Rather than needing to be rescued, Peach was a capable character throughout The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
There's your problem.
Every other character had flaws that they needed to grapple with, which creates tension and resolution, which is interesting.
If a character is just good at everything then they're boring. It was the exact same problem with Toad (although, of course, women most affected). Would having a backstory for Peach have done anything, or would it just have been more set dressing?
Here's a pitch: Peach gets captured instead of Luigi, and stays captured in order to protect the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser, instead of the cringe incel pining he does throughout the movie, now has to grapple with "what does a socially inept dragon-turtle actually do when the object of his affection is a real person, right in front of him?"
Peach's arc is not being able to escape, but finding creative ways to subvert Bowser and help the Marios. This could be getting information about his plans to the Bros, making Bowser doubt himself and make mistakes, and securing the power star for the final encounter.
The problem with feminism, which has always been the problem, is that they don't actually want what they say they want so, when they get it, they just complain more. It's pure jealousy of men for having things, without realizing that there are consequences.
Peach's arc is not being able to escape, but finding creative ways to subvert Bowser and help the Marios. This could be getting information about his plans to the Bros, making Bowser doubt himself and make mistakes, and securing the power star for the final encounter.
Paper Mario (and TTYD) both had really good characterization. The Peach interludes between chapters are great. It's a shame what happened to the series.
I never played Paper Mario, lol, it just seemed like the most logical way to give Peach some character.
Truthfully, I'm with MatPat in that I think Peach is actually a super-human kami/goddess who created the Toads and allows herself to be captured because she's entertained watching Mario try to save her, but that's a pretty boring character.
They made a Mario movie where Mario is the bumbling idiot nobody cares about, Luigi is the damsel in distress, and Peach is the ultra competent flawless savior until the last 10% of the movie. They also gave Cranky Kong an unbelievably wrong voice (though most of the VAs were just phoning it in, there were like two characters where anybody actually tried to do a voice that wasn't their normal speaking voice) and they just licensed songs instead of using cool orchestrated Mario game music.
your rewrite is pretty good, but they would never go for it. ability and power can only come in the form of physical strength according to these people. they are literally incapable of depicting a competent in powerful person without making them punch the bad guy.
Which is basically why modern movies are boring, at best.
Say what you will about it, but I'll be quoting Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper long after I forget that Chris Pratt and Seth Rogan were ever in a Mario movie.
Lol... someone has played the super mario rpg / paper mario games. Also your post proves that writers should eat dirt for their strike. I hope the studios lose on AI and the writers also lose on wage. Idk how but I'm hoping for hope's sake.
Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger were my intro to RPGs, lotta fond memories.
Never played Paper Mario but I'm hearing they laid out a whole yard of groundwork that the movie decided to ignore.
My hope for AI is that guys like Mauler and the Critical Drinker can use it to independantly produce high quality movies powered by their storytelling prowess without needing a huge Hollywood setup.
Imagine if authors could create movies on their own?
I hate these fucking communists more than any disease more than any historical act of terror. Their existence alone is a blight and shadow on the future of humanity
There's no way Zelda isn't a girl boss. Even with Nintendo holding back what Illumination wanted they already got all the approval they needed from the masses on Peach girlboss from everyone liking the movie
Eh, I liked Hyrule Warriors Zelda the most. A princess that led her soldiers on the frontlines, also secretly a badass ninja that trained in the arts of her bodyguard's people (without her knowing), and STILL didn't overshadow the Hero.
I think they handled Peach as tactfully as they could in the current year, but it really wasn't great, and she and Luigi should have swapped roles, no question.
You see this all over the place, though. Attraction to and reliance on a guy is no longer allowed to be a motivator for major female characters anymore. Amy doesn't have any personality anymore in recent games because they've completely removed her crush on Sonic. She's just there because we gotta have the girl-appeal character. We don't get Sonic being flustered and off his game, having to put up with her trying to tie him down. We don't get Amy pushing herself to keep up with and impress him. She's just the generic girl hero who tags along because reasons.
I'd be more upset about the Amy situation if the same didn't apply to basically every character in Sonic. All of them have been stripped down to generic cliches or pre-development levels. Tails is somehow more of a crybaby coward than before, Knuckles gets stupider by the day, Shadow becomes more shallow each game, etc.
To your last point, it felt like they had to rush a lot of necessary plot beats to fit the movie in the time allotted while still also getting in all the "named characters" they had to. DK seems to have been the most ruined by this, but basically nobody but Mario and Luigi get the time needed to actually feel fleshed out.
That's why there was so much debate about Peach's line about clearing the course the first time. Because its both in character for her to brag about that while leaving out a lot of context or just being an awesome girlboss with no flaws, which is only an issue because her backstory is so rushed that we have no idea about how she got so "competent." If it was natural or did she actually work just like he did, just from a younger age.
Honestly, if they had just cut all of the Donkey Kong parts (and with it the kart segment) they probably would have had a lot more breathing room to fill with development to make Peach less generic, because that's what she was boringly generic. Those sequences were awesome, but they fill a lot of runtime that other characters needed to actually exist in.
I'm with you, I'm actually fine with Peach. She was powerful but definitely shown to have her limits, and most importantly she showed good character in supporting Mario and never trying to take the spotlight from him.
Mario had fantastic moments in this movie. They gave him the lowest lows and the highest highs and the final victory was all him and Luigi, as it should be. It was such a definitive statement that I was impressed that a big studio film could still do that. Overall I was pretty happy with the movie (especially Bowser and his ode to "Peaches") and its flaws, while real, can all be kind of written off because it doesn't take itself seriously.
5-10% of the film showed promise -- the first few scenes and setup, Jack Black's Bowser, the imprisoned Galaxy star, and the parts where they dramatically illustrate "gameplay" in real-time action scenes
Everything else was trash
Showed it to my 2 year old and he liked it enough but I couldn't watch it all the way through until he demanded to see the rest of it in the following days
Rogen and Armisen were absolutely dogshit. As soon as the movie went into Kong Kountry it fell apart completely
There's your problem.
Every other character had flaws that they needed to grapple with, which creates tension and resolution, which is interesting.
If a character is just good at everything then they're boring. It was the exact same problem with Toad (although, of course, women most affected). Would having a backstory for Peach have done anything, or would it just have been more set dressing?
Here's a pitch: Peach gets captured instead of Luigi, and stays captured in order to protect the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser, instead of the cringe incel pining he does throughout the movie, now has to grapple with "what does a socially inept dragon-turtle actually do when the object of his affection is a real person, right in front of him?"
Peach's arc is not being able to escape, but finding creative ways to subvert Bowser and help the Marios. This could be getting information about his plans to the Bros, making Bowser doubt himself and make mistakes, and securing the power star for the final encounter.
The problem with feminism, which has always been the problem, is that they don't actually want what they say they want so, when they get it, they just complain more. It's pure jealousy of men for having things, without realizing that there are consequences.
Paper Mario did almost exactly this.
Paper Mario (and TTYD) both had really good characterization. The Peach interludes between chapters are great. It's a shame what happened to the series.
One would hope when the Super Mario RPG remake does well commercially, Nintendo finally gets the memo people want a traditional RPG Paper Mario game.
Nintendo isn't capable of actually understanding what people want from things that unfold.
That's why they took the failure of Star Fox Zero to mean that people just didn't want Star Fox, instead of people didn't want motion controls.
I never played Paper Mario, lol, it just seemed like the most logical way to give Peach some character.
Truthfully, I'm with MatPat in that I think Peach is actually a super-human kami/goddess who created the Toads and allows herself to be captured because she's entertained watching Mario try to save her, but that's a pretty boring character.
They made a Mario movie where Mario is the bumbling idiot nobody cares about, Luigi is the damsel in distress, and Peach is the ultra competent flawless savior until the last 10% of the movie. They also gave Cranky Kong an unbelievably wrong voice (though most of the VAs were just phoning it in, there were like two characters where anybody actually tried to do a voice that wasn't their normal speaking voice) and they just licensed songs instead of using cool orchestrated Mario game music.
your rewrite is pretty good, but they would never go for it. ability and power can only come in the form of physical strength according to these people. they are literally incapable of depicting a competent in powerful person without making them punch the bad guy.
Which is basically why modern movies are boring, at best.
Say what you will about it, but I'll be quoting Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper long after I forget that Chris Pratt and Seth Rogan were ever in a Mario movie.
Now that's a movie I would have watched.
But you're 100% spot on that their whole goal is simply to subvert and destroy.
No matter what Nintendo does, they will complain until Nintendo complies.
Lol... someone has played the super mario rpg / paper mario games. Also your post proves that writers should eat dirt for their strike. I hope the studios lose on AI and the writers also lose on wage. Idk how but I'm hoping for hope's sake.
Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger were my intro to RPGs, lotta fond memories.
Never played Paper Mario but I'm hearing they laid out a whole yard of groundwork that the movie decided to ignore.
My hope for AI is that guys like Mauler and the Critical Drinker can use it to independantly produce high quality movies powered by their storytelling prowess without needing a huge Hollywood setup.
Imagine if authors could create movies on their own?
I'm near the end of Paper Mario Thousand Year Door, my 1st Mario RPG game. Really enjoying it so far.
I hate these fucking communists more than any disease more than any historical act of terror. Their existence alone is a blight and shadow on the future of humanity
Rey was uninteresting at best.
Peach bears some resemblance to the old Super Mario Bros Show version.
If the Zelda Movie does similar that'll be a hoot Zelda was a nag and Link was an absolute Chad.
There's no way Zelda isn't a girl boss. Even with Nintendo holding back what Illumination wanted they already got all the approval they needed from the masses on Peach girlboss from everyone liking the movie
Eh, I liked Hyrule Warriors Zelda the most. A princess that led her soldiers on the frontlines, also secretly a badass ninja that trained in the arts of her bodyguard's people (without her knowing), and STILL didn't overshadow the Hero.
Yea Link was always The One through all the cycels. That's fine.
You know that old “rule” about how the answer to a headline phrased as a question is always “No”??
I think I have developed a new rule where the only proper response to a headline that says “We need to talk about…” is “No we don’t.”
I think they handled Peach as tactfully as they could in the current year, but it really wasn't great, and she and Luigi should have swapped roles, no question.
You see this all over the place, though. Attraction to and reliance on a guy is no longer allowed to be a motivator for major female characters anymore. Amy doesn't have any personality anymore in recent games because they've completely removed her crush on Sonic. She's just there because we gotta have the girl-appeal character. We don't get Sonic being flustered and off his game, having to put up with her trying to tie him down. We don't get Amy pushing herself to keep up with and impress him. She's just the generic girl hero who tags along because reasons.
I'd be more upset about the Amy situation if the same didn't apply to basically every character in Sonic. All of them have been stripped down to generic cliches or pre-development levels. Tails is somehow more of a crybaby coward than before, Knuckles gets stupider by the day, Shadow becomes more shallow each game, etc.
To your last point, it felt like they had to rush a lot of necessary plot beats to fit the movie in the time allotted while still also getting in all the "named characters" they had to. DK seems to have been the most ruined by this, but basically nobody but Mario and Luigi get the time needed to actually feel fleshed out.
That's why there was so much debate about Peach's line about clearing the course the first time. Because its both in character for her to brag about that while leaving out a lot of context or just being an awesome girlboss with no flaws, which is only an issue because her backstory is so rushed that we have no idea about how she got so "competent." If it was natural or did she actually work just like he did, just from a younger age.
Honestly, if they had just cut all of the Donkey Kong parts (and with it the kart segment) they probably would have had a lot more breathing room to fill with development to make Peach less generic, because that's what she was boringly generic. Those sequences were awesome, but they fill a lot of runtime that other characters needed to actually exist in.
I'm with you, I'm actually fine with Peach. She was powerful but definitely shown to have her limits, and most importantly she showed good character in supporting Mario and never trying to take the spotlight from him.
Mario had fantastic moments in this movie. They gave him the lowest lows and the highest highs and the final victory was all him and Luigi, as it should be. It was such a definitive statement that I was impressed that a big studio film could still do that. Overall I was pretty happy with the movie (especially Bowser and his ode to "Peaches") and its flaws, while real, can all be kind of written off because it doesn't take itself seriously.
The Mario Movie was hot garbage
5-10% of the film showed promise -- the first few scenes and setup, Jack Black's Bowser, the imprisoned Galaxy star, and the parts where they dramatically illustrate "gameplay" in real-time action scenes
Everything else was trash
Showed it to my 2 year old and he liked it enough but I couldn't watch it all the way through until he demanded to see the rest of it in the following days
Rogen and Armisen were absolutely dogshit. As soon as the movie went into Kong Kountry it fell apart completely
All female characters are uninteresting. That's why heroes are male.