Shigeru Miyamoto is perplexed by the negative reaction from critics to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, as he doubles down on Peach’s new origin story for future games.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie might be the highest-grossing movie of the year so far, surpassing $752 million (£556 million) worldwide, but financial success doesn’t mean you’ve made a good movie.
Much like the first film, the movie has been panned by most critics. At the time of writing, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has a score of 43% on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, which is lower than the 59% for 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The viewers’ score, however, is much higher for both, at 89% and 95%, respectively.
While many might enjoy the film’s nostalgic rush, it’s hard to argue with its fundamental flaws in the script and story department. However, Nintendo director Shigeru Miyamoto, who served as a producer on the film, seems bemused by the negativity.
Asked by Famitsu about the film’s critical reception in the West, Miyamoto said he understood some of the blowback against The Super Mario Bros. Movie, but found the reception to the sequel ‘quite baffling’.
‘Regarding the previous film, I felt that the critics’ opinions did hold some validity. However, I thought things would be different this time around – only to find that the criticism is even harsher than it was before,’ he said.
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‘It really is quite baffling: here we are – having crossed over from a different field – working hard with the specific aim of helping to revitalise the film industry, yet the very people who ought to be championing that cause seem to be the ones taking a passive stance.’
The quote may have lost some nuance in the translation, but it seems a bit naive to think a Super Mario film from the creators of Despicable Me is going to ‘revitalise the film industry’ in a way which will please critics. We enjoyed it for what it is, but It’s not exactly Oppenheimer, or even Zootopia 2.
From a financial perspective, though, it’s hard to argue that film adaptations of video games aren’t getting people to the cinema in droves. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was the second highest-grossing movie of 2023, behind Barbie, while last year’s A Minecraft Movie was the fifth-highest grossing movie of the year.
Predictably, it seems Nintendo wants to connect the lore between the movies and games in the future. In another interview with Japanese media (via Nintendo Dream Web), Miyamoto said that Peach’s origins in the Super Mario Galaxy Movie will be adhered to in future games.
‘Because we don’t always know what kind of game we’ll make next, having too many character backstories can end up restricting us,’ Miyamoto said (via machine translation). ‘I’m fine with being bound by the gameplay, but I didn’t want to be constrained by a story we’d created – this is the reason why we avoided making movies for so many years.
‘Until we made this film, then, we hadn’t decided on Peach’s origins, but now that we’ve made the movie, it’s become fun to expand on the character in various ways. Therefore, I’d like to adhere to the backstory established in the movie as much as possible in future games.’
It’s unclear how much stock to put into this, in regards to Nintendo’s future projects, but a Princess Peach game where she teams up with Rosalina (Super Peach Sisters?) could be a fun idea. We’ll just hope it’s better than Princess Peach: Showtime.
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