kiss and it was like oh it wasn't a big deal why was like plotting about it I felt the payoff for it was like the scene the scene I mentioned again because I'm going to go back to to it because it's the scene of the year. I'm kidding. When they're trapped between Boboms and the huge wall of thwamps, listen to the stuff I'm saying,

and the lava. And Mario, he sort of hit off his hand in a sort of trust thing, like, you know, I'm going to get us out of this. And then they pay off the parasol by having the updraft from the barms, the lava, fly over. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, they honestly couldn't have done that better. I can't believe what's happening to my brain right now. It wasn't labored. It wasn't like stopped the movie for some mush. They just paid it off in a really sweet way. And I was like, yeah. Every action scene felt like it had like slightly clever things in it like that, like using the environment. Like the fight in the casino using all the gravity switching stuff was fucking bonkers.

That was fun as hell. I was wondering, I'm like, why is it a casino? Like what's that got to do with Mario Brothers 2? And I remember the bonus stage in Mario Bros. too. And I was like, oh, okay. that's quite smart. That's quite smart. Finally, a good scene in a space casino. I'm looking at you last Jedi.

Hey. Okay, yeah, that scene wasn't very good. A movie I like. Drew. Can I point out that it's very, very small, but something interesting this movie did is that Peach got mad twice. And that is something that I don't think she was allowed to be really angry in the first movie. And it's something female characters sometimes are not allowed to do because it's unfeminine to be angry.

She gets pissed off twice. Once with Rob and once, which she's just like literally kicking rocks. And I'm like, oh, they gave this character a moment to be like, she's not perfect. She gets pissed about stuff.

She has real feelings. She's not just sweet. And like, girl boss all the time because like something fucked up happened and she's not happy about it. And that was a very small moment. But it was one way that they did improve Peach's writing from the first movie. Yeah. And I like how they did not establish well now Mario and Peach are a couple.

At best at the end of the movie, he gets a friendly peck on the cheek. And I think that does fall in. in line with what Nintendo wants for the characters. It's not, Nintendo is not always saying, Nintendo never says Mario and Peach are boyfriend and girlfriend and they love each other very much. Like, no, Mario is pining after the princess

and at best he'll get a cake or kiss on the forehead or whatever. And that's basically all that will come to this relationship. It's very, it's very chaste romance. It's like a 1950s going steady, sort of like sleeping in separate beds when you're married sort of vibe to it. You know, another improvement I want to say from

the first to second is for a movie that was called like the Super Mario Brothers movie Luigi and Mario are separated for so long in that first movie like after the intro like Luigi's kidnapped and he is with Bowser most of the movie. In this movie

the brothers bro out for most of the movie like they actually are hanging out doing things together Luigi is like being a wing man to Mario they're doing the fist bump joke the whole movie like I really like that Mario and actually. It's also because I like

Charlie Day's Luigi like I think he's very good. And it's not just because he looks, it's not, he looks great next to Chris Pratt earning a paycheck. I think he's actually doing a good job. Yeah. I do want to move on to the second question. I have

in the prompts here. Let's talk about Yoshi. So is Yoshi a vital element to this movie or is he a poochie style distraction? I'm falling down on the second, or I'm falling into the second category, am I thinking because I like Yoshi the character. But honestly, his appearance is such a throwaway element of the movie. In fact, it just feels like it was kind of underthought and maybe that could be the joke. But essentially,

it just gives the writers and the animators like another character to feature inaction scenes. And I think that essentially is his place in this movie. And I do enjoy Donald Glover. But I feel like this Yoshi voice is something that kind of most people can do, like this like back hear through a gurgling baby voice and it does feel like Exactly. It feels like South Park hiring Jay Leno to voice a cat or George Cleeney to voice a dog that's

barking on that show. It's Groot, right? Like it's I am Groot from being Vin Diesel in the Guardians and other Marvel movies. I mean, here's the thing. Like when I heard that Donald Glover was cast to be Yoshi, I 100% assumed this meant Yoshi was

going to be talking like a human with people and having conversations with people. And when he just pops in and it's just like, you know, and all that shit, never does he say anything. Just different inflection of his name in Little Grunts. I was just like surprisingly relieved about it. So I have nothing bad to say about Donald Glover in this way. I guess I'd fall between the two stalls because he's completely, I mean, they just, in a way to their credit, they just get that shit out of the way. They're just like, yep, Yoshi's here.

It's part of the gang now. He's going to be doing stuff. But also, it meant that they could eventually do a non-dean, telegraphed Yoshi's island sequence where he's got the babies on his back and he's running away from... I can't even remember what the hell he was running away from. The Tyrannosaurus. That's right. Yeah, the

Mario Odyssey Tyrannosaurus. That's right. And I remember sitting there and getting that little sort of tickle in the brain of like, oh, hey, this is like Yoshi's Island. I like Yoshi's Island. Oh, another thing that has successfully pandered to me and I'm here for it. You know, I this is what benefited

from the movie is. I really don't think that they hung a massive lampshade on anything. They just let it happen. That's the same with how Yoshi's introduced. It's like, yep, Yoshi's here now. Don't worry about it. He's just going to be doing Yoshi stuff. I think it really is to the benefit of the movie that they stripped away such inessential things as plot and themes.

I mean that. I mean that very sincerely. And they easily could have wasted our time with a 10-minute Yoshi origin sequence. In fact, Yoshi is the only Yoshi in the entire movie. Like, where did he come from? How did he end up here? Why is the egg there? It doesn't. Who cares? in my review on Letterbox I refer to this movie as a Nintendo asset trough And it's like as you're eating up from the trough

The Yoshi shape rises to the top You're like oh that's Yoshi And then later other shapes will appear And then you'll recognize them and clap your hands When when Yoshi was the teaser at the end of the first movie I would have predicted too that like Oh the first act is going to be like The first 30 minutes is going to be the introduction of Yoshi

They're scared of him at first And they have to win him over but like they treat Yoshi how he is in the games, which is like Yoshi is slightly above a dog intelligence-wise. But the second they meet him, like, oh, he's our new friend, the end. And roommate. Let's hang out. Yeah, he's a roommate.

He's going to hang with them. And of course, yes, they merchandise the hell out of him as well. I have here. My husband bought it for me. That's right. Throw him under the bus. He showed up with it. On this podcast, we come down on our spouses.

It was. it was a nice gift from him. And now I see these things are actually sold out places and you're going for like an extra 40 bucks on eBay. But yes, I am holding in my hands, listeners. Here, listen to the plastic right there. I'm knocking at the Yoshi.

The Yoshi popcorn bucket. You can see inside Yoshi there. Oh, he's steep. I'd feel weird. It's supposed to eat popcorn out of that. You're not supposed to eat popcorn out of any of these popcorn buckets. That's why they give you a separate bucket to actually eat them out of.

You also shouldn't trust that these are clean when they're handed to you at a movie theater either. That looks kind of like too big to just throw in the garbage as well. That's a shame. That like stopped me from purchasing it because I thought it's going to be full of popcorn and I don't know how to clean that. No.

Yeah, we just left it empty and also look at the ridges on it's quality plastic work there. Yeah, I thought there's going to be like a 3D printed piece of shit. It's like actually like looks good and stuff. Yeah, I'm glad you have that because they've never made anything, any Yoshi figure before. So that's the first one. learning that these novelty popcorn buckets

aren't even intended for popcorn consumption has actually I mean no disrespect to anyone here obviously has made me kind of hate America a little bit more like this I mean a little bit more than I mean this week has been you know yeah that's what's pushing you over the edge yeah honestly that this is the thing yeah all right I didn't sit in here all week going well let's see how this plays out and then I see the Yoshi bucket and I'm like I'll fuck you

a few decades from now we are going to discover an artificial reef made out of popcorn buckets now this is a very un-American podcast this is only two people actually true true I did know the back of my head I was thinking yeah yeah

I support Iran I'm fighting for their government right now I have one more Yoshi thought that what they do with Yoshi is actually indicative of the stanzas movie takes of like we're pivoting away from all the stuff that made the first movie easier to process and we're making this a little bit

challenging because when we get Yoshi's flashback, we are told it but the joke is once the flashback ends, Martin Luigi were like, I guess we'll never know because they don't speak Yoshi and Yoshi can't communicate anything that happened to him and they're like, all right, I guess it doesn't matter, story does not matter. And then

later, when TOT is pissed about Yoshi joining the group, the term is hanging a lantern on it where he's like, I guess Yoshi's just part of the group now. Like, he's pissed because he's getting usurp from his position is like the number four. But like it's interesting that the movie is like being like this is just happening like we're not explaining it there's no reason that

yoshi's immediately their friend other than that he is cute but everyone's just going to go along with it and it does not matter yeah it's like the script signaling to you hey don't worry about it it's fine it's like in the next movie it's sorry a spoiler for the the new character that they tease at the end i'm hoping that she's just going to walk on screen at some point it was in me like oh hey daisy well i mean we've established this as a spoiler-filled podcast it's daisy and to be honest i was like well that's it one to reveal you give some shit about Daisy. And she didn't even say the line.

So, uh, because they don't want to cast her yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, my audience stuck around for that and they loved it. There was like, there were cheers. Cheers. Cheers at Daisy. It's going to be the role of Sendaya's life.

She's the less interesting princess. She doesn't have magic star. She's just, she's just the one who like, likes to play sports. Like, there's, there. Do you think this next movie is going to be like a massive, towards tournament or something and they're going to do Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and bring Sonic in? That would be good. I do not think that would be good.

Hey. I want them to pivot to Tatanga. I want a space invasion of Tatanga. He's the villain in the next time. They should also have Topanga from Boy Meets World. She's very popular. I looked up, Daisy. I did some research to find out why she was so popular.

It turns out it's because she's got a big butt. I don't think that's going to be part of the movie, though. I feel like they would avoid that material. Where did you look at that up? Well, I just Google Princess Daisy and then, like, the auto-complete was like Princess Daisy, like big ass Princess Daisy. But I was like, well, maybe this is biased towards the things I'm generally searching for. Hopefully not, you know. Perhaps.

Yeah. It doesn't come up when I search for it. Yeah. Okay. Well, then we have a problem. Your word has a point. Like, I feel like I only see Daisy being used in horny context. Maybe that's because she is wearing like active sportswear that's a little skimpier than a princess dress that could be it.

That could be activating some people. Who knows? Well, Pete is trying to catch up with that with her short shorts in Mario, the most recent Mario Kart game. But, though, I think, well, I know Smash Brothers fans love to like, the Smash Brother fandom is its own fandom within Nintendo fandom. And they put a whole character on Daisy as like, she's the cool princess. We've all seen the don't you just want to go ape shit meme, I'm sure, like that. That's what I imagine, Daisy, though also in the innocent parts of Nintendo fans. Phantom. Usually it is seen as Daisy is Luigi's boyfriend and like Beach is Mario's boyfriend like that. And as Burdo is Yoshi's boyfriend. It usually is, that's like the Mario cart and sports games matchings as well.

You know, you know when it's a girl, you say girlfriend, right? Oh, yes, sure. Yeah. I don't think that like there are any innocent parts of Nintendo Phantom. There's children in there, believe it or not, Stewart. The children who have not yet been tainted. They're still around. They're feeding unethical consumption under capitalism, et cetera, et cetera. They're not innocent. They're not all gooning to Boussa, okay? Only, only a percentage of them. We're mentioning on this podcast, The War with Iran and gooning.

Where else will we go? So the Super Mario Moment podcast pointed out that this movie made a lot of people who've been shipping Peach and Rosalina for years feel very odd about all the update they've gone about them getting it on. You know, Drew, I immediately thought of that, implying their, their, sisters. I feel like this broke a lot of hearts or made a lot of hearts grow even larger at the possibilities. I think it's a very sexless movie until Fox McLeod turns up, which point I was like, oh, hello.

Oh my God. That man. The boots. Big Arwing energy. But Mario's not jealous of him the way he's jealous of Donkey Hill in the first movie. And again, you would assume they would just do that same thing again. Donkey him isn't even in this. He was briefly.

Very, yeah. It's like a cameo appearance. In New York. In New York, in the York flashback, thank you. Well, because he's getting his own, he's getting his own movie, so they just wanted to go light on him in this one. So you'll be more excited when there's the DK movie in a year or two. But yeah, like another subversion is of this romance subplot that I was dreading and bracing myself for was like, oh, when Peach meets Fox, it's going to be like the romantic rival for Mario is going to be Fox. But the instant they meet, like Fox literally is like, I like this guy. He's cool.

And they're just dudes. Dudes being guys. I love this. Peach doesn't fall for him either. Peach doesn't, Pete may not have romantic feelings. It turned out. Peach is canonically asexual, I think.

Fox's appearance is very much like, hey, this guy still exists. Look forward to the Nintendo Direct this summer, Wink, Wink, where there's definitely going to be a new Star Fox that's been heavily rumored and is definitely not real. And I definitely don't know that it's real. We're talking about Star Fox, or Fox McLeod, rather. I did appreciate it.

appreciate his inclusion in this movie. I thought it was an interesting new element. I did like his design in the movie. Although, uh, this movie does what a lot of animated movies do and that they introduce a new animation style very briefly as like a fun, just a fun way to mix things up and then they immediately pivot away from it. I'm like, no, I want, now I want to see the Star Fox anime. You see, turn this off. Can I watch this instead? So good. That was so good. And I was the only person that laughed at the sudden like whiplash of it suddenly an anime. That's a joke. in and of itself to like drastically switch art styles out of nowhere. Can I give my most petty criticism of the movie? It's quite brief. It is for this sequence. It's the bit where Fox in this moment says that's what I get for hiring a frog as a navigator.

I'm like, it's a toad. He's called slippy toad. But I've since reconciled that as him just being snarky and it's probably fine. My most petty pedantic thing was when he pointed out the boots. Isn't that his legs? Oh yeah, they had to cut off their legs to squeeze him into the earwings. That's

I made the choice to maybe eliminate that part of the backstory. Howard, here I thought there were trailblazers. Didn't Biomedo just clarify that there's no amputation going on with the Star Fox crew? Am I hallucinating that that just happened? I forget. I think it was never explained why the original puppet characters they created for the first game have robot legs, but they do? Yeah, in Smash, I think for Smash fandom two who have been watching, I did, in the run-up to the release of the Fourth Smash Brothers game. I did basically a

weekly Smash Brothers column on a website, so this is how I got very plugged in with the fandom. Like, there was always a question with his boots are so important. Fox is one of the most played characters in Smash fandom. And there are always I think there was a question among that group of fans too of like, so are those boots or are those

robot legs? Like they needed, that's why like Toad saying, oh, cool boots was to answer that question. Like, guys, their boots. He doesn't have robot legs. Like that's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Kit and Chris just clarified for an article that said that when Miyamoto was presented with the amputation theory, he basically said it was crazy. I thought like it came from some legitimate source. I didn't know this was fan canon. It's been retcon, I guess.

My emotive has retcon. Now, back to Starfax really quick. I do like this because it does feel like something tossed out for the old people in the audience. but it also feels like a practical joke on the children because if you are 12 years old or younger, Star Fox does not exist. The last Star Fox game, 2016 for the Wii U, nobody played it, even if you were an adult and conscious

with a thinking brain. You didn't play this game. So I can imagine a ton of kids are like, wow, Star Fox, I wonder what he's in. And then they have to go back and see like all of the bad games they made since 64. I played all of them. We made two episodes of Retronauts about these not-so-great games.

So maybe this means that Nintendo is actually working on a Star Fox game for the first time in almost. almost 30 years. Nintendo internally, not farming it out to a developer that usually does good stuff, but I want to see them even just make 64 again. I don't care. Nintendo Direct, this summer, mark it. Just saying.

They're going to have to, right now, just go turn on Mommy or Daddy's Switch or Switch 2 and play the online Star Fox 2 in the Super NES section of Nintendo Online. That's what the kids are going to have to do. Something I did like about this, I felt extended to the whole movie really,

maybe I'm wrong, but at no point, even with all these cameos, did I ever think it felt like they were setting the table for future movies? They just felt like they were serving the movie we were watching. And I appreciated that, you know, it wasn't like Asoka saying, where is Admiral Thrawn at the end of that one Mandalorian episode? It was, it was just, hey, it's Star Fox and he's doing stuff again. Yeah, it's not true. The next movie, we might not, Daisy might not be a character that is through her in at the end and be like, look, it's Daisy. You're going to go nuts about this, but this has no bearing. on what we're going to do for the inevitable third film.

Yeah, they didn't bake any trailers into the middle of the movie. The characters don't gather around and watch a laptop with other characters that will appear in movie three on it. They know we've got you hook, line, and sinker for everything we make. So let's just enjoy the story that we're telling now. Daisy, voiced by Harry Stiles. I also did like Glenn Powell's acting as Fox. I think that was good. Of the type of guy they cast in that role, like, he's good.

He's a better version of a Chris Pratt to me, and that also that he actually has been in a Top Gun movie. So it's like the snake eating its own tale too. Fox McLeod and his team aren't not Top Gun influenced. And so then you have like the, everybody remembers Hangman from Top Gun Maverick, right? Glenn Powell's famous character, Hangman. I was born into Mr. Game & Watch.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I love that so much because, okay, yes, it's a gratuitous cameo. I thought you would hate that. No, but the way they bake it in, like, Luigi gets the paintbrush. Luigi can't draw. He's like, I know how to draw. And that makes sense.

You know, it makes sense. They throw in this little cameo and because I main Mr. Game on Watch, I was like, hey, it's my boy, you know? And I loved that. And Robb, I loved Rob as well. I was just like, hey, it's my boy again. And I was so, I loved the Rob scenes until my husband pointed out that they just did the Zootopia sloth Jones. Yes, it's exactly. And I was like, son of a.

They got me twice. I mean, it was funny, and I'm sure before Zootopia, there were a lot of jokes about slow-moving service workers. But Zootopia now dominates that space. You can't just do the same joke again. And maybe, I'm sure, it was independent thought, like, oh, what if Rob was here and he was kind of broken? But, yeah, Zootopia, that was like the trailer for Zootopia.

Just the Slossy over and over. I thought it was almost, I mean, I did think Zutopia as well when I watched that. It was like, oh, they're doing that. But I sort of thought it was worth it for later when Mario turns up, and they have a very quick relapse, re-up of that scene, and all you really get is Mario's reaction to it. And I thought, that was cute.

You know, they didn't labor it too much. I thought it was okay. I feel like none of the jokes like overstayed their welcomes. And it was pretty artfully done, honestly, the amount of the pace of the jokes and stuff like that. I just feel like, I'm just comparing, like, my emotions that I came out of the first movie with, with this.

And I just remember, like, constant. cringing myself in half for the first movie. And I don't think I cringed one time during this movie. And if that's not a swell review, I don't know what it is. How could anything overstays to welcome when it's literally moving on to the next thing every other minute? Like nothing stays long enough to like wear itself out. It's just excellent. It's excellent junk food.

I think it's so well. I mean, it's never going to be above a certain level, but they executed everything so well in this movie. That as you say, just, I was never cringing. I was never actively angry like I was when I saw the first one. Like I resent that I have to watch this. Stuart, you mentioned having a petty complaint. I have my own, by the way. I love petty complaints.

I'm in search of an answer to this question. Why is this called the Super Mario Galaxy movie? Yeah. I mean, it includes elements from Mario Galaxy, and I understand Rosaline is a big character, and there's the whole gravity mechanic from the game implemented into the movie in certain scenes. But why Mario Galaxy?

Mario Galaxy is a 19-19. year old game and there are newer games and I guess it is now a classic much like Super Mario Brothers was a classic when we were watching the 93 Mario movie but it just it feels like they had to name it something and that that game had the most like players or the most the re-releases came out maybe Odyssey was a little too stale at that point when they were thinking of like what can this movie be called because there's lots of Odyssey stuff in this movie too. I mean yeah there's a lot of sunshine stuff in this movie. It's a Super Mario Sunshine Odyssey

Galaxy 2, Brothers 2 it's just a mishmash a smoker sport New Super Mario Brothers when Bowser becomes a horrible

skeleton zombie Oh my God I can't believe that I was surprised they actually went for that I was happy Delighted and surprised Movies should traumatize children

And now children know Have it in their heads that like Bowser's flesh Was melted off his body And he was his shambling skeleton And you have to live with this

for the rest of your lives Mario is fucking murdered him Mario murder In front of Bowser He's self-defense Self defense, self-defense, man. He cut that bridge in self-defense. Bowser was coming right at him.

It's a castle doctrine here. Yeah, movies should traumatize children. They should also give them fetishes eventually. They gooped one of the princesses with the paint. And I went, oh, no. I know what you're doing to the kids. Oh, no. And Fox McLeod is here.

And they, hey, and they inflated Yoshi. And they inflated Yoshi. And they inflated Yoshi. Also, big small. I lanshated that, though. Oh, yeah. Giants and tiny combo. Yes.

Peach got big and threatened a guy. Yeah. Oh, she does step on somebody, doesn't she? She does step on somebody. Wherever there's Fox McLeod, there's Crystal right around the corner. And that's the gateway for a lot of people. You know, that's the, you know, that's the, that's the, that's the fairy gateway, crystal. Just Fox McLeod, because, like, yeah, Fox is enough.

Yeah, Fox is enough. And, like, we had Robin Hood from the Disney Robin Hood. That was our hot fox growing up. and now the kids have their own hot fox growing up. I honestly feel like I'm learning a lot about myself through this podcast. Now, I want to talk about something that didn't make sense to my wife who was with me.

She plays lots of video games. She's not into Mario. But when Bowser is small, in order to goad Mario into transforming him back, he gets Mario to hit him. And I guess she didn't understand that. And I had to explain, well, you see, Bowser is under the effects of the mushroom that shrinks you.

So if he gets hit, he'll return back to normal Bowser. So that was like an essential plot element that was lost on her because she did not play some of the worst Mario games ever, which are the new Mario games. I really liked that. I really liked that bit as far as a thing to like alienate audiences. I kind of like that they're like, well, hey,

we all know the rules of Mario games. And like they don't really, they explain power-ups so much in the first movie. Then in this movie, like, they just as a joke, Mario takes damage and he loses firepower, which you know as a gamer, but yes, when Bowser, when it was such a plot point, Bowser's like, you have to hit me so I leave this. But then I was asking a little plot question myself too, like, okay, Bowser, how about self-haw? That's what I was thinking. Show us the attempted suicide scene.

You're already melting his flesh off. I mean, come on. So if, like, Firing Mario punches himself in the face, he'll lose his firepower. I don't, does that work? I don't know. You're telling me that Bowser never stubbed his toe or nothing in that, He got his tail caught the door and didn't turn big. What I've got to say, fascinating enough.

It doesn't have to be damage inflicted by a Mario brother. Honestly, I never clocked that that's why he wanted him to hit him. I must have glazed over or something. But this is actually a revelation to me. And now I like this movie even more than I did. You probably assumed it was another fetish, Stuart. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's why I watched any movie, just like, okay, what's going to awaken in this one?

The only reason I remembered where this, the shrunken down state originated is because it's my least favorite power-up in any Mario game. It stinks. And I hate that game so much. I think they didn't even put it into the future New Super Mario Brothers games. If you wanted to get every, like, flagpole in New Super Mario Bros. You had to do that mini-mushroom bullshit. Like, yeah, I was not a fan of the mini-mushroom either, at the new, at least in the DS1.

I think maybe they used it a little better in others. Bob, have you considered liking the New Super Mario Bros. series like me. It's been a struggle for the last now 20 years to enjoy that series. I, you know what? I respect your opinion. You don't have to respect mine. It's fine. I refuse, but we have to work together, Stuart. Stick a star is my favorite.

We got Bob to like the new Mari Brothers movie. I think that's enough for now. I think we should just like take our credit for something good happens. Yes, but baby steps. I'm just so winded, that's all. So the plot in this movie, we've talked about how there really isn't one. I guess

You can kind of describe what happens in a few sentences, but I saw this movie on Saturday. It is now Wednesday. And I thought, well, I'm a little fuzzy on things. I'll just read the Wikipedia summary as I normally do to just refresh myself before a podcast. Reddit and I thought, okay, I still forget everything. So is that a problem or is this really a movie to be enjoyed in the moment? And like all great art, to take nothing with you when you leave. Stewart compared it to a hamburger earlier.

I think it's cotton candy in that it, literally disappears inside your mouth and you enjoy it for a second and then it's gone. And that's mostly how I took it. A hamburger top with cotton candy. A simple, oh, that sounds nice. I mean, a simple plot explanation, I guess, I would summarize it as Rosalina gets kidnapped and they need to, by Bowser Jr. And they need to find her. And the team splits up and reconnects together after Bowser gives them the hint of where to find them.

and it all is a confrontation on the Bowser Jr. Planet and they save Rosalina. And Peach has motivation to do this because she wants to learn about her past because she doesn't know where she came from. And that turns out to be her sister. And she just kind of like has a urge to do this and follow up on this. This nice little Luma asked her to save Mommy. Yeah. After the movie was up with that revelation, when the movie was over, I happened to run into like a Nintendo localizer I know who, happened to be at that screening.

I did not plan on this. And I even asked them, I was like, wait, Rosalina is like, I'm not misremembering this, right? Rosalelyne is just like a space god as opposed to Peach who is like a mortal. There's never been hints of them being sisters before in any games. And the localizer agreed with me on that. But Drew, you're also quite a researcher on this stuff. So that was the idea. The reason that she has Peach's face is that she was going to be introduced as like a relative

of Peach, not necessarily. necessarily a sister, but some sort of relative of a peach. And, like, I had an argument with someone that were like, all the princess look the same. I'm like, no, Daisy has a different face. It's a very complicated thing. But, like, they're designed to look almost identical with their facial features.

And then Nintendo just never delivered on this. I assume because Miyamoto just doesn't love adding canon to it. It's just like this other woman is from space. She's not really a princess at all. She just sort of looks like one. She's here now. And that's it. That's all you need, which is exactly the spirit,

which this movie is presented. It just wanted to confirm this bit of rejected background or that was never in the games at all. The plot such as it is, like it's just the barest excuse to keep moving forward. And as I said, for me, that benefits the film tremendously. And there's no, okay, stop, we need to resolve this.

We need to address this emotional thing that we brought up. There is no emotional thing in this movie at all. And for me, if someone says, oh, I didn't like that. I get that. I do understand why. that would make the movie worse for you. But for someone who just wants to be entertained and pandered to successfully, I didn't really need much story.

It didn't have much story. That elevated the proceedings for me. I had a good time, you know. I feel like part of the thing that makes this movie story feel oomfless, I guess, is that they don't have a really low low during it. Like, they get inconvenience once or twice. and then it gets solved pretty much immediately. And there's even stuff that happens where I'm just like,

why did, okay, why did we even have a roadblock here? It gets immediately solved. Like, you know, they go to the bee kingdom and the bees are like, Bowser stays outside. He's scary. And then five minutes later, he just comes in and solves the problem. And then they go away. And then he has to deal with the problem.

And then the problem gets solved for him immediately too. So it's like, why do we do any of that? He's in prison for 40 seconds. Yeah, there's no actual low point for him. And like, there's like the, oh, actually the marriage. Mario and his friends are kind of okay guys. Don't kill them. You know what?

Actually, fuck those guys. It's very like, okay, it doesn't matter. Let's just move on. Let's just move on. When Stewart was saying that, like, he understands how it bothers you if you're hung up on the fact that there are legitimately no character arcs. And I do say that, not just to be a jerk,

but say, like, I actually think no one really has a true arc in this movie at all. And that is daring by some standards. And, like, really annoying by my English major brain standards, because I want characters to be transformed by the journey they're on, and that literally does not happen. But I did run into people who were like, no, there is. I was like, give me an example.

Someone on a Discord was like, I'm going to make a list of all the character arcs in this movie. I'm like, great, you're done. You already did it because there is zero, and, like, there is nothing to be listed. But he argued that, like, Bowser is someone who gets an arc. And I'm like, actually don't think he has an arc so much as he just toggles between good and evil,

depending on what benefits of the story. And that is not good, right? writing. And if that doesn't bother you, that's fine. But I was put off by people trying to be like, no, I think I think there are character arcs because I legitimately don't think there are a single one. So like, I think that like, again, like, you know, it's a, it's a symptom of not having these low points. And also like a lot of low points, what comes with that is like one-on-one conversations in like a low energy scene. And this movie has like no low energy scenes. They don't got no time to spend on that. And I think as a. result, the narrative, if you would call it, that suffers. Yeah, I totally agree. Just a few more conversations with people interacting as characters to like tell us who they are rather than just advancing the plot along, I think would have made me like this movie a lot

more. But it's just got so much in it that there was no time. Yeah. And I think this is too efficient to be emotional. You know, I want a little bit of emotional juice to it. And I feel like these are all things you should expect from a children's movie because some of the best ones have like a great three-act structure. They have set up some payoffs. They have great character arcs. I think of Toy Story as a great example. The script is like clockwork, the characters

go through like surprising and recognizable arcs from the beginning to the end of the movie. It's very satisfying in that way. And that could be why like I was feeling a bit disconnected by the end because there's nothing to latch onto. I was not that invested in what was happening or how characters were feeling. I know that sounds crazy because it's a Mario movie, but these are just things that movies have to do sometimes. I mean, Bob, even lesser Pixar movies, and I'm using lesser as a general, like, this is what people seem to think of it, not my opinion of it.

Lesser movies like Elio had that, you know. And people savaged Elio, and I saw it recently, and I thought, what's everyone's problem with this cute movie? You know, it's this cute, sweet movie that has a kind of emotional thrill line. But with Mario, I mean, Drew, I don't want to be snubbish, but, like, as soon as someone on Discord is saying they're going to write a list of things about the, the law or the themes of the Marion movie, what you do is you close the window and walk away,

I think. I don't want to have that conversation with anybody. Or you demand to see at least one degree. Like, I need at least one degree before you waste my time with this. Right. Well, I responded long enough. I'm really bad at walking away from things. I don't know how much we interact with you online, but I do like to fight. And that's probably to my detriment. Okay. Maybe I could have a massive argument about something sometime. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah. I figured out, what like the low point if we're like trying to be like Robert McKee about this is like the low point for the the heroes in the movie to me was but why it doesn't register it's when they're babies when Mario and Luigi are babies and the the R wing is broken and they're like man we're never going to get

there but because they're babies for a lot of it they can't even like feel bad or feel like they failed and then the Luma show up so soon after that like there's there's no time to interact with that but honestly if i if you could have had either a heartfelt uh longer conversation between mario and peach or the mario maker stage of bowser's suit a bowser junior's super challenging level i would have rather seen the mario maker stage so i i think the baby sequence was worth it just for the shots of uh having the babies having guns pointed at their heads essentially i mean we know that it's not going to shoot them but it's still quite funny it's like that bit in the second Sonic movie where Tails has like a sniper

dot on his forehead and is about to get his head shot off and I was like, yes, mate, kill him. I was fine with the baby sequence. I thought it was, you know, just a fun way to mix things up. But I also thought, boy, I really hated this era of Nintendo where they had to put baby characters and everything and I wonder if anyone else in the audience is feeling the same way I am. Like, thank God, this is

over. Bob, you were having like PTSD flashbacks to Yoshi's Island Diaz. No, no. Mario Kart Double Dash and partners in time and like that entire wave. Like somebody in Nintendo had a baby and they were like, this baby needs to be in everything. Are you partners in time where they're like, hey, you like doing things twice?

How about four times? For 40 hours, sure. Do you guys realize that this movie is the first introduction of Baby Toad? We've never seen Baby Toad in anything. Yes, I noticed that. I was like, really luck. Baby Toad? I hope they became D.L.C. in Mario Kart World.

He's really gross-looking. I don't care for him at all. He's my favorite character in fiction. Here's the question, Stuart. If they add D.L.C. to Mario Kart World. Will anyone know? My guess is no. yeah the DLC is released then nobody buys it is it still content

I the you know the Galaxy name too Bob when you say yeah it really I guess it's just the brand that won out or because like Rosalina is technically the most important or is so important plot wise but yeah I'd say there's there's no more Mario Galaxy content in this than Odyssey content or even Mario Maker's sunshine like each or sunshine yeah is it like Galaxy is the game that's probably the most

revered of the 3D Mario's because you can't really call the movie Super Mario 64 movie it would be weird. Well, I think it's more literal than this. I think it's just they go to space, let's call it galaxy. They're mostly in space, let's call it galaxy. There's an Odyssey script that probably exists in someone's brain

that is not going to space. It's just going in a long journey that's like more landbound. And I can see them doing that from the very one. They're more Homeric. They already opened up the multiverse with Star Fox saying that he's from another universe and got So you make Odyssey the multiverse movie as is law by all third movies have to be the multiverse movie now.

So I would bet that's my first guest. And the Daisy is also from another multiverse. And I think they should have just named it Mario Odyssey to piss off Christopher Nolan because I'm tired of seeing that character. It's good to Sarah Saraceland or something, right, Daisy's world. Saraceland. Saraceland. It's where word is from, right? No, he's from Subcon.

Yeah, he's from Subcon. Is the guy in the little alien guy, is he from Sarasaland? He invades Sarasaland. Oh, okay. He's from some unknown place. I have way too much information in my head, but I think also

to want to point out that I think Bob nailed it, that the third movie should be called Super Mario Resource Trough. Just dip your face into it and just pull out your favorite. That's the tagline. The third movie should just be a power point with pictures of characters and one comes up, you go, oh. I mean, that is basically what this is, if we want to get down to it. True, true.

We're talking about here. This is, the MCU, and I've been saying, like, the whole movie should just be teasers for characters that they ever pay off. Like, people would go nuts for it. They'd be like, well, who's coming next? Oh, my God, it's some guy for, I don't even know any Marvel characters anymore. So I've forgotten all of them. No, I mean, that was all of Marvel Phase 4 is just like you watch in a mid-movie.

Yes. And then at the end of it, they say like, ah, but what about Hercules or here's Harry Styles? Yeah, so on that for like two hours like, man, this is a piece of shit, but at least at the end, I'm going to see a picture of a guy I like, maybe. I literally, I saw one of the big multiverse Marvel movies completely. Like, I don't watch these. Like a friend invited me. So I was kind of like, well, I guess I'll go because I want to hang out with my friend. And like, at some point, Paul Rudd stumbles out of a van and everyone lost their shit.

And I was just like, Paul Rudd is in Marvel movies? Like, I just didn't know at all. A guy from I love you, man. He's really big now apparently, you know? Well, literally, he can turn to a giant. Jess, you're the parent who's stuck at the Mario movie being like, what is, what am I watching? What is this? Why is there a Yoshi and a Tyranos Rose Rex in the same movie?

Why is Paul Rudd small? Does he eat a mini mushroom? What's going on? Imagine not knowing anything about Mario and seeing this. It would be like hell, wouldn't it? It would just be a torturous experience of nothing to latch onto whatsoever. The critics, you're talking about the critics. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

I guess that's why, but as a fan, it's everything that you could ever want from cinema. It's weird that a critic would think that Mario is for children because, as we all know, it's for adults. These are not toys. We're justifying everything we're doing. But also, Mario has been around for 40 years. There's a little logo at the beginning of the movie to remind you of this. So, like, if you are 50, you grew up with Mario in your life. So I don't understand this idea that, like, who are these things?

What the hell? Yeah, like, where have you been that the cultural osmosis hasn't hit you? slightly on this. Yeah, having Wart and Mouser and Berto in the movie, that's for 50-year-olds. Yeah. I think he had a club grip.

Yeah. We were shaking our walkers in the air triumphantly. But there was no fry guy, so I threw my phone at the screen. I was furious. I did really like, I'm glad Drew did it. I, my backup intro was to say that Wart was hot, but I did

like, I did like Wart with his I also like that he got beaten When he got beaten He had a friggin' turnip in his mouth Eventually he hates vegetables I love that Yeah let's dig more into the cameos In the people playing these characters

Now I don't feel like I'm jaded But I was honestly expecting deeper cuts But then you know I hear the regular well adjusted people behind me Who are screaming about seeing these characters Who they probably have not seen in decades So I'm thinking well I'm the weird one here But I did generally enjoy the Mario 2 crew

And Rob and Pickman But I honestly honestly was surprised that I didn't see anything that really took me by surprise to be a little repetitive. Just like, oh, they dug out this guy like wild gunman or something like that. I would argue that Mr. Gaman Watch is a bit of a deep car. I know he's in Smash Brothers, but it's not, you know, it's, it's, it was not expected. I did not expect Mr. Gaming watch the Thunuch to turn up, you know. Foreman Spike in the first movie is much deeper cut than we got from anything in this movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You're totally right about that, true. I, yeah, I did like the, the, the walking by the pickman and go like, ooh, look at that. And then we, we, we, we don't. We don't. We don't. We don't. don't see them again. I was I was kind of hoping

to see Olamar, but I did also like that, I mean, I wanted a burdo line too, but I like that Wart in the, in universe is like a small time boss compared to Bowser and Bowser Jr. Like he's not, he's not

their equal. He's, he's a secondary dude. And also, this didn't have one, I would have predicted some sort of hint towards Zelda stuff, because it's Miyamoto's baby as well, but there wasn't even, I didn't see like one hint of a rupee in this.

Any even like funny, no, think about that is I feel like Miyamoto wants to keep those universes separate and he only crossed the streams when the Wii was failing and he was like, okay, Zelda's in Mario Kart now or Lynx and Mario Kart, have fun. This is the only time I'm going to let it happen. Well, I can't let them a secret which is that at one point, one of the

Gumbas in this movie is actually the Gumba from Link's Awakening. Oh. I got excited. I thought you were going to say one of the Gumbas from the 1993 movie. I was like, I missed them in the background. Oh, no.

So the gun that turns people into babies is a nod to the de-evolution way. It's the superscope. It's always the superscope, though. Yeah, but the fact that

like Mario and Luigi get devolved into their babies. Yeah. That's true. The super scope is in this movie, but it's painted an odd color. And I feel like, could they not get the rights

to use the superscope? What's going on here? But I think they didn't want to just pull out. the actual toy for the characters to play with. I suppose even for them that would be a bit much. I also, my Mario 93 cents

was like just really on. I wanted to see any acknowledgement. I know Miyamoto hates that thing. It's never ever going to get acknowledged. And I was like maybe some illumination person slipped in a little reference somewhere in the background. But I was, when Yoshi was going to the Museum of Natural History and there was like a big T-Rex dinosaur part of me was just like,

are they going to like sort of reference the movie from 93? No, of course not. What are you doing? I did like the, you know, I want to shout out the two actors we haven't talked about. I was like, technically Bree Larson is in this movie. I don't think about her as a voice. I think she barely talks in it, but she's, she's all right. I also have to credit her and Donald Glover for being the best gamers who have been doing at doing the press tour of at least pretending to be gamers and knowing things.

Like, I mean, Donald Glover is the best at it. Like I watched him just name sound effects. Like they played for him in one of the interviews. I forget the outlet. They played just Mario game music for him, Charlie Day and Chris Pratt. He's the only one who could name all these characters. Like, yeah, that's the penguin race from Mario 64. He is a childish Gambino.

Let's not forget it. It's very important to me that the actors know things about Mario. I can sense when they can't. We all recall Chris Pratt saying, I love stomping. Gumbas. I wish he. said that in the actual movie, that would be very funny. I feel like, I mean,

to criticize something about the movie, rather than the gushing love I've been giving it so far, I mean, Chris Pratt, I mean, we all know that Chris Pat sucks, but in this movie, it's like, it's not anything. He barely performs. It's the most phoned in shit I've ever heard.

I mean, it doesn't matter because there's no script or story, but he's so boring and has no, like, presence whatsoever. He doesn't bring anything. thing to the table. And you could point at the story and go, there's no need to. There's nothing, but he's not funny. He doesn't have any funny lines whatsoever. You know, there's barely any, like, heroic lines whatsoever. It's just like, why even get him? Just get Charles Martinet back for Christ's sake, you know? I don't know, non-verbal Mario. I didn't notice Chris Pratt,

like in the first movie, there was points where I was taken out of the experience of the drama by Chris Pratt sucking, but that actually didn't happen to me this time. I didn't think about it. Yeah, that said, now, that's a good point, actually. The less Chris Pratt there is in the movie, the better than movie probably is. It's kind of like an unremarkable performance that kind of, I guess they could have slotted any Hollywood leading man into, but it's him. And I don't think of him when to hear the voice, which is nice. Yeah, true, true. I thought Brie Larson and Anna Taylor Joy should have been swapped because Anna Taylor Joy is a naturally cold, seeming character that isn't really right for Peach.

And Larson was a little too bright for Rosalina. but also I have to assume these are different versions of Rosaline and Peach than we get in the games. But I do think that they both would have done better in the opposite role. And I thought Betty Safty did a fine job as Bowser Jr. I think he actually his drive to kill in it and his want for his father's love. I think him and Jack Black have have nice little chemistry as his father and son, though they also make sure to not.

They don't even broach the topic of so your mom is who? Like they don't even make it a joke. I mean, I was really surprised by that. They also never made a joke about like Yoshi's egg stuff being poop. They, there was one, when he eats KMAC and the camera angle is on Yoshi that have like, okay, if this doesn't cut in a half second, we're seeing him lay the egg from the angle of seeing it exit his body. It then cut to the egg flying off screen. I was like, okay, shoo, I was, I was worried we were going to actually, in a short one. Shrek movie in a dreamer movie?

Yeah. Another actor of Rank Caledus from the film. You're not getting Yoshi Cloaca with that G rating. I'm sorry. That's what it's called. I want to move on to a final question here. What do we want from the sequel? And I will say that I guess they would kind of have to make this

sort of movie again. And I might be a little bit exhausted by seeing another one of these, even though this feels like the ideal form of a Mario movie. But I will say I'm kind of tired of living through the Bowser Jr. Rehabilitation project. and I say a movie three opens with his execution and then in come the Kupilings and they're all great and they all have celebrity voices

and we love them and I just want to see that on the screen. That is my idea for the Super Mario Brothers three movie coming in 2009. Melissa McCarthy is Wendy Coopold. Oh yeah, it's happening. She'll sink that low by 2020. I'm going to jump off of the Odyssey branding thing I said before. They're like, it's going to be a multiverse so then

they can have a paper Mario universe that they can pop into voiced by a different guy. They can go into a Lego Mario universe briefly. Honestly, the point is to have soft pilots for potentially spin-off films with

specific their own cast of stuff in the paper, Lego and other universes. And then it does open the doorway or however you would say it in the Smash Brothers tone, but to join the fight, it's

sets up a smash brother's movie. The only reason I think they wouldn't do a smash brothers movie is if Miyamoto truly hates Smash Brothers and hates Peach has hated Peach punching Mario and Mario punching Peach for 30 years now and refuses to do it for that reason. That's the only reason I think. I feel like they

so pointedly avoided doing the place setting for like other movies and other franchises or whatever. What I want from the sequel, honestly, just do this again. Like just for Christ's sake, Don't try and make it into something meaningful because it's not going to work.

Just do this again with different fan service. Like, that is all in one or expect, you know. The Sonic movies figured it out. The Mario movie seems now have figured it out. So just do this again, please. I would say, Wario. Add Wario, make Bowser team up with Mario and Luigi because Wario is a bigger threat for some reason. The only reason I think that Wario might be a tricky one is that I have it in my head that

Miyamoto hates Wall Luigi. and I think Mila Mota would be like I don't want that stinker in my movie like you can't I don't keep him out Maybe the introduction of Daisy in introducing the concept of the Gamebo games They are actually going to do Wario takes over the castle We have to go and jump on Mario three times

Let's go Yeah I mean I want Wario Everyone wants Warrior is the best character in the franchise We want Mario we want Danny DeVito as Wario So it'd be Danny DeVito and Charlie Day Because let's remind everybody out there Danny DeVito did not play Detective Pikachu Ryan freaking Reynolds did

And that is still a sin against humanity. Also, Danny DeVito was one of the first people who was approached to play Mario when they were trying to make this with Dustin Hoffman. And the fact that that didn't happen is something that this third movie by having him play Wario could finally like sort of make happen, you know? I hate to say this guys, but they're not going to gamble on the, you know, entering his 80s, Danny DeVito being available to be Wario for 20 years of movies. He will never die. How dare you? How dare you? I don't. I'm not. putting this on David either. I'm talking like a Hollywood executive. That's why it's going to be like one of the cast members of the bear. That's who it's going to be.

DeVito means de life. So Henry is currently betting on DeVito's death on Polly Market, is what we're learning. Yeah. I think, no, I, uh, Wario, Wario would be a great choice. So, yes. It's, it's, it is the biggest character they haven't touched on yet. And they would allow them to indulge in a lot of sort of illumination style humor that the first two movies says mostly not done. for sure I agree with all of this and I want to add more Mario RPG

nods and jokes because that is like the funniest Mario game ever basically I only kind of recently played it for the first time and I was like this is funny as hell the RPGs are a very fertile place to do movie things

but the fact is I really don't think we're going to get cackoletta in the next one which is a real shame because that's probably one of my favorite Mario games I'd love to see that I'd love to see Popul and Bowser teaming up. That's just, it's a pipe dream for me. A warp pipe dream.

Well, to wrap up here, we're generally pretty positive about the movie. I want to know from everybody, how do you think this ranks against the existing three Mario movies, the 86 anime movie, the 93 live action movie, and the 2023 animated movie. And after we're watching that anime movie for Retronauts, that was my number one. Despite how, like, ephemeral it is or frivolous it is, I thought like, well, it's just Mario doing Mario stuff and I like the 80s anime aesthetic and now I feel like Mario Galaxy movie and that anime movie

are tied for number one to me because they're both kind of doing the same thing and of course Mario Galaxy has a lot more money and a lot more time so I feel like that's kind of my ideal Mario movie and my ideal Mario movie can never be higher than a three out of five. They're just simply you can't go beyond that.

I don't know what you could do. I mean you know prove me wrong Hollywood but that is my ranking. Let's go around I want to know how you guys think about this movie compared to the other Mario films. Let's go to Drew. The anime. The anime is number one.

Thank you for inviting me back to talk about that one because I was reminded how much I do like that movie. And also I like that it is less than an hour long. That helps. I got stuff to do, you know? Stuart, how about you? I mean, I have to admit, I haven't seen the Mario anime, but I kind of want to now. You should. So maybe after this, I might throw it on.

But for me, I swear to Christ, I'm not being contrarian. Okay. I mean, as an exhibition of filmmaking craft, the 1993 movie towers above anything. Like, yes, it's incredibly insane, but, like, it's got something. It's got vibes. It looks incredible. It's got that 90s, like, sheen to it. I don't know.

So that's still at the top for me because it registers as an actual film. When we go below the film line into the slop line, and I mean that in a positive way here, okay, to the pantering stuff. I mean, Mario Galaxy is right there. Like it's the pinnacle of the trough fun. This is like high grade Tesco finest trough swap. It's exactly the way that you do something like this. And I just hope that they don't look at the criticisms and go, oh yeah, we need to put some more story in this.

Just don't listen to them. Just don't listen to them. Listen to me. Everyone should just do as I say all the time. It would make my life so easy. It would be a better world, I think, Stuart. Jess, how about you? So I also haven't seen the anime, and I'm now intrigued by everyone's glowing review of it.

And also, Samus Stewart, 93 Mario movie is just too close to my heart. I'm too biased. I'm too nostalgic for it. But also, it is more of a movie-type, movie-ass movie. And the production is just too fabulous. I just really love every little prop and background and every little inch of that movie is such a delight to look at and listen to. and then like you know Mario Galaxy pretty damn pretty damn fine

I gotta say and the first movie can go to hell stay there I agree have you seen like the Morton Janko cut of the Mario 93 movie like the X oh yeah just wanted to make sure of course of course I didn't mean to condescend of course you've seen it yeah I got the like the weird box thing that has like the huge production book with all the production skills I have on my fridge I have on my fridge a magnet that has a frame of the movie

in it from having like kickstarted whatever the hell that thing is. Now, listeners can't see this, but Henry is reaching into a treasure chest of Blu-rays in, I think he's still fruitlessly searching for this Mario 4K, but we believe...

Maybe he has three DVDs. What Henry doesn't know is that they snuck into that room earlier today and I stole it. Henry's search for the 4K has ended in failure. I couldn't find it. I thought I have the mid range, the mid-range collectible 4K box of the Mario 93. I was going to ask like, oh, which frame of the movie did you get?

But, oh, you're not as hardcore as me. I got the title. Oh, that rocks. That rocks. Oh, my God. It's like they knew I was an influencer or something. I don't know. Well, Henry, you clearly own a very expensive version of the 93 movie.

How do you think this one ranks against the other Mario movies? Well, that is, I was also going to pull it out to also then, and give the back ground to again i i have nostalgia from the 93 movie as well like i i saw it in theaters and i didn't like it then as a kid i did not like the 93 if i'm giving out technical awards to the 93 movie it gets all the technical awards but an amazing like achievement in like uh set design and all that but it still bores me i given it many chances me and bob did a commentary for it for retronauts a few years back and i'm just like god i cannot this bores the shit out of me in this movie but so that said no offense to people who like it it's uh it does hurt the mario movie of 932 that i saw it

i think within a month of seeing Jurassic Park oh wow you don't want that you can't compare these dinosaurs to each other so this movie actually i now having just seen the anime movie too for this podcast uh which has a lot of warm fuzzy neat stuff in it too it's close but i actually do think this is like the marioist mario movie it's I like that it goes more in the action comedy instead of comedy action zone. I think they need to all of the action is great when they go to places. It just looks like the stages from Mario. I like all the planetroids and stuff.

This feels like the Marioist Mario movie I've seen. I think maybe I should up my thing to two and a half or something. I don't know. But I will rank this as currently, maybe it's the glow of recency bias. But this is my current. ranked number one Mario movie then anime then you know what I'll say 93 for the technical reasons I said then the Mario Brothers movie yes well yes I cannot what a turnaround honestly well I cannot believe how much I enjoyed this I felt physically sick afterwards that it was

it was I had to eat shit on blue sky because I said so much I talked so much crap about this before it came out and then I was like you know what I cannot tell a lie I enjoyed myself I think... I actually do. They make me really upset. That's so British. I think our listeners will be pleasantly surprised

by a conversation here. I'm sure a lot of people are hitting play with dread, getting ready to toss their phones into a bog in pure rage. But we hope we gave a very fair assessment of this movie.

And this has been Retronauts, by the way. I've been your host for this one, Bob Mackey. And if you want to support the show and get all these episodes ad-free. And in advance,

go to patreon. dot com slash retronauts and sign up there and you also at the $5 level will get a two bonus episodes every month and we've been doing this since the beginning of 2020 so there are now I believe like five or six complete years of exclusive episodes of retronauts I think we're at least over 100 so if you enjoy our show there's a ton of episodes you haven't heard full-length episodes about great topics like this behind that paywall at patreon.com slash retronauts and that $5 level also gets you regular columns and podcast by Diamond Fight so yes we really appreciate you. appreciate your support. It is a fan-supported show. We love talking about fun topics like this for

you at patreon.com slash retronauts. That is it for plugs for this show. Let's go around the Zencaster room and find out where we can find everyone online and what they're working on. Let's start with Drew, Drew Mackey. Unrelated. Unrelated, I spell it the other way. Drew G. Mackie, M-A-C-I-E on Blue Sky, and I run a website called Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games. And if you want to get into Mario Manusia, this is a great place for you to be At the top of the stack right now, I have a piece on the structural similarities, not only between Rain Man and the 93 Mario Brothers movie, but also the 1989 movie The Wizard, which has a lot more in common with Rain Man and the Mario movie than you expect. It's a weird, sort of coincidental thing that I was really proud of.

And also, I have Bob an article about Luigi's Evolution, which I actually am working on and might get up later this week, that came up during the anime discussion. Cool, cool. And there's a link to Drew's blog in the podcast description. Let's move on to Stuart. Yeah, I'm on Retronauts a lot. I'm one of the Retronauts guys, and I'm Stuart Jop on Blue Sky. I mostly just post pictures of my webcomics, so maybe don't follow me. It's not going to be about video games, really.

And I got a book called All Games Are Good, and I'm working on a bunch of other books, way too many, and I'm completely one to a nub now and might be dead by the time of this episode. So I look forward to that. And Jess, A.K. Voidberger. Where couldn't find you? Hello, I'm Jess. O'Brien, with Voidberger in the middle. sometimes. But yeah, I'm Voidberger.com on Blue Sky. Also, if you go to Voidberger.com, that's a link tree with all my links on it. I'm a streamer. I'll do YouTube videos. I'm currently making a autopsy of the most recent very, very bad Silent Hill movie, return to Silent Hill. And it's a

doozy. It's already clocking in at like an hour. It's a lot of work. And it's, it's, I'm purging so much, so much evil for me. by doing this. But it's been great working on it. I'm looking forward to it. Can't we? And Henry, I work on things with you. Yes. When I'm not failing to find my copy of Mario Brothers on 4K, I often record podcasts with Bob Mackie on the Talking Simpsons Network, where we cover The Simpsons and a bunch of animated series on What a Cartoon, on the Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon podcast.

We're in season 16 and six of Talking Simpsons right now. We just covered a bunch of cool. We just did our live action month on What a Cartoon and the What a Cartoon movie, where we covered. Bob did a great bunch of research on Married with Children. And we're just about to do the TMNT2, The Secret of the Ouse, as our movie. So if you like all the movie discussion we had on here, check that out. And yeah, we have so many cool podcasts that are all brought to you by Patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons,

where we have a ton of bonuses where we talk about Futurama and King of the Hill and a ton of movies on there too. So check it out at patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And I am Talking Henry on both Instagram and Blue Sky. And once again, I am Bob Mackie. You can find me on Blue Sky in Letterbox as Bob Servo. And that is it for this episode of Retronaut. We'll see you again very soon. And also in three to five years as we cover the next movie.

And we'll see you then.