Live Blogging Testing Testing 1 2 3 · 10:43pm Apr 5th, 2014
Alright, got the episode recorded, so here we go!
Twilight is in full adorable mode today, I see. Excellent.
Only a minute in and I'm already loving this. Twilight is awesome here. A perfect mix of fear, frustration, and squee. Everything works, from how Twilight is a bit unsteady on the cloud to Rainbow Dash's jokes about how Twilight is bad at sneaking up on her. Wonderful!
That book is bigger than Dash. I foresee hijinks!
I love how Dash appears to literally not understand the concept of studying, or remembering what she reads. I'm guessing she had a few D's in her classes.
And here comes the checklist!
HAH! I love how the first step is highlighting. I remember going highlighter happy when I was younger, highlighting everything in the book.
...and it looks like Dash is the same way.
...this whole blog is going to just be me saying "Twilight and Dash are adorable", isn't it?
Hey, where'd that lunch box come from? I blame Pinkie.
The "Celestia/Luna rift?" That's what they're calling it? That's kind of a weak name.
(Also, there was no need for a Guard before the rift? What, was there no crime at all? No monsters, no changelings, etc? Was it just assumed the alicorns could always handle things? All the things?)
This Dash/Spike/Owl dance routine is weird. And awesome.
Okay, so if I get the history right, after Luna was banished, Celestia established an army. One year later, she made the Wonderbolts to commemorate the one year anniversary since a princess went crazy. And then their leader called them the Wonderbolts because this General Firefly guy wasn't very creative at naming things.
Dash's embarassed smile is adorable!
As is Twilight when talking about flash cards.
"Colonel Purpledart?" Seriously? Was "Major Ochre-arrow" taken?
You know, it's occuring to me how Twilight can be very mean with her teleportation when she wants to be. "You want to go home? Tough! Today is library day!"
"And so breakfast-related" is probably my favorite line yet.
Huh. Didn't see the 'Dash realizes she doesn't know anything' coming. I thought we were going to get a 'Twilight is overreacting again' moral.
...okay, not liking Dash here. Now she's just being a jerk.
Wait, so why is Dash panicking? Can't they just start again with Dash being serious this time? Judging from what we saw, they've spent about ten minutes so far, so it's not like Dash really wasted all that much time.
Here comes Fluttershy.
Oh my. Fluttershy can get angry when she wants to. (Nice showing here, by the way.)
So, Fluttershy's method is interpertive dance? I did... not see that coming. (Although Angel is unusually cooperative, which is nice.)
This is a funny way to use all the pets, but I'm kind of with Dash in the 'how much sense this makes' department. Namely, none.
"Musical intervention?" What is that, a song about why you should stop using drugs?
Oh. So that's what it is.
First rap song of MLP. I'm not a rap afficianado, but I like the tune and the beat, and I'm glad they're moving into more genres (as Cadanceverse readers could probably guess). That said, in terms of critique, Pinkie's squeaky voice is having trouble enuciating some of the words, especially when combined with the masking effects of the rest of the music. Here's hoping someone releases the lyrics later (or already did.)
Pinkie's rap outfit is very silly. I like how the clock face is pink and how the cowboy hat is about twice as wide as it needs to be.
Wait, how does Pinkie know this? Where did she get her backup singers? Where did Vinyl come from? I am confused.
So, we have Generaly Firefly, Admiral Fairweather, Colonel Purpledart, Admiral Fairyflight, and Commander Easyglider. Besides Purpledart, those are sensible names.
Aww... Dash is failing again.
Hey, Dash agrees with me on Rarity's fashion sense! (Her hat is slightly less stupid than in Maud Pie, but the rest of her outfit is so dumb it makes up for it. She looks like she's going to have tea with Napoleon.)
The Wonderbolts flew in that? How did they keep their hats on?
Does Dash need to know the fashion? Like, I'm not sure this would be helpful even if Dash were more intellectual here.
Flair DeMare? General Flash? We're getting a lot of names today.
Pinkie looks like a train conductor with a very silly, very large hat. Fluttersly looks like a train conductor on the beach. Twilight looks like she's trying to join the CIA. (The sunglasses are a very funny look on her.) Applejack's outfit actually looks military.
"LOOK AT ME!" Ah, Pinkie.
Wow, AJ was a bit harsh there. "Don't worry, Dash. Rarity just sucks. And actually, Dash, you suck too. So, bye!"
Dash has reached her despair horizon, it seems. (Hey, why not try using the Elements of Harmony on the test? Worth a shot, right?)
Twilight, the sentence "you are not dumb; you just learn differently" has never in history been believed by anyone it's been spoken to.
(I note that Twilight is able to fly backwards now. Guess she's improving.)
Crusader cameo! And there's Big Mac and Filthy Rich.
And here comes a helicopter out of nowhere for no reason. "Beep beep. The plot contrivance helicopter is coming through!"
Dash is a good multitasker? Interesting way to take her character. I also like the idea that she's observant and has very good senses. Some nice character development here.
Dash, you're going all Discord on that cloud. (I'm guessing there's already fic on how pegasi emotions can mess with clouds now.)
Nice bonding between Dash and Twilight here. Much better than the lecturing we saw in the Equestria games tryouts.
Dash, you have a job! What, do they fire you from the weather team if you fail a Wonderbolts tryout? And apparently it pays enough to have a really nice cloud house.
And here's Twilight with a completely useless answer. "How did I learn it?" "You learned it!" "Yes, uh, thanks, but what I meant was..."
Okay... I like what they did, but I'm going to cry foul on keeping it from the viewer like that. We should have at least seen the ponies wandering around or acting things out while on the ground. It's kind of cheap to say that all this stuff happened below them, and it wasn't shown. (Also... wouldn't Dash have noticed this? I mean, I'd like to think that if she saw it, even subconsciously, she'd wonder what was going on.)
So that's where crop circles come from! Also, Flutters makes a great Celestia.
***
Overall, loved it. This was a wonderful episode. Absolutely top notch all around.
Purple Dart is a reference to the Purple Heart, the medal awarded to soldiers wounded in service to the United States of America.
Meh... most real world conflicts have equally uninspiring names.
For me the bigger issue is that the "Rift" is mentioned here as a matter of historical record, despite the fact that previous episodes portrayed it as something so obscure that it had faded into myth/legend, to the point where only Twilight was concerned over the whole prophecy of Nightmare Moon's return and where no pony (not even Twilight) seemed to be aware that Celestia had ever even had a sister in the first place.
As for there having been no need for a guard prior to the "Rift", well admittedly, that would seem unlikely by the standards of our own world. Equestria, however, isn't our world and so implausible as it might seem it's not actually contradictory to anything. After all, at least the myth/legend of the time seemed to describe a sort golden age or Garden of Eden type scenario, where everypony was happy and conflict didn't yet exist (or at least had gone dormant follow Discor's defeat).
Still, if I were to rationalize it for myself, I might equate the formalizing of the EUP guards as being the Equivalent to the Night Court as established by Luna in the Lunaverse. Prior to the "Rift" both sisters were seemingly infallible in their rule, or at the very least that each served as a check on the excesses of the other. As such when one fell from grace it became a serious wake up call to the other, and so each took measure to institute governmental reforms (and presumably associated defense forces).
I rather wish it had stuck with that angle and that it only had been Twilight falsely projecting her own anxieties. I mean, the Wonderbolts have always been portrayed as the most central and prominent focus of passion in Rainbow's life. Having once had an old high school buddy who was similarly fanatical about the local baseball team, I'd have genuinely expect Rainbow to be fully justified in her bravado that she could pass this upcoming test in her sleep.
Well, to be fair, form the moment Twilight started planning with the others it should have been rather obvious what was going on, whether we see it or not. Still you are right that it's incredibly odd that Rainbow would have been so utterly passive an observe to so many oddities. Nothing form the previous examples ever indicated that her "multitasking" was something she had no conscious awareness of, and in fact, it actually seemed rather the opposite.
Really, the episode probably hit on a better resolution when Twilight referenced Rainbow encyclopedic knowledge of all thing Daring Do related, suggesting that while Rainbow might not be much for studding, she has a voracious appetite for narrative adventures. This solution could have also better tied into a sort of combination of the efforts of her other friends -- a stage performance choreographed by Fluttershy, costumes designed by Rarity, narration written by Twilight, and all set to music by Pinkie Pie.
General FireFlyGuy is General FireFlyGal.