I was thinking about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie again. Specifically, Luigi's role in it. And I realized that while he had a lot more screentime and dialogue than in the first movie, somehow to me he seemed more sidelined here. Hear me out.
In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, he was mostly the damsel in distress but he also had a more defined character arc and when he saved Mario at the end, it really felt like his big moment, especially when followed by Mario inviting him to use the Star together. Besides, while the damsel role is often frowned upon it does make the an essential part of the plot when most of the plot is about the rescue mission, so while we can wish he had been given more agency, he never felt unimportant. Him being rescued by Mario was also a big, emotional and memorable moment in and of itself.
I enjoyed seeing more of him in the Galaxy Movie, he was funny and charming as always and I loved seeing him in action. But I also feel like ultimately, he didn't have a big role to play in the story, similarly to Yoshi. At first the movie gave him some moments that hinted at a possible character arc. Him trying to be braver yet still struggling at times, and then his friendship with Bowser and him blindly believing in his rehabilitation in opposition to Mario's skepticism. But then nothing was really done with it in a meaningful way, which to me was disappointing and a little hard to understand from the storytelling perspective.
What do you think? Do you agree with this criticism or can you see something about Luigi's role in this movie that I can't? Granted, I've only seen the movie once so far so all I'm saying is based on my first impressions lol
I think that “sidelined” is the wrong word. Sidelined means being denied participation, and Luigi was out there fighting like crazy, directly resolving story beats, and being a central figure to the lighthearted side-plot of Mario coming to terms with his own feelings for Peach.
He’s about as “sidelined” as Toad was in the first movie– perhaps even less so. The issue is that he had such a good setup for character exploration that when it gets handwaved by the writers halfway through the runtime, the empty space is more palpable.
I recognize that Galaxy’s character arcs are focused this time on Bowser and Peach rather than Mario and Luigi– but it feels like they bit off more than they were willing to chew. Princess Peach reuniting with a long-lost family member and Bowser’s redemption-then-corruption were already complicated subjects to tackle compared to the relatively simple arcs that the bros went through in the first film.
Throw in all the silly shenanigans and eye-candy action scenes, and Luigi’s emotional journey got completely lost in the shuffle.
