What I Thought About the Series Pilot · 8:56pm Jun 3rd, 2015
Episode review
So I'm sittin' around, drinking some whiskey to disinfect a wound in my mouth (no, really, I'm out of mouthwash), and I'm like, "You know, with my passion for ponyfics being so dead lately, maybe I should go back and watch the whole series again. Remind myself of why I started writing in the first place." So I'm doing just that. This'll be, like, the fourth time I've seen most of them. And while I do it, I might as well come here and blather on about what I thought of them, because I apparently review episodes now.
So, what did I think of the Season One opening two-parter?
Sweet Cadance's butthole, that was mediocre. I mean, damn, I cringed. I'm not even sure why I kept watching that first time, aside from committing myself to watching the whole first season before passing judgement. Compared to a lot of cartoons I've seen, though, this opener is still better than a lot of them. But, like, it has problems. A lot of them. Where to begin...
How about with what I actually liked?
Rainbow Dash. She's so freaking awesome in this. Then again, she's always awesome. Hell, that goes for (almost) all of the main characters. They (almost) all got to play their parts and have little moments to shine. Spike was his normal abused self. Twilight was... well, she wasn't exactly all that nice when the series began, was she? She was still fun to watch, though, and I never really minded her being kinda bitchy. Fluttershy was utterly adorable (and even if that's all she does, she does it very well). Pinkie was amusing. Applejack was, uh... well, she was Applejack.
Dat serpent, man. What do they call him? Steven Magnet, I believe? Dude, he was just so amusing to me. Him and his fabulous moustache. I wanna see more of him. I should write about him trimming his magnificent moustache and nothing happens.
I never really noticed before, but all that stuff that happens in the forest brings the magic of friendship into Twilight's heart because she sees their traits. Their Elements. She sees some of the best that friendship has to offer. You can see it on her face. I liked that. That was neat, and kinda sweet. It's the sappy stuff like that which really held a mirror to my heart and made me look deeper inside, rediscovering things and finally accepting myself, tossing off the long-held self loathing. It all began with this episode, so I have to give it credit for that. The ponies were all cute, too. That's pretty much what I liked. Now for the bad.
Damn, dude, these episodes have near-zero sense of subtlety. The most subtle thing is that one shot where Nightmare Moon appears in an hourglass, and even that wasn't that subtle. Like, it's right in your face. It pans across the freaking cast when Twi is naming the Elements. That's not foreshadowing, that's putting a neon sign up that says, "Hey, these ponies are the bearers of these Elements." And then the ways that Twilight is taught this fact... it's painful, dudes and dudettes. Painful. Like a pinecone in my transverse colon.
Applejack's has to be the worst. Like, what she did didn't even really have anything to do with honesty. In fact, she was being intentionally vague and not telling Twi that she was going to be caught, only that she'd be safe. That's the kind of answer-avoidant behavior that's more likely to come from liars. "You should totally do this. Nah, don't worry, you'll be fine. Why? Just trust me, it's cool. Go for it." Yeah, hell no. I'd be super suspicious. The others don't get problems to solve that are handled much better, though Rarity's was actually pretty good. Fluttershy's was okay, though we've seen it a hundred times before. Pinkie's was... it was just stupid, especially with that song. Rainbow's was weird. Like, what the hell were the Shadowbolts gonna do if she joined? If they were gonna kill her or something, they had a perfect opportunity right then and there.
For a long time, this whole sequence bugged the crap outta me. I mean, the villain basically gives the ponies challenges that are almost perfectly suited to one of the party members. It's so convenient and so contrived. How can Nightmare Moon be this stupid? But then, a thought came to me. It relies on the Nightmare Forces first established by the comics, but I took that specific concept as canon after seeing Luna transform with a look of fear on her face. I think she got taken over, indeed. Going with that, when I thought about it, suddenly it all made sense.
Nightmare Moon gave tailor-made challenges to the five ponies because Luna is still in there. She's trapped, and she wants to be free, so she's influencing Nightmare Moon in an effort to actually help the mane six so they can free her. It's the only way it makes any sense without Nightmare Moon (and probably Luna, by extension) being an idiot. Headcanon? Totally. Supported by show canon? Debatable. It makes the whole sequence make sense when it didn't before, though, so I'm gonna run with it until disproven (and you should feel free to refute me in the comments).
I could go on, but I'm tired, and it's all been said before. So yeah, these episodes were not great. Weakest two-parter of the series, in my book. 5/10, and I'm just glad I committed to a full season to be where I am now. The adorable ponies helped, though, and I still loved the characters. It's the plot that was weak, really. Just too contrived, too blatant. Plus, it didn't have any Gummy (though that's only a problem in hindsight). Not the best. Not the worst, though, and I enjoyed enough to keep watching. It had fun expressions, good characters, and all that jazz that laid the foundation for the rest of the show. The introductions of the characters are solid, Spike is good, and I chuckled more than a few times. I guess I had enough fun with the good parts to let it go and keep smiling like an idiot the first time I watched it, 'cause I was smiling like an idiot even during this latest viewing.
P.S.: I know I kinda tend to wander into some headcanon stuff and whatnot, and I apologize if that annoys anybody.
P.P.S.: I also know I said I wasn't gonna harp on the negative too much, but this episode just didn't do much for me.
Drink every time Rainbow Dash says "loop the loop around".
I agree with the rating, although I can't really fault the episode. Pilots are always a challenge. It's like trying to put on a grand performance at the same time you're assembling the stage. Or in fanfic terms, it's like trying to write a fic with an OC main character; you've gotta convince a skeptical audience about your character while providing an entertaining story at the same time. It does feel a bit hokey, but they weren't exactly going for Joss Whedon levels of style. And considering this was before there was a brony fandom and they knew they had a reputation to live up to, I think it could have come out a lot worse. :)
The brilliant fic My Twilight Facade revisits this exact moment, but in a situation where Twilight's mind has been replaced by that of a less-than-tactful human guy. His response to Applejack is somewhat closer to reality. XD
The Applejack problems are actually worse than that for two reasons.
1: Twilight teleports later in this exact same episode. It's one thing for her to forget between episodes (simple continuity error), but she intentionally does it later in this episode to bamboozle Nightmare Moon. There's no reason for her to ever be in danger here in the first place.
2: There's no reason she needed to let go of Applejack for the Pegasii to catch her in midair. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could have easily come up and grabbed her right from Applejack's hooves. MAYBE you could argue that flying so close to the ledge could be dangerous for them, but that's a pretty big maybe with no evidence at all.
3121173
I actually always got the impression that teleportation was a skill Twilight had only just acquired - possibly even by copying Nightmare Moon herself (as we find out later that Twilight can copy spells she's seen). She makes an uncomfortable groan just after that teleport, implying it was difficult for her. The following episode shows that she's still not quite got to grips with teleportation, too.
3121203
She didn't do it intentionally in "The Ticket Master", it happened subconsciously. That doesn't imply a lack of control over that spell specifically so much as it implies a lack of control over her magic in general (or perhaps situations of extreme stress triggering magic against the wilder's will).
Besides, she seemed to have it pretty well mastered in the episode after that, "Applebuck Season"
I can't believe they're actually bringing Steven Magnet back for next week's episode.
Pinkie's song is actually one of my favorites of the first season. It's just so catchy and up beat.
Yeah, I cringed through this episode too. However, I kept going with confidence when the second thing they did with their southern main character was introduce her insanely large extended family. Plus I'm a sucker for mythology, and Nightmare Moon's back story got my hyped 3 minutes in.
No, his moustache shall not be sheared!! The Serpent's Moustache is one of the three mystical objects binding the universe together. The other two are the legendary Twilicane, under possession of Discord for safekeeping, and the other is a piece of magical cloth known only as "Dumb Fabric." If any of these three objects were damaged or destroyed, the universe would soon fall apart, sentencing all of existence to an eternity in the void. When Nightmare Moon cut away at the Serpent's facial locks, she initiated a domino effect with an outcome she could merely begin to imagine. Were it not for the great Rarity sacrificing her own hair to repair the fabulous moustache, their world was sent into oblivion. All hail Equestria's lord and savior!
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Yeah, Nightmare Moon was an atrocious villain. Cliche, boring, uninteresting, and not very relatable. What makes a villain good is when you can relate to him/her, I believe.
And where the fuck was Celestia during all of this? I haven't watched the season 1 premiere in a while, so I might have missed something.
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Nightmare Moon had a pretty relate-able motive, actually. I think anyone who has ever been frustrated at being consistently "outshined", especially by a sibling, can relate to her.
Also Celestia was being held captive by Nightmare Moon, and whatever spell she was using to hold Celestia was broken when Twilight and co. stripped her of her powers.
3121905
The way they handled her motive was so bad I laughed. You feel outshined yet never tell your sister about it, then go bat-shit crazy and try to bring eternal night like an idiot without thinking of the after-effects. No one can relate to that.
That doesn't make much sense, seeing as how Celestia is just as powerful, if not, more so than her sister.
3121126
Starting up a new series is always tough, there's no doubt. A lot of others have done better, though. It did introduce the characters, and most brony polls would seem to indicate that the characters are the most beloved part of the show. There was good stuff, and it did set the world up (though it kinda forgets that nopony knew about Nightmare Moon during "Luna Eclipsed"), the execution was just lacking.
3121173
She also could've teleported across the ravine and blew up the Shadowbolts. Like I said, I could go on. I'd rather not become one of those guys who's known for bashing all the show's problems, though. I still love the show.
3121346
Oh hell yes! Words cannot express the hype.
3121381
But sir, the moustache must be trimmed! If it were to grow wild and free, it would become tangled and unmanageable, and then it wouldn't be fabulous! The balance must be maintained! It must be trimmed, like any eye-pleasing shrubbery.
3121522
Celestia was chillaxin' at the Vanishing Lumberjack pub, knocking back a few cold ones while she let her faithful student handle everything. That seems to be what she usually does when there's a problem: step away and let Twilight deal with it. Part of the princess grooming, no doubt.
3121965
Don't claim you've never ever done something stupid without thinking when you were emotional. If you've never done something stupid without thinking when you were emotional (or hell, even when you were just young, which Luna was if her size is any indication), you are not human.
3123169
She was over 1000 years old. That's not young. I'm not even 25 yet and I'd probably be wiser.
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She wasn't 1,000 years old 1,000 years ago when she actually became Nightmare Moon...
Or at least, they've never said she was.
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3124107
I don't think they ever tell us exact ages for the Princesses, except that if you take comic book canon into account, Cadence is roughly the same age as Shining, meaning roughly 25-35 equivalent presuming he went straight into the Guard and they do experience rank ups similar to the US or British army (though we've got no evidence for it, so it's theory only at this point).
From what we can dig out in the show's canon, if we take what the creators say about season 1-3 being the same year, Luna and Celestia deal with Discord and Sombra within a few months of one another, losing the Crystal Empire and having to clean up the chaos mess at the same time, and it's entirely possible combine that with changing from a monarchy to an anarchic monarchy to a diarchy (if Equestria didn't have a diarchy before and if it was a kingdom after formation) it's entirely possible that Luna, being younger, was mid-teens to early twenties at that point and there was literally little or no time for her and Celestia (who would be 20s to 30s roughly) to talk things out simply because of everything happening at once, so it got bottled up and possibly interacted with spells cast against Luna by Sombra and Discord, maybe others currently unknown as well, until Luna basically had a massive blow out and tried to force the issue, resulting in Nightmare Moon and the banishment.
Presume that's correct for a minute, then presume that the Elements didn't dump Nightmare on the moon but sealed her in it, possibly in some form of stasis… so you've got basically a hormonal teen/young adult, having self-confidence issues exaserbated by dealing with a creature that's good at mind fuckery and someone that ruled through mass amounts of fear come back and try to take over. Now her sister probably unconsciously by this point is holding back 80-99% of her actual power normally gets faced off against her sister, who she doesn't want to harm seeing as that's the only close family she's got left and she's probably still got some issues over the banishment, and Nightmare seals her, goes up on stage and effectively tries to treat things as they were a millennium ago, seeing ponies going on a quest, she tags along, wanting to block them, but between being effectively a kid, not having much experience in dangerous quests and having the Luna side of her not wanting to actually hurt ponies things get toned way the heck down. Granted they could be fatal, but more through stupidity than actual danger in most cases.
In regards to Applejack at the cliff, it's possible that when she's telling Twilight to let go, while the cartoon doesn't actually show it properly, she's basically a minute or so from losing Twilight, maybe she could hold long enough to let the pegasi get close, not long enough to get up there and she can feel her own footing going so rather than have both of them go over, she sees the fliers have gotten their burdens down safe and are in a rough position to catch, she decides it's then or never and tells Twilight to let go. Granted in the episode we see her sit back with a smirk on her face, but were it realistic, she'd probably be slipping and skidding herself, sending showers of debris down on Twilight and likely as not, barely holding on herself so her expression would be one more of 'oh fuck, my arms are tearing out… can't keep my grip… oh, good, pegasi "Twilight… let go. Ju-just trust me, you'll be safe, but you need to let go now or we're both dead."' sort of thing.
As to Twilight's teleport, she probably was too paniced to really focus on the cliff, unlike when facing Nightmare in the tower room. It's also likely that she's only used it for short hops at this point, since we see in Applebuck Season (a couple of months later) that she's got the short (line-of-sight) teleport down. Long distance though, entirely possible she doesn't know she can pull it off and when she's facing the crowd in Ticket Master she's literally wishing to be home safe, home translating to the library as the nearest known safe environment, and even then Spike comes out singed, suggesting it wasn't under full control, particularly when she mentions not knowing she could do that, meaning potentially teleport that far almost blind with a passenger is a new concept to her, even if it's literally a 'return home' spell.
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Sorry, but I don't buy the cliff part. Applejack and Twilight talked for an entire ten seconds, with the former being super vague and more irrational with words than honest. All she could have said was: "Let go! The pegasi will catch you!" That would take two seconds at most.