Mini Re-Reviews: "Friendship Is Magic Part 1" - Season 1 Episode 1

TWILIGHT: "Would you look at that, Spike! Our opening screenshot shows off that most useful of animation principles - smearing! Okay, it's mostly wind, but it counts! How often do you see that in Flash?"
SPIKE: "..."
TWILIGHT: "...you don't know what smearing is, do you?"
SPIKE: "...No..."
TWILIGHT: "Ugh, it's drawing part of a character twice in the same frame to give the illusion of fast movement better when viewed at normal speed! It's not that hard to understand, sheesh."
SPIKE: ...Twilight, do you realise this is the re-review of the first episode, right? Not the analysis of the show's visual style? Don't you remember? That didn't test well, so we shelved it."
TWILIGHT: "...I hate dramatic irony sometimes."

[Apologies for the long overdue review to the series' first two episodes, as well as a plan for the future of these reviews, will be at the end of the review of Episode 2, coming real soon]

How does one even go about reviewing the first two episodes of Friendship is Magic these days? The show's early years were dissected to their guts years ago, and with a few potential exceptions, nowhere is that more true then with the two-parter pilot that launched the series in the first place. Not to mention the innumerable fanfictions and other works of fan content based specifically on or deriving from this episode (all those Nightmare Moon AUs - even the show itself got in on it later!). With all that in mind, I cannot promise the usual dose of new or at least rarely-seen insights into these two episodes. There's virtually nothing left to say about this episode (at least, staying within the context of the show itself, and not venturing into fandom works or headcanon), only things to be reconsidered, and possibly shared with those who have not yet come across such trains of thought.

Certainly, the episode boasts a strong start, with its Disney-like-yet-different storybook opening of an as-of-yet-unseen Celestia narrating the is-it-real-is-it-not? history of how the elder sister ruler of a pair of unicorns (yes, they are actually called unicorns, despite having visible wings already) had to banish the younger sister to a thousand years in the moon when her own jealously corrupted her. The animated notion of opening with a prologue as told through a storybook is one of those quintessentially Disney things that, despite only appearing in a handful of their films, came to be synonymous with them and animated fables for kids (it probably appears mostly in Disney knock-offs). So starting on that took some real guts, given it might scream "processed girly junk" like past generations of MLP, but there's nothing girly about the contents within. Except, you know, that everyone's a pony. Indeed, these days it reminds me of nothing so much as the shadow puppet opening of Kung Fu Panda 2, sharing the theme of the villain's backstory before skipping to the present. The filmmaking technique and visual detail can't compare to that film, naturally, but it is still different enough from the show's main style, with clever transitions to inject faux-cinematography in place of the budget to do so, that it makes for a strong elevator pitch, if you will.

One thing this episode never does is lag - it bears reminding how lucky we are that the characterisations and lore of FiM are as deep as they are, making all but a few episodes never feel padded to fill their 21 minutes (and many of them shortened to do so). Following the storybook opening, there's two mini-scenes of Twilight pondering on what it means, and then declining an invitation to a party from some other unicorns to do her research. Both do a good job at having lines of dialogue serve both as plot propulsion and as character exploration, an attribute that is very much present in the longer scene in her personal library. I could rattle off the various things this scene does well - showing Twilight's knowledge through complex-for-kids vocabulary that a bewildered Spike requires a dumbed-down version of; letting visual actions be integrated seamlessly with words so the onscreen action all feels dense (look at Nightmare Moon's reflection in the hourglass as Twilight passes by!) - but it is apparent quickly that this is a pilot episode, for the viewers if not for the studio. It's perhaps unfair to accuse the first episode of a series as sticking to surface-level explorations of characters, to get them all introduced around a busy plot, but I still don't know that I agree with the plot construction of the episode's middle being a straightforward introduction, one-by-one, to the rest of the Mane 6 in a way that screams "Here's X Character where X is their main personality!". Only Twilight in this first episode is afford legitimate depth, though honestly the characterisation may be strongest with Spike - there's tons about him shown through small cues without being directly addressed, from the notion that he's social with Twilight's old friends more then she is, to the way he takes charge with the introductions to the others when she's just fed up with it all.

All of that being the case, let's not pretend the bulk of this episode isn't entertaining and cute and fun, for it is, through every character's introduction. I have always maintained that Friendship is Magic's whole thing is being cliched yet exceptional, boiling down to largely doing expected things in plot and character (though thankfully not always in joke and individual lines), but doing them well enough to override the dreariness that may assault the viewer upon recognising the cliche. While the opening storybook scene clears that effortlessly, most of the episode's middle flicks back and forth across it. Basically everyone looking back these days acknowledges that the series' first two episodes are rather rough and plain in many aspects, and probably wouldn't have hooked them on the show alone if they were that viewer's first introduction. The end result is a sentiment of "this is cute and fine, but deep characters adults can't stop thinking about and which fuels them to be involved in a never-ending fandom? Yeah, reality check, buster."
I will say, though, that given Twilight is the one with an arc these first two episodes, her early snakiness and introverted attitude remain refreshing and compelling; given by the end of the next episode she's taken a few steps forward already, her treatment here remains unique, and to many of us, Twilight here is arguably more relatable then thereafter.

Far better, for my tastes, is the world-building and world-exploring. All the lore backstory for Celestia and Luna is one thing, but I remain more impressed by all the details shown but not dwelled on - the nobility (or the Princess' student) getting a royal guard pegasus ride is like a visual example of the horse puns throughout the show, but even better. The notion of the ponies literally managing the weather is the other obvious one. Better yet is the implication of how pony roles in pony society are constructed - it's arguably racially-stratified with earth ponies doing manual labor, Pegasi more fanciful manual labour, and unicorns more bureaucratic roles. Not something the show ever really explores, alas, but it's another light touch that does a wonder to sell this world as a believable one viewers got immersed in as much as the characters.

The rough visuals in this early stage do deserve a mention, though it's largely only because of how the show's animation quality gradually evolved as the seasons progressed. And the episode does a good job of sidestepping the need for expansive background casts and vistas when it can, especially in the early Canterlot scenes, keeping it to areas of the castle and observatory (sure, it feels sparse next to Canterlot later on, but not in the moment). The actual background pony animation during the party later (Derpy birth notwithstanding) is quite rough, something you don't realise how good it usually is without an example like this. Ditto for a share of rough animation tweens throughout. But as first episodes go visually, this had the potential to be much worse, and the positive aspects of the show's look pop and immerse.

Barely touched on the plot of this one after the early scene, didn't I? Well, you all know it by heart, but the episode ends on a tense note as Nightmare Moon returns, casting the land into eternal night as she cackles about her vengeance. Despite being a two-parter, the two halves are basically in different genres, with this first half being mostly of a piece with the gentle slice-of-life stories that are the show's bread and butter (it also contains one of the episode's best visual gags in Twilight's pronounced visual disinterest at Spike fainting and rolling off her back). Honestly, this is a good episode, and most of its flaws come from not stacking up to the heights reached later in the season, or not matching up with where the show would end up going (and also some arguable compression, but let's save that for next time). I would still call it better then any of Episodes 3-6, all bristling with roughness until "Dragonshy" marked the show's first truly great episode. A 7.5/10 strikes me as fair for this one. Just remember to start with a stronger episode as a teaser, or reassure that it gets better, when starting others on Friendship Is Magic.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- It shows how much M.A. Larson bought into Twilight's character (and also Spike's), that he fixated on the brief early scene of her ignoring her old Canterlot "friends", and pitched an episode developed from that, season after season until he used his brief stint as show runner to get it made, and the result was "Amending Fences" a near-universal pick for one of the show's best episodes. That kind of dedication is rare among shows aimed at the writers, much less those aimed at their children. Bless this man.
- Spike's vocabulary and spelling ability being rather limited here is a weird case of Early Instalment Weirdness, one that, despite its help to the Canterlot observatory library scene, I'm glad never appeared again - anyone who writes that many letters for Twilight would have a wide vocabulary and excellent writing ability.
- As others have pointed out before, this first episode is very structurally similar to the first episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, with the introduction to the show's main setting coming at identical points and the bulk of the rest of the episode filled with introductions to the show's other main characters before a point of tension is introduced at the end as a cliffhanger.