Season 3 finale: Dear Faust, why? · 11:45pm Feb 17th, 2013
Lauren, please come back. Please! I'll sell you my internal organs! JUST PLEASE COME BACK AND SAVE FIM!!!
(Semi)-joking aside, from any possible analysis, that was a terrible episode. I'm not going to get too deeply into it as I am so beyond disappointed I cannot write about it for long without going into a maniacal rant and threatening to release a devastating, incurable viral plague upon the whole human race (kinda like Davros in that Tom Baker episode, "Genesis of the Daleks"... yeah, I would so be squeezing that hypothetical vial of death RIGHT NOW TO PUNISH HASBRO FOR THEIR BLASPHEMY.... *ack!* The heart palpitations are back again!)
Anyway, I'll just list a few of the ENORMOUS list of flaws I've found.
1: The pacing. It was like trying to tell the story of "Dune" in 15 minutes. As a musical.
2: ABSOLUTE CONFLICTING MESSAGES!! First part was about destiny not being set by one little mark. And then, "Twilight, guess what! YOUR DESTINY IS TO BE ALICRON AND U KAN DO NUTHING ABOOT IT!!!" Yeah...
3: No sense of urgency or emotion in ANYTHING that happened. Suddenly having your life switched around is TRAUMATIZING, yet it was used as flat listless plot device.
4: Alicorn ascension instantly accepted. Twilight, for all her overanalysis, WHICH IS ONE OF HER PRIMARY DEFINING CHARACTER TRAITS, just up and goes right along with ascending to Super Alicornyan without a moment's hesitation or doubt. My god... talk about throwing out any concept of drama. I had mentioned days ago that doing it this way would be the WORST POSSIBLE WAY to have it happen. And they did it. Good FUCKING GOD!!! This would have failed as a creative writing paper in college! It contains nothing but cliches and duex ex machinas, and really dull ones at that! They wasted even the potential to play the whole thing off for comedic effect! If anything, they could have at least tried to treat it as a joke, and had Discord as the one pulling the prank! But no.
5: Mane 6 dynamic destroyed. The 6 of them were 'equals' in the team, more or less. Sure, Twilight was clearly the primary character, just as Luke Skywalker was clearly the main protagonist of Star Wars or Captain Kirk was the 'boss' of the Enterprise. But there was a structure, a certain relationship between all the characters in those shows/movies that made us like them. We wanted to see how they grew and changed, gradually, REALISTICALLY, as the story progressed. We wanted to see their ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and then watch them rise to the occasion after the darkest parts of the struggle to become better people in the end. Twilight was HANDED this on a silver platter, after a hackneyed, contrived plot development... which is point 6.
6: Celestia risks everyone in Ponyville to test her student. WHY THE FLYING FUCK WOULD CELESTIA TOY WITH ALL THEIR LIVES LIKE THAT???!?!?!?!?!?!? She HATED Discord for making ponies miserable! REMEMBER THAT LITTLE CANON TIDBIT?! And yet here she does the EXACT SAME THING!! She USED them with a spell for the sole purpose of testing Twilight to see if she was ready to become a Princess... Uhm, what if she wasn't? THERE WAS NO COUNTERSPELL!!! Their lives would have been RUINED FOREVER!! Celestia has totally lost all credibility to me. What she did before, she had to, or at least you could play it off with some reasonable explanation: Only the Elements could stop NMM and Discord, and she had no connection to them any longer. She tried to fight Chrysalis as was beaten. Sombra... well, he was barely coherent. If she had to, she and Luna could've blasted him apart in his deranged state. But this.. this utterly pointless and potentially harmful 'test', which could have ruined the lives of the Mane 6 and their families, as well as thrown the entire town into 'CHAOS' (ahem, cue Discord)... it was beyond idiotic.
7: Apparently Rainbow Dash is the only weather pony left. That was just pure laziness on the part of the writers.
8: The uselessly long ceremony. Given the enormity of the changes to the meta-story, wasting almost a third of the episode on a stupid, pointless ceremony seems... retarded.
Ok, that's enough. I have read fanfics that I didn't even like that had more skill and forethought put into them. This was a DREADFUL episode from any type of literary analysis one chooses to look at it from.
Had this been the first episode of MLP:FiM I ever saw, I would have joined the haters on 4chan instantly. Because this episode was everything I hated about what G1 became after they gave up writing decent villain arcs.
Remember the very first special? You know, with Tirek? The evil goat-taur demon who wore a bag filled with pulsating PURE EVIL? The one who turned happy ponies into giant, vicious monsters of rage to pull his chariot of darkness... apparently because he got off on doing it... because he WAS JUST SO FUCKING EVIL?! And he threatened to kill Spike too.
THAT SINGLE SPECIAL made MLP a mega-hit. Do you know why? GOD-DAMNED GOOD WRITING!!! It wasn't all frills and songs and silly stupidity! There was real drama! There was the chance Tirek could win! The plot actually made sense! And even though it was very short, it FELT like a full and complete story because attention was paid to the pacing and ensuring that all the relevant information was there.
In just 45 minutes, they introduced ever character, made them feel like real people (or ponies) and then had them face a major baddie, then uncover the means to defeat said baddie and save the day! I just watched it again this weekend, and you know what? It was still, to this day, VASTLY superior to the Season 3 finale.
We can also compare this to "A Canterlot Wedding". There too, the conflict felt real! We had a twist no one expected, the introduction of a fascinating new race of antagonists with enormous potential for future use. This episode just threw away everything that could have led up to Twilight's eventual ascension, perhaps as a critical necessity were something to happen to the Princesses... perhaps even using Discord and Chrysalis as an evil duo!
And on the note of Discord, this episode is so severely inferior to "Return of Harmony", it's like comparing 5-star Chinese cuisine to a $0.25 pack of instant ramen noodles.
In fact, this elevation of Twilight should have been saved for an entire SEASON'S worth of development and dramatic storytelling, with her ascension and the aftermath being the climax and ending to the series, letting the whole show go out with a bang. It would have been the big build up to a stunning, heroic finale, much like "Return of the King".
Instead, we got "Scary Movie 4"...
Now, every show must have it's 'worst episode', and this is clearly it from any legitimate level of critical analysis. If the writers (and especially the soulless corporate shills at Hasbro, who just need to shut the hell up and stay in their offices counting their bags of Jew gold (thank you Eric Cartman) and leave the creativity to people who actually have some... remember the exec who wanted to artificially create a Care Bears' fandom consisting of 'Belly Bros'? Yeah, they're idiots.) realize what a horrible mistake they've made, then perhaps the show can be saved.
However, I fear that this is indeed the 'shark jump' episode, much like the fateful "Happy Days" event that coined the phrase; and thus the show will go into a death spiral from which there is no return.
Finally, to the show people... RE-HIRE LAUREN FAUST!!! Beg on your knees, offer her your firstborn children, and get her back. Clearly, you desperately need her vision and intelligence.
Now, I know that every series eventually has a terrible episode which fans single out as an abomination, but it's what the show does afterward that decides whether the creator learn from their mistake... or keep making bad choices.
EDIT: I realized that this is very much like the sentiment of 'Mr. Tardis', a semi-professional reviewer on Youtube, who has been a long-time Doctor Who fan (like myself) and has recently had no choice but to be severely critical of the recent seasons of the show. As he mentioned in one of his latest reviews (echoing my sentiments on Pony) I LIKE the show! I WANT it to do well. It makes me feel ill when they throw together such a hectic, disjointed, plot-hole ridden episode which flies in the face of previously established canon, as creates new canon which severely weakens the entire world framework. But as an honest reviewer, who is trying to learn how to write GOOD stories, who has studied the masterworks of both literature and television, it is my duty to call crap out for what it is and not to make excuses for failure.
I can only hope they get the message before this show goes the way of G1, when it abandoned even the pretext of trying to tell a story.
damn, alot of the people who i subscribed to don't like this episode or don't quite have an opinion about it while others are raving 10/10... me, its meh... so-so. yeah alot of those points make sense and lately for Twilight's development they have to dumb down every pony just for her to fix stuff.
840847 I suspect the majority of the people who like this are also big fans of reality TV and Lady Gaga.
What is Twilight the princess of, anyway? Celestia, sun, Luna, moon, Cadence, loooove — what the hell is Twilight ruling over!? And what about the spell in the beginning? If that was a spell to turn ponies into alicorns, which I presume so, seeing as though that was the result, why isn't everyone an alicorn? Screw mediocrity! I don't know who would settle for being an earth pony when you can just say a couple of lines of magic and become an alicorn...
To be fair, though; it is a kids' show. Most kids have short attention spans, so stories have to be short and snappy, so as not to lose the attention of those it's aiming at. It does seem like a cop-out ending, which just springs out of nowhere, but we're looking at a kids' show from a mature perspective. Of course, it won't be consistent or make sense, because we're not the primary audience here, and we never will be.
Plus, I liked those songs...
that or like anything that this show spits out. sure they whine about it when they first hear it then suddenly the episode airs then they go, "OMG AWESOME!"
To me... it seems like this show is trying to be 2 different shows at once with the whole slice-of-life then suddenly the adventure/villain episodes happen. I liked season 1 because it was like trying to take the old franchise and modernize it enough so it can attract a better audience, the rest is history after that. Season 2, felt like "Who's Jerk of the Week". Season 3 was more of a bridge as it had its ups and downs. People can like whatever they want and can crit whenever they want. That's what a fanbase is as we got moments that we liked and didn't, really we're not even better than the Star Wars and Sonic fandoms.
But then again... we are watching a show for little girls after all.
840905 Well, problem with that is, this is the same show that gave us Discord and Chrysalis.
This felt like an episode from a totally different show, or a really bad fanfic. In fact, it was worse than many fanfics I've savaged with critical analysis.
Every series eventually has a terrible....?
841886 You know, something that a series will do just to
841886 Huh, it cut off the last sentence. Why did it do that?
It felt like a two-parter episode that got compressed down to one. I'm willing to bet that if the season had been 26 episodes instead of 13, the result would have been very different. I'm not sure why this season was so scant, when next is projected to be a full 26. But yes, it felt like only the minimum of effort was put into the writing. I'd like to know what the voice actresses and other production crew think of this one.
842987 I'm sure poor Lauren has been slamming her head against a wall since Saturday.
They're killing her baby.
I mean, I would be. If I went through so much work to create a good show with strong writing and complex characters... and then was basically forced out and had to watch it devolve to this...
I'm thinking I'd be building a large bomb right about now (I wonder if North Korea could spare some plutonium)...
I've heard tell that this particular twist was planned by her from the start of the series. However, I am sure that it would have been handled better had she still been part of the show.
847057 It's a twist that, as I said, could be done well. But it needed GOOD PLANNING. Something this major in a story must be handled with care, and all the factors going into the change given consideration and explanation in the episode. At the very least, there needed to be SOMETHING from Celestia, explaining why she felt it so crucial to risk the futures of Twilight's friends.
We have all these loose ends hanging, which could have all been tied up, or at least had clues dropped to make us think, "Oh! They have something in the works here!"
But the episode as structured makes it seem as though that's all there is to it! Twlight's now and alicorn and... that's all, folks! There's not even a single hint that anything dramatic will be in the offing.
That's called FORESHADOWING, and is rather crucial in situations like this. They foreshadowed something going on with Twilight... sort of... you can make quite a good case that the foreshadowing wasn't very well handled, but if we're supposed to anticipate that her ascension is somehow critical to the fate of the cosmos or something, throw us a line here! All that wasted time with the ceremony should have been used to tell us that this was vital somehow, at the very least Celestia could have said something vague and mystical! ANYTHING would have been better than nothing!
There was a breadcrumb here and there, but nothing for the audience to say, "wait, what did she mean by that?" Aside from the "test" comment made to Luna at the end of the Crystal Empire arc, nothing direct was hinted at by the writers. There should have been a lot more build up to this. As it is, it felt like Twilicorn came out of nowhere. No, I take it back. It feels like it came out of a board meeting to make new toys. I know that isn't entirely the case, but when you deal with a product that is made by a large company, and the quality takes a sudden turn for the worse like this, you can't help but feel like that is the root of it.
I dunno. Maybe when the next season starts and the promised two-parter that directly ties into this one is shown, we'll get something coherent; but if they wanted a cliffhanger, this is not the way to go about it.
847478 And then Season 4 starts...
Celestia: Twilight, the reason I made you an alicorn is because you have a crucial mission...
Twilight: Really? So this wasn't just some BS thing?
Celestia nods!: It's VERY important! Critical! You see, you are needed... to help me turn your friends into alicorns!
*new Mane 6 alicorn toy line is introduced a week later*
Hey dude! Brohoof. I got your reply on EqD. And I totally agree with you on evverything.
852799 Thanks! It's frustrating to see the show accelerating in the decline of the stories. We had some good episode this season, but also some very bad ones. Spike and Rarity were HORRIBLY mischaracterized.
Spike especially. He went from the die-hard, loyal assistant who kept Twilight from living like some crazy hoarder in a den of filth, and maintained everything with utmost perfection, while doing some very real soul-searching about who and what he wished to be... to a bumbling idiot whose attempts to 'help' were more in line with the disasters of the CMCs.
Rarity... damn, she's just a shallow fashion whore this season. Remember when she used to sacrifice things? Like her tail (episode 1), getting filthy for her little sister (Sisterhooves Social), valuing Spike's gift to her and realizing she cared for him (Secret of My Excess)...
If I had to compare, Larson this season has been writing much like Steven Moffat in the recent Doctor Who serials: he started out so strong, but has suddenly begun making very poor stories, and even directly contradicting his own established canonical facts. Maybe it's a new brain disease spreading among TV show writers?
WARNING: Long post ahead.
Yep, got your reply too.
You sort of covered the points I made, though in a far more cynical manner. (That's not either good nor bad, it just is)
As you pointed out, "Alicornification" is not a bad plot idea, but is a significant enough shift that it requires great care and a great episode to build up to it. This episode (and this plot "arc") was not a great build up, merely OK (Plus, they had 13 episodes, couldn't they have spread out the arc a bit more than just the first two episodes and this episode to make it feel more natural?). However, when it comes to this huge of a shift in character and plot dynamics, merely "OK" is not enough, and thus this reveal of this plot point failed to do its job completely.
Again, I think the whole thing could of been done much better with better pacing. We would have had time to not only introduce more natural foreshadowing, but also had time for explanation of what happened (not all of it is needed for this episode, but enough such that we don't feel "ripped off" until season 4), better reveal of character reactions (as mentioned, Twilight, the other Mane 6's reactions, rather than having to skip to acceptance due to not having enough time to show natural progressions of reactions), hints about how aspects of the character dynamic will shift (again, not whole plot worths; that can wait until season 4, but enough such that we don't have to wonder if our mane characters will still be main characters come next season).
I guess the point is, if you want a massive shift in show and plot dynamics, try not to stuff that arc into a "half sized" season, and if you have to, try to dedicate a good portion of the season to that. Instead, they tried to keep the same sort of "plot arc to slife-of-life" ratio this season, which failed for the purpose of this setup not only because this season was shorted (less time of both), but the very magnitude of this shift demanded that it would need a higher "plot arc to slice-of-life".
I have noticed a disturbing trend in the MLP:FIM over the past few intros and finales, pacing problems are becoming greater, to the point where they are starting to overshadow the quality of the plots and character depth/growth. I hope they reign this in some, before it drags the show back into mediocrity.
Here is to hoping for Season 4 to fill in the huge gaps they had to rush through in this episode.
854438 It's funny that I found the previous 2 episodes as being fairly clever, having the episodes being essentially two stories of the same day, shown from two different characters points of view.
Basically, that was a single episode, with enough pacing to handle the simple events without requiring your brain to be on speed, meth, crack, and PCP to keep up with it!
There were a couple episodes that could easily have been moved or just left out entirely to give more room to explain just enough of why Twilicorn was crucial to make it not seem like nothing more than a ploy to sell a new toy line... oh wait, that's kinda what it was... But at least they cold have tried to do it right! ("Spike at Your Service", which I also thought was a severe mischaracterization of Spike, and destroyed his continuity and development, is #1 on the GET RID OF list.) It served no purpose whatsoever and was the weakest slice-of-life episode so far. At least "Mare Do Well" had many classic gags playing on old-timey superhero tropes (the baby in the carriage and absurdly placed cliff at the end of the road, for example).
Anyway, while Twilight was in the hall of mystical flashbacks, a handful of lines from both her and Celestia could have added so much, showing Twi's thoughtfulness, uncertainty at how her beloved teacher and Princess could seemingly use her and her friends like that:
Twilight, "But, wasn't it risky to have me use a half-finished spell which could have ruined my friends lives forever? I don't understand; why, Princess? Why did they have to go through that? Couldn't there have been a test that just risked me?
Celestia sighs, but remains stolid: My Faithful Student, it was a difficult choice. But there is... something coming. This was not just for your benefit, but for theirs. Your friendships and ability to wield the Elements of Harmony may yet be tested again one day.. but not by me. They must be the strongest they can be when that time comes.
Twilight: Princess, something ELSE is going to happen?! Really? Sheesh, and here I thought we were finally out of villains.
(had to add some comic relief!)
Anyway, a little scene just to give us a nudge that says, "Yep, this had to happen! You'll see why soon enough!" Cut a minute out of that useless ceremony scene with the stupid dresses (Luna's looked totally wrong on her. Wrong colors, wrong style, filled and overflowing with wrongness.) and give us some crucial plot exposition!
Compare that to "Apple Family Reunion", where we got character growth, introduction to a large number of new characters who felt 'alive' even though we only saw a minute or two of them, because SO MUCH CHARACTER was perfectly packed into those moments, we got the touching little hint that, yes, AJ's parents are dead, the timing of the reunions, which then gave us FINALLY confirmation of general length of pony lifespans (pretty much human-length if you do the math)... and, hell, that single episode gave us SO MUCH INFORMATION, all while feeling completely natural.
There was "Wonderbolt Academy" where Dash showed us all just how much she's grown in responsibility and thoughtfulness from her original brashness. Heck, her experience was the exact opposite of Twilight's, who basically had tremendous power thrown at her after finishing one spell, which she carelessly tried out without questioning what the FUCK it might actually do. Versus Dash not wanting to risk her friends' safety over a stunt... yeah... talk about a moral dichotomy! Heck, comparing the two, RAINBOW DASH showed the thoughtfulness and leadership qualities one would look for! She showed more real traits of friendship in a heartfelt, genuine fashion! SHE deserves to be an alicorn more than Twilight! (sighs... Twilight is no longer best pony... Dash is. God... I never thought I'd say that...) HASBRO!!! Y U RUIN TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!!
And then back to the destiny crap again. Seriously, destiny is so over-used and cheesy. If a story is going to go that route it needs to be really well-constructed to pull it off without feeling like some schlock-filled teen magical love novel ("Beautiful Creatures"... god, it's nothing more than "Twilight" crossed with a tidbit of "Harry Potter" (without the magical moments of self-discovery, powerful aspects of responsibility and choice vs blindly following fate, and a big helping of stupid.) Oh, and talking about blindly following fate... "Harry Potter" gives the single best explanation of how choice works into prophecy I have EVER seen!! I cried tears of joy when I read how Dumbledor reasoned with Harry about how self-fulfilling prophecy works ONLY when you choose not to deviate from it. Voldemort put all his belief into it, and thus his choice set the stage. Harry could easily choose to walk away, but his devotion to duty and love for his friends keeps him on the path. So, the prophecy is never unavoidable, it's simply the likely outcome given the personalities of those involved. It's more like knowing a supergiant is going to go supernova. Predicting it doesn't CAUSE the star to explode, it simply happens because that's the outcome given the circumstances and some knowledge of how stars work!
Hence why I despise the UNAVOIDABLE FATE trope, unless the story gives me a twist to it that makes sense (such as time travel paradoxes ("It's About Time" is a fate/causality loop, any deviation could cause the universe to asplode or something) some devious thing in the shadows manipulating everything stealthily, with the 'fate' being part of its plans... the escape being if the protagonist uncovers the manipulation and turns from the path... but there, you have to have that possibility open otherwise it's just a deux ex manipulation, which everyone hates.)
Anyway, all this analysis is why I have so much trouble writing my own stories. I inevitably end up thinking all my ideas are retarded because I see EVERY FLAW!!
Alright, after skimming through the comments here, I felt the people who liked the episode were very poorly represented. To counteract this, I'm going to respond as best I can to the points made in this blog.
Yes, it would be a bad idea to turn Dune into a musical. Now why would that be? Because a musical is supposed to get from song A to song B in a hurry, and you can't explain Dune's story well if that's the case. Look at Magical Mystery Cure again and tell me exactly what was wrong with the pacing? It started on a humorous, if overdone, note with Twilight inviting Murphy to come and wreck the place. It then quickly set the stage, with all of the mane 6's problems explained in one song, after which we see how it all came about while Twilight laments the fact that she screwed up her friends' lives, but I'll get back to that later. This is all followed by Twilight fixing everything, which is in turn followed by Twilight fixing the spell, showing that she has fully mastered the most powerful magic ever (friendship, in case that wasn't obvious) and thus ascending into royalty.
I got nothing. The only thing I can say is that maybe Celestia would've abliged had Twilight asked to refuse her title of 'princess'. Still pretty dickish of Celestia to force alicorn status on her.
With the exception of Twilight, none of the mane 6 were aware of what happened because of the unfinished spell. If you're talking about Twilight fixing the rest, they got their memories back. I think they'd look back on the event as an inconvenient, not traumatizing.
I think you trailed off into a different point there, but whatever. Twilight has always been shown to trust Celestia with her very being. It isn't OOC for Twilight to go along with the princess' will.
Twilight wasn't handed anything on a silver platter here. Just because they don't indicate something's a struggle to achieve something, doesn't mean it's not there. Twilight was taken in by Celestia as her pupil at a young age. If Celestia was going to hand Twilight this on a silver platter, she would've crowned Twilight princess when she became old enough. Instead, Celestia trained her from that age to be a princess, and her learning about friendship was the last objective. If it turned out she wasn't able to complete any of the things Celestia thought required, she wouldn't become a princess, as evidenced by Starswirl the Bearded not being a ruler of Equestria. In a sense, her entire life was one big struggle to this point. As for the mane 6 dynamic being destroyed, it certainly has changed with Twilight's new status. But we can't judge if that will be for better of for worse, simply because we haven't seen enough of the rest of the mane 6 interacting with alicorn Twilight to judge exactly how their dynamic has changed.
Okay, I have one simple question for you. How would Celestia know what the spell did? She warned Twilight it was unfinished in her scroll. Do you really think she would carelessly try an unfinished spell without knowing the possible consequences? She asked Twilight to finish it, not to use it in it's unfinished form and then clean up the mess. The way to fix the spell was with the magic of friendship, a perfect test to see if Twilight has mastered it, wouldn't you agree? It was all Twilight's decision to use the spell that might have thrown Ponyville into turmoil.
I've got nothing, once again. This is absolutely a flaw in the episode, if only a minor one.
Did we watch the same episode? It was hardly a fifth. Also, what of it would you have cut out exactly? As with the whole episode, everything that needed to be there was there, and no more.
Both Digibrony and BronyCurious would like a word with you.
And Magical Mystery Cure, in 20 minutes, had conflict introduction, conflict explanation, conflict resolution, event explanation, and an event. Without making in confusing, no less.
You do know that having Twilight become a princess was planned from the very beginning of the show, right? You know, when Faust was still on the team. This was her vision. Also, I think re-hiring Lauren would be a bad idea even without that, because the two episodes she actually wrote are two of the weakest. In my opinion, at least.
Again, the whole show was this, while also focusing on other things to not have it go stale. As for it being the climax of the entire show, why?! There're so many ways to take this. Twilight could go through a whole new character arc, the show could focus on the mane 6 going separate ways, the show could focus on Twilight struggling with her new responsibilities and possible immortality, the show could focus on a new group altogether, not elements of harmony, but ordinary ponies. So many ideas they could go with, each better that the last! Why should this have to be an ending?
I think that's all I have to say. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this different point of view.
918717 Ok.
About musicals. "Oklahoma". Tell me what happens there? "Singing in the Rain". Developments in that film? There were relatively minor changes to the characters as a whole. And those were nearly 2 hours long. This made major character changes across the board and neatly solved everything through unbelievable trains of thought in about 15 minutes (the last part being the ceremony).
They could have spent two full episodes just going through the troubles the 5 cutie-swapped ponies were going through. By glossing over it so quickly, there was no emotional investment in their difficulties. It felt hasty and severely forced.
The spell: If Celestia had no idea what it did, there are serious problems. Firstly, if she REALLY had no idea what it did, then having Twilight test it, unsupervised, in Ponyville, is utterly irresponsible. Secondly, if she had no idea what it did, then how could she possibly have planned to use it to test Twilight? What if the spell did nothing? Not a very useful test! Instead, it seems quite obvious FROM THE EPISODE ITSELF that Celestia had some idea of what Starswirl was trying to do. She said as much when she mentioned that he couldn't finish the spell because he didn't grasp friendship as well as Twilight did, meaning SHE KNEW WHAT THE SPELL WAS FOR, otherwise she could not honestly make such a statement.
And the handing of alicornication to Twilight: Why not the others then? Several of them have made as much growth as Twilight, if not more! Rainbow Dash clearly has developed immensely. Fluttershy SINGLE-HOOFEDLY REFORMED DISCORD!!!! If that is not a feat worthy of divine ascension, I don't know what is! And she doesn't freak out about things, as Twilight tends to do even in recent episodes! "Games Ponies Play", for instance? To give Twilight so much power when she still has difficulty with composure AND when some of her friends demonstrate equal or greater leadership ability smacks severely of nepotism.
Yes, I know that Twi was meant to become an alicorn. BUT, it was meant to be one of the defining, climactic moments in the series. I would ask you to consider how virtually every other cartoon series in history has handled events where a main character goes through some major personal change. Generally, there's quite a deliberate build-up, some drama, some time of self-doubt and concern. You know, things real people feel when faced with a monumental choice. All of that was thrown to the wind in this episode. I would say any dramatic tension was destroyed, but that would assume there was any in the first place. There was more inherent drama in the short time Twilight faced her worst fear in Sombra's Doorway of Doom, and that was a pretty weak episode overall. But far better than this one.
You know, I find it sad when I'm actually using "The Crystal Empire" for examples of how to create drama, and even sadder to realize that I can do so legitimately when comparing it to this episode.
The simple fact is, Twilight's ascension was planned, yes. I knew that a year ago (talked with Lauren at Documentary dinner, gave me a few hints at where she had planned to take it) and I have already seen a number of stories where Twilight's godhood is handled brilliantly! But the episode was a hatchet job. Even if they pull off some clever twist in the next season, that does not change the fact that this episode was hastily constructed, filled with plot holes, and threw away far too much potential story to rush Twilight through to an alicorn.
As for Lauren's episodes, I need to point out also that she had not originally wanted Nightmare Moon to be beaten so easily. Her original plan was for NMM's defeat to take THE ENTIRE FIRST SEASON. It was going to be difficult, and the Mane 6 were going to suffer some genuine heartache and danger along the way. But Hasbro didn't want that so they had to squish it all into 2 eps.
And as with any adventure (as with this episode) when you try to cram everything into such a short time period, so much is lost that the internal continuity collapses, thanks to the foundation being so frail.
any time I see comments like this, I just have to post these videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Q0B29MKsI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN6vjn19uf8
918717 1. yeah that's the point that everyone (except digibrony) agrees with. Personally I much prefer an episode to have fast pacing (rewatching is a whole new experience) over slow pacing (rewatching is a slog)
2. I argue that it makes the moral complete. The first half is you shouldn't blindly accept destiny. The second half is you shouldn't refuse it. Sometimes following someone else's course in life can lead you to happiness, and sometimes it can't. Only you can be the judge of that, but friends can help you realize this.
3. None of the mane 5 knew their other past.
4. already explained this.
5. because getting wings keeps her from doing magic...
6. Yeah like getting the mane 6 to calm the dragon in dragonshy. There are tons of episodes where it would make more sense for her to intervene and until you stop with the double standard, then I won't keep finding problems here
7. where did you get that one? That seriously feels like a giant nit-pick
8. The entire ceremony lasts 3 minutes. And the entire Alicorn plot-line lasts only 5.
"rehire Lauren Faust." 1: she left on her own, it had nothing to do with hasbro. 2. please explain what the hell Lauren brought to the table besides a bible that they're still using, and 3 mediocre episodes.
1935648 THIS WAS NOT JUST FAST PACED!!
It OMITTED facts which left gaping plot holes!
Where was the Apple family? Where was the weather team? Why did Pinkie (who lived on a farm for her childhood) have no clue how to do any farmwork?
It threw everything together helter-skelter, driving it like a herd of staggering, exhausted cattle toward the destination of slaughter!
Basically, it was nothing but 'Make Twilight an alicorn at all costs', and those costs included the writing.
By comparison, parts 2 and 3 (first episodes of season 4) gave people time to breathe and reflect upon what they were seeing. There was time for reflective drama (fallen Celestia, Twilight mouring), and repetition of unclear points when more evidence became available (the revelation by Discord of the purpose of his Plunder Seeds).
Those to episodes were so drastically different in tone, pacing, and character than the end of Season 3 they felt almost from a different series!
I stand by my conclusion that Season 3 should have ended on a 2-parter to clear up the plot holes and smooth the tone.
1936301 I agree with it, like said before the only plotholes I see are why don't the apples stop pinkie, and where are the other weather groups seem more nit-picky. Everything else can easily be explained. But if that's the only criticism then I think I did a good enough job defending it.
1938559 There is also the unanswered question as to why nopony in the town who knows the Mane 6 bothers to ask any of them why they're acting weird.
They just glare and yell at them, for the most part.
I know the ponies in that town are crazy and stupid... but seriously!
"Mane 6 dynamic destroyed. The 6 of them were 'equals' in the team, more or less. Sure, Twilight was clearly the primary character, just as Luke Skywalker was clearly the main protagonist of Star Wars or Captain Kirk was the 'boss' of the Enterprise. But there was a structure, a certain relationship between all the characters in those shows/movies that made us like them. We wanted to see how they grew and changed, gradually, REALISTICALLY, as the story progressed. We wanted to see their ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and then watch them rise to the occasion after the darkest parts of the struggle to become better people in the end. Twilight was HANDED this on a silver platter, after a hackneyed, contrived plot development... which is point 6."
*Sigh* I so wanted you to be wrong, but after the travesty of the last two seasons...damn it, the neighsayers were right.
5217829 I am quite amazingly accurate at predicting outcomes.
Some of it has to do with people falling into repetitive patterns when they exhibit certain traits...
The rest is because.... I CAN SEE THE FUTURRRRRRR!!!