#(In general I can't help but feel like Nintendo gave Illuminations a lot of freedom with the characters personalities 🤔

[heloflor]

Adding a bit more because the movie being about to come out soon reminded me of this post : ok so the way I described my issue with Peach here is actually pretty stupid. I think sometime before this post I saw a video talking about the issues with the “strong female character” archetype in which they mentioned how those characters showed little emotions, were kind of douchey and knew how to fight perfectly, all of which are more stereotypically masculine traits. Hence me saying they made Peach masculine despite her design still being as hyperfemme as ever. Doesn’t change my issues with what we’ve seen of her from the trailers tho.

Also fun fact : after seeing a bunch of people make their own Mario universe headcanons recently, I kinda got into the fandom and, the more I get into it, the more I dread watching this movie because I just know I’m going to be disappointed, with what I fear the most being the atrociously unfunny humor and Peach’s personality.

And yeah I do sound incredibly hung up on what they’re doing with Peach but then again I’m one of those people who grew up with this franchise and she’s always been a favorite as a kid (there’s a reason why I have Super Paper Mario and Super Princess Peach) so you could say I take the whole thing a bit personally. Though I still intent on seeing it in theaters, so I can at least see it in French.

On a more positive note, at least the Luigi stuff looks really good. The idea of him being the damsel in distress is a fantastic one, especially with the approach of the brothers just discovering this world. Plus getting into this fandom made me realize that my favorite relationship in the whole franchise is the platonic fraternal bond between Mario and Luigi, so I am very happy to see the trailers show Mario being worried for his baby bro. On that note what we’ve seen from Bowser is really great as well. The number of references and little details in the worldbuilding also looks incredibly impressive.

And one last thing about Peach : getting to think more about the different games in the franchise is actually pretty interesting to see the kind of strength she has. And from what I’ve seen of it : (putting under a cut because that rant got too long)

- In every game she’s playable, she has the same abilities as the others. Exceptions being in Mario Bros 2 and Mario 3D World where she’s slower + can float along with any other version where she fights with her parasol. I’ve also seen pics of the Rabbit games with the first game showing her have a gun like everyone else while the second game reverts back to her having a parasol that doubles as a gun (also Luigi apparently has a bow and arrow and I kind of love it)

- In many games in which she’s captured, she still sends items and 1-ups, showing that she manages to sneak out to an extent. Special mention to the first Paper Mario where we see her do as much as she can while staying put, which was also the smartest choice since her not openly fighting back not only gives her the ability to sneak out but also makes it less likely for Bowser to attack her or her people

- There’s also the cutscenes in 3D Land where she uses her parasol against a pile of Goombas (and looks either unhappy or uncertain about it) and even manages to make a run for it, but doesn’t stand a chance against Bowser’s army (seriously, if any asshole ever asks you “why can’t Peach just run away when captured ?”, just show them the pic from 3D World). On that note, this game implies that Bowser only locks her up in a cage when she tries to run away. She’s in a cage in pretty much every single New Mario Bros game, implying she tried to run in each and every single one of those games

- I’ve read that one 12 chapters long colored comic where Bowser turns the Toads into stone and wants to marry her, with Peach running after him and beating the shit out of his kids, but even then she doesn’t do that much fighting. It’s implied her and the toads get captured fairly easily early on; she attacks the koopalings by taking them by surprise and, outside of this attack, basically spends the rest of the chapter running away or throwing shit at the guards. Even later on when she shows up with the bombs, she mostly runs around and threatens to blow the tower up. All this to say, she’s not so badass as much as she is absolutely unhinged in this comic, and tbh I kinda prefer it that way (Peach being all bark and no bite and mostly throwing shit at people as a mean to defend herself amuses me a lot. Also love at the beginning when she jumps out her tower and the Toads literally have to speed up to catch her so she can look cool instead of pathetically fall on her face. This entire comic is fantastic tbh; everyone’s a complete dumbass in it and I love it)

- She seems to have star-related and/or wish-related magic ? Though she can’t fully control it ? Idk apparently in Super Mario RPG she has wishing/star magic as an attack and in the Mario and Luigi series she’s constantly being targeted for magical reasons + can use her powers when Starlow is around. Paper Mario TTYD and Super Paper Mario also need her specifically to wake dark powers (and god is there so much character potential about Peach not knowing how to use her magic on her own all the while having to deal with villains who know exactly how to exploit it ! Like imagine how she must feel by the end of all those games ! Tbh I kinda like to headcanon that those games pretty much broke her self-esteem but then Super Princess Peach happened, which not only builds it back up but also is the point when she starts playing a more active role as a hero, leading to games like 3D World or the Rabbit games)

- The sport games also put her on the same level as everyone else (btw it’s kinda funny to see the people crying about her having pants in one trailer. Like, just look at the BOX ART of Mario Kart 8 you idiots ! The issue with her movie self isn’t the clothes or overall design for that matter, it’s the personality. Same for her having a halberd btw. While it’s a bit weird to see her using something other than her parasol, ultimately her having a different weapon isn’t an issue in on itself. The issue is the implications behind that choice)

Where am I going with this ? Not sure, aside from saying that Peach isn’t the hypercompetent martial arts fighter constantly looking for a fight that we see in the trailers. She’s not that big of a fighter and, when she is, she either has the same abilities as everyone else, uses a parasol, or uses magic.

Overall, I think the best representation of Peach’s relation with fighting has to be that one cutscene in Smash Brawl on Meta Night's ship. In it, she lets Sheik do all the fighting for her with Sheik basically being her bodyguard. Also she doesn’t give a shit about the explosions going around her, just walking around with her parasol and only reacting when the lasers get too close for comfort.

Then when Fox goes on the ship she probably realizes that he’s not a dark force but a person and interrupts the fight with tea, offering friendship (also I love how Sheik seemingly listens to her immediately, showing respect for her).

Then she fights Mr. Game and Watch because there is no other choice (at least I’m assuming she’s playable, I haven’t actually played the game, only seen the cutscenes) and once the fight is done she immediately frees him and tries to befriend him, again showing mercy and kindness and a general dislike for fighting unless she really has to, in which case she can handle herself (also rewatching the cutscene I love when everyone prepares to fight Game and Watch meanwhile Peach is more focused on dusting herself off. I love her).

In this whole cutscene, we get to see Peach be kind, compassionate, forgiving, gentle, caring, delicate, all the while she’s still willing to fight when needed and can handle said fight.

Now, that is not to say that this version of Peach is my favorite. In fact, I do think that Brawl Peach lacks agency, especially compared to other versions like Super Paper Mario where she was allowed to be angry and serious when the situation called for it. Still, I do think that Brawl displays a pretty good blueprint as to what kind of character Peach is. And I especially like that she’s able to fight but mostly chooses not to, and even then her attacks are incredibly girly, which is great ! Being girly and feminine aren’t signs of weakness ! Not being able to physically fight like most people and having to ask for help sometimes isn’t a horrible thing like some medias pretend it is ! Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses !

Although now that I think about it her Super Paper Mario version is also very good, because in her dialogues she does show her kindness, understanding etc but she can also be angry when needed, which is good to see too. Women should be able to display anger without having to be written in a stoic and toxic way like some modern movies seemingly do (thinking of Toy Story 4 with Bo Peep being kind of an asshole, with scenes written as if Woody were 100% in the wrong even when she’s responsible for some issues as well) or, on the other end of the spectrum, without being written as hysteric for showing strong emotions. Also Peach is a princess meaning she grew up spoiled so she should be allowed to throw a tantrum there and there, as a treat. Hell Bowser does so a lot in the RPGs and according to the Mario wiki Daisy also does sometimes.

Wanted to share my thoughts on the Mario movie trailer because it gives me an excuse to procrastinate writing fics since everyone's doing it : So far this movie is 50/50 for me in terms of whether or not I'll want to watch it.

To keep it short (putting it under the cut for spoilers)

PROS :

The animation looks amazing, but then again this is pretty much the standard for movies nowadays. Still, huge props to the artists and animators working on this movie !

Bowser was badass as hell and him being expressive in such a """cartoony""" way works surprisingly well.

Kamek and especially Bowser sound really good. Props to the voice actors for those two !

Toad's voice works. Like he's not 100% raspy but such a voice would probably been very annoying to listen to for an hour and a half. Plus it'd be hard to understand everything he'll say and would possibly be detrimental to the voice actor's throat. So his "slightly raspy" voice works

I was NOT expecting the Mario 64 baby penguins to show up ! I can't believe that out of all the Mario characters out there, those annoying fuckers made it in. Just WOW !

CONS :

The Bowser scene let us know enough of what kind of humor this movie's going to have, and it's not going to be fun 😒

Sorta related to that first point but this movie was made by Illuminations, the studio known for making movies with cheap stories and the dumbest humor because "why bother making good products when people will come see our stuff anyways ?" (note that I haven't watched a single movie from this studio so take this point with a huge grain of salt). So despite the quality shown, the fact that this studio was chosen for this movie is still worrying me (in general Illuminations is a studio that makes me sad. Like, from what I've heard "Despicable me 1" actually had some heart to it and a cute story, meaning they can do good movies ! They just don't want to because it costs less money to hire less writers)

Mario's voice. Just Mario's voice. I have no idea who the fuck Chris Pratt is since I don't know shit about celebrities, but he is not even trying with this voice ! And the fact that he's playing the main character makes it so much more aggravating...

Not a big fan of this idea of "Mario is new to the Mushroom Kingdom", or at least that's the vibe his part of the trailer gave.

I'd also like to point out that my first thoughts after watching the trailer were "I won't go watch this crap". But after watching the french trailer, since this is the version I'll get in theaters, I'm actually considering it. At least this version has a voice actor for Mario who tries to sound like him, and the other voice actors are really good as well (except for Toad who doesn't sound at all like Toad. Though at the same time the voice does fit the character. Like if you take someone who doesn't know shit about Mario and show them this Toad with this voice, they'll find it fitting)

So overall, I'll wait until more info comes out to decide whether or not to watch it in theaters. One thing for sure, I'd much rather see it in french than english. And if I do go see it, it'll likely be with zero expectations so that at least I won't be disappointed.