A huge plot point from The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — and indeed, all of Nintendo canon — looks to have been spoiled by a ratings board listing.
We’ll cover the spoiler in detail below, and discuss its implications not just for the movie but various Nintendo games. This is your last chance to look away, rather than watch the movie for yourself when it arrives in theaters next week on April 1.
Warning! Super Mario Galaxy Movie spoilers follow.
A rating for the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has spoiled the fact that the film includes “flashbacks to the separation of a girl and her younger sister.” While the characters are not named, fans are convinced this relates to Peach and Rosalina — who the movie will seemingly confirm are siblings.
The revelation that Peach and Rosalina are related — and how — is more than 18 years in the making, and fills in a narrative gap that Nintendo itself decided to keep frustratingly unanswered within the original Super Mario Galaxy game.
Galaxy’s plot slowly reveals more of Rosalina’s backstory and makes reference to her being separated from her mother, via pages of a storybook that players collect. (Nintendo published this book as a physical item last year, sparking fan speculation it would revisit this storyline again.)
Over the years, behind the scenes details on the game’s development have revealed evidence that Nintendo once planned to make a direct link between Rosalina and Peach within the game, before it ultimately decided to keep things vague. Still, Rosalina’s appearance was designed so that she closely resembles Peach, and fans have spent nearly two decades debating the exact relationship between the pair (another popular suggestion has been that they are mother and daughter).
The issue of Peach’s origins — and the briefest hint at her birthplace beyond the Mushroom Kingdom — was teased in 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Movie, meanwhile.
“You don’t seem like you’re from here,” Mario says at one point.
“I don’t know where I’m from, my earliest memory is arriving,” Peach replies, as a flashback shows her as a toddler, turning up in the Mushroom Kingdom via a warp pipe. Dressed in a skirt decorated with stars and moons, she is quickly found by a group of Toads. “I was so lucky they found me,” she continues. “They took me in, raised me like one of their own, and when I was ready they made me their princess.”
“Maybe you’re from my world?” Mario suggests, though Peach seems to disagree.
“There’s a huge universe out there, with a lot of galaxies,” she hints, as the camera pulls back to focus on the night sky. At the time, fans believed this was a nod towards Peach’s own galactic origins — and with it, the link between her and Rosalina that Nintendo ultimately shied away from confirming long ago.
Mario games are not known for their story, and Super Mario Galaxy’s director Yoshiaki Koizumi has admitted he wrote Galaxy’s storybook in secret each evening, after other developers had left the office. Ultimately, he surprised even Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto with the idea, and an adapted version of his plans was ultimately included.
Elsewhere, the BBFC’s Super Mario Galaxy Movie listing describes the film’s brief moments of mild violence, threat and horror, as well as “brief and infrequent moments of very mild rude humor.” According to the BBFC, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie does not include any swearing, drug references, discrimination or sex.
“Fight scenes involve kicks, punches, laser gunfire and use of fantastical weapons. Violence is occasionally intense but often includes comic moments,” the rating concludes. “A brief verbal reference is made to decapitation.”
With Rosalina and Peach’s connection seemingly set to be confirmed, one of Nintendo’s biggest lore mysteries looks to have been answered. Next up, how about an answer to the identity of Bowser Jr.’s mother?
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
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