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Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (Finished) Octopath Traveler 2 (Finished) Sea of Stars / The Messenger (Finished) Dragon Ball Daima (Finished) Ranma 1/2 (2024) The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy - Navigation Menu
Okay, I need to complain about Super Mario Galaxy some more. Its handling of Rosalina and Peach were my immediate kneejerk thoughts but after digesting it a bit more, I have issues with Mario and Bowser too.
First, the obvious. The film presents Mario more like a Chris Pratt character than like Mario. Mario's cynical and catty now.
Bowser's first scene reintroduces his feelings for Peach not because Peach is in any way relevant to Bowser's character arc but to set up Mario's romance with Peach by way of having Mario and Bowser bicker over her.
Mario is callous, mean, and dismissive towards Bowser throughout the first act of the film, and it's indicated that this is partly because Bowser is a villain whose reformation he doesn't trust but also partly due to possessive feelings towards Peach, who Bowser openly desires. It's a combination of two sentiments.
-> Bowser is a vile scumbag piece of shit worth less than the bottom of my shoe, and he doesn't deserve a chance at any sort of life beyond the inside of a jail cell. -> And he's making moves on MY WOMAN.
None of which really feels true to Mario as a character. It feels like some hypothetical Legend of Neil version of Mario. Dudebro Parody Mario.
Mario is so unrecognizable in this film that there is actually a joke in the movie where Mario meets Fox for the first time and there's a moment of suspense before Mario is like "Oh, he's a cool guy!" Why is that moment of suspense there? Because the audience is supposed to expect Mario to just hate him on sight.
It's actually treated like a subversion of expectations when Mario sees Fox in the proximity of Peach and doesn't decide to be pointlessly shitty to him.
That is the character they have written.
Which is only made weirder by Bowser's bizarre character arc throughout the film. It's a shocking twist when Bowser genuinely, sincerely turns good.
He actually has turned over a new leaf! He does want to work on himself and stop being such a violent menace, but the constant negative reinforcement from Mario being such a mean-spirited and weirdly possessive piece of shit keeps triggering him into backsliding.
This culminates in Bowser provoking Mario into hitting him, which deactivates the Shrink Mushroom power-up and returns him to normal size, only for him to then reveal his genuine and sincere reformation despite Mario's aggression. He goes on to sacrifice himself for the bros, selling himself into slavery so that they can go help Peach.
...and then Bowser Jr. picks him up and it's a second, separate shocking twist when Bowser genuinely, sincerely turns evil. For love of his son, Bowser abandons his newfound goodness and returns to being the villain for the film.
...movie, what are you doing? What is accomplished by this complete circle of a character arc?
I mean. I know what's accomplished. Jack Black gets to riff onscreen for an hour.
But. Like. It's so weird how they made Bowser a genuine good guy just to make Pratt's Mario look even more like a mean-spirited asshole only to then turn around and have Bowser become the villain again anyway.
What a weird movie.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2102 - An Ending That's All Our Own
Day 7. We're just about finished with today and ready to head to bed.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2101 - Just for Spite
Day 7. End of the road for Murvrum.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2100 - We Should Try Violence
Day 7. V'ehxness has joined the party and everything is proceeding as usual.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2099 - The Cloak
Day 7. The battle is on and it's going about as well as usual.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2098 - It's Cute That They're Bonding
Day 7. They're here. Only one thing to do now.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2097 - Rated M
Day 7. We've fulfilled the letter of the message but not its spirit and now we're back! Write your notes better, mystery horror! We're a bunch of pedantic fucksticks!
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2096 - The Fujoshi Demographic
Day 7. We're back and we've retrieved the 2LDA crew. So I guess we head back now?
Like, it's honestly wild to me that Rosalina does not get to do anything in this entire movie past the first like ten minutes or so.
Like. The central plot thread is about Bowser and Peach's family connections. Bowser Jr. kidnaps Rosalina as part of an intricate plot, and this puts Bowser and Peach on a path to reunite with Junior and Rosalina, both having to explore their family dramas which are pitted directly against each other for the fate of the universe.
And at no point is Rosalina or her relationship to Peach relevant to the third act climax.
The first Super Mario Bros. movie was about Mario and Luigi discovering where they belong, coming into their own, and making their families proud of the. This then drives the third act of the film, where Mario and Luigi become the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom, defeat Bowser, and earn the love and acceptance of both New York and the Mushroom Kingdom.
Peach and Rosalina's bond in Galaxy drives nothing besides Peach's own determination to save Rosalina, which she already had before she even found out they were sisters. You could remove that plot point entirely and just have Peach break Rosalina out of her cage by hitting it with a crowbar, and the only character who would be affected by its loss is Peach.
Bowser and Bowser Jr. get to come into their own as father and son for the third act, but the film pits Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi against them because Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi are the characters who fight Bowser in the video games.
Then they win by beating him up with violence because Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi are the characters who beat up Bowser in the video games.
There's no real meaning to Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi's part of this fight. They have no story here. They have no connection to the elements driving the plot. They're the heroes because they're the character that are supposed to be the heroes; This story isn't actually about them. It's about Bowser, Bowser Jr., Peach, and Rosalina.
But Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi are the ones who defeat Bowser and Bowser Jr. with absolutely no involvement from Peach and Rosalina. Then Peach and Rosalina get their own separate bottle conclusion where they work together to resolve Rosalina's fate after the villains have already been vanquished and the day is already saved. Which they do by high fiving each other through some glass.
You couldn't, I don't know, have them high five each other through glass before the battle is resolved and then show up as the eleventh hour miracle that turns the tide? No? Gotta make sure the boys' big epic fight scene isn't ruined by the presence of some estrogen? Okay, movie.
Super Mario Galaxy also has this weird thing where Peach keeps getting de-emphasized whenever Mario's around.
Like, Peach has some stuff here. They made a whole sidequest and boss fight for Peach to fight in the middle part of the film. She's not just sidelined for the whole movie.
But it was hard not to notice the way she just sort of stopped mattering once the team reunited.
Just watched Super Mario Galaxy and that, uh. That sure was something.
It feels less like a movie and more like a self-imposed challenge to cram in as many continuity references as possible. The references-per-minute meter is off the charts.
Consequently, the main experience of watching the film isn't really following the characters or the plot or being invested in anything happening. It's seeing how many things you can recognize.
There's an attempt to squeeze in a theme about familial bonds but it doesn't really have anything to say about family. Just... family sure is family. Those families sure love each other, yes, they do.
Mostly what it has to say is "LOOK AT ALL THE DIFFERENT MARIO GAMES I'VE PLAYED!!!" Every single thing Mario has ever appeared in is squeezed into this film, like they weren't sure they were going to get another movie so they wanted to adapt about ten different movies' worth of content at once.
It's like watching an Abridged Series of Mario's entire game library.
I can see why this didn't do as well as the first movie at the box office because while the first movie had a lot of references too, this one just is references. It's References: The Movie.
But at the same time, I can also see why this still nonetheless made over a billion dollars because it's still a really fun watch all the same.
Fun bit of DC Trivia: In the DC multiverse, it's canon that the events of one universe can bleed into another, appearing as people's dreams, and from there inspire media. The reason for this is because when they rebooted The Flash, they decided to make the new guy, Barry Allen, be a fan of the first one's comics, and needed to adress it during the first team up. At no point do they adress the fact that Batman and Superman have the same ID in both universes.
It's been a long time so I don't remember the details well, but I remember the cartoon Static Shock had an episode where the characters referenced reading Batman comics which became really awkward later when the show became canonized to the DCAU, and characters like Batman started crossing over into it.
Superheroes having comics in-universe is always awkward in general. Marvel has all of their comics exist in-universe, and the fact that these comics would have to be very different to avoid giving away the characters' secret identities is just sorta ignored.
Additional fun fact, this time from Marvel: At one point, Captain America had his own secret identity and civilian career. He was a Comic Artist, and drew the in-universe comic starring Captain America.
Is that better or worse than Spider-Man selling selfies to a tabloid so that they can publicly slander him?
A thing he was doing for so long that one imagines it must be some kind of humiliation fetish.
Do you think Frieza DOES anything with his money or are do most of his funds that don't go toward maintaining his empire just sat on like a dragon's pile of gold or something?
Considering the behavior of real-world billionaires, I'm leaning towards the Scrooge McDuck money bin.
I think I'd replace Kako with Shouma in the Second-To-Last Defense Academy line up. His powers are specced for Defense so he'd be a long lasting distraction, and the lack of Kako around could be used to motivate Ima into action in the name of protecting her, whilst with her present he'd be trying to keep her out of the fight and thus staying out of it himself.
Yeah, I could see that.
I picked that lineup for expendability moreso than tactical considerations. If we're to take what was established with the Distress Signal Transmitter at face value, then the ultimate intention of the 2LDA crew is to last as long as they can before they die and are forgotten.
With that in mind, 2LDA should be staffed by the people for whom, if they died tomorrow, the LDA's ability to weather whatever the war can throw at them would not be adversely affected in any way. The people whose contribution to the mission can best be summarized as "A warm body to fill the roster."
As opposed to, say, Tsubasa whose technical acumen is of vital importance to the academy, Shouma who's a hard counter to Parmith, Kurara whose engineering expertise allows her to build weapons and serve as a hard counter to Quenzelle, or Hiruko, Yugamu, Kyoshika, and Moko, the only members of this combat squad with actual combat training and/or experience.
...though it occurs to me now that Kako is also a hard counter to Eva, so she's not expendable.
Also, Eito and Takumi can both qualify for the "warm body" category, come to think of it. Takumi only becomes important because of his time travel; For the duration of Route 0, he's absolutely just another guy in the ranks.
Yeah, I vote we send Eito to die and bring Kako back.
Fun bit of DC Trivia: In the DC multiverse, it's canon that the events of one universe can bleed into another, appearing as people's dreams, and from there inspire media. The reason for this is because when they rebooted The Flash, they decided to make the new guy, Barry Allen, be a fan of the first one's comics, and needed to adress it during the first team up. At no point do they adress the fact that Batman and Superman have the same ID in both universes.
It's been a long time so I don't remember the details well, but I remember the cartoon Static Shock had an episode where the characters referenced reading Batman comics which became really awkward later when the show became canonized to the DCAU, and characters like Batman started crossing over into it.
Superheroes having comics in-universe is always awkward in general. Marvel has all of their comics exist in-universe, and the fact that these comics would have to be very different to avoid giving away the characters' secret identities is just sorta ignored.
The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 2095 - Personnel Decisions
Day 6. Alright, team. You've heard the recap. Let's get a move on!
