At the Japanese premiere of The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Miyamoto shared some tidbits.
- Chris Meledandri proposed the galaxy theme, and Miyamoto felt it’d be a perfect fit.
- Meledandri and his team carefully considered the differences between Mario on a game screen vs. theater screen.
- The team in LA, Paris, and Japan sometimes knew more about Mario than Miyamoto (he’s probably being modest), and provided many suggestions.
- Unlike the first film, there wasn’t a separate Japanese script from the start, but all dialogs were still written locally—not translated from English.
- Yoshi’s voice isn’t dubbed anywhere; it’s just Donald Glover all over the globe.
At another press event, Miyamoto voiced his bemusement by the film critics:
Regarding the critics’ reviews of the first film, I remember thinking, ‘they have a point.’ But I figured this time would be different… only to find that the they were even harsher than last time, which I found rather odd (laughs). We stepped in from another medium and did our best to help energize the film industry. And yet the very people who are supposed to champion the film industry are the ones being so negative; it’s truly baffling.
(While I absolutely don’t know what Miyamoto meant exactly, it seems to me that he felt being gatekept.)
Regarding Peach’s backstory in the movie, Miyamoto thinks that too much character backstory can restrict what games they can make next, hence their reluctance to make movies for many years. But now that her backstory is fleshed out, future games will follow it closely.
Sources: ndw.jp 1, ndw.jp 2, famitsu.com, and eiga.com
[Originally posted on 2026-04-21 and -22 Pacific Time]
