[quote=Silverwind Blade]
Wasn't it also horrendously sexist, considering that the original point in the NES game was that 'the badass character is a woman all along', and making her dependent on some boringly normal man kind of took away a bit of her cred as a powerful female.That said, Japan is hardly the most progressive country in it's approach to female characters >.<
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It was. Other M's story is what happens when Japan gets involved. They made Samus a completely submissive bimbo, like most anime girls.

[quote=Jerkchicken]
I didn't even know Samus had characterization.Also I find your complaint about a franchise made to sell toys( especially one from the 80's where they were really unsubtle) being shallow in the movies amusing.
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If you play the Prime trilogy, she gets a ton of characterization without ever uttering a word. The Prime trilogy is, by far, the best depiction of Samus to date. She had plenty of opportunities to speak in Prime 3 since it had voice acted cutscenes, but still chose to remain silent. She's depicted as a brave, strong person who's not afraid to risk her life for the good of others, even nearly blowing herself up to save the galaxy. It's like Silverwind said; the point of Samus's original, and lore-accurate, characterization is that she could easily be mistaken for a man (hell, there are still people that don't know Samus is a woman), and when the armor comes off, you find out that the badass is a woman, not that the woman is a badass. The reveal of Samus's gender is still considered one of the biggest shockers in video game history, and that's what Metroid depends on.