“Moon Festival” Review (YouTube) · 7:58am Aug 25th, 2023
New review for the Tell Your Tale episode “Moon Festival” out now!
Transcript:
“Hello, everypony! My name is Hawk Nightwing, the most unapologetic defender of G5 you’ll ever meet, and I just watched the 59th episode of Tell Your Tale “Moon Festival!” Now, I know this review is unexpected considering my prior statement and the fact that my G5 defense video still is not out yet, but bear with me here. I’m gonna try and make my LONG community post as simple and straightforward as I can.
So to those of you that didn’t read, basically, with Make Your Mark Chapter 5 being so close on the horizon and my new launch date for the Producer-Nightwing Triple Feature Event coinciding with that day, I came up with this new promotion strategy in which I could build up hype for the video itself and get you all as excited as me for Chapter 5, which I believe is going to be the best installment ever in this series. Plus, I kinda fear the channel fading into obscurity if I leave it for a little while longer. My last two videos were like…a whole month ago, and the content conveyer belt has been dead silent ever since. Well, today that’s changing as I’m launching my channel early! That way I can hopefully have a bigger audience for when the defense video does drop. Not saying there’s anything wrong with you guys at all, y’all are awesome, just…this is a big and ambitious project, and I’m hoping for the maximum engagement possible.
So with that in mind, if you are new here, then feel free to leave a like on this video and subscribe to the channel if you want to see both parts to ‘A Passionate Defense of My Little Pony: Generation 5’ the microsecond it comes out! Yes, I am serious. You will have the power of getting the notification that fast. Now with that out of the way, onto the review!
Zephyr Heights is apparently hosting a Moon Festival for the first time since magic returned! And as you can expect, things aren’t quite right during this particularly festive evening. A mysterious source of magic is supercharging the pegasi while they fly, a giant ball is rolling throughout the indoor market and putting everypony in danger reminiscent of “Growing Pains,” and Zipp will not stand for this whatsoever! So she vows to get to the bottom of this, find out the source of the magic acting up, and fix the festival in time for the grand finale!
So…what did I think of this episode? Well…it was good, it was alright. I mean, coming off of the last episode, which was emotionally heartfelt and more mature, this kinda felt like a step back into the more simplistic territory. Now there are things to love here, don’t get me wrong. For one thing, Zipp steps back into the spotlight as a detective and the comedic interrogations that she’s known for were quite funny to see.
[Insert clip] Mate, how do you have pancakes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?! Don’t you get tired of eating the same thing after a while? Oh well, to each their own, I guess. I’ll just go ahead and call this guy Pancake Pony.
Second, Sunny blocking out the Moon in her alicorn form using all of the lanterns was really cool to see, especially with that rainbow aurora light shining down at the crowd at the end. That was a spectacular shot and it actually kinda reminded me of “Rainbow Roadtrip” with the Rainbow Generator. I also think the general vibe of the episode was consistently engaging. One thing I will give the shorter 5-minute runtimes of the Tell Your episodes is that things are constantly moving. You never feel like the story is slowing down to a crawl or anything like that. In this instance, the episode has a really nice pace where we see each step of Zipp’s investigation and her deductions, plus the moments before that.
We get to see the growing conflict and how its escalating to the point of utter chaos until it’s revealed what’s really causing all of the mayhem. The moment everything finally clicks for our favorite ponies that it’s the Moon that was causing this was well timed and it doesn’t feel contrived because there was a shot earlier where Zipp realizes what’s happening. It’s the tiniest details that set stuff up and as somepony with an eye for these things, Zipp would absolutely figure that out when nopony else would. I love how that brief moment shows her analytical brain and why her role as a detective may be more befitting of her than one as a princess. Really makes you think. As a result, the resolution was a payoff was quite satisfying. Also, can we just appreciate that short flashback of Zipp and Pipp as fillies? I know someone on Fimfiction already did this, but heck, I’m doin’ it anyway.
[Insert “A Whole New World” fan edit, thanks Advent Link) This series has like the best visual gags, I am not kidding.
I think these new stunt performers are quite interesting. They seem to be the new Wonderbolts and for their first impressions, I like ‘em. I do. Finally, I am intrigued by the concept of Moon magic. Now whether or not that makes sense is another topic entirely and if enough of you guys want me to, I will post a breakdown video of where I go in death about the new magic introduced in G5 and whether or not I think these new additions to the world of Equestria make sense in the grand scheme of the overall story. But we’re not here to talk about that right now. Just the concept is quite intriguing and it opens the door for further exploration as to how the Moon may have acquired magic. It could be that the writers are setting up a future answer as to how the Sun and Moon move on their own now. My answer is that the planet Equus simply reverted back to its natural rotation cycle after ponies stopped messing with the celestial bodies as evidenced by the EverFree Forest and how the clouds moved on their own there in G4, but it could be that there’s a different explanation and I think this might be a key clue. Could the Sun and Moon be operating on residual magic and that’s why they move on their own now in the present day? The staff seem to be leaning more towards that and my brain is just exploding with ideas and theories right now.
Now for the problems and I only have a couple minor ones. One of them is Posey being used as the show’s punching bag…again. You know, writers…you guys might as well have not reformed Posey to begin with in the first special if you wanted to continually use her as a running comedic gag. The moment is certainly very funny for sure, but I just don’t get what the point of it is. We typically like seeing jerk characters get their due comeuppance in kids’ shows, but Posey? Really? She was reformed and seemed to be turning good, so why do this? Why don’t y’all have Sprout cameo and have the ball hit him instead? You guys didn’t reform him in the movie and he’s still a whiny brat in Character 4. Let him get his comeuppance for being selfish about handing the already closed Canterlogic factory over! That’s karma we’d actually like to see. I don’t know. I think I may be overthinking this a bit too much, what do you guys think?
Second is the brief moment where Sunny doesn’t believe Zipp about magic going haywire again. Ummm…you think after the first time this happened she’d believe her, right? Especially when they’ve seen so much magic at this point and heck, even other creatures since we know this takes place in the Chapter 5 time frame. It doesn’t really make sense for her to be this oblivious. I think maybe she just wants to have a good night and not be forced worry about this sort of thing for the bajillionth time, but girl, Zipp’s word at this point is more reputable than anypony else’s at this point. Take her warning seriously, you’re smarter than this. Also Misty has literally no lines in this episode, why is she even here?
But overall, this episode was fun. I think the reason why I don’t rate it as highly as some other ones is because we just came off of a REALLY fantastic episode. Like, you don’t understand. “Sparkle School” is among one of my favorite episodes of all time now, even after just a few weeks because of the amount of heart and character development it carried in just 5 minutes. That’s the Tell Your Tale we need to see more of personally, especially if it’s meant to carry G5 into 2024. I am okay with it though because despite not carrying much in the way of rewatch value, “Moon Festival” was fun. It wasn’t trying to be self-serious or highly emotional. It was just a fun episode about magical mishaps going on while one of our main characters employs her problem-solving skills to find a solution.
It’s just simple, good hearted, fun. And there’s nothing really wrong with that if I do say so myself. But what do you guys think? Is “Moon Festival” a good episode? What do you think of Moon magic as a concept? Could we be leaning towards a definitive answer to one of the most persistent fan questions in all of G5? Do you think poor Posey should catch a break? Let me know in the comments below and if you agree, spam #JusticeForPosey. I look forward to reading all of your thoughts and responding. With all that being said, I shall see you all soon! Bye!”
You do TYT reviews now? Cool! I might give it a watch later when I get home.
I also enjoyed this episode. I'm kinda surprised they launched the G5 Version of the Wonderbolts without Zipp. Or that she wasn't the one to launch it. After Zipp's Flight School, I thought it would be obvious that there will be an arc in G5 about Zipp rebuilding the Wonderbolts.
I actually loved how Posey finally just resigned herself to her fate as the universe's chewtoy in G5. That defeated sigh and unamused face at the end was of a mare who has given up. I thought it was funny.
It was interesting for them to drop some lore into the episode as well; Haven's comments about the moon suggest it has an orbit similar to Pluto, and that it either moves extremely slowly through its orbital pattern or is very far away. I mean, that would explain why the seas around Maretime Bay don't seem to have tides.
I found the episode okay. I kinda wish they had let Misty speak more.
Any episode staring Zipp is a win for me.
That flashback easily one of the funniest things from this series
5743785
Yeah Misty got robbed big time in this one. The whole time I was watching, my brain was like: “Why is she even here if you’re not gonna let her say anything?!” I don’t know, maybe her VA wasn’t available or something during the recording process.
5743774
Yep. I’m launching my channel early and doing reviews already due to the fact that I don’t want my channel fading into obscurity by the time the defense video does come out. Taking a month long hiatus is usually considered bad for views and the last thing I want is for all our plans to completely fall apart after all this work. So the channel’s starting early and these pre-defense video reviews will all come tailored with short previews of the big project itself at the end to build up hype. Think of these early videos as like the lead up movies to The Avengers or something.
5743779
Huh, I actually didn’t catch that. That prospect is actually quite intriguing to think about. Though from the angle of the Sun in the episodes, I’m inclined to think that the planet is at least close to its star like our world all things considered.
5743803
It sure is. I burst out laughing when I saw that.
5743774
Well, there’s always going to be one character who just has the worst luck all the time.
5743871
The sun is clearly close enough to produce a climate similar to our Earth, but not so close that everything gets roasted.
According to TVTropes, that segment constitutes an example of Strawman has a Point. It's been a few months since I watched the episode, but from memory there's no discussion as to how (or even if) the factory was handed over to the city. For all we know the CanterLogic company is still in business and had simply mothballed their production facilities (mothballing factories is standard practice with manufacturing companies). The TL;DR version is that the Cloverleafs may still own the property, in which case Sunny and co. didn't get the correct permissions to begin renovating it.
5743871
Hmmm, I think if she wasn't there then some of us might've been confused by her absence. She's part of the Mane 6 now, the rest of them were there, it's not like she was shown to still live with Opaline in TYT, plus it was a major event, this Moon Festival. (P.S. I like the worldbuilding in eps like these. If I recall, FiM also took its time to grow its setting. Plz don't make drinking games out of festival numbers again!)
5743774
Now despite all I said in the video comments (as Longma1) defending Posey's place as butt monkey curmudgeon, I think I would be ok if they lightened up on the Poseybuse from now on. It makes narrative sense, for she could certainly use a break from her "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days". 😅
Maybe even become a hero in her own episode!