The Best Part of the Mario Movie Is How It Revises a Controversial Part of Nintendo History

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the most recent adaptation to come out of Nintendo’s iconic IP Super Mario Bros., has a lot to offer longtime gaming fans. In addition to clever Easter eggs—dozens upon dozens that run the gamut from references to Mario’s earliest incarnation as “Jumpman” to cameos of Diddy and Dixie Kong—one of the film’s main continuations of the story told through the games is in the relationship between Bowser, the primary Big Bad of the Mario universe, and the damsel Mario must eternally save from distress, Princess Peach. As it is in many of the hundreds of Mario games, Bowser’s main motivation for villainy in the movie is that he wants to kidnap Princess Peach and force her into marriage. The idea that Paper Mario was the inception point is corroborated by articles about Bowser and Princess Peach’s relationship, which primarily use Paper Mario as the example of Bowser’s more romantic intentions. In Super Mario Sunshine, Peach and Mario encounter Bowser’s son, Bowser Jr., who believes that Princess Peach is his mother.