By 1986, the world had only gotten so far as “Super Mario Bros.” on the Nintendo/Famicom, so Masami Hata’s “The Great Rescue of Princess Peach!” as a movie stretches as far as it can on very little source material. With the original NES game, they only gave you so much about the lore, and motivations of the villains, so the anime movie itself relies on a bizarre, anemic plot that, I can assume, is not at all canonical.
One night while Mario is playing video games on his Famicom, Princess Peach and all of the Mario World creatures come pouring out of the screen. Chasing after is King Koopa who is anxious to kidnap her and marry her before the next full moon. Intent on rescuing her, Mario and Luigi enter in to their realm to find her and keep her from becoming his bride. They also have to find the three magical weapons, the Flower, The Mushroom, and the Star. Or something to that effect. There’s also something involving a gem.
Hey, no one ever accused the Mario games of having a complex plot.
“The Great Rescue of Princess Peach!” obviously doesn’t have a lot to work with, based on one game, so there are some elements that seem made up out of nowhere. There’s a prophesizing hermit with a white beard, and a weird blue dog named Kibidango that assists Mario and Luigi along their quest. The Toad people are turned in to these creepy anthropomorphic human hybrids that teach the brothers about the intricacies of the mushrooms. There’s not much else that really happens during “The Great Rescue of Princess Peach!,” as the running time is mercifully short.
Mario and Luigi spend literal minutes walking side by side through various landscapes, and are occasionally interrupted by nasty, scheming Koopas. There are some more bizarre moments including Luigi tripping out on mushrooms, and Princess Peach trying to trick Koopa in to turning in to a woman. For the most part the movie does offer up a soundtrack based around songs from the game, and we do get glances at other Mario villains, but that’s all considerably hindered by the cheap animation, and paper thin plot. It’s a perfectly fine–albeit weird–diversion, and I guess if you fancy yourself a completist, you can track this down and try it on for size.