Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour The Super Mario Galaxy Movie About this episode The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the ultimate piece of Nintendo fan service. Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) are on an outer space adventure to save Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson). The film features other beloved Nintendo characters like Bowser (Jack Black) and Yoshi (Donald Glover) – and a few surprises. It’s a sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which made more than a billion dollars worldwide.
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0:23 Stephen Thompson? You are listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the podcast that keeps you apprised of the latest and greatest in movies, TV, music, and more. If you're a pop culture junkie who's not following the show yet, we are recommending you fix that right now by following Pop Culture Happy Hour on your favorite podcast app. Now, onto the show. The Super Mario Galaxy movie is the ultimate piece of fan service. It's full of references to games, scenes, and sounds from various Nintendo properties, which helps make it both a successful brand extension and an exercise in nostalgia for anyone who's plugged in a Mario game. It's a sequel to The Super Mario Brothers Movie, which made more than $1 billion worldwide.
1:08 Stephen Thompson? It brings back Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Bowser for a new outer space adventure that brings in other characters from the Nintendo Cinematic Universe, including Yoshi, Bowser Jr., and a few surprises. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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2:49 Stephen Thompson? Joining me today is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast Leaving the Theater. Hey, Ronald. Hello, Stephen Thompson. Also with us is Jordan Morris. He's a podcaster and the co-writer of the upcoming Marvel comic series, The Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-versity. Hey, Jordan.
3:05 Speaker 05 Hi, it's a me. Let's go.
3:10 Stephen Thompson? One of us had to do it. If you had 1 minute and 30 seconds, or however long it's been, in the pool, Jordan is the winner. So it took decades for Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers video game franchise to produce a hit movie spinoff. But in 2023, they finally pulled it off with The Super Mario Brothers Movie. That film starred Chris Pratt as Mario, Jack Black as Bowser, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, and Charlie Day as Luigi. Now, the cast returns for a new movie inspired by the Super Mario Galaxy games. In The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Princess Rosalina, played by Brie Larson, is kidnapped and dispatched to outer space. Bowser is at least tentatively reformed, but his journey is complicated by the arrival of his son, Bowser Jr.,
3:55 Stephen Thompson? who's hell-bent on following in his father's nefarious footsteps. He's played by Benny Safdie. But the plot is honestly secondary to the many Nintendo references, which pop up everywhere on screen and in Brian Tyler's score. It's in theaters now. Jordan, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie?
4:15 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think there are two ideal audiences for this movie. One is eight-year-olds. The second is guys who look like me. As a guy who looks like me.
4:27 Stephen Thompson? You do fall into at least one of those categories.
4:30 Speaker 05 I was having a blast the whole time. I know you can't see me. This is an audio program. So just to give a little sense of my vibe, it is someone who wants you to buy something or get out of their comic book store. I have played Nintendo basically my whole life. This movie, is it a movie or is it just a bunch of Easter eggs strung together? Who's to say? But I was yucking it up and laughing the whole time and it all worked on me. I understand that this movie has, you know, some weak points, some things that it does well, some things that it does not so well, but fun factor very high on this one for me.
5:05 Stephen Thompson? Okay, how about you, Ronald?
5:07 Speaker 06 I mean, Jordan nailed it because this movie is hard to critique because I'm having so much fun. I have such joy with the references and the way in which they're depicting the characters. I could just watch Donald Glover make sounds as Yoshi. I could have watched that for another 90 minutes. You may get your chance. I probably will, right?
5:29 Speaker 05 Everybody's getting a spin off.
5:31 Speaker 06 Yeah, you might as well at this point. I mean, like, I feel like I walked into the movie, I wanted to have a good time. I had a good time. I will say that sets a ceiling on how air quote good this movie can be, but I feel like because this movie did not burden itself with a bunch of backstory, we weren't in Brooklyn at all. I don't ever want to be in Brooklyn again for a Mario movie. I only want to be in the Mushroom Kingdom or in the Mario Galaxy, which this was. It jumps us straight into there. We have mushrooms, we have fire, we have all of the things that I want. So I can't really ask for anything else, but I know that the drawback to criticizing a movie like this is that of course there's problems, but I just, I don't, this wasn't going to be Citizen Kane.
6:14 Speaker 05 Disagree, disagree.
6:18 Speaker 06 But I'm just saying, I wanted to be the best children's movie slash Ronald and Jordan referential movie that they could make. And I feel like they did that. They're probably gonna make another billion dollars.
6:27 Stephen Thompson? I mean, I do suspect they will probably make a billion dollars. I suspect that they realized somewhere along the way that they were gonna make a billion dollars whether this movie was any good or not.
6:37 Speaker 06 Yeah.
6:37 Stephen Thompson? As long as they string together enough references. And this movie feeds you references on top of references on top of references while still giving you a basic plot. We're trying to save a princess.
6:50 Speaker 06 I mean, the plot is thin. Like, you're right. The plot is very, very thin.
6:54 Stephen Thompson? The plot is thin, bordering on nonexistent.
6:56 Speaker 06 Yeah.
6:56 Stephen Thompson? And honestly, I mean, there are points in this film where for me, as somebody who has always been more Mario adjacent than Mario immersed, I got a lot of references. My, my kids and my son in particular are Mario obsessives.
7:10 Speaker 05 You're more of a Crash Bandicoot guy?
7:12 Speaker 06 More of a Sonic guy.
7:14 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. There's Sonic guys, there's Mario guys.
7:17 Stephen Thompson? I mean, I will say, I, at one point, I was working on a, on a script around this. I was referring to visual and Sonic references.
7:23 Speaker 05 Wow.
7:23 Stephen Thompson? And realized that I had to change that because it was gonna sound like references to Sonic.
7:30 Stephen Thompson? Who is not in this film. But for me, as somebody who's always been more adjacent to the Nintendo universe than immersed in it, it left me cold. There were many times in this film where it felt like a playthrough more than a movie. I wanted jokes that were not just references to Mario properties. At the same time, several particularly visual gags referring to kind of especially vintage Nintendo made me laugh out loud. There were several points in this film, and I'm not gonna spoil them, where you get some sort of visual callback, or just callback in general, to some like kind of obscure Nintendo property from 1983. That completely worked on me.
8:15 Stephen Thompson? And honestly, like, if you've played Super Smash Bros., you're gonna get those references because Nintendo has always been endlessly self-referential and has always kind of kept those vintage characters alive. I mean, the duck hunt dog, as far to my knowledge, does not appear in this film, but if he did, you would know who he was.
8:34 Speaker 05 He's getting a Peacock series?
8:35 Speaker 06 It's actually a gritty reboot. I don't know if you saw that, Jordan. Yeah.
8:38 Speaker 05 Yeah, very gritty.
8:40 Speaker 06 Came from the streets.
8:41 Speaker 05 Mads Mikkelsen, the voice of the dog.
8:43 Speaker 06 I can't wait to see it.
8:44 Speaker 05 Michael Shannon, the voice of one of the ducks.
8:46 Speaker 06 You degenerates would totally watch that show.
8:49 Speaker 05 100%. I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna watch a couple of episodes, Steven. Don't be judgy. Not all in one weekend. Let's spread it out.
8:56 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think the thing you're saying is like, one of the big strengths of these movies is like, they look so cool. And the decision they made not to just try and replicate the look of the games, but the logic of the games. I think that is genius. Like Mario gets a mushroom and he gets big because that's what happens to Mario. I think there's a more studio note-y version of these where you get a 10-minute exposition dump on why the mushroom makes him big. Well, you see, there's parallel universes and there's enzymes.
9:30 Speaker 06 Yeah, we need, we need people to stop and explain the lore.
9:33 Speaker 05 Yeah, right. Exactly. I think that's the bad version of this movie. And I think they did the smart thing of just saying like, if you're in this movie, you know, a mushroom makes Mario big. So when he gets it, he gets big. On with the movie.
9:47 Speaker 06 Right.
9:47 Speaker 05 I like that about it. I think it's a pretty bold choice to just say, this movie has video game logic. And not to try and like, ground it in something. I think that's how you get the Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo version that we got in the early 90s.
10:03 Speaker 06 Yes.
10:03 Speaker 05 Trying to like, adapt Mario logic to some sort of real world thing. You know, you just get this weirdo thing that's for nobody. And now you have a thing that is for.
10:13 Speaker 06 Eight-year-olds and Jordan Morris.
10:15 Speaker 05 For eight-year-olds and me.
10:16 Speaker 06 Yeah. Yeah. You know what though, Steven? Like, I feel like I want to back you up for a second. I think you're right. I think there are criticisms I don't like about this film already, but I feel like yours are valid. To say that you walked in and said, oh, it's just all references and I'm only Mario adjacent. I am closer than Mario adjacent, meaning I've played a large chunk of Mario in my life. Right now, I'm exclusively playing Mario Kart. I've not played through Mario Galaxy. I've not played through Mario Galaxy 2. I don't play Paper Mario, any of those other ones, but I could recognize when a reference is happening based on the audience response to it. And I could say, ah, that's a thing and kind of see it or not see it. What I would say is there's like three levels of that. The first
10:57 Speaker 06 level is people like us who know Mario know what the reference is. The second level is people who are like a little bit Mario adjacent, but not quite immersed in Mario like me, where it's like, I know maybe 70% of these references. Right. I got that reference. Yeah, but then there were people that recognized a certain weapon in the film. And I remember thinking, I don't know why people are reacting to that. I don't know what that is. And I just remember at that moment being like, oh, maybe I'm not as immersed in this as I thought until they show what the weapon does. And then I said, oh, that's why y'all all had the reaction that you had. I don't think it's unfair for you to say, who is this movie for? Is it for like the hardcore Jordan Morises? You know what I mean?
11:36 Speaker 05 Wait, am I now shorthand for nerd?
11:38 Speaker 06 You said it yourself, Jordan.
11:39 Stephen Thompson? Honestly, Jordan, part of you, isn't that the dream? Isn't that the dream?
11:43 Speaker 05 I mean, I get it. You're not wrong.
11:46 Stephen Thompson? You are the proto nerd.
11:47 Speaker 05 I'll take it. Honestly, I'll take it.
11:49 Speaker 06 I think your concerns are valid, Stephen, is all I'm saying. Yeah.
11:52 Speaker 05 They are. Yeah.
11:52 Stephen Thompson? Ronald, can I ask you, before we go any further, can I ask you what criticisms of this movie are you hearing?
11:57 Speaker 06 Well, yes, because they're basically saying that it's not faithful enough to the source material. And I wouldn't be like, the source material is a plumber who goes to the mushroom kingdom to like eat a fireplace and now can shoot fireballs. We're not talking about Marvel here. This isn't like, we're not talking about like the origin of, of like who his father or mother was, any of that. We're just talking about how he throws the fireballs or why he throws the fireballs. But I feel like people were critiquing it and marking it down based on it not being close enough to the source material. To that, I'm like, no, you just weren't having enough joy in here. And those are people who are even more sticklers than the Jordan Morises. You know what I mean? Where even Jordan would be like, hey, that's a little too stringent for me, friend. Get out of my comic book store for a different reason.
12:42 Stephen Thompson? We're closed.
12:44 Stephen Thompson? I'm going to lunch.
12:46 Speaker 05 Here's this good sequel choice I think they made. I think they realized that maybe Mario, this Mario, is maybe not the most interesting character in this world. I think this movie is maybe more of a Bowser movie or a Peach movie. I think they have the big journeys. They have the coolest set pieces. And, you know, I think this movie's, the voice acting in this movie is all over the map.
13:13 Stephen Thompson? All over the map. I'm glad you brought this up.
13:16 Speaker 05 There's some great performances and some where you can hear the paycheck getting cashed. I think we would all agree. Jack Black as Bowser is so good. He's so funny. You know, he can just juice a line with natural Jack Blackness and it's great. One of the things of this movie, kind of part of Bowser's journey is he's, has a little section of the movie where he's reformed and kind of trying not to be evil and
13:40 Stephen Thompson? Kind of a redemption arc for Bowser.
13:42 Speaker 05 Yeah. And, and I think they were really smart in like giving the big story stuff to like Bowser and Peach. And I think Peach is really cool in this movie. Anya Taylor Joy is one of the going for it voice actors that's doing a nice job. And yeah, I, I don't know. I kind of like that they got so much story and, and Mario, you know, is there and he bops stuff and he
14:02 Stephen Thompson? Mario was a cipher. He's just kind of, you mostly see him just kind of going from place to place, trying not to get killed.
14:09 Speaker 05 Yeah. And I, and I think the sweaty stuff from the first movie is like trying to create a character and a journey for Mario. And I think they did an okay job, but like in this one, they're just like, eh, yeah, I don't know. He shoots fire, it's fine. And then they kind of give the meteor stuff to Peach and Bowser, who, who I think are really fun to spend time with.
14:29 Stephen Thompson? Yeah. I mean, I think it's always tricky when you're trying to kind of graft personalities onto characters who are mostly ciphers in video games. I think that's always a challenge. And Bowser is always going to be a juicier character because Bowser is always playing to the rafters in both the games and in the movies. Plus it's Jack Black who can do this kind of stuff in his sleep. I was actually sup- Surprised they didn't try to create a new kind of viral Peaches song. I was
14:57 Speaker 06 The music came on.
14:57 Stephen Thompson? Oh, yeah.
14:58 Speaker 06 They set it up and then it stopped. You heard that like there's a point where the music comes and you think it's coming and then it just goes away. And I remember thinking, oh, that's, I thought they were gonna do it again and they didn't.
15:09 Speaker 05 Yeah, more musical numbers for Bowser in the next one. I think we all want that, right?
15:13 Stephen Thompson? Maybe, but I did appreciate fewer needle drops.
15:15 Speaker 05 Me too.
15:16 Stephen Thompson? This is not a very needle drop movie because I think that took people out of the first film and they clearly took that note.
15:22 Speaker 05 Yeah, and I think the music is great. And as you just mentioned, like just full of little references to the game music. Again, you know, is it a soundtrack? Is it a collection of Easter eggs?
15:30 Speaker 06 Amazing, yes.
15:31 Speaker 05 To say, but.
15:32 Stephen Thompson? That's a great place to stash Easter eggs. And I do really want to shout out Brian Tyler's score because that
15:37 Speaker 05 Yeah.
15:38 Stephen Thompson? is a source of a lot of jokes that I think the script maybe isn't strong enough to bother with, but like that really adds a layer of enjoyment for the eight year olds and Jordan Morises.
15:51 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think for me, it's this movie is, it's not quite Easter egg salad.
15:56 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah.
15:57 Speaker 06 It's getting there. You know what I mean? It's like, it's, it's not far from it. But I think part of that is when we walk into a Mario movie, we should feel joy and happiness.
16:06 Speaker 05 Right.
16:07 Speaker 06 And we shouldn't think too much about the plot. Like, I feel like it was a bonus that we went to the Barbie movie and left having joy and happiness and thinking about the plot.
16:16 Speaker 05 Right.
16:17 Speaker 06 But I feel like with this, I don't necessarily want to be thinking about the Mario Galaxy plot later, which is why I say there's a ceiling to this. Even now, when we're saying that the plot is thin, I guess what conversation will we be having if the plot was thicker?
16:31 Speaker 05 Sure.
16:32 Speaker 06 You know what I mean? If there was more there, would we be like, oh, my God, it's not just a video game movie. Mario goes and overthrows the Bowser Empire and we have to rise. Like, I don't know if that's what we need. For for this.
16:43 Stephen Thompson? This film really made me think about infrastructure.
16:46 Speaker 06 Exactly. Capitalism, you know what I mean?
16:48 Speaker 05 I mean, at its core, it's about trauma.
16:50 Speaker 06 It's a movie about grief, like, we're really talking about grief here, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think we necessarily need that, but I feel like for what we saw, this isn't even one of those things where I turned my brain off to enjoy the movie. My brain was active and I enjoyed the movie. And I think it was all the reasons you said they gave me less Mario, more Luigi, threw in some Yoshi, which makes them all kind of one mega character where we're getting bits of all of them, more Toad, which is also nice, and then a lot of Peach and a lot of Bowser and more Bowser Jr. It's an ensemble movie. What more can you do in a sequel, you know?
17:21 Speaker 05 I should say Benny Safdie, um, part of the 824 directing brothers.
17:28 Stephen Thompson? As Bowser Jr.
17:30 Speaker 05 As Bowser Jr. It is such a weird choice, and I don't know that he's the best choice for this. I will say he went for it. That was a person I would maybe expect to do the phone-in, one-take, paycheck, cash performance. Is there a better person for that out there? Perhaps, but I think he really went for it and was there, and I think he and, uh, Jack Black were a fun pair together.
17:50 Stephen Thompson? Yeah, and as you've already acknowledged, you have Donald Glover as Yoshi.
17:53 Speaker 05 Who just says Yoshi? I think we should also mention that that is.
17:57 Stephen Thompson? It's not a, it's not a ton of line readings.
17:59 Speaker 05 Yes.
17:59 Stephen Thompson? You have Issa Rae turns up as Honey Queen.
18:02 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, she was funny. That was a funny little kind of like one scene, very chewy performance.
18:07 Stephen Thompson? Yeah. Were there any additions in this film that jumped out at you? I, for one, as an old guy, did appreciate the presence of Rob, a very early Nintendo robot.
18:19 Speaker 06 It was funny. I didn't know the Rob reference, but it was still funny. But it kind of brings me to my main point, which is if you have not seen the first one, you do not have to see the first one to, to watch this movie. If you, all you have to do is know who Mario is, and I'd step a level down and say, know that Mario exists and you can watch this and you're, they'll tell you everything you need to know.
18:39 Speaker 05 Know the title of the film before you see it.
18:42 Stephen Thompson? That's it. You have to know that those flickering images on the screen represent characters that the audience knows.
18:48 Speaker 06 Correct. That's it.
18:49 Stephen Thompson? That's the information you need to have going into this film.
18:52 Speaker 06 Entire prime.
18:53 Stephen Thompson? All right, well, that brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Morris, Ronald Young Jr., thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me.
19:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, this is a blast. Thank you.
19:01 Stephen Thompson? This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathema and Mike Katsef and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reed. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. If you are not already following the show, please do that right now. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.
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19:29 Speaker 08 American journalist Austin Tice vanished in Syria over a decade ago. For years, we've been searching for him, and now we finally have some answers.
19:40 Speaker 02 This is the prison that Austin was in.
19:42 Stephen Thompson? Oh, my God. We found Austin's file.
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19:54 Speaker 07 This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we talk with fashion designer Daniel Vasevic about why he is in charge of renovating his parents' house.
20:01 Speaker 02 I don't have an architecture degree.
20:03 Speaker 07 Yeah.
20:03 Speaker 02 I'm not an interior designer, but I'm gay.
20:06 Speaker 07 Right. Well, there you are.
20:07 Speaker 02 So how hard can it be?
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