Thoughts on the Finale (Because everyone else seems to be doing it) · 12:06am Feb 17th, 2013
For those of you with little time on your hands, I'll spare you the long-winded lead up and cut straight to the chase.
In my opinion, the S3 finale was not good, by any definition or stretch of the word. But – and I am always careful to emphasize this – it wasn't bad.
When I first caught wind of the Alicorn Twilight deal, my first reaction was the same as everyone else's: indifferent denial. I mean, it's the most clichéd thing in fanfiction next to HiE and lesbian romance! When it was confirmed, my reaction was decidedly different. I just sort of frowned at the screen, with something that can best be described as mild annoyance. Not because it'd screw with any of my story ideas; you'd have to be a pretty bad author not to be able to work around something like that. Or to not be bothered with a little disclaimer.
I was annoyed because I knew, right then and there, that this would be the start of an unimaginable tide of petty whining, bitching, outright feuds, and general butthurt. I actually haven't gone to My Little Brony for over a month now, just because it was flooded with whine-and-bitch posts about Twilight. Did I agree that it was a terrible idea? Hell yeah, I did. But if you'd told me a year and a half ago that a show based on My Little Pony was good, I'd have laughed in your face. I was one of the rare few who decided to sit back, and trust the writers.
And here was the result: the fact that they managed to avoid a bad episode is one that the entire staff deserves major credit for. I agree that it was rushed, and that the plot was rather messy. I'll even agree that the entire premise was sloppy, and ended with an abrupt deus ex machina. But you know what made up for it? The music did a fine job of that.
I find it funny that a lot of people seem to be taking exception to the five songs included in this episode. I admit, I raised my eyebrows when I heard the opening notes of the fourth, but I quickly stopped caring once it took wind. Daniel Ingram and what's-his-face-that-does-the-background-music get major, major kudos for what they managed to accomplish. I wasn't annoyed by a single one of the songs, and they did an excellent job of distracting me from the messy plot and shaky premise. The background music guy even incorporated my all-time favourite musical motif into the track: that clichéd thing where a piano does a slow scale up to a resolution, and then goes one step farther to the relative minor (the cadence that played when it faded to Canterlot three minutes from the end, for all you non-band geeks).
And visually, this episode was breathtaking. The animation staff went absolutely over-the-top on this one. Everything, from the broken spirits of the Mane 6 in the first bit, to the alternate plane of reality thing, was surprisingly well done. Except for Celestia and Luna's dresses. Those were downright sickening. But that's just a speck of soot on an immense tapestry. To say that a segment of animation was surprisingly good for a show that prides itself on excellent animation is just about the greatest praise one can give.
Overall, I'm glad the fan reaction was generally positive, if for no other reason than because people will stop whining. Honestly, you have no idea how sick of that I got. As for the long-term effects... eh. We'll just have to see how S4 goes, won't we?
One final note: When Twilight said "Nothing can go wrong" right at the end? Calling it right now: something goes horribly wrong in the S4 premiere. When has a character ever delivered that line and not instantly regretted it?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure every brony and pegasister who caught that line heard it and went, "Yeah, sorry to rain on your parade, but..."
I for one liked it a little better than "Best Night Ever" but only barely, and I liked it an appreciably bit more than the season three opener.
And this episode managed to get me to enjoy the Pinkie segments, which has generally been pretty hard to do.
I will agree the episode premise was kind of dumb. I mean, no explanation as to why they all seemed to forget their original talents (other than the deus ex-ness of the spell), and then once Twilight set things right, she didn't even have to finish the spell! The music was great though, and that was quite a few songs stuffed into 21 minutes of pony. Overall, I would say the writers did the best with what the suits at Hasbro gave them to work with.
836081 I just hope that they take as much time as they need to develop the story throughly, and not half ass, or over compress a masterpiece into a damn midi file.
Completely agreed. In fact, as Twilight was flying off at the very end, singing that line, I immediately expected some dark presence or mysterious figure to make its evil self known, like the manticore just before the first break in the second episode of the first season, and some menacing music or cliche 'dun dun DUN' accompanying it. To say the least, I was somewhat disappointed. I mean, come on, if you're going to make the main character into a dues ex machina, at least make up for it with some slightly soap opera-esque plot lines for the coming season. Well, in my opinion, anyway. I don't know, I just can't see how the show can remain as (relatively) serious as it is with that sort of major change. I guess we'll see, huh?
Also, M. A. Larson hinted that the current plot might continue into the first two premier episodes of the fourth season, but, then again, it could've just been joking about how a third of this episode was practically shown a week before it aired, so you never know.
actually for this episode, daniel took over for 100percent of the music.