6 Parts of the ‘Mario Galaxy Movie’ That Make No Sense

Don’t ever say I don’t love my children.

I could only get one of them into the early screening of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. So barely one week later, I was back at the theater seeing it a second time with my other daughter. I’ve only seen Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game once. But I have now seen The Super Mario Galaxy Movie twice. What a life.

I did not particularly like Mario Galaxy the first time around, but sometimes a second viewing can improve films. (Does a second viewing deepen Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game? I don’t know; I’m too busy watching Mario and Luigi ride dirt bikes to find out.)

Sadly, a return visit to the Mario brothers’ galaxy did not exactly open the text up in the way I would have hoped. Instead, it only emphasized all of the holes in the film’s story, and particularly the way it introduces plot threads and characters only to abandon them a few minutes later in its mad dash toward the end credits.

Universal

I’m going to assume these elements made sense at some point during Mario Galaxy’s development process, but through various script drafts and revisions — and the process of chopping down this movie until it was barely 90 minutes long — the parts that helped everything cohere together got cut out. Or maybe it never made sense, and I am giving the filmmakers too much credit.

After Super Mario Galaxy viewing number two, here are all the parts I’m still hung up on. But what do I know? Maybe movies don’t need to make sense if they’ve got Nintendo Easter eggs and cameos. After all, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie found room for Yoshi, Fox McCloud, and Rosalina, and it’s already grossed over $425 million in theaters.