Episode Re-Review: Campfire Tales · 7:09pm Jun 15th, 2021
At long last, Season 7 decided to settle on a theme that would define it: These "pillars" from ancient Equestria, a sort of mane six before the mane six. The IDW comics had already begun promoting this theme with a stand alone series entitled "Legends of Magic" which had replaced their long running "Friends Forever" series in early 2017 (by a quirk of release schedules the first "Legends of Magic" was actually released before the last "Friends Forever"). Yet it was only now, sixteen episodes in, that the show was getting into it. But it's worth mentioning that the original plans were different. Originally, the show staff wanted to have information on the pillars come out during Season 7 and would then have Season 8 focus on the search for them. Hasbro, however, wanting to wrap up the show at nine seasons, rejected this idea. So the show had to scramble to salvage as much of their plans as they could because Hasbro thought it would be a good idea to instead promote a "School of Friendship" in Season 8 even knowing that it would be the penultimate season. So that may explain why this episode exists, only now introducing us to the idea of the pillars in the show. What doesn't quite make sense is the introduction of two new writers for their only episode: Barry Safchik and Michael Platt, who had only previously written for vague live action shows. Considering the previous live action writer (David Rapp) had debuted to an absolute disaster, that wasn't exactly inspiring confidence here. And since these writers never came back, that must mean their episode wasn't that good. But is that the case? Well, let's find out.
We begin with the CMC attending a campout somewhere unknown, and they mention that supposedly it's been only a year since the last one (which took place during "Sleepless in Ponyville"). But I somehow doubt that after at least two winters have come and gone that it's only been a year. This is just like Season 4 trying to claim that the events of Seasons 1 through 3 took place in the span of a year despite at least two winters going by. I know the show never established a definitive timeline or passage of time, but they don't really think we're going to believe that many events can fit into just one year unless pony years are absurdly long, do they?
They also seem intent on making Rainbow Dash a butt monkey since Scootaloo has to tell Rainbow Dash not to eat berries you see in the wild. I mean, you might as well have her be trying to eat wild mushrooms.
Suddenly, the campsite is set upon by these creatures called flyders: A combination of flies and spiders. And you know there's only one solution that'll work.
But since no one has a flamethrower or anything, they instead opt to run into a nearby cave to get away from the flyders (I assume nopony brought bug spray even though that should be one of the things you always bring to any campout). Alone in the cave and with nothing to do, the idea is proposed to tell stories around a campfire. Except they don't have any firewood. Fortunately, Rainbow Dash is up to the task of retrieving some even though she gets bitten all over.
Scootaloo, however, is acting unusually nervous. It really feels like they're playing up her scaredy cat ways because they think it'll be funny. Except just watching someone act scared doesn't magically make it funny. You know what makes Scooby-Doo and Shaggy's cowardliness funny? It's because it's intentionally made over the top, and the humor comes from watching them resort to all kinds of outlandish methods to get away from the monster or monsters. And yet they still usually end up contributing to solving the mystery anyway. It doesn't work if you just make someone act scared in a situation where it's already kind of scary. That aside, we get the first of three stories (a ways into the episode too), the legend of Rockhoof. Rockhoof wanted to join a royal helm that protected his village that was settled on a volcanic island, but he was rejected for being too scrawny and was just given a shovel to work with. But hey, a shovel can be a powerful weapon in the right hooves/hands. Just ask Shovel Knight.
One fateful day, however, the volcano suddenly began to erupt! So what did this helm Rockhoof wanted to join so badly do? They immediately boarded a boat and left the village they were supposed to protect, and not because all the villagers had already evacuated either!
Yet all by himself, Rockhoof was able to dig a huge trench around the entire island to safely funnel the lava away (nevermind the deadly ash and gases, or the insanely high temperatures). And somehow, while doing this his shovel magically transformed him into a massive stallion. And sadly, due to "The Ending of the End" we know that this isn't just a part of the story made up or misunderstood. Nope, it actually exists. Rockhoof owes his strength to magic, not to hard work. And only because he beefed himself up and made himself look good via the magic of his shovel is he allowed to join that helm that mocked him before (solely to save face when he did what they wouldn't). It's like someone looked at the Wonderbolts' behavior in episodes like "Newbie Dash" and "Rainbow Falls" and thought that was totally acceptable behavior for authority figures.
Next up, we have Rarity telling the tale of Mistmane who is the pillar of beauty. She came from a village from some far away land, apparently resembling Fleur De Lis' unique body type. But she came back to her village after years of studying abroad to find it in ruins. The emperor, a former friend of hers named Sable Spirit grew resentful and jealous of Mistmane's natural beauty. So much so that she tried to cast a spell to make herself look just as beautiful, but it backfired and aged her considerably. Now, as a result, she wants to destroy all the beauty she sees so that no one and nothing can be more beautiful than her.
Mistmane naturally objects, engaging with her former friend in a pretty well animated magic duel that ends with her successfully defeating Sable Spirit and tying her up. But then, out of the blue, Mistmane gives up her outer beauty to restore beauty to the land around her. At no point is it stated that the land is incapable of ever producing anything ever again. In time, it would regain its beauty. It feels like, much like Rockhoof's story, something was left out that wasn't supposed to be left out. Anyway, Mistmane makes this sacrifice that has no given reason for it to exist, and because of this example Sable Spirit claims she's learned her lesson and is forgiven. And that's just it, even though she ruined the land around her she gets off with no consequences because she says she's sorry. I mean, this is as bad as G1 Megatron keeping Starscream around despite the latter always trying to get rid of him and take over.
So then it's time for Rainbow Dash to tell her story about her legend, though before she can do that the flyders somehow find their way inside the cave and the group has to retreat further. Rainbow Dash collapses the cave so that the flyders can't follow them, the only one who actually tries to do something in this situation. And yet because of that she gets berated by everyone. This feels just like "Top Bolt" where they only ever want to make jokes at Rainbow Dash's expense or advance the story by having the universe be against her. I get it, Rainbow's arrogant and can be obnoxious, but in episodes like this she's doing nothing to deserve being dumped on all the time. It's like when modern Spongebob tortures Squidward for no reason other than because it wants to.
Well, that little detail aside, Rainbow Dash tells the story of Flash Magnus and this great legion to which he belonged. One day, they encountered a group of dragons led by what appears to be Torch (maybe before he was the dragon lord)? And the episode pauses the story to make a joke about Scootaloo being scared yet again because the dragons are not like Spike. So now they're trying to sneak in a joke at Spike's expense on top of constantly dumping on Rainbow Dash? Between this and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom suggesting Spike is not fercious, I think the CMC's big sisters should be having a little talk about treating Spike with more respect. Anyway, we cut back to the story as we must have another questionable detail from an authority figure, this time in Commander Ironhead. In direct defiance of the military code of "Never leave a man behind", he decides to write off two members of his squad because they got captured.
Flash Magnus of course opposes this, and the same Commander Ironhead happy to write off two of his captured members is now willing to let Flash Magnus use a special shield for a one pony rescue mission. But making everyone else look bad by comparison is not a good way to show Flash Magnus as brave. It just shows that he's competent, same as with Rockhoof and Mistmane where apparently they're the only ones who can do what must be done. This is exactly why people are becoming disillusioned with the idea of a "Chosen One" protagonist, because their existence renders everyone else obsolete in a crisis (though some works are good at getting around this).
So that story of Flash Magnus ends, and then out of the blue the group happens to find a small stream not too far away. They all jump into it (Scootaloo riding on Rainbow Dash's stomach for some reason), and get washed out of the cave and to their destination in the first place. And having heard the stories, the CMC feel inspired to help set up camp. That's it, really. It feels like a flimsy excuse to make the stories serve a purpose other than time wasters.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it was clearly hoping to be the next "Sleepless in Ponyville" given all the stuff it had, but it ended up being the next "Look Before You Sleep" in that it just seems to have been a bottle episode to save money. I mean, this whole episode just serves to cram in three legends because they couldn't think of any other way to fit them into the season, something that the other two legend based episodes would have no trouble at all with. And nothing else really goes on besides that. Oh sure, they try to have a story and a conflict, but it all feels so artificial and irrelevant by the end. And the stories based on the legends themselves feature so many questionable details. It feels like there was supposed to be more and then they just cut out important pages so they could throw in jokes. I guess maybe the real lesson to learn is don't have live action writers write for children's animation because between this and "Newbie Dash" I think it's obvious that live action writers were out of place and ill equipped to write for this show, especially at a time when the seasons were being produced with greater executive meddling from Hasbro. Really though, this just feels like a commercial for the "Legends of Magic" comics, as if saying "They exist, go check them out". Yes, I'm sure this episode was written under time constraints due to Hasbro's mandate about the pillars, but there had to be a better way of going about it then what we got here. It only seemed to prove that Lewis and Songco as story editors were incapable of getting Season 7 to go anywhere, the season was now helplessly spinning its wheels and going nowhere. This episode gets a borderline C-/C, even knowing what was to come for Season 7 it accomplished practically nothing of substance.
Well, the next episode in production order (though not air date) is "Daring Done?" and it's getting a re-review, it's definitely a better send-off for Daring Do than "Daring Doubt" in Season 9.
Well to this episode's credit, at least it doesn't have the older sisters bickering like children for most of its runtime. But yeah, it would've been better if the featured legends got their own episode instead of having to share one.
5535720 They could've easily found a way to fit the legends into their own episodes if they'd dropped "Fame and Misfortune" and "Honest Apple", neither of those episodes needed to exist.
Eh... I don't think so, but I'll save my biggest reason for that for that review.
As for this episode, it's definitely one that I don't feel particularly strong either way on, though I do really love the story about Flash Magnus.
This isn't one of the most noteworthy episodes, but I really liked the Mistmane tale.
5535722
Honest Apple did need to exist for its moral.