May
5th
2018
I feel this is notable enough to share · 4:25pm May 5th, 2018
One of my favorite pastimes is pausing the episode stream on the credits scene and looking up all the voice actors featured in the episode. And this time around, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we now have a movie VA appearing in the show!
Specifically, Andrew McNee, who voiced the baker.
Now, you might be going, "Who?" I mean, most of the VAs who were in the movie were big-name stars, and they've got other, more important things going on. So while we'll never see Tempest or Capper or the parrot pirates ever again, at least we'll always have...
Canterlot & Klugetown Featured Voices. <.<
I mean, it's something. :V
I miss your episode review blogs
4854140
Same.
Interesting.
4854140
4854157
Uh, well.
Here you go.
I liked this one. In fact, I'd say it was the first episode this season that's actually good. (I mean, I enjoyed "Fluttershy does stupid shit in Rarity's shop", but I wouldn't say that episode was good.)
Pros:
- Solid Starburst friendshipping.
- The predictable "two people disagree and have to learn to give a care" plot was superseded by something actually different.
- And though that second plot was easy to figure out, I was able to enjoy the episode regardless. Journey over destination is really key to my enjoyment of the show.
- Starlight's room.
- Sunburst's dad and Starlight's mom are definitely dead. Why do I get excited about dead pony parents? I don't know. What makes it even better is SunDad died sometime between when SB went to magic college and now, because we saw him in the flashbacks of The Cutie Re-Mark.
Cons:
- Sire's Hollow is a dumb name. We already have a hollow!
- Starburst parents suffer from "too similar to the kids" syndrome, mostly in their names.
- Suggesting that Starlight's whole dictatorship thing might have just been teenage rebellion is kind of ehhh
if only because she can't be nearly as old as my headcanon- On that note, the one substantive criticism I would level at this episode is that it follows a trend of the show not doing parents well. I mean...
-- Flutter Brutter gave us parents who were exactly like Fluttershy (boring) and taught us that if your folks are too weak-willed to lay down the law with your useless siblings, it's up to you to man up and put your foot down, because that's your job.
-- Parental Glideance gave us hilarious parents that Rainbow "Garbage Fire" Dash deserves, but taught us that you should love and accept your parents' love, even when it's stifling, embarrassing, or dangerous.
--The Perfect Peartaught us you're just better off if they're deadAnd, okay, on reflection, it's not as bad as I maybe initially thought. But we need more episodes like Sisterhooves Social, Once Upon a Zeppelin and Hearthbreakers I guess? where the parents feature, so we know they exist and we can find out who they are, but... And, see, I was going to say "aren't the focus", but Twirents were pretty solidly in focus in OUaZ and they were amazing. So the issue is more episodes where the parents aren't the problem, which this one isn't.
But with all that said, none of that is cause for me to think twice or regret my enjoyment of the episode, and that's all I ask for. We're still solidly in "ponies do funny thing, you laugh!" territory for the show, but this felt more substantive and less worrisome than anything coming before it in S8 so far.
I need to thank the yak.
4854209
That's how I feel about the show these days. I kept waiting for it to keep getting better and better after Season 5 but it's plateaued, but at least it's still funny.
I discussed with a friend once how FIM compares to another kid's show that got a peripheral audience, Avatar (I don't watch Adventure Time or Steven Universe so I don't know how they fit into this comparison either way). FIM is not as good as Avatar in terms of story, character, or world. But it has demonstrated the potential to be that good. The solid foundations are there, there's just a lack of will to go for them. Whenever the show has a chance to go that extra mile (Scootaloo being disabled, Starlight's cult, Apple parents being dead), it backs off at the edge and plays it safe.
I think if they rebooted the show for a G 4.5 and went the Avatar route, where the show was aimed at a higher age bracket and took itself more seriously with serialized storytelling and character arcs, with the best writers they've had so far pushing it, it would be fantastic. But I don't think they'll do that. So for now I can content myself with the funny, happy ponies that are themselves content to just be funny, happy ponies.
4854281
This is the reason I always hated the phrase "it's just a little girls cartoon." It's a dumb thing to say, because obviously it's a little girls cartoon. But there's a difference between being a little girls cartoon and just being a little girls cartoon. One dares to try and transcend the stigma that being "for little girls" comes with, i.e. never taking risks, having only the most useless and basic stories, and characters that are about as compelling as a Barbie doll, and the other falls happily into the oblivion of crass merchandising along with all the other flaws I just mentioned.
For a short time, MLP dared to try and redefine what it meant to have a "little girl" audience. Now, it's just happy to be what Faust tried to avoid.
Had to rewind and pause on that for far too long!
4854281
MLP was my gold standard for a television show pilot episode.
And then I watched Avatar.
>never see capper or the parrots again
Good. I like my horse show free of bipedal anthropomorphic Disney horse apples.
I remember quitting this one during the leak. Because starlight still needs to down a dozen bleech martinis.
4854281
Same here, really. I've made my peace with the fact that this is now a different show than the one we had in the early days -- and you know what? I'm fine with that. I'm pretty sure the show would have ended some time ago if it hadn't changed. Some will wish it had -- I mean, who thinks 60 more episodes of Fawlty Towers would have helped? -- but I'm not in that camp. Partly for personal reasons, partly for fandom/social reasons and partly simply because "cute talking horse cartoon" is something I'd like anyway.
Occasionally I think of the show as being split into three phases: the first three seasons are "Original Pony", S4 and S5 are "Transitional Pony" and S6 onwards are "New Pony". I don't think it's any accident that so many of the people who've gone off the show did so during that transitional period. S3 is still, despite stuff like Cadance, recognisably the same show as S1. By the time you get to S6, it's changed in plenty of respects. I suppose in that sense we're already in G4.5.
4855052
Now see
I made a big post about this once upon a time
And everyone got mad at me
Life's not fair :C
4855153
I'll probably end up making that comment into a post on Louder Yay eventually, though.
That's because nobody really cares what I say. It's much more relaxing this way.