Universal PicturesDespite some less-than-stellar reviews, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has opened to $34 million and has shown absolutely no signs of slowing down its box-office conquest. Nintendo’s budding franchise is already a massive success, and based on developments within the sequel, it’s obvious the plumber brothers will be returning to screens sooner rather than later (possibly with some new companions from across the Nintendo multiverse).Although it’s primarily based on 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, the recent sequel takes inspiration from multiple games, including Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Sunshine. The result is a film that feels less like a direct adaptation of a beloved game and more like a patchwork of various inspirations and references, which is occasionally entertaining but doesn’t match the cohesive experience of playing the game the movie is named after. Nowhere are the failings of this approach more apparent than in the film’s treatment of Princess Rosalina, a character who receives a drastic change from her presence in the game, mostly for the worse.Not even Brie Larson’s acting can save Rosalina from being underwritten. | Universal PicturesIn Super Mario Galaxy, Princess Rosalina is portrayed as a powerful guardian of the cosmos, serving as both a mother to the Lumas (childlike star-beings that assist Mario throughout the game) and the commander of the Comet Observatory, a massive spacecraft that serves as the game’s main hub. At the start of the game, Princess Peach is once again kidnapped by Bowser, but this time, Mario is assisted by Rosalina; her Lumas help in various ways, and in exchange for collecting Power Stars, Rosalina offers to transport Mario to Bowser’s newly formed galaxy for their final battle. While not a playable character, Rosalina is invaluable to the experience of playing Super Mario Galaxy, and her presence is a cornerstone of the game.But while the movie’s Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is still the guardian of the cosmos and the mother of the Lumas, her role is swapped with Peach’s. Instead of offering aid to Mario, she’s reduced to a one-dimensional damsel in distress who spends most of the film as a captive of Bowser Jr. Her screentime is slim, and none of the regality or power she displays in the game is present. We see her use her magic to very little effect, but she spends most of her time trapped in a prison that’s siphoning her energy. The presence of her Lumas is also significantly downplayed.Rosalina is a welcoming and recurring central presence in 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy. | NintendoOf course, the biggest change is the reveal that Rosalina and Princess Peach are sisters, separated at a young age by an attack from an unknown enemy. While fans have previously thought Peach and Rosalina were related (that was Nintendo’s original plan in early development of Super Mario Galaxy), there’s no canon relationship between the two of them. Rosalina’s backstory in the games is that, as a young child, she formed a deep companionship with the Luma after their original mother went missing, echoing the fact that Rosalina had also lost her mother. The change isn’t terrible at face value, and could have been written in a way that evoked the familial loss that Rosalina went through, but she doesn’t have enough to do in the movie to make the reveal as emotionally memorable as the game’s storybook tale.Considering Rosalina has become a Mario staple since her appearance in Galaxy, it’s fair to assume that she might reappear in future films. Hopefully, that means the creative team will give her character far more depth and substance, because her story has surprising emotional resonance for a franchise that’s never concerned itself too much with having a strong narrative.