not to be pretentious but yall should really read this… C.H.A.T. (Come Here for All Talk)

[Adeleine]

I don't have a lot to say about the new Mario Galaxy Movie trailer, it was mostly my expectations, but I have a couple discrete observations

I interpreted the "Marvel-fication" of some characters in the first movie, especially Peach, as a good and consciously good thing, because these characters often had little personality, so giving some edge on them helped define them

There are versions of these characters with personality – Super Paper Mario Peach comes to mind – but I wouldn't expect the movie to pull from these niche titles

With Rosalina getting this treatment too, a character with a lot of pre-existing personality, the "Marvel-fication' feels less like a craftful design choice and more just kinda lowest common denominator design

As a complainer about Rosalina's character loss, this depiction (including the little bonus Library snippet) seems to me like,

Well flawed at least. The first game really purposefully consciously didn't lean hard into the powerful goddess angle for reasons key to her character, and now we have not just that, but a 'cool powerful action girl' angle here, hmm. I don't plan to see this own movie on my own impetus. But like, the first wand strike moment showing her pose is nice, and I like how the little Library snippet ends, even if the brand-required Mario / Peach integration is kinda cringe

But it's not as bad as I feared, better than the new storybook anyway, having two nice things to say is better than I expected.

I find the franchise's? vaunted attention to detail, with lots of easter egg references, a lot less cute and sincere, and more shallow, when you're also LCD'ing one of the main characters (even if not as hard as I expected). I expected this to happen for Rosa, but I didn't foresee how it'd change my opinion of the reference stuff

 

[Adeleine]

You ever have something where, you don't broadly care about a piece of fiction, but some specific part of it keeps pulling you back in? A character, a worldbuilding idea, even just one moment? Here's a single minute I keep coming back to across years and years, and my efforts to piece together why I like it so much.

I invite you to watch this moment first before reading, if you have not already.

The landscape and Lucina mirror each other. At the grounded, surface-level, both are plain, dark, muddied, obscured, even standoffish. But change is coming. Beyond the slight pull of the stream as a literal undercurrent, the sky – literally – and Lucina – metaphorically – both have a peculiar color to them that tell us change is coming.

The sky is bright, but not with the blue of peaceful ease, but the lurid pink of the setting sun, as part of Lucina's life comes to an end for a new one to begin. Lucina is putting on her tough face, but it takes effort and resolve, with her sigh, focused eyes, and slowed, methodical pace. Then she comes to Chrom, briefly lowering her eyes in doubt, before turning to face him, eyes flashing large with vulnerability for a moment before she, again with conscious effort, draws them back down to a focus glare. The dam is about to break.

The older, wiser Chrom understands the situation first, and is the first to committally drop his guard. The teardrop brand in his daughter's eye, perfectly framed by her steely countenance and narrowed gaze, flanked by dark clouds with flitters of light, encapsulates the vulnerable heart she's closing off from the world. Even as she focuses to project toughness, her beating heart is plainly within her, the brand a physical trace that marks her eyes, her way of perceiving the outside world and other people. By seeing this heart, Chrom recognizes his daughter. Initially framed by the dark trees, the violet sky ensconces him now. He breathes. He struggles to process and articulate. The scene breathes. The weight of his moment of clarity lingers. We're forced to breathe and to process.

"You deserved better from me than one sword and a world of troubles."

This is what everyone has wanted to hear from their parent, right? "You deserved to be treated right. When you hurt, it was my fault, not yours, and I'm sorry." No matter what your parent did to you, on accident or on purpose or both, it was something, and maybe it cut deep enough to make you shut yourself out from the world, like Lucina did. And with the vulnerability we have with our parents – not really of our own choice, both physically and mentally – their wounds can take on a new character as tyrannical. Done by someone we're trained so hard to trust, who has so much power over us, who you reach out to for support, who will often resist acknowledging the harm and resist trying to make it better, can feel like fighting the sea. We want to be treated fair and right, as equals, but we also don't want to lose our perception of our parent as our trustworthy support and guide, and bridging that divide can be hard, or outright impossible, at least for a time. In avoiding a masochistic, self-denying false justification for our parent's mistakes, we are forced to see our parents as fallible people. We must either relate to them on new terms, finding some way to cope with their mistakes, or break off fully from our ostensible source of nurturing support and love.

And Lucina getting what everyone wants from her parent, that deep, knowing, sincere recognition and apology for his mistake. And still not being able to handle what she yearned for. Taking the blunt blow, that powerful rush to re-open a closed door, releasing all her pain from bearing her father's failures. Is just. Heart-rending. The dam overflows for a moment, and then breaks for good. All she can do is feel. Her father gently caresses her, again re-affirming all the goodness, sincerity, and care in his heart despite his mistakes, as the camera pans from the dark path she walks on to the heavens. The dam explodes, and she falls into his arms. He holds her close, and looks out to the horizon, continuing to process and understand, as we're left to sit with the rush of everything from that moment, and as Lucina's new life begins with her parent by her side.