Thoughts on Gravity Falls (be warned spoilers ahead) · 9:13pm Oct 12th, 2022
This was a cartoon I'd heard about for years but never gotten around to watching until recently. This show was one of the best-animated shows I've ever watched as I love Sci-fi and cryptids, and this show had that and so much more. The show is based around a town called Gravity Falls, where a lot of paranormal activity occurs uncoincidentally. A guy who goes by Grunkle Stan runs a tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack, where he tricks tourists into looking at fake paranormal creatures and sells them overpriced merchandise. Grunkle Stan's nephew Dipper and niece Mabel come to live with him for the summer while facing paranormal activity and, eventually, the main antagonist Bill Cipher.
First, I'll go over the main cast; there's Dipper, a 12-year-old boy who is pretty smart for his age and my favorite character. He overall sacrifices the most throughout the show and matures a lot by the end. He has a crush on Wendy, a 15-year-old teen who works at the Mystery Shack. He starts abit immature, having his crush on Wendy get in the way a lot throughout the show and causing issues between him and Mabel. But as the show progresses and things become more serious, he and Wendy reconcile that the relationship won't work, seeing Wendy is abit older than him. Then as he starts learning more about the secrets of Gravity Falls and the journals he finds that teach him about the paranormal activity. This then falls to his obsession with learning about the secrets that create more tension between him and Mabel, along with showing his ego can hinder his progress. But he overcomes that as well, sacrificing the journals and his desire to stay and live in Gravity Falls to study the paranormal. I would say he progressed the most as a character.
Then there's Mabel Dipper's twin sister; she is way more immature than Dipper and has attachment issues. Throughout most of the show, she has "crushes" who usually end up being monsters or creeps. She mostly stays constant throughout the show, and that's fine. Not everyone is mature at 12, and I think that isn't a bad thing. She has a lot of growing to do outside of the show. The Central conflict is when Dipper decides to stay in Gravity Falls, which causes her to feel abandoned by him. Bill Cipher exploits and uses her to create a physical body and has him wreak havoc on Gravity Falls. But later, during the finale, she reconciles with her desire to live in her fantasy land and even is ok with Dipper staying in Gravity Falls without her. This does show some maturity in her character, but it was abit sudden vs. Dipper's gradual character development.
Then There's Grunkle Stan, a con artist who runs the Mystery Shack, but there's more to him than he seems. He is a sympathetic character who, with his brother Ford, were close, but when Ford was given a chance to go to a private university, the opportunity to be a millionaire. Stan accidentally messed up his perpetual motion machine out of spite, which had Ford to lose his chance to go to that school. Then Stan was thrown out of the house by his father and forced to live alone. To survive, he scammed people left and right and became a criminal. He eventually ends up at Gravity Falls, where Ford is around 1982, and they get into a fight which causes Ford to get sucked into a portal. Feeling responsible, Stan stays in Gravity Falls and maintains his brother's cabin by turning it into the tourist trap known as the Mystery Shack. He then stays and pays the bills by running his tourist trap as he searches for the missing journals hoping to get his brother back. However, even after he finds all the journals to get his brother back, they have a lot of unresolved issues that almost cause them to lose to Bill Cipher. But he becomes central in defeating Bill Cipher and saving Gravity Falls.
Then there's Ford Grunkle, Stan's twin brother, who was sucked into an interdimensional portal for over thirty years. He comes much later in the show, but he's the one who wrote the three mysterious journals that Dipper was collecting and was tricked into helping Bill Cipher in his plans to take over his universe. With shows, his biggest flaw was his ego and how he failed to see that Bill Cipher manipulated him.
Then for the other main side characters, there's Wendy, the 15-year-old teen who works part-time at the Mystery Shack during the summer and is your typical teen. She is a well-written character who helps Dipper and Mabel on many of their adventures. Soos is a chubby dude who works at the Mystery Shack in his early twenties. He's a chill dude who treats Grunkle Stan as a father figure and assists in Dipper and Mabel's adventures. Then there's McGucket, who seems to be a crazy hillbilly but a scientist who helped Ford build his portal but slowly went crazy after being sucked in and learning about Bill Cipher's plans. He kept erasing his mind with a device that quickened his insanity.
Then for the villains, there are two major ones, the first being Little Gideon, a little rich kid who abuses the power of the books for his gain. He isn't that important, as he does have a change of heart during the finale, but overall, he's just there causing trouble. The main antagonist Bill Cipher (who basiclly looks like the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill), is a megalomaniac super-villain who tries to cause something called Weirdammegdeon, which Gravity Falls basiclly becomes a nightmarish hellscape.
Now for the story: season one, it's primarily episodic, with Dipper and Mabel dealing with a paranormal monster or something crazy happening and the two, with the help of Soos or Wendy, having to stop it or turn things back to normal. Mable finds a pig named Waddles, the cutest little animated pig ever, and they have a run-in with "time cops," which the events in that episode have consequences in the second season. In the season finale, Gideon, obsessed with dating Mable, takes the Mystery Shack by stealing the deed from Grunkle Stan, then tries to find the other journal he has in his possession. Meanwhile, Grunkle Stan sends his niece and nephew back to their parents while staying at Soos's grandmother's house. But then Gideon chases their bus with a giant robot, and Dipper takes Gideon down and then exposes him for stealing the deed. Overall this season was just mostly setup, and episodic fun, which does have very entertaining episodes with one cool thing that was introduced was Dinosaurs stuck in amber buried under the town.
But for season two, things start picking up fast; with Dipper trying to learn more about the journals. During which, they have to deal with a secret society of the blind eye who try to erase the townspeople's memories after they see paranormal activity. They also learn that Ford Stan's brother was the one making the journals and learn about their backstory. Then when Ford and Dipper start teaming up together, Mabel overhears how Dipper is considering staying in Gravity falls after the summer is over and working as Ford's apprentice (they also discover aliens crash-landed into Gravity Falls millions of years ago). Then this causes Mabel to feel abandoned by her brother. She accidentally takes the backpack with a dimensional rift in it, and when she meets a time cop who they helped before. He tells her he can extend the summer abit longer for her, and she gives him the dimensional tear then, which he tosses onto the ground and reveals he is Bill Cipher who was manipulating his mind. Then Bill Cipher imprisons Mabel and starts Weirdmaggedon, and then Dipper, with the help of Wendy and Soos, frees Mabel from her prison and then teams up with Ford and Grunkle Stan to take down Bill Cipher. This season was much more focused than season one and expanded on world-building and the characters, with each one getting a mini-arc and helping wrap up some of the loose ends of other side plots.
Overall this show is basiclly a Rated-PG version of Rick and Morty with a lot of random hijinks, absurd humor, some body horror, and a lot of sci-fi craziness. But this show is exceptionally well-written and fun to watch and seems to have stood the test of time as one of the best western animations I've ever seen. For me, Avatar, the last Airbender, along with the Legend of Korra, is almost impossible to surpass, with only Invincible coming close. But Gravity Falls would probably fit underneath it as my fourth favorite animated series ( with The Owl House taking third place). I love MLP GEN 4, and I am abit obsessed with it. But I see many flaws in the story and the worldbuilding; the characters sometimes seem to progress but then fall back to their old ways. I also wish there was an arc (like with Dipper and Wendy) where Spike finally resolves his love issues with Rarity, as that was played out way too long. Gravity Falls has issues with some things, like the aliens that crash landed there never having a full explanation. Also, the rich girl Pacifica Northwest barely gets any screen time after her redemption arc. But I think it was overall well-paced; the characters are all unique and have their arcs, there's a ton of worldbuilding, and the plot is rather tense. I think this show deserves a watch if you haven't seen it in a while and if you enjoy animation.
You can actually buy a copy of Journal #3
"Finally, a good excuse to punch a teenager in the face! Let's roll!"
Also, Grunkle Stan, Soos, McGucket and Bill are all voiced by Alex Hirsch, Manly Dan Corduroy is voiced by John DiMaggio, Lazy Suzan is voiced by Jennifer Coolidge.
And one of the DVD commentaries is Alex Hirsch in character as Grunkle Stan talking about his ex-wife, whose description is incredibly similar to Eda from Owl House. Seriously, look up Eda is Stan's ex wife on youtube.