Two things are true about the Super Mario Galaxy Movie: one is that it is proving even more popular than the first film at the box office, giving Illumination and Nintendo a license to print yet further money. The other is that it’s a very messy movie, one that leans heavily on reverent references and pointed cameos more than it does on necessarily having a particularly robust narrative.
That latter point has become a topic of debate between critics—who’ve largely been mixed on the film, even more so than its predecessor—and the legions of fans who’ve been out in droves to see the film over the past week. But if there’s perhaps one frustration in the film that should unite them, it’s the Galaxy Movie‘s approach to one of the most beloved characters from the game it takes its name from: Princess Rosalina.
Ever since she first appeared in the original Super Mario Galaxy, Rosalina has become an enduring and beloved part of the wider Mario cast, appearing again and again alongside her fellow princesses in a plethora of spin-off games. So when it was first announced that the movie sequel would take the Galaxy name—and eventually that Mario superfan Brie Larson would be playing Rosalina—there was a lot of expectation going into the new film that the character would both have a prominent role and be treated with the same kind of reverence the rest of the film had for its myriad Mario and Nintendo references.
Instead, they got a character who is not only barely a character and more of a plot device—but they also got one who is barely in the film at all.
Rosalina’s presence in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie at best amounts to about 10 minutes of its near 100-minute runtime and largely bookends the film. We meet her in the opening sequence when her observatory is attacked by Bowser Jr.; she gets to pull off some cool magical moves in a quick fight, and then she’s captured for the rest of the film, only reappearing (outside of a brief interstitial) once Peach rescues her in the climax. They have a brief reunion, and that’s it; off Rosalina goes. That’s it! She gets no major arc; Larson barely even gets more than a handful of lines that aren’t Rosalina grunting as she struggles against captivity.
Rosalina admittedly does not have a great deal of screen time in the original Mario Galaxy game, either, but it certainly never treats her as a damsel in distress to sit in captivity for most of its story. She’s a regular presence throughout the game, as her melancholy backstory is doled out bit by bit as the player progresses—a melancholy backstory that, in the movie, is largely transferred over to Peach, making the two princesses sisters in the process, giving what little emotional relevance Rosalina has to the narrative other than her needing to be rescued to a completely different character. Star Fox‘s Fox McCloud is somehow a more plot-critical and explored character in this movie than Rosalina is, which is just an absurd factoid to contemplate in a movie that already barely has much going on beyond the surface of its threadbare story.
What’s even wilder about it all is that, for all its own similar faults, the first Mario movie already proved it could avoid this tired trope when it came to Princess Peach. Time and time again in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, we’re allowed to see Peach be a strong, confident person of her own agency—it’s she who has the most knowledge about the gamified world of the Mushroom Kingdom to teach Mario how he can begin to oppose Bowser and be part of her own mission to save the kingdom from the Koopas. Even when she is captured by Bowser as part of his marriage plot, she’s allowed to fight her way to freedom instead of being rescued by Mario.
Going back to the original film after the Galaxy movie, it feels wild that the same creative team that imagined this kind of independent arc for Peach—even to some initial pushback in certain circles for not treating her like a damsel!—would then look to Rosalina for the sequel and fall back on all of those pitfalls they avoided in the first film. For her to have made a successful transfer over to the big screen in adaptation, Rosalina didn’t necessarily have to be 100% accurate to her video game self, but the fact the movie couldn’t imagine better for her than being trapped and slowly drained of a vague cosmic power for 80-odd minutes is just miserable.
But again, maybe it doesn’t matter: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is raking in coins quicker than a custom Mario Maker level, and fan satisfaction with its broader commitment to referencing the general Mario and Nintendo world is certainly overshadowing any critiques of Rosalina’s treatment. A third film is all-but-confirmed at this point, and we already know it’s going to add another princess in Daisy. Could Rosalina get a redemption arc there, or will Daisy suffer the same kind of fate she did here? Only time will tell.
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