Zeitgeist & the Other New Space Movie

Last night I saw the Super Mario Galaxy Movie (which I enjoyed more than the first one), and we were discussing on the way home how unrealistic Bowser’s ‘character arc’ is (despite all of us liking the movie).

The essence of the argument was that Bowser should be a Terminator villain, and that his deviations from villain hood and wavering towards redemption was unrealistic, because “you can’t reform Bowser”

“But he still has a good relationship with his son,” my mother said. “So he’s still a complex villain.”

“I didn’t even like that,” my dad replied. “I hate all this ‘reforming the villain thing’”

So while it didn’t alienate the audience entirely, it did somewhat sour the experience to have the villain tend toward sympathetic, more with my father than with my mother.

Spoilers for those who want more details

At the beginning of the movie, Bowser is trapped at two-inches high in a little prison inside Peach’s castle, but about a quarter into the movie he gets stomped to his normal height by Mario, promising to reform and now be a good father to his son, Bowser Jr. He then sacrifices himself to the Bee Queen instead of letting Mario and Luigi get imprisoned.

About two minutes afterward he is beamed up into his son’s ship, reverts to his evil ways, (though still preserving enough sympathy to not kill Mario and Luigi outright), and then fully, fully reverts to his evil ways while giving one of the better speeches in villain history.

“Sometimes, on this Rainbow Road of life, we lose our way. But if we’re lucky, a tiny version of ourselves comes along and reminds us who we are.” *is super evil afterward

And a cute Yoshi GIF:

Anyway I loved this movie and wanted to note that