There was a Ninja, some woman with green hair named Gertrude, probably my sister Vengeance, and Lord Skywalker. You know. The one that likes to snorkle.) colabed on a story! The Crystalling screen cap · 9:02pm Apr 4th, 2016
Alright, so as most of you probably know, I'm basically going through The Crystalling with a fine-toothed comb for the sake of Sunset Shimmer is MAD about EVERYTHING and even though there has been and will continue to be lots of Sunset picking things apart, I simply must bring something up with the below illustration.
Can we all just sit and appreciate just how much is going on here? Pinkie is clearly bored out of her mind or perhaps disappointed about something (theories that come to mind is she tried to lead the group on an entire trip length sing-along and was asked to stop around hour 2, or she was stopped from buying the entire contents of the snack cart this time around). Starlight seems to be taking stock of what every pony is doing. Twilight is reading a book on baby care. Rarity and Applejack appear to be talking to each other. It's hard to see what Rainbow Dash is up to, but we'll soon find out she's taking a nap. Finally, Fluttershy is looking out the window, clearly enjoying the sights. Every character on screen is doing something we can either figure out just by looking at them or will figure out quite quickly as the scene progresses.
And this level of detail is not just on The Crystalling eps. Pretty much every shot with lots of characters in the last few seasons has just been filled with ponies actually going about their business or engaged in some sort of activity or another.
Let’s talk about the expressions in the show for a second. Starlight was a roller-coaster of emotion during the Crystalling and it showed every single shot she was in. Her eyes, lips, ears… basically her entire body language changed with just about every new piece of information she had to absorb. And let’s not forget Rarity and Pinkie out of The Gift of Maud Pie. Pinkie should get an award for some of the faces she treated us to, but Rarity was no slouch about using physical expressions either.
One thing I have to say here is even if I feel the story or execution of some of what I’ve seeing is lacking, good God are the animators bringing their ‘A’ game lately.
That was the feeling I was left with at the end of Gift of Maud Pie. The personality developments since the series started, the character of Maud, the depth of the relationship between Pinkie and Rarity, all the background ponies actually reacting to the things that were happening and Pinkie's (and later Maud and Rarity's) antics, and most poignant to me, the facial expressions and body languages. We have come so far for a regular family show. Many start to slip on those things when they get established. MLP has instead been improving.
Said it before and I'll say it again: the animation is the one part of this show that has only gotten better since day 1.
Cool observation, and I'm glad you found something you liked about the episode.
I feel like the animators use the background to tell tiny mini-stories of their own, like that time we saw Fluttershy returning Winona to Big Mac in one episode, or Zecora doing business with Gizmo in another. And the most recent episode had Suri Polomare selling a scarf to some stallion on the street!