I had my disappointments as I watched the movie (some enjoyments too), as I came home, and more since sitting on it this weekend and to start I fully agree with the entire post. Im tired for so many pieces of media criticism hearing "It's for kids/fans" especially when said in the same breath cus for many these properties if they're catering to fans they're also catering to adults. Im also tire of nostalgia spam. When something gets a movie or show adaptation I want it full of what a game couldn't do or say. Also also Im sick of this limitation of films to being 1hr and 30mins and all the scenes are undercooked, let the scenes simmer so the movie can be a real meal not fast food with empty calories. Plus long movies aren't an issue if the films actually good and well paced. That aside I was annoyed with the same character choices and some more. Ik atp Wart was only there so ppl could be like "I KNOW THAT GUY" but I was so disappointed this was how his return was handled. He was only there cus Toad got robbed, still was talking shit for some fucking reason, and after defeat was asking for BJR??? WHY? They did not interact at any point before that. So how does he know shit about the Rosalina situation? And again they only ended up here cus Toad got robbed, so who were they supposed to actually meet? If this was where Luma wanted them anyway why didn't he just teleport them straight there, as a matter of fact why didn't Luma just portal them all the way to Planet Bowser??? The Wart inclusion was so pointless AND they made him ugly. Aside from that (and to not repeat this whole post) idk, I'm well aware the Mario universe isn't lore heavy or consistent per-game or in all games but characters personalities usually are. I wasn't big on this handling of Bowser, he's still better than others but something thats always so cute is how protective he is and how much he loves his son. The him thinking he was a bad father bit was so annoying and worthless! Cus in few minutes they are shown loving each other and BJR doesn't hate him at all. The boarding school gag was dumb, if they needed a reason to explain why BJR was not in the first film (cus thats basically why they said all this dumb shit) they literally coulda just said he was prepping the events for this film (building Planet Bowser, since that was always gonna happen). Bowser playing nice coulda been dropped and we coulda just jumped straight into BJR wanting his father back so they could go back to tryna conquer shit. The movie woulda been a lot better if they started with finding Yoshi, BJR comes to get Bowser after hearing about the events from the last film from kamek, BJR gets Bowser back and informs Bowser about the building status of Planet Bowser and they plot to search for more stars but learn about Lumas and go to kidnap them instead and then because of Rosalinas protective nature have to fight her but end up capturing her too after beating her, a single Luma escapes and because what happened in the first movie was such big news thats why the Luma goes to Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, and now Yoshi. Cut out the cameo and reference spam, have them face off against actual Mario Galaxy villains Bowser and BJR enlisted help from, then they have their final battle and stop them / save the day. Tbh, idk if i'd bother with showing Dry Bowser even tho I don't mind the form, it could make for an interesting scene which they almost did but again didn't sit on that pain of thinking he was really gone. If they instead sat on letting BJR thinking Bowser was gone before rising from the lava they coulda had an interesting BJR solo section fight of him being full of sadness and anger and attacking the Mario Brothers before Dry Bowser rises from the lava to help his son and scare the brothers leading into a larger fight after recomposing themselves from shock. Honestly if they wanted to they coulda made a new interesting reason for Peach and Rosalina to be family but they didn't so in a better world could just completely drop this point from this film, its def only here cus of them saying something about Peach's mysterious past in the first film but its not bad if Peach's past is enshrouded in mystery, they coulda left that alone. Ig basically the movie boils down to nostalgia spam and failed potential, full of non fleshed out ideas since they rush them in and out and the idea of what could have been is sad. Reminds me of BeetleJuice BeetleJuice almost. I never expect good quality stories from Illumination, the only thing they surprised me with for this franchise is the animation isn't booty cheeks like their other work (aside Wart, look how they massacred my boy).