Season 3: Free of Gak · 7:45pm Nov 11th, 2012
New stories... working on it. I'd rather not try to write when my two jobs have me stressed out. I'd hate to put out a story that's an expanded version of "And then Celestia had sex with this pony, and it was awesome, the end". That'snot fair to you guys. Please be patient with me. :'<
But hey, I did take the time to write a review of the season 3 premiere! That's something... right? It's copypasted from ponychan, and it's LONNNG so you might want to grab some snacks
*ahem*
Anyway:
The start of everything was well enough, Twilight being Twilight and freaking out about anything having to do with Celestia. I liked the little moment with the princess's discussing Twilight's "next step" (but I seriously hope that's not anything to do with being a princess/alicorn).
Celestia's explanation of the crystal empire seemed very rushed. Why did this Crystal Empire "suddenly" return after vanishing for so long ago? Did something break the curse that Sombra placed upon it? Celestia explained why Discord was freed, because the connection she and her sister held over him had been broken, but we get no explanation as to how this stuff has come about (it could have even worked if she'd said "we're unsure as to why this has happened, but it doesn't matter at this point" to give us a sense that we might get some explanation later on).
I liked Twilight's Wasn't Prepared for This song, but the whole "square root" part makes me cringe every time I hear it. It's so disruptive of the song when it really has no reason for it. Even though it's about mathematics, it still seems very out of character for her.
The chase scene when entering the arctic was very entertaining, with the orchestra giving a very impending sense of doom. And it was nice to see Shining being heroic even for a few seconds before seeing him made useless.
Seeing Cadance use her magic by herself and being so weak threw me off for a bit. I'm not sure how much time passed since Celestia wrote the letter to Twilight and her friends and to their arrival (no more than a day, right?). Shining Armor had cast his own protection spell to protect Canterlot, but he only suffered some severe headaches, nothing like fatigue or starvation. I'm still trying to figure out if Cadance either doesn't have the fortitude that Shining does, OR maybe she was using much more magic to protect an empire rather than just one large city.
Twilight's friends seemed to be there mostly for comic relief. Nothing really stood out about them
I noticed that there was something said about the first queen over the empire (breaking the Disney rule of princess= good queen= bad). But nothing can be said about this that isn't speculation.
The Get This Right song was beautiful. Wonderful melody, wonderful lyrics, very gentle and happy.
Cadance's spell fading at the end of part 1 looked pretty cool, and we finally get to see that the giant black "thing" out there is actually King Sombra himself. Things are starting to pick up...
But here's part 2 and "Oh, nevermind, we got the spell working again!" Seriously?
Let me jump off topic for a second: Not sure how many of you played the God of War games, but you remember in 2 when you beat the game, and you see Kratos riding Gaia with the Blade of Olympus in his hands, the Titan army charging towards Olympus for a final showdown between the Gods to decide the fate of all creation?
And then remember in 3 when Zeus shoots you down with a lightning bolt, so you fall to Hades and have to waste the whole game getting out of Hades and questing for some weapon you had inside you all along? Yeah, I can't help but feel like the same thing happened. The writers put something dramatic at the end of one part, and then realized "Oh crap, we have to fill up another full part. Quick, cancel out the dramatic ending we gave the previous part!"
So instead of getting to see Sombra make a dramatic entrance and try to reclaim his throne, we instead get to see what's already been happening dragged on, but with more URGENCY. Don't get me wrong it was presented fairly well, with AJ improving on her lying skills and Rainbow beating up Fluttershy for sport (Are you not entertained!? Is this not why you are here!?).
Twilight's quest with Spike providing moral support was interesting to watch, especially with her nightmare door scene, as well as Spikes. Gravity spell was cool...
Oh, the part with Twilight getting trapped in Sombra's fail safe spell. Nice touch actually. It did prove that he had some wit about him, even if it wasn't presented well at all. But back on Twilight, a lot of people think it's Twilight's pride that gets in the way of her mission.I disagree: It's her fear of disappointing her mentor that made her obsessed with doing it herself. She believes Celestia has some higher reason to her methods, and feels that she needs to play her part EXACTLY right to have it fulfilled. It was only in crisis and with a heavy heart that she knew she had to disobey those orders.
Like a lot of people have already said, Sombra felt very underwhelming for the whole adventure. I actually liked his armor clad "OC" appearance better than him being a giant shadow. And on that, I was so taken aback by that I couldn't really enjoy it. Sure, it looked cool (except for the silly floating head with a shadow neck), but how did that happen? We got a VAGUE explanation about how Luna became Nightmare Moon, we got NO explanation to how unicorn King Sombra became Shadow Smooze. I'm wondering if the whole shadow monster thing was something thrown together to make him more threatening, but I would have enjoyed him much more if he was just a normal unicorn with an army under his command. Or... if he had transformed INTO the monster as the episodes progressed. Some people are saying "But he's a force of nature! He doesn't NEED any backstory, or motivation, that's all useless!"
Well, isn't that kind of what made this series such a surprise in the first place? That we had such interesting and fleshed out characters for a little girls toy driven series? If you want it to go back to "Grr, we are monsters who hate all things pretty and cute!" "Oh no, we will use sparkly love to defeat you mean monsters!" then by all means...
But as much as I was unimpressed with him overall, he did begin to shine near the end. "My crystal slaves..." gave me chills. And watching him lose his form as he approached the crystal heart was an interesting touch. And what an epic death! Some are speculating he might return. I won't despise it, but if he does, I expect a more fleshed out character.
"Behold, the crystal princess!" I'm so confused by this, I'm having difficulty putting it into words. Was the pony who said that just astonished by what he saw, or is Cadance really now their ruler? I know someone already pointed out her cutie mark is the crystal heart, so was she a ruler of the city before it vanished? If so, how did she escape its curse? Is she really a thousand years old, and if so, what has she been doing the whole time besides being Twilight's foalsitter? And why did she look younger in Twilight's flash- Oh my god, I could spend my entire day off coming up with questions for that.
Celestia's remark about admitting Twilight made the right choice: Some people are arguing whether she knew what was going to happen. I like to say that she said "you alone" in the beginning to instill a sense of commitment and drive in Twilight, so that she could be inspired to do her best. All she really wanted from her was to help the crystal empire, it could have been Fluttershy who saved them for all she cared.
And Luna's black book: yup, that's definitely foreshadowing of some sort. It certainly is.
7/10. Enjoyable, but could have been better. I would have been fine waiting until after Christmas to give them more time to write something better constructed.
Oh, let's get some screencaps in here!
Season 3 is off to a good start!
Eeee, best princess!
Tia: We're counting on you, Twilight. The fate of the Crystal Empire rests in your hooves
Luna: Yeah, don't fuck this up
*whistles*
Princess I know you're scolding me, but I have to say I'm a bit distracted...
VERY distracted
Poke
Oh my Tia... well, if you insist
Aw, that's cute... now kissu
Hope you all enjoyed the new season. And here's to many more smiles throughout the season!
Who are you?! and what are you doing in my inbox?!
good review
I enjoyed it, but have to say that they should've made the Crystal Kingdom three to four episodes long. It seems too rushed.
Hopefully the rest of the season will be a bit better.
Bronydragon
Yeah Dude! Luna was super moody! I'm just glad Spike got his time to shine.
Haha, alicorns. Yeah, they should have done more with the shadow king, but that leaves a lot of "could have been" open for fan authors, at least?
Oh, those screencaps...
I liked how it was explained why Luna sat this one out. I mean, she was pretty useless last episode when she had the amazing, incredible opportunity of helping everyone...
"What did I miss?"
What kind of person would go out of thier way and have Pinkie Pie morph her face into some kind of G1 and G3 joke?!
And one can only shudder to the though of mutliple Pinkie Pies in the same universe.
494715
I think I fell in here. Now I can't seem to find my way out...
494718
Yeah, no kidding. I would have been fine if they had not "destroyed" Sombra but maybe "thwarted" him, so that he could regather his strength and do the whole "I'll be back, my crystal slaves!"
494732
I didn't have any problems with Luna. She just seemed very intent. She was probably more worried than Celestia about how Twilight would do in her mission. She probably had her own doubts about how Twilight would deal with facing the influence of darkness
494736
That's true, but it also doesn't give much with fanartists to work with, since he doesn't give off any other characteristics other than "grr, evil and scary". I've seen some fan art of him already, but I won't be shocked if it dies down halfway through the season
494746
Luna's a heavy sleeper. And she has some excellent security outside her bedchambers.
I did enjoy cropping those images. The animators must have had so much fun drawing Celestia in part 2~
494816
Don't worry, a few licks and maybe a smack to a certain rump will help you on your way.
494808
I freaking loved that. I can't wait to see what context even brought that up.
In an alternate universe, there's a G3 Pinkie Pie making a face resembling G4 Pinkie, and her friends are horrified at what she's done.
Will someone PLEASE explain the whole "Gak" thing to me?
494823
Or it'll make me stay and beg for more
494837
Forced advertising during the commercials. Some are saying that it got more screen time than Sombra even.
It's basically floam
494837
The 'Gak' is a slimy mass and was advertised like four times in the premiere. Some of us directly connected it with MLP and boom, there you go.
Bronydragon
494844
494816
That's what I thought, but wait. Maybe Sombra just faked his destruction and is making sinister plans in his shadow empire.
Bronydragon
494852
gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs6/3241589_o.gif
I haven't started on it. fuck me right
Serioulsy, i barely even have time to browse fimfiction anymore, more less write on my own fics
494851
Oh! Okay. See, I watched it Youtube before I saw it on TV, so I didn't know. I didn't ya'll meant THAT Gak.
494899
*flees*
494910
I didn't know either. I watched it on Tumblr and they had a cleaned version up. But they ranted about it and I still knew it from my childhood. So I knew what the ranting was about and I must say These Gak things were annoying back then. Especially when someone thinks, that it would fit in your pants just perfectly.
Bronydragon
>And then Celestia had sex with this pony, and it was awesome, the end
Revised:
>And then Celestia used Gak as lubricant while having sex with this pony, and it was awesome, the end
494827
I can't wait until the other unnamed episodes are released in the MLP wiki site.
Me too buddy, me too.
494852
Was that a Four of Two reference?
494852
496127
No, it's mine!
XD I see you rewieved the episodes
Indeed it was awesome! I love them!
so now your working in a story based on the epsiode?! Cool!
take your time cloperella, make what you want!
499693
What!? No no, I'm not making any stories on the new episode! I didn't mean to say that at all.
The next story I want to put out is another chapter of Molestia, but I'm still having trouble getting started on it.
500001
oh! XD lol
I missunderstood XD hahaha
oh my Molestia?! XD
It has been a long time since you updated that storie X3