This is the first thing I thought of during the opening. :Dlmto! Same here! :D
Chad Vader: Chocolate Rain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dUCOS1bM0
Good choice of John de Lancie as voice actor for Discord. :) He's really great as a mischief maker. :D First Q, then Discord.That's it. I'm not letting you deny any more. You're a brony. Welcome to the herd. *Shoves a cutie mark on your flank*
Me too, especially since a ST:TNG/MLP fan video showed up not long after the Discord teaser came out.
I'm curious to see how much fan material we see in the next week based solely off this episode now.
Yes, it's a 2 parter
Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(Yes, it's a 2 parter
Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(Yes, it's a 2 parter
Ok .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Yeah its been online since like, an hour or so after it aired.Very, but sadly we have to wait a week... :(Yes, it's a 2 parterOk .. Sounds interesting. :orbunny:
Has the new episode made it online?
I don't have acess to the Hub on tv. :P
Just finished watching it on the YouTubes...that was pretty fun. Can't wait to see what happens! I'll watch it again on the 12:30pm replay Monday on the big screen.Welcome Indeed. I think you'll enjoy it here. :)
I've now officially drawn my pony and cutie mark. Yeah, yeah, I know...welcome to the herd...you've officially got me. ;)
That popcorn with chocolate rain looked pretty good. :D
Looks like pinky isn't as pink as she should be. :DNope, Pinky isn't in that pic. That's Twist in the background and she has a blank flank. She used to be, but got her cutie mark in the first season.
This confuses me. Can anypony explain what this means?It means that for whatever reason, they decided to put in a gap. Probably a marketing ploy for ratings or something so they can skip a week or so with re-runs and still have higher numbers. I wouldn't be too concerned about it.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/confirmed-gap-between-discord-and.html
This confuses me. Can anypony explain what this means?It means that for whatever reason, they decided to put in a gap. Probably a marketing ploy for ratings or something so they can skip a week or so with re-runs and still have higher numbers. I wouldn't be too concerned about it.
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/confirmed-gap-between-discord-and.html
*impatient*
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
*grabs Kalo and snarls* MAKE IT HURRY UP AND GET HERE! :goldpissed:
:D :D :D :D :D
*impatient**smirks and smiles at Kobuk*
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
Is the second episode here yet?
*grabs Kalo and snarls* MAKE IT HURRY UP AND GET HERE! :goldpissed:
:D :D :D :D :D
The final scene of Episode Two is just so full of win it is almost indescribable. Not going to spoil it for anyone, but I have to say it was beyond all expectations. Everypony is going to love it and if you don't I will be flabbergasted.
Reading through you post, I was initially thinking that Cellestia may or may not have been watching. It could work either way. If she was watching, then she figured Twilight reading her own words would be a lot more powerful than anyone else trying to get her to remember (much like how it didn't work when Twilight tried to explain the spell away to the other ponies). She needed something that hit home, like her letters, to break the spell.Very interesting theories Narei, I've often wondered if everything thats happened thus far was engeneired by Celestia, like Allowing Nightmare to return because she knew Twi and the others had the abilit to purify her and turn her back into Luna, so she let it all happen to get her little sister back. But I never though about the friendship reports thing you just brought up.
After reading to the end of your post and the mention of Spike still burping letters (I felt bad for him. That couldn't have felt good at all after so many) after Twilight was back to normal, I'm now leaning more towards my other line of thinking. Cellestia may not have known what was happening to Twilight. She may have been thinking that Twilight just didn't know how to break the spell over the other ponies. She could have observed the spells starting from the castle while still in the maze, even if she couldn't monitor them in Ponyville through magic or something. So Cellestia figured out what needed to be done and sending all those letters back was the only way she could get Twilight to see that she needed to put those memories back in the other 5 so that she could break the spell. That would explain why the letters kept coming after Twilight's own spell was broke, because Cellestia didn't even know that had happened.
Or, it could have been my original thought, and that last letter was just Cellestia being Trollestia, aka writers throwing it in for a bit of comic relief and not meant to tie into the plot so much. :P
EDIT: WOAH... Now I'm wondering. Did Cellestia know from Season 1 episode 1 that this was going to go down? I remember thinking way back when that making out reports on "the power of friendship" seemed kinda like pointless work. Turns out it served a purpose. Is that why Cellestia made Twilight write them all, so she could use them to break the spell by Discord later? :o
She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.Geeze, ya think? She's only over a thousand years old. :D
Uses magic to raise both sun and moon. (I still wonder if she's given the moon back to Luna).She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.Geeze, ya think? She's only over a thousand years old. :D
I was contemplating this very thing this morning on the way to work.
Does Celestia have almost a god-like presence, rather that simply being the princess? (And dangit I wish they would have let her be Queen, because that's basically what she is anyhow, aside from her title itself).
The same scene is what had me wondering. I mean, the letters were first and foremost to un-gray Twilight. If they weren't, that means it was just a stroke of luck that they happened to snap her out of it, or else the whole place would have been stuck in chaos forever. They also were so that she would know how to help her friends, but that could only happen after Twilight learned (or re-learned) her lessons. But from everything that has happened in the show so far, I think luck has little to do with it. That would be far too many lucky coincidences in such a small group of ponies...
With this, and other instances of similar omniscience, I do feel like she's a more god-like figure in the grand scheme of things. She also definitely has the immortal feel to her as well.
But she does the proper thing and never directly interferes with a task. She might assign a task, or help somebody figure something out (usually through indirect means), but she never steps in and uses magic to simply fix things.
Also queens tend to be the bad guys in some kiddie stories.Apparently we have Disney to thank for that according to Lauren Faust. She originally wanted Cellestia to be Queen.
I kind of wonder where all the hi brow ponies are. So far I have only seen them at the Galloping Gala.They all live in Manehatten and Fillydelphia. :P
Apparently we have Disney to thank for that according to Lauren Faust. She originally wanted Cellestia to be Queen.
We were meant to rule together little sister.
Well Nightmare Moon didn't actually come about due to her resentment, Lauren Faust has stated several tims that it was due to magic. An outside force (I speculate Discord) turned her into Nightmare Moon.
Also Discord is the spirit of Chaos itself so its in his nature to be faily evil and cruel seeming...So I'd say in this episode he isn't evil for the sake of it, he's getting revenge for having his kingdom stolen out from under him and being imprisoned for over a millenium.
Well.... So where do we go to start a pettition to bring Discord back?
I kind of wonder where all the hi brow ponies are. So far I have only seen them at the Galloping Gala.
They all live in Manehatten and Fillydelphia. :P
Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax'.
After looking at (but not really reading) the previous walls of text I must quote something to everypony from the immortal "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" Show:Liedt, I hate to say you're right... So I won't. :)Quote from: MST3KJust repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax'.
To paraphrase; Sit back, Relax and have a homebrewed drink. Y'all are overcomplicating it.
I was out of town at a vintage computer fair over the weekend, so I didn't get a chance to watch part two of "The Return of Harmony" on my DVR until just a few minutes ago. I will discuss my feelings about the episode in a moment, but first I want to respond to Kaloyan Alett's reply to my earlier post, since I have been wanting to get a chance to do that for some time.Well Nightmare Moon didn't actually come about due to her resentment, Lauren Faust has stated several tims that it was due to magic. An outside force (I speculate Discord) turned her into Nightmare Moon.
When I had mentioned in my previous post that I had enjoyed the villain Nightmare Moon because she hadn't started out evil but slowly became evil over time because she let her resentfulness towards her sister consume her, I wasn't speculating on Nightmare Moon's creation, but directly referencing an episode of MIL:FiM itself. The narrator stated during the opening of the first episode of MLP:FiM, "Friendship is Magic - Part 1,":
"Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria there were two regal sisters that ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn. The younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all of the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day that her sister brought forth but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon."
So the show itself stated that the reason why Princess Luna slowly transformed into the evil Nightmare Moon was because she allowed her resentment and bitterness towards her consume her. Ms. Faust possibly may have said something contradicting what the episode itself stated in some interview later (I don't know personally, since I haven't read any of her interviews), but when it comes to my own personal interpretation of the Nightmare Moon character I am going to stick with the show itself because what actually appears in the show is canon. If a later episode of MLP:FiM comes along and retcons (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retcon) the Princess Luna character as always being completely good and only becoming evil after being intentionally transformed by some outside evil magical source like you stated then I will go along with it, but until then I will stick to the what has been shown in the episodes that have aired.Also Discord is the spirit of Chaos itself so its in his nature to be faily evil and cruel seeming...So I'd say in this episode he isn't evil for the sake of it, he's getting revenge for having his kingdom stolen out from under him and being imprisoned for over a millenium.
I will agree that Discord would have some cause for revenge in the current episodes for being locked in stone for thousands of years, but as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread that still doesn't give him any motivation for his past actions of evil. As Princess Celestia explained to the ponies inside the castle in part 1, Discord kept Equestria in an eternal state of "unrest and unhappiness," and that both her and Princess Luna felt compelled to move against him because of how "miserable" he was making the ponies. What was Discord's reasons for throwing the ancient land of Equestria into misery like this? The show gives no motives for his actions, and instead explains that Discord does what he does because he is the "mischievous spirit of disharmony." Given Discord's past history, I have a feeling that he would have eagerly turned Equestria upside-down like he did in the episode whether he was entrapped in stone by Celestia and Luna beforehand or not. Because of this, I strongly feel that Discord largely fits the TVTropes.org website's trope for the "Generic Doomsday Villain." (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenericDoomsdayVillain)
As a result, just like I mentioned in my last post, I am still underwhelmed by Discord as I have a personal distaste for villains that are evil "just because" since I can't personally relate to them. To quote part of the article about Generic Doomsday Villains from TVTropes, "...on an In-Universe level — the level on which the audience relates to the story and suspends disbelief — what matters is whether the character is consistent and coherent and has a compelling reason to do what they do. Just like a good hero, a good villain is someone we care about, either because they're someone we empathize with or because they're someone we love to hate. A Generic Doomsday Villain is neither of these things." I have to agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I can't get myself to care about Discord because he gives me no reason to empathize with him, hate him, relate to him, etc. He is just some ancient "spirit of disharmony" bringing about the destruction of the world through chocolate rain because, well, because that is just what he enjoys doing. *yawn* If you happened to love the Discord character that's great-- more power to you. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about him. I just happened to be very underwhelmed by him myself, and unless future episodes of the show give me some reason to care about him I don't have any interest in ever seeing him make a reappearance in future episodes either.
About part 2 of "The Return of Harmony," there was once again elements that I enjoyed about the episode and elements that I didn't. To start off with the things that I didn't like, one of the things that I mentioned in my last post that I was concerned about with this story arc was the all-powerful nature of Discord, and how it could possibly force the show's writers to use a "deus ex machina" plot device (the unexpected introduction of a convenient new character, ability, or object) to stop him. This sort of happened in part 2 with Twilight Sparkle suddenly having a convenient "memory spell" at her disposal that could effortlessly turn each of the other "Mane 6" back to their old normal selves. Now I realize that Twilight Sparkle is the magician of the group, and that she probably has a lot of spells that we haven't seen in the show yet, but since we have never seen the memory spell up until this point where it is surprisingly convenient, it still comes off as a bit of a deus ex machina. Had the writers introduced Twilight Sparkle's memory spell as a "Chekov's Gun," (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun?from=Main.ptitlexn9xzsjd5fif) (a literary technique whereby an unimportant element introduced early in the story becomes significant later on), they could have avoided this.
(As a side note, the scrolls that Twilight Sparkle wrote to the princess about the lessons of friendship that she learned during Season 1 is an excellent example of a Chekov's Gun-- throughout season 1 they were used only as a way to sum up the message of each episode, however they became a key plot element in part 2 of "The Return of Harmony." As a second side note, wasn't Twilight Sparkle's magic shown to be ineffective against Discord's powers when her "fail-safe" spell failed to work in "The Return of Harmony Part 1?" How come her magic, in the form of her memory spell, was suddenly able to work against the spells that Discord had placed on the rest of the Mane 6? Is this a possible continuity error?)
The second thing that I really didn't like about this episode was the nearly suicidal overconfidence that Discord showed towards the Mane 6 when he was confronted by them and the Elements of Harmony the second time after Twilight Sparkle had restored her friends back to normal. Despite the fact that the Mane 6 were no longer under his power, and that they were armed with the same magical artifacts that had defeated him and brought his first reign of chaos to an end thousands of years ago, he shows absolutely no concern about them what-so-ever and even sits, barely interested, yawning in a chair as they blast and defeat him unchallenged. This really disappointed me because this was supposed to be the *climax* of the story arc, and due to Discord's complete dismissal of his foes it was completely lacking in any sort of tension or excitement. Or in other words, the climax was anti-climatic. There was no final struggle and the final battle was completely one-sided. Where was the danger for the heroes? Where was the risk to them? The climax is supposed to be the most exciting part of the story, but instead it was overshadowed by the attempt by the heroes to catch and restore Rainbow Dash. I spent an entire week wondering how the heros were going to defeat an all-powerful villain like Discord, and instead Discord just sat back in a chair and let the ponies defeat him. How disappointing.
As far as what I enjoyed about the episode goes, like Ziel I very much enjoyed how the ponies acted out-of-character when they were gray. Some of the antics of gray-Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity were pretty funny. The funniest moment for me however was the whole scene where Twilight Sparkle finally finds the Elements of Harmony hidden in her book in her Library-- that whole scene is great! I love how she calls her element the "big crown thingie!" I love when she hastily promotes Spike to be "the new Rainbow Dash!" And I also love how she yells "Look out! Here comes Tom!" when she chucks Rarity's bolder out of the library's window with her magic! The before-mentioned chase scene where Twilight and her friends were trying to catch and restore the gray-Rainbow Dash was also very very good. The Star Wars spoof ending was kind of cliche to me, but it didn't really bother me either way. Overall I did like part 2 much better than I liked part 1, but even so the combined "The Return of Harmony" parts 1 and 2 is still one of my least favorite episodes. I have to cast this story arc onto the very bottom of my MLP:FiM list along with "A Dog and Pony Show" as my least favorite episodes. I don't think that any MLP:FiM episode is truly bad mind you-- I just happened to like those less than the rest.Well.... So where do we go to start a pettition to bring Discord back?
According to part 1, Discord was able to break Luna and Celestia's spell and break free from the statue because Luna and Celestia no longer controlled the Elements of Harmony-- the Mane 6 now control them. Therefore, it begs to reason that if the Mane 6 ever pass control of the Elements of Harmony onto some other ponies the Mane 6's spell over Discord will break as well, and Discord will escape again. So there is an open-ended way for Discord to escape. You're not going to see me signing any petitions to make it happen though.
TL/DR. :P :P :P
Speaking of Tom...That and its funny. But the others did have recollections of the time.
I find it funny that Rarity was the only one that seemed to actually remember much of anything from her gray time. The rest all seemed to just think it was a dream or not recall anything at all. She recognized the boulder as Tom. I guess it could be because she was the only one who actually had a physical object/reminder left over after the whole ordeal?
I had a vision of us feudin' and fightin'. I couldn't face the truth, so I started tellin' lies.
*laughing* I..I turned GREY!!! *more laughing*
That and its funny. But the others did have recollections of the time.Quote from: AppleJackI had a vision of us feudin' and fightin'. I couldn't face the truth, so I started tellin' lies.Quote from: Pinkie Pie*laughing* I..I turned GREY!!! *more laughing*
Thats just Pinkie Pie. Pinkamena Diane Pie is when she's all depressed, long straight hair, psychotic ticks, occasional psycho derp eyes and has a habit of talking to inanimate objects.
PDP is also sometimes fanonly known to get a little homicidal and "cupcakes" on ponies. Even though in the fic she's actually retaining her bubbly, cheerful demeanor.
Pinkie Pie, full name Pinkamena Diane Pie, is an earth pony from Ponyville and one of the main characters of the series.
In Episode 25, “Party of One”, Pinkie Pie becomes sad because her friends are avoiding her invitations to parties, making up excuses. As she gains the idea that they don’t want to be her friends anymore, she becomes depressed, her hair going straight and her color tone turning a bit grayer. She then throws a party with many inanimated objects, giving them voices, and displays many insanity tics, including a shot where she’s smiling and her eyes slowly become derped.
Bronies immediately began making connections to Pinkie’s insane state of mind with her role in “Cupcakes”, making it an explanation of its events. From this point, new Cupcakes FanArt usually displays Pinkie with her straight hair, or as many decided to call her, Pinkamena Diane Pie, her real name (as revealed in episode 23).
The Hub unveiled its new billboard advertizement for FiM today. Check this out:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A_Xj7mp28XY/Tobgfn4wGqI/AAAAAAAANC0/1d-0jnfK74E/s640/DAGJh.jpg)
Pinkamina Diane Pie is looking especially creepy in that pose, wouldn't you say?
I'm pretty surprised that The Hub would advertise MLP:FiM that way, because with a promotion like that The Hub is blatantly targeting the show's periphery demographic (ie. us-- the Bronies) as opposed to the show's marketed demographic (young girls) as I doubt that very many really young children have seen the 1982 horror film Poltergeist to get the promotion's reference.
All of this makes me pretty darn curious-- just how does the size of this show's Brony viewership compare to the show's targeted viewership? Are Bronies a minority of the total number of viewers for this cartoon series, or have we usurped the "young girls" demographic to become the majority of the viewers? Does anyone know if there are any published numbers or Nielsen Media Research statistics out there on this? If The Hub is actively promoting the show to the Brony crowd like this then we must have become a large enough group of viewers to become attractive to television advertisers and therefore worth promoting the show to.
I only have one question!
Where...IS...LUNA?!?!
I wonder if they plan to keep releasing new episodes twice a month?
S02 E01: The Return of Harmony - Part 1, Sept 17, 2011
S02 E02: The Return of Harmony - Part 2, September 24, 2011
S02 E03: Lesson Zero, October 15, 2011
S02 E04: Luna Eclipsed, October 22, 2011
S02 E05: Sisterhooves Social, November 5, 2011
S02 E06: The Cutie Pox, November 12, 2011
*Lots of words about Twilight's breakdown*
I'm surprised with all that, you didn't just say Twilight suffered from "Social Munchausen Syndrome" It's origins are from Munchausen Syndrom by Proxy, where you essentially create a problem (without the others knowing of course), so you can come in and save the day and look like the hero.
But something else really struck me. Anyone else notice how this played out almost like an old old Loony Toons cartoon? Think Road Runner vs Wile E. Coyote, back when there was no spoken parts and they used exagerated actions and music to tell the story.
They could bring her back now and again to show some of her progress. Even if it's just any time Celestia shows up in Ponyville, Luna should be at her side.That's about the one thing that stuck out as odd on this episode. You would think that even if Luna was venturing out on her own by now, Celestia would have come to save the day. You know, being sisters and all. I was pretty surprised that she didn't make an appearance.
The great wall of text
I only barely skimmed over your post, but I caught that you mentioned not having Rarity. 2 things I've heard. One, they did have a scene with Rarity in it (I think making a dress for Luna) but it was cut out according to Faust. Second, The VA for Rarity also does Luna, so she was there in spirit if nothing else. LOL
You should do some fanfic's of the MLP's Hoagiebot. You write very
well about the characters and the show. :orbunny:
All we can assume is that, it's probably a Very Fast Pegasus, since that is Rainbow Dashes defining trait(Clears the skies in 10 seconds flat), and to steal her thunder, they have to be as fast as her. And since Firefly was the original design of Rainbow Dash, I think it would be quite cool if this Masked Pony was Firefly, or at least her Colour Scheme. The Original being the one trying to steal the spotlight would be quite cool.
I really enjoyed this episode! Far from being the sappy tea party I had feared, the show surprisingly grabbed me by the heart and didn't let go. There were actually a lot of situations I could relate to as an older brother, but it all came to a head when Rarity found Sweetie Belle's "art project." Manly tears were shed.
I also loved that there were so many reaction-image-worthy scenes, without the show feeling like a televised tour of the internets. Sweetie Belle scooting around the floor when she was bored, various Rarity screams/holding in her anger, and the heart-rending sad Sweetie scenes.
I realized pretty quick the AJ/Rarity switch by her eye color despite the mud at the end, but looking back on it I should have seen that coming a mile away.
I enjoyed the episode. Then again, I have a little sister. :D Rarity as the daughter with high-class ambition rebelling against her parents' lack of sophistication is totally believable, I had a great time playing spot the background ponies during the race, and I had no trouble with Rarity's athletic prowess; this is the unicorn who face-kicked a manticore and hoisted a huge boulder onto her back without her magic. Heck, her father has three footballs as his cutie mark and does not appear to have any sons; what do you want to bet that Rarity was basically forced to be athletic growing up, probably accounting for some of the reason she is trying so hard not to be like her parents?I totally believe that. Someone needs to wwrite a fan fic involving Rarity in pee-wee football and getting her first fashion design inspirations by designing new team unifoms. Maybe she gets thrown off the team for being too frou frou? Or OH! OH! IDEA!!
Okay I just started the episode and this is already THE BEST ONE EVER!!!!
In the bowling alley, there are SOOOOOOOOO many nods to The Big Lebowski that I cannot watch the episode because I'm "squee"-ing too much to pay attention.
Oh god... I'm cracking up....
Aw, thats such a shame. That cameo really tied the whole episode together man.Okay I just started the episode and this is already THE BEST ONE EVER!!!!
In the bowling alley, there are SOOOOOOOOO many nods to The Big Lebowski that I cannot watch the episode because I'm "squee"-ing too much to pay attention.
Oh god... I'm cracking up....
Not gonna lie. Big Lebowski went right over my head.
Luna Eclipsed still has its top spot on my list, but I do think Cutie Pox was a very good episode. Top shelf at least. It did start a bit slow (Never watched Big Lebowski either to catch that one), but seemed to escalate pretty well. Seeing the reactions of the other ponies when Spike told them what Applebloom had was hillarious. The screams of terror. The cloud of pony limbs running away. The.... radiation suits??? :o Seriously, how does a no-techology society like Equestria have freakin' nuclear production?
Also, seeing Spike's reaction to Twilight's hair after Applebloom got it with the loop, I think maybe he isn't in love with Rarity after all. He's in love with Rarity's hair style! :P
You can get a chimney-sweeping cutie mark? Yeah, that sounds like a *fun* talent! It seems as if some ponies can really get screwed over by their cutie marks-- how would you like to be the pony that gets the "stable cleaner" or "ditch digger" cutie mark to appear on their flank?[/li][/list]Well, if you can have bubbles for a cutie mark :P..
I'm generally not a huge Pinkie Pie fan, but I thought it was pretty funny when she felt compelled to confess about her lying about how many corncakes that she ate!And even then, she was lying :D!
The other chatter from this episode is the appearance of a grey pegasus filly with blonde hair and derpy eyes that appeared at the 8 minute and 33 second mark.
This of course is where the fandom starts to really roll in, outside an obvious and somewhat more random shout out to the fandom, besides Derpy herself garnishing some scenes. I know there'll be three different fanons created for this, but of course with Derpy (or any fanon really), its all up to what you want inside your head canon.
Some are going for the Doctor Whooves aspect, that it is Derpy as a filly who is time travelling with the good doctor. Some are probably going to take this as a replacement for Dinky Hooves, due to her appearance in the Sisterhooves Social, or a new character is going to be spawned from this, a sister for Ditzy (or the ultimate head canon of including this grey pegasus along side Dinky & the purple adultish pony from the Social episode).
Mini-Spoiler! Just released on FiM's facebook page: (snip)I usually avoid the spoilery stuff ahead of the episodes, but that is still an awesome picture.
Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL
Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL
If I didn't know the time scale that it takes to write and produce these, I'd agree! When we were hanging out and someone mentioned a turtle with a jet pack, you don't know how much willpower it took to keep a big apple-eating grin off my face to prevent spoiling it. Now I just wonder if the tortoise (is he named?) will never appear again until next season like Winona.
I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable! There was too much fanservice! They were acting out of character!" I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode. You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD. Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!
I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable!
They were acting out of character!" I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode. You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD. Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!
It bugged me when Dash got her wing trapped under the rock; she's usually determined and level-headed, and confident in her abilities, not to mention independent, but here she just immediately gave up and left her fate to anypony (or tortoise!).
Dash being my favourite pony, I felt her character in this episode wasn't what I would have wanted from her. It was kind of like someone took the stereotype Dash most closely resembles and applied it to her.
I actually kinda liked the song this time :D I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.
And finally, while the Mane 6 were there, they didn't really do much.
The only thing that bothers me with it now is how they animated some of the mouths there.I actually kinda liked the song this time :D I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.I too wasn't overly impressed with the song the first time around, but I am starting to like it more and more each time I watch the episode so I guess it is really starting to grow on me.
2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?
6:20 -_-; ...honestly Rainbow, you're making it hard for me to like you right now... AJ needs to deflate that ego some.
11:20 ...Dash you're an idiot... Also, they have hydro electric dams? This is going to further stuff in the fandom like mad...
13:15 ....Do I even have to comment on what her friends just said? They just gave it away! Augh! I wanted the reveal to be at the end... :P oh well.
14:00 oh no... I'm getting flashbacks to Lesson Zero... Don't do it Dashie!
15:25 I got nothing and Dash is an idiot.
16:25 Dash you're an idiot.
20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.
Credits: They aren't gonna narrate the letter? I mean they did already sum up the episode lesson and all i know but still... Oh well. Gotta say, better than the pet episode.
It was a very clichéd kind of episode, for FiM, and was so to the point of exaggerating Dash to the point where I nearly started to cringe. She usually does stop becoming actually self-centred before it gets that bad (she comes across as such, but isn't really and knows when to be serious), so this episode was kind of like "...why's she being like this?".
2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?
7:02 Darkwing Duck?! Er- ponyfied Darkwing Duck. Darkhoof Horse? (It's probably actually Applejack)
20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.
And yes, Ponyville did seem very strange in this; it felt much bigger and more built up, you rather got the feeling that it was just a small and quiet village, previously, even as late as The Cutie Pox, but here it felt inexplicably much more built up, and was even expanding, with the crane and stuff. There was even that completely out of place hydroelectric dam... The premise of the episode is clichéd enough, and then we get the ever-clichéd dam? A hydroelectric one at that? Why would they even need one? Faust even stated they used magic for "electric" things (such as Vinyl Scratch's decks)... It's also completely randomly somewhere near Ponyville in some place which was conveniently un-shown...
(Speaking of which... has anyone found Derpy yet...? Is she even in this episode?)
Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony as well, but I think you are putting her on way too high of a pedestal. [[A bunch of other stuff about Rainbow Dash and her ego]]
Don't strain yourself too much by trying to find in-universe explanations for inconsistencies in this show that most likely have out-of-universe causes. There are some TV shows out there, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for example, that had very comprehensive, strict, and detailed Writers' Guides [...]
The more and more that I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic however, the more that I realize that the writers of this show are restrained by little to none of these kinds of strict rules or guidelines.
...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away. I probably should have.Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too. ;)
...Oh well...
...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away. I probably should have.Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too. ;)
...Oh well...
I agree, Ryffnah. I was rooting for that tortoise from the very beginning. And giving it a second thought, it's actually kind of moving to see the little guy trying so hard. You can tell he wants this more than he's wanted anything!
You know, I think it's time for them to do a Fluttershy centric episode now.It's always time to do a Fluttershy-centric episode.
I am truly shocked that even though today was a new Pony-episode day here I am, at almost 3AM Sunday morning, and I am still the very first person here who is chiming in about the new episode. How can that be? I wonder if that is speaking something about this episode? Is there no love for Rarity around here?I personally was preoccupied with adoring this episode on Ponychan...
-I'm now convinced the animators are playing a game with the Brony community. Who else spotted Derpy this episode? I say this because of HOW she's shown this time.
-I wanna know who that lovely filly was hanging on to Fancy Pants! Honestly I think what struck me is she doesn't have the typical body of a pony on the show. After thinking about it, I wonder if she was the model for Rarity's manequin ponies? :o
-Going back to the Luna Eclipsed episode, I'm now more convinced that it isn't Octavia that was playing the fiddle on stage as everypony else has been saying...
When I saw the violinest on stage with Octavia in Sweet and Elite, I initially thought it was the one from Luna Eclipsed because the fur was the same color. So when I did a side by side comparison, I noticed that the cutie marks weren't the same, so it wasn't her in Luna Eclipsed. BUT(!) I also noticed that while it was the same shape as Octavia's cutie mark, it wasn't the same color. I guess the argument always was that the fiddler in Luna Eclipsed was wearing a full body costume to change the fur color (which makes some sense with the eye stitch being there), but I didn't see one other single pony that did that and still A) left their cutie mark showing, and/or B) changed the color of their cutie mark. Sure, it may have been possible to dye, paint, or air brush the color change. Given how things seem to work in the Ponyverse, I think that would be too impractical for her to go through all the time and extreme effort it would have to take to re-color such an intricate mark. Anypony else re-thinking who it was on stage in Luna Eclipsed now?
I also enjoyed the song for this episode. I think this is going to be one of the better songs of the season for me. Its style greatly reminded me of "Art of the Dress"; it almost makes me think that the composer and possibly even the director for these episodes were the same...
You all should get together and write a couple of scripts for Mlp, and submit them. :orbunny:
and I think I know what you mean, Hoagieboat, with the mouths? It sort of bothers me too.I think it was me who said that, and yeah, they're probably experimenting and getting technically better, but from what it sounds like, Faust got the animators to keep them more fitting last season, and this season with the experimenting and aiming for more expressiveness I think they sometimes go a little over the top or end up drifting into easier and simpler and more understandable less pony-styled mouths. It's kinda disappointing, but won't stop me from enjoying the episodes overall (:
It does seem like a really valid question: why doesn't Rarity just move to Canterlot? It seems like it might be the right move for her career. She is attached to her friends, but she didn't seem too distraught to be far away from them in this episode. And they could always stay in touch and visit each other. Based on what we saw of her relationship with her family in The Sisterhooves Social, it seems like she's already put some distance between herself and them. So, I'm a bit confused about what would keep Rarity in Ponyville.Her business is in Ponyville! She was just in Canterlot making important social and business connections.
You all should get together and write a couple of scripts for Mlp, and submit them. :orbunny:
I doubt they look at external scripts. Star Trek used to do that back in the day, but I think even Star Trek stopped doing it (due to legal issues) by the end.
I think I know what you mean, Hoagieboat, with the mouths? It sort of bothers me too.
It does seem like a really valid question: why doesn't Rarity just move to Canterlot? It seems like it might be the right move for her career. She is attached to her friends, but she didn't seem too distraught to be far away from them in this episode. And they could always stay in touch and visit each other. Based on what we saw of her relationship with her family in The Sisterhooves Social, it seems like she's already put some distance between herself and them. So, I'm a bit confused about what would keep Rarity in Ponyville.
Agreeing with you, as far as I'm concerned based on Rarity's character and desires it makes absolutely no sense that she stays in Ponyville. With how "rustic" the Ponyville folk are (most of the mares there rarely even wear clothes most of the time let alone fancy dresses), it would make far more business sense for Rarity to have her dressmaking shop in Canterlot. Add to that what you mentioned, Ryffnah, about how Rarity is somewhat more loosely tied to her friends and family, then the only reason that I can really find for Rarity not living in Canterlot is the out-of-universe one that it would be much harder to write episodes of the show focusing on the entire Mane 6 if you didn't have all of the members of the Mane 6 living right down the street from one another. Sure, you could still write episodes involving the entire Mane 6 being together if you had Rarity living in Canterlot, but then the writers would find themselves having the same problem that the Star Trek: The Next Generation feature film writers did when for every movie they needed to find some different excuse to get Worf (who was part of the DS9 crew at that point) back on the U.S.S. Enterprise again so that they could then somehow make Worf be part of the Next Generation crew for the duration of the film. Along those same lines, whenever the MLP:FiM writers would want to have an episode involving Rarity, they would have to either write-in some kind of excuse for her to be in town in Ponyville at the time, or come up with some reason for the rest of the Mane 6 to be in Canterlot with her. Once again it definitely could be done, but from an out-of-universe perspective it is probably not worth the extra effort or bother. From a writer's perspective and for the show's "Band of Six" dynamic it is much easier to keep Rarity in Ponyville. That's my take on it, anyway.
........ (*cough cough*) No post in this thread yet? Where is everybody?
Did people really not get that? It was a major point of the episode. Rarity is proud of Spike because of his act of generosity in giving her the gem he was only going to eat. And she wanted it because she knew it would have a better life with her, immortalised in a piece of jewellery for all to admire, than in Spike's belly where it would only be broken down. She cares about all gems after all, that is her special talent. And she could see that it was a real challenge for him to give up that gem, which then ended up saving him, Rarity and the whole of Ponyville, and that's why he was her hero. An act of generosity which was so big that it saved the whole town!
- 20:36 - Wait a minute... Spike got greedy, amassed a huge pile of stuff by exploiting the Ponyville ponies' generosity and good nature, grew into a giant beast, destroyed a large portion of town, kidnapped Rarity, and assaulted the Wonderbolts, and Rarity is proud of him?
This episode is definitely making me wonder why the ponies haven't found a better method of "wireless communication" than magical dragon breath at this point, especially considering the fact that the second you give a dragon something even slightly more exciting than a book as a gift they end up turning into giant building-shattering beast! Come on ponies! You've got record turn-tables, modern day construction equipment, and hydroelectric dams, so how come none of you have come up with the idea of "EOL" (Equestria Online) yet? Or heck, how about building some crystal radio receivers out of wood, wire, razor blades, and pencil leads (you can really do this), and have unicorns use their magical horns as radio spark gap transmitters! Using a deadly city-flattening dragon as a communication device makes about as much sense as using one of the man-eating Lions of Tsavo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_of_Tsavo) as a mouser!Personally, I think mostly the schizo-tech is there for a sort of joke. (...And I think that episode with the electric dam is best forgotten, for many reasons (it's not just for "crimes against canon" mind you).)
This episode has also got me wondering about Spike's relationship with Rarity. <other stuff>I think this episode was meant to tie all that up and push it under the rug; she now acknowledges Spike's crush on her, so he'll have to learn to keep it under control. Not that it was really that serious in the first place, Spike's only a kid :)
- 7:50 - Junebug, eh? As far as I know, this is the first time that we have seen her, and I don't see any additional appearances listed for her in the MLP:FiM Wiki either. With all of the background ponies that the Bronies are crazy for and are dying to see in speaking parts, I am actually kind of surprised that they created a brand new never before seen character for this part. Personally, I would have loved it if one of the ponies that Spike walked up to asking for presents from was Derpy, and that she gave Spike a muffin! (Besides Spike, what would you do with flowers, anyway? Now muffins on the other hand, that's a gift that anypony can enjoy!)
- 16:20 - What the heck is an air raid/tornado/disaster siren doing here in Ponyville, and so oddly placed in the middle of a street no less? And if that siren was always there, why didn't they sound it when that last big monster trampled through their town (the Ursa Minor)?
Which also explains the Hydro-electric damn that was never before seen. It's so they could power the siren. :D
- 16:20 - What the heck is an air raid/tornado/disaster siren doing here in Ponyville, and so oddly placed in the middle of a street no less? And if that siren was always there, why didn't they sound it when that last big monster trampled through their town (the Ursa Minor)?
They probably built it in response to that event. I wouldn't imagine that their town was frequently assaulted by giant monsters before that. Its placing is probably a consequence of the Rule of Funny.
Come on ponies! You've got record turn-tables, modern day construction equipment, and hydroelectric dams, so how come none of you have come up with the idea of "EOL" (Equestria Online) yet?
It does kind of make me wonder whether they could start some sort of intervention program where they seek out giant, grown-up dragons and teach them generosity and kindness, turning them back into little, baby dragons. This seems like a good project for Fluttershy.
It seems that the new MLP episodes are being delayed until after the holiday season (January 7). I'll be missing out on two of my pony doses.
That stinks.
No kidding. Even the podcasts are going on break. I won't even be able to have that pony fix!
Ok, I think the animators are testing us. I mentioned already spotting Derpy waving through the curtain before the play, and everyone else I've heard that spotted her mentioned the same scene. I'm now thinking that wasn't supposed to be the "spotting" in this game of cat and mouse. Check out the train ride at the begining. Right around 10 seconds into the episode, you can see a grey pony with yellow hair like her riding in top window of the the first car behind the locomotive (which it seems the "engineer" ponies finally realized it's better to ride in it than pull it now. :D). Even at 1080p on my 17" monitor, it was kinda small to see, but it looks like she has the eyes of her namesake in this shot. If I'm not mistaken, in all the other recent spottings, you only see her for a spit second and it's not much more than her head in view. That's how it is on the train. When she's spotted at the curtain, you see her for several seconds, the camera focuses on her, there's more to her than a simple pose, and you see her whole body. Those animaters are quite cunning, eh?
Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?
Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?
Children on TV live in terror of their parents ever getting a chance to interact with the other kids in school. This is for a very good reason - parents on TV seem to be on a quest to humiliate their children in front of their peers.
They always have a thousand and one stories about things their unfortunate offspring did when they were two years old, and they always seem certain that everyone wants to hear about them. They're perfectly right about that, of course, just not for the reasons that they think - the Alpha B*tch (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlphaBitch?from=Main.TheLibby) and her ilk are just dying to hear humiliating childhood stories, because they'll be able to tease the poor protagonist about them for years to come! (...) ...with the whole thing ending on An Aesop (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop) about not being ashamed of your parents.
Also, has anyone else thought about the discrepancy between Twilight saying Ponyville has been cleaning up winter without magic for HUNDREDS of years, yet Granny Smith claims to be among the town's first residents?
Diamond Tiara was an excellent petty school bully, and her father was even more awesome because he was surprisingly decent.
The zap apples were pretty strange, but somehow I managed to accept them without question.
Timber wolves! Made of real timber! (I love all the nasty beasties they have in this show :D)
And Rainbow Dash is no longer in the series, and is now an apple.
But how did the foals get so much power in that one part?! And why can't the CMCs use their powers yet?Well, a lot of young animals tend to have natural defenses that they grow out of. Like super sharp claws that dull some as they age. While RL ponies don't have much other than being able to walk right after birth, I can see pegasus and unicorns having similar abilities. I must admit that Pound Cake dragging Pinky Pie around was a bit much. :D
I'm gonna put this down to Pinkie Pie becoming slightly delusional as one might in the middle of the night under great stress and worry. It's the most sensible explanation. Power incontinence could be an explanation too (which they do say at the beginning, but it still felt more than just "explosions of power"). I guess "Rule of Funny" might come into it a bit as well, but surely they could have thought of a better way to do that bit without going to such lengths...?
Well, a lot of young animals tend to have natural defenses that they grow out of. Like super sharp claws that dull some as they age. While RL ponies don't have much other than being able to walk right after birth, I can see pegasus and unicorns having similar abilities.Yeah, I can see that too. And just sort of, responding to primitive desires and stuff. Still, think of the chaos it could cause...
I must admit that Pound Cake dragging Pinky Pie around was a bit much. :DThat at least we can put down to cartoon physics :D
Applejack: "Now how in thunderation is one of them twins a pegasus, and the other one a unicorn?"
Carrot Cake: "Easy. My great-great-great-great grandfather was a unicorn, and Cup Cake's great aunt's second cousin twice removed was a pegasus. That makes sense, right?"
The babies were so much better than that one in The Mysterious Mare do Well, and also can walk (that, the fact that ponies can put the babies in saddlecarriers, and that ponies don't have hands, makes that baby carriage from TMMDW seem pretty ridiculous and unimaginative. Like the rest of that episode, so yeah).
But how did the foals get so much power in that one part?! And why can't the CMCs use their powers yet?
I realize based on the last time that I brought this kind of complaint up that my opinion about it will probably prove to be pretty unpopular here, but I'm sticking to my guns on it. I don't think the writers should disruptively change the tone of the show and the emotions of the viewers for a pay-off as small as a short parody gag.
Well, Hoagiebot, I mostly agree with you (and good catch on the full-grown horns :P ) but I'm surprised you were satisfied with the character development. As one person over at Equestria Daily put it, this was exactly the sort of plot Lauren Faust said she wanted to avoid: one where the protagonist succeeds in the end by crying about her problems.
I really expected to see Twilight Sparkle show up in the last scene, up until the last ten seconds or so even. As the episode stands the babies just eventually relented their shenanigans; which isn't exactly what one calls a plot.
I don't really look at is as 'Pinkie cried and got her way'. She broke down when she learned her lesson. She came to an understanding with the kids (in one of the more touching moments of the series, IMO), and then showed more responsibility than we've seen out of her in the past.Agreed 100%
In the question of whether Pinkie Pie succeeded at being a responsible baby-sitter or just gave up and got what she wanted from crying, I think it's worth noting that the way the twins gave in to her was by imitating the very strategy she'd been using to cheer up them. This means they'd been paying attention to her hard work and were learning from her. She was modelling good behavior for them. And, really, with raising children, you don't so much win as continue to survive from day to day. So, no, Pinkie Pie never proved her superiority over the situation. But, she did work really hard through the whole episode, striving as best she could to handle the twins. That's actually about the best that any caretaker of a small child can do.
To quote the hilarious 80s comedy "Adventures in Babysitting": "You’ve gotten the kids this far. You’re still alive. It could be a lot worse."
Yellow-colored cherries, eh? Well, I guess we have rainbow-colored zap apples so why not.
they made Derpy actually sound "derpy."
knowing what I do about her character from previous episodes I still think that she should have really known better to begin with-- she made Big McIntosh cry for Celestia's sake!
- 5:53 - Well I guess that Derpy isn't the official mail carrier of Ponyville, because there is a mail carrier right there. *sigh* Why couldn't have this have been Derpy's moment in the episode instead of that over-the-top scene in the beginning? At least Pinkie gave the birthday boy some cake!
- 8:18 - Pinke Pie: "I don't know how I'll make it to the next stop!" LOL!
- 8:56 - Pinkie Pie: "I found her ! I found her! I found her! I found her... be right back!" LOL again! :D
The only thing I didn't like about this episode was: THE FANS.
Seriously, you people complain so muuuuch. The creators of a show decide to throw in one of your characters, so everyone WHINES about it. If I was the creator seeing all this, I'd be pretty disappointed by the ungratefulness of the fans, probably remove Derpy altogether or go back to calling her ditzy doo, and NEVER try to interact with the fans or incorporate anything brony again. Clearly they'll never be happy, no matter how much they try.
It reminded me of the old days of Ed, Edd and Eddy, in that she's more like them in the way she fails everything than a clueless blonde that gets everywhere with her looks
And as for the mail carrier scene, I don't think Derpy fit there at all. He wasn't a ponyville pony, obviously, since they don't have those taller ponies anywhere and the letter would not have been from ponyville.
Never heard of Rainier cherries? They're a yellow to red-yellow type. Very delicious!
Like a present that people then go and whine about because it wasn't ~quite~ right.Obviously we should ask Rarity about this.
...But I gather that many people wanted her to have a line or two, then were disappointed and lashed out.What I think the hardcore Derpy fans wanted was an entire episode about her.
*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...**Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Awwww, ok..... kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat :D*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...**Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Please stop or I will hurt you. :D
Actually I was paying more attention to how she kept staring at AJ's rump and then looked away anytime AJ looked her direction. Seriously, watch again and pay attention to the Mayor.Awwww, ok..... kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat kumquat :D*Takes a deep breath and recites to calm down from the Derpy debates...**Duct tapes his muzzle shut*
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Chimicherry... Cherrychanga...
Please stop or I will hurt you. :D
Oh, and did anyone else think that the mayor is rather greedy after this episode?
What surprised me was the fact that Hasbro used a fan nickname in the series. I'm surprised their lawyers didn' t throw a fit about using fanon material in the show, no matter how small.
...I approve of this immensely. The Hasbro/brony relationship should be a little more interesting from here on out (not that it wasn't already interesting).
This was a particularly good episode in my eyes. I had guessed the plot even before Appledash left for Canterlot, but it took me a little longer than that bot be 100% sure about it.
A key character trait common to Smug Snakes is overconfidence. The Smug Snake is usually too arrogant to be rattled. Most often, they will think themselves to be the Magnificent Bastard. While they may believe that they have the situation under control (whether they do so through blackmail, coercion, or simply being in a position of authority), there will usually be a hole in that plan that they failed to consider. Perhaps they underestimated their opponents' abilities and claimed themselves unbeatable, or maybe they made a really stupid mistake along the way.
...
Most of the time, a writer will purposely introduce a Smug Snake as a target for audience hate by making them Kick the Dog (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) or bend the rules to get their way and come out smelling like a rose.
Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.
Furthermore, when it comes to the question of whether the Apple family could be charging more for the cider or making more by cutting the middle man out of selling zap apple jam, I'm willing to give the Apples the benefit of the doubt. It's possible that they're actually getting a higher price for their cider by keeping it a limited commodity that's in high demand. It could be that if they charged more the customer base would jump from everypony wanting it directly to everypony turning their noses up because it's too expensive. And, in the case of the zap apple jam, the Apple family is farm workers. Filthy Rich may really be contributing significant value by distributing and marketing the zap apple jam. I know that I was personally really, really, really happy to offer a cut of profits from my novel to FurPlanet for having them take over distributing it to furry cons for me. That's simply something that they're better set up to do than I am. So, while the zap apple jam may be really valuable, it's possible that they simply can't reach enough of a customer base without having a third party distributor.Putting my trucking and logistics hat on, I 100% agree with this. Go find any family run farm today, and at best, they will only have a small road side stand or farmers market for direct to the public sales.
This was a really awesome episode; awesome song, awesome machine, awesome new characters and awesome letter!
Not much to say really :D
The only thing I didn't like about it was... all those squidgy hooves! *eck*
Meh, new episode; I feel there was potential there, but no, it was just your typical "Reading ain't so bad!" episode.
But then, Cindy Morrow seems to just take existing storylines and just put them to ponies, at least this season.
Where has Rainbow Dash gone this series? She's just being used to mop up the episodes that deal with attitude (mostly by saying it's BAD -_-). Attitude and stuff was never her thing...she was "awesome" and liked things to be awesome, but she was all about skill and competence rather than attitude and coolness. We had Gilda for a character always concerned with being "cool". Not that they'd have been able to do these plots with her, since she, y'know, left, but these episodes weren't really Rainbow Dash ones...
She had much more potential than that, and it's so sad to see it so horribly squandered.
Also, I might add, this episode was way too human. No interest to me...
Edit:
And I might just add, since it's an interesting point, that we haven't had three Rainbow Dash episodes, we've had two Scootaloo ones (and one which failed on too many fronts to really count for much).
I also liked that you could tell that Dash was truly putting herself into the book. Daring Do had RD's tail/mane, but in grayscale, and their eyes were the same.
While it may look like that, as the visual imagery is imagined by Rainbow Dash, Daring-Do's similar mane may have been Dash imagining herself as the heroine, the cover of the book clearly shows Daring-Do as having that exact mane. (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/0/03/Rd_holding_daring_do_book.png)
I swear the barking pony looked like Trixie to me.
I thought of two possible story lines here. The first being what actually happened. The second being that we would learn that RD actually didn't know how to read, and was trying to hide it from her friends. Frankly, I'm glad the episode went the direction that it did.
Hmm. I am actually really surprised by the comments that I am reading for this episode so far. For Cindy Morrow's previous two episodes this season, "Sisterhooves Social" and "Family Appreciation Day," I found myself feeling that they were fairly lackluster at best while most of you here really seem to have adored them. Now, with "Read It and Weep," we have a season 2 Cindy Morrow episode that I really really liked, and now most of the comments that I am reading here about it seem to be far more negative than positive. Zeil seems to have enjoyed this episode along with me, but based on what I am reading it looks like both Foxxhoria and Narei are giving it the thumbs down. As I said, I am actually quite surprised by this, because I sincerely thought that I was going to open this forum thread here on Furtopia and find everybody here raving about it!
I also liked that you could tell that Dash was truly putting herself into the book. Daring Do had RD's tail/mane, but in grayscale, and their eyes were the same.
While there is absolutely no denying that the character design of Daring-Do is a recolored Rainbow Dash, there is an in-universe reason why she cannot be an example of Rainbow Dash visualizing herself as the book character like you suggest. To quote the MLP:FiM Wiki:QuoteWhile it may look like that, as the visual imagery is imagined by Rainbow Dash, Daring-Do's similar mane may have been Dash imagining herself as the heroine, the cover of the book clearly shows Daring-Do as having that exact mane. (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/0/03/Rd_holding_daring_do_book.png)
In other words, I doubt that Rainbow Dash was using her imagination to make herself look like the depiction of Daring-Do on the cover of all of the copies of the book as well.
* HJIPSI - "Hoagiebot-Jones Industrial Pony Stock Index"
Hopefully I can get my own project idea done before some other brony thinks of it and gets it done first-- in a fandom of this size that is this active, pretty much anything that you can think of has been already thought up and done by some other brony-- it's pretty insane!
It is in times like this that I get a little frustrated that people take the show canon to be a completely literal interpretation of everything that goes on (this isn't directed at you, Hoagie, but more toward the wiki itself). Minor technicalities like this shouldn't be presented as hard fact.
Apparently Hearts and Hooves was leaked. Has anyone seen it yet?I have.
Apparently Hearts and Hooves was leaked. Has anyone seen it yet?
I have a feeling that Hoagiebot is going to go ballistic on account of Cherilee's prominence in this episode, though I'm not entirely sure if it's going to be a good kind of ballistic or a bad kind of ballistic. (*waits for him to post in order to find out*)
Oh my. All that sugary sweet sappy lovey dovey talk. Bleh! :D
2. I have already been working on this post for the lion's share of 8-straight hours (which I think is a record), and just want to be done with it at this point and go to bed.
Well wow! We all appreciate what you do Hoagiebot. :) And I mean the mad science as well as the episode reviews of course.
Speaking of which Hoagiebot's general inability to criticise this episode is a good example of one of my little pet theories about fiction, namely that obviously no literature (let's call FiM literature for the moment) is actually perfect (ie uncriticiseable), but all a piece has to do is fill some quota of desirable elements (let's use the technical term "neat things") for the individual viewer to be satisfied with it overall.
Anyway about the episode. I too very much enjoyed it. "LOVE POISON!?" seems like a great concept to me, though of course it wasn't originally invented as a poison. There's also this general sense of science gone wrong to the whole thing, though of course on the big issue of whether love potion is inherently wrong to meddle with it came down somewhat on the Luddite side.
Ah, the Love Potion. Not since the Eskimo Freezer was patented has there ever been such a useless invention. Not that love potions are ineffective, mind you; it's just that they rarely ever work as intended, to the point where one wonders why a character would even bother to use them at all. When you see someone employ a Love Potion these days, you almost expect it to fail. It should be a Discredited Trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscreditedTrope) by this time, but for some reason, even the most Genre Savvy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreSavvy) of characters continue to use Love Potions, with said potions continuing to cause far more trouble than they're worth.
I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."
Speaking of which, it sounds like there is a mad science episode coming up, doesn't it? Twilight Sparkle invents time travel and goes back in time to warn herself about something, slated for March 10th!
The character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if Time Travel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravel) is involved, Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory) will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to correct it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandHistory).
I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."
I am going to have to disagree with you here, Ryffnah. While Cheerilee may have made it sound like she was O.K. when she said, "It's alright Sweetie Belle. I have lots of good friends and wonderful students who care about me very much. I am going to have an absolutely terrific Hearts and Hooves Day!", that was just her being a responsible teacher and not wanting to reveal anything about her personal life to her young students. Just look at Cheerilee's facial expression when Sweetie Belle says, "How could somepony as amazing as you not have a special somepony on Hearts and Hooves Day?":
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211200610/mlp/images/thumb/f/f9/Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png/640px-Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png)
That is not the face of someone who is happy to be reminded that they are alone and don't have a special someone. Cheerilee may be able to put on a good facade for the children, but on the inside she is not happy about being alone on "Hearts and Hooves Day", and that facial reaction of hers is a brief reflection of her true feelings.
I also liked that Cheerilee really did sound completely okay with spending Hearts & Hooves Day without a "very special somepony."
I am going to have to disagree with you here, Ryffnah. While Cheerilee may have made it sound like she was O.K. when she said, "It's alright Sweetie Belle. I have lots of good friends and wonderful students who care about me very much. I am going to have an absolutely terrific Hearts and Hooves Day!", that was just her being a responsible teacher and not wanting to reveal anything about her personal life to her young students. Just look at Cheerilee's facial expression when Sweetie Belle says, "How could somepony as amazing as you not have a special somepony on Hearts and Hooves Day?":
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120211200610/mlp/images/thumb/f/f9/Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png/640px-Cheerilee_Annoyed_S2_E17.png)
That is not the face of someone who is happy to be reminded that they are alone and don't have a special someone. Cheerilee may be able to put on a good facade for the children, but on the inside she is not happy about being alone on "Hearts and Hooves Day", and that facial reaction of hers is a brief reflection of her true feelings.
You are probably right in your assessment, but it could also be her just being fed up with people asking her when she'll be getting a special somepony. (This other view of the situation brought to you by personal experience and my own detestation for the question of when I'll get a girlfriend).
But yeah, that's probably not really what it was. As it stands, if you view it as her true feelings about the day coming out a bit, it kinda does serve to make the CMC's efforts that much more endearing.
I'm pretty sure most people will see that scene in light of projecting their own feelings onto Cheerilee (intentionally or not). Just sayin'.
I'm actually surprised Hoagiebot didn't catch that with all those tropes he points out.
I agree that Cheerilee is mostly annoyed not sad; I interpret it as an eye-roll meaning she thinks the idea that you need somepony special to share h&h day with is kind of silly, almost implying this is not the first time she's had to respond to this particular line of conversation. The expression is a little ambiguous, I'll give it that, but the whole scene works better for me thinking the crusaders are off to try and find a date for somepony who doesn't even think it's important.
ffmpeg -i twinodcropped.mp4 -b 1000 -r 10 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop_output 0 twinodcropped.gif -r 10
An *ss Pull is a moment when the writers pull something out of thin air in a less-than-graceful narrative development, violating the Law of Conservation of Detail (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawOfConservationOfDetail) by dropping a plot-critical (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Plot) detail in the middle, or near the end of their narrative without Foreshadowing (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Foreshadowing) or dropping a Chekhov's Gun (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun) earlier on.
I am sure that at this point there are already a few of you here who are reading this that are already warming up their keyboard fingers to type out how strongly you disagree with with what I just wrote. However, before you do, ask yourself this question: How did showing Pinkie Pie putting on a 1980's aerobics workout suit, exercising her tongue, practicing facial expressions, and sitting on toy jacks have anything to do with establishing how she was every single pony's friend in Ponyville?
right after telling Celestia that some people just want to be left alone, she pops up and annoys Cranky Doodle yet again. Applejack may have bragged about learning nothing, but Pinkie Pie demonstrates having learned nothing.
right after telling Celestia that some people just want to be left alone, she pops up and annoys Cranky Doodle yet again. Applejack may have bragged about learning nothing, but Pinkie Pie demonstrates having learned nothing.
Just to let you know, that wasn't the friendship letter at all - I know Twilight said it, but she was just pointing out a logical possibility, kind of like she does to Pinkie (again) in Griffon the Brush Off when she says to Pinkie that she might be jumping to conclusions with Gilda.
It was a secondary lesson though they brought out of the turn of events, while they were there.
The actual lesson, the one Pinkie does write to Celestia, is that there are different types of friendship -
"Dear Princess Celestia,
There are many different kinds of friends, and many different ways to express friendship. Some friends like to run and laugh and play together, but others just like to be left alone, and that's fine too.
But the best thing about friendship, is being able to make your friends smile."
Which I think is a wonderful lesson to cover.
After voicing that letter, Pinkie starts singing again, pops up in Cranky's window interrupting a kiss, and both donkeys have to yell at her to make her go away. Lesson learned? Not so much.
After voicing that letter, Pinkie starts singing again, pops up in Cranky's window interrupting a kiss, and both donkeys have to yell at her to make her go away. Lesson learned? Not so much.
She does, she's like "Whoops, privacy, sorry!"
She just forgot herself for a moment. Innocent mistake to make.
Pinkie seems to forget herself for a lot of moments.
1. I agree that the song just didn't seem to fit Pinkie. The lyrics did, but the execution of the song, not so much. By that, I mean it was just too organized/thought out for Pinkie. Her songs are usually short and somewhat random.
Aside from that, I like to think this is what Pinkie sees in her head EVERY time she sings a song! :D
It was also a little overly-bubbly or something (I don't want to say 'girly' but... maybe childish? Did I just complain that something was possibly girly and/or childish in My Little Pony?).
(*edit*) By the way, did anybody else notice that this episode had a different ending theme song to it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pjwu0ds-w&feature=related)?
I am sure that at this point there are already a few of you here who are reading this that are already warming up their keyboard fingers to type out how strongly you disagree with with what I just wrote. However, before you do, ask yourself this question: How did showing Pinkie Pie putting on a 1980's aerobics workout suit, exercising her tongue, practicing facial expressions, and sitting on toy jacks have anything to do with establishing how she was every single pony's friend in Ponyville?
It was establishing the lengths she goes to to cheer others up; in this case the babies.
And how even after accidentally sitting on those jacks, she's still unrelentingly happy and ready for the day.
It does what you want it to pretty well actually.
Anyway it's only natural that Pinkie Pie would mention a new donkey moving in to Matilda, and Matilda would be able to recognise his name and tell Pinkie she knows him. Having seen Matilda's scrapbook is somewhat unnecessary, but gives an excuse for this to happen sooner rather than later.
2. No surprise here, but the ending of the episode was pretty blatantly obvious once Pinkie started to get Cranky to talk. I guess I should just get used to that, because it's not like I should expect some sort of huge, mind-blowing story-line twists in a show like this.
(*edit*) By the way, did anybody else notice that this episode had a different ending theme song to it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2pjwu0ds-w&feature=related)?
I didn't get to see the episode until a couple days ago, and then was home and offline until now for the most part. Since this discussion has just gone way to long on this episode for me to contribute much without a lot of digging, I'll just leave it at it was a good episode. Mid tier maybe, which I may revise upon second viewing when I don't have a 2.5 year old toddler to contend with while watching. :D
Oh, and here's my take on the lesson really learned from the episode: If people don't want to be your friend, it's ok to stalk them relentlessly until they give in. :D
I think what I loved most was the trio of ponies featured in the episode. We haven't seen much in terms of the relationship between those three as a set. But they do seem like a realistic sub-group that would form within the group of 6. Come to think of it, AJ and RD have enough similarities that I can see them hanging out a lot outside the main group (and we've seen examples of that in the show as well). Leaving Twilight to just kinda... be there. Poor Twilight. At least she has her books. And Spike.
I can't believe I'm actually the first person to post here about "Putting Your Hoof Down," especially since I was busy all weekend and didn't get around to watching it until today. I was looking forward to reading other people's posts and was hoping to find something to like about this episode from them. As it is... I was really disappointed. I'd been excited for there to be a new Fluttershy episode, but this episode felt like utter fail. I mean, at the beginning of the season when the arch villain Dischord tried to turn Fluttershy evil, she was the only pony who's nature was so true that she didn't fall for his tricks. Yet, a quick seminar from a minotaur, and she's suddenly beating people up and saying mean things? I kept hoping that it would turn out that the minotaur had cast some sort of magic on her... Although, I still would have felt like it stretched credibility for a random minotaur to have an easier time magically turning Fluttershy evil than Dischord did.
I guess I did enjoy the classic gag with Pinkie Pie switching roles mid-argument to trick her opponent into giving her what she wants. And the idea of Angel being such a picky eater was cute. But I can't help but feel like this episode was a horrible betrayal of Fluttershy's nature. It started out by claiming she was too much of a pushover (plausible), followed that up with turning her really mean with a little bit of assertiveness training (a terrible contradiction of her personality as established in the rest of the show), and concluded by claiming that, actually, she was perfectly capable of standing up for herself when it really mattered all along (a confusing contradiction of the beginning of the episode) or else that the assertiveness training really had helped? (which would mean that she was refusing to pay the minotaur even though he really had helped her...). The moral heart of this story was a sad mixed-up mish mash, and the character arc was either non-existent (the ability to stand up for herself was inside Fluttershy all along) or kind of troubling (assertiveness can make you evil, but you should go ahead and get it and then blame the person who gave it to you for turning you evil, even though, in the end, he really helped you out?).
Ug.
[Edit: when I started writing this, no one else had posted yet. That doesn't seem to be true now that I've finished.]
0:06 - Fluttershy: "Lunch time! Who's hungry? Plenty for everypony!" Why did Fluttershy say "everypony" here? What pony? I see squirrels, mice, birds, ferrets, and rabbits, but no other ponies. I wonder if saying "everypony" here was an in-universe slip of the character, or an out-of-universe slip of the writer.
*Like here's the problem with your scenario, Aspect. The only way Pinky Pie could find the time spell was because Future Twilight and told Past Twilight about the location of said spells and Pinky Pie had went along with her. So how would you explain Pinky Pie finding the spell in an earlier "loop" to kickstart the whole thing if Twighlight wasn't with her? Granted, she is the master at breaking the 4th wall, but I don't think she's that good. Then again, she did help herself up a cliff in Friend Indeed. Hmmm...
In fact, my favorite fiction book has long been The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and my favorite movie of all-time, The Terminator, also features time travel prominently as part of its plot along with one of my favorite hero tropes, the "hardcore future self (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FutureBadass)." [...] Since I doubt that there are going to be any "hardcore future self" characters in My Little Pony (though it would be absolutely awesome if their were-- could you imagine a hardcore battle-hardened Rainbow Dash from the future wearing grungy black armor, being covered in scars, and having one robotic eye? My main man Tirek (http://img.ponibooru.org/_images/6e91b9f76cda6465b78bc2c01a27374d/48605%20-%20g1%20Rescue_From_Midnight_Castle%20tirek.jpg) could easily provide the bad future (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadFuture) for that Rainbow Dash to come back in time from!)
This upcoming episode is probably going to be an example of the trope, "Set Right What Once Went Wrong (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong?from=Main.SetRightWhatOnceWasWrong)." TVTropes.org describes this trope as:QuoteThe character receives foreknowledge of what will happen (or, if Time Travel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeTravel) is involved, Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RippleEffectProofMemory) will allow them to remember what happened "the first time around") and has to correct it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandHistory).
That's all well and good-- Twilight Sparkle receiving a warning from her future self could lead to a great story. There was one thing that was mentioned in the TV Listing episode summary for this episode that worries me however: "Twilight receives a warning from her future self and drives herself crazy with worry". I want to see Twilight Sparkle acting on the information that she receives from her future self and actively trying to change future events. I don't want to see her just sitting around and going crazy worrying about what could come to pass. I saw enough of Twilight Sparkle going crazy in "Lesson Zero" to last a lifetime as far as I'm concerned. As a result, I sincerely hope that the TV listing episode summary is just describing the first act of the episode, and not the entire episode. If Twilight only worries during the first act, then at the beginning of the second act she can resolve to change her fate, then at the mid-point she can discover that she only succeeded at making everything worse through her attempted changes, and then for the third act she can discover one last crazy dangerous way to make everything better again, only to just barely successfully resolve things in the end. If the events play out like that, then this episode can be really good.
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which a universal wavefunction obeys the same deterministic, reversible laws at all times; in particular there is no (indeterministic and irreversible) wavefunction collapse associated with measurement. The phenomena associated with measurement are claimed to be explained by decoherence, which occurs when states interact with the environment producing entanglement, repeatedly splitting the universe into mutually unobservable alternate histories—distinct universes within a greater multiverse.
[...]
Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").
The many-worlds interpretation [when applied to time travel] could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveler simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.
6:10 - Just WHERE is she sticking that parchment when she finishes her list? :oHmmm. That is a darn good question! :D
Lastly, I didn't spot Derpy in this episode! Did anyone else??
Hmm is there a tvtropes page about the habit authors have of not breaking reality?
ie, super powerful abilities are not controllable or disappear after they are used
in Star Trek, replicator and transporter technologies don't work on the same principles
This process requires the destructive conversion of bulk matter into energy and its subsequent reformation into a pre-scanned matter pattern. In principle, this is similar to the transporter, but on a smaller scale. However, unlike transporters, which duplicate matter at the quantum level, replicators must be capable of a large number of different materials on demand. If patterns were to be stored at the quantum level, an impossible amount of data storage (or a set of original copies of the materials) would be required. To resolve this, patterns are stored in memory at the molecular level. The drawback of doing so is that it is impossible to replicate objects with complicated quantum structures, such as living beings, dilithium, gold, or latinum. (However, in the TNG episode "Allegiance", aliens used their version of replicators to create a Picard impostor.)
transporter buffers don't serve as backup copies of people
And while the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics isn't the most popular of the many interpretations of quantum mechanics that are out there these days, it also as of yet can't be disproved, so as much as those Einstein General Relativity masochists will hate your Many Worlds Interpretation-based time travel stories, they won't be able to completely hand-wave them off either! Ha ha!
...calling something as awesome as dragons lame?! That's not Rainbow Dash!
I don't know exactly know why, but for whatever reason I just don't have very high expectations for this one. I don't have any inside information on the episode or anything like that-- instead, I just read the episode's TV Listing Summary and went, "Meh, this one sounds like it's going to be sub-par."
Continuity Creep (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityCreep) is the tendency of a TV show or comic book that starts off with an episodic Sitcom (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sitcom), Adventure Town (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdventureTowns), or Monster of the Week (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MonsterOfTheWeek) format, which then begins to accumulate more and more Continuity Nods (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ContinuityNod) and ongoing storylines. Or if it starts off with each episode containing a single self-contained story, and ends up with sprawling plots that span multiple episodes, it has undergone continuity creep.
...calling something as awesome as dragons lame?! That's not Rainbow Dash!
I think Rainbow Dash simply believes she's the best flyer in Equestria, even as compared to dragons. Naturally dragons are huge and can't do the same tricks as a little pony. Since Dashie is so competitive she wanted to upstage the dragons to her friends. The way I see it, it was a pretty in-character line!
Rainbow Dash is both cavalier and competitive to a fault, so I have no doubt that she would feel the need to show off and brag about how much better her flying skills are than the dragons.
Hoagiebot should be happy that his beloved Spitfire made an appearance
I know I'm a few days late on this, but, I just saw the promotional material for the wedding season finalé andSpoiler: show
WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT.
As a result, I am going to call it a day (I'm nocturnal) and probably finish my thoughts about this episode in a follow-up post tonight. In the meantime I would absolutely love to hear about what all of your reactions to the episode were so far, and I'll catch you all later!
But then on the flipside you have Cheerilee seemingly shirking her responsibility of actually teaching anything or acting as authority figure at nearly every opportunity, whether it be to cancel the day's lesson to watch Applebloom spin hoop-de-loops out in the school yard to the most recent incident of her "advising" her students on how to run their student newspaper by calling out to them "have fun!" and then quickly skipping out the door as quickly as she could.
The second reason why I was so excited about seeing this episode was the Cutie Mark Crusaders themselves. I'm sorry, but they are just so much more interesting, funny, and fun to watch than the Mane 6 are most of the time! In addition, their motivations are always clear, and it is their unending determined quest to procure their cutie marks that lead them on the most wild of adventures and perform the most zany of antics.
... there was definitely one thing in this episode that just didn't feel right to me, and that was the behavior of the ponies in town after it was revealed that "Gabby Gums" was really the three fillies Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and especially Big McIntosh are all supposed to all be responsible *adults* and trusted mentors to the fillies, but the way that they treated Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo after they found out that they were Gabby Gums was truly unacceptable adult behavior. Blocking the children with force fields, dumping rain on them, giving them the silent treatment, and angrily telling them to "go away" is just not the way that adults should be reacting to small children.
And in the opening scene, why didn't they just have Twilight carry the cake with magic, or teleport it to the train?
I'm sure you are all curious about the actual screening of the episode though! For the sake of spoilers, the only thing I can say is that it is seriously the most epic two part we have received so far. Back to back, it feels like a Lion King style high budget Disney movie.
The changelings did look really neat, but the concept of changelings isn't a new one in any way. I suppose that Dischord -- chaos personified -- isn't that new of an idea either, but I felt like they did a really excellent job with him. All the weird things he created really felt amazingly chaotic, and the way that he turned each of the ponies against their fundamental nature was really, really entertaining to see. Whereas, when the changelings all attacked, they didn't seem to do anything particularly surprising or clever -- they just turned into sort of clone armies. Which was, admittedly, entertaining, but it didn't end up being essential to the plot at all, since the main six basically failed. The final solution -- Cadence breaking the spell on Shining Armor with love -- was actually completely disconnected from the clone army antics. At least, that's what I remember.
I should probably watch it again.
I wouldn't say they were entirely disconnected. The 6 went for the elements to defeat Chrysalis. Had they gotten them, I firmly believe they would have been powerful enough to take her out. However, they couldn't get to them because there were simply too many changelings. They got surrounded and just had no way past them to the elements. So the changeling army brought them back to their queen as prisoners. This is the key to the whole thing. The real Cadence was stuck and couldn't get to Shining Armor in order for their combined magic to work. Twilight needed to be brought back after they failed in order to let her out to get him.
It's a small connection, but it did fit (and was necessary). And it certainly was better than 'oh, they got the elements of harmony, game over' again.
What I thought was interesting was that Chrysalis was feeding off Cadence's love for Shining Armor, but ultimately it was their love that ended up defeating her.
Wouldn't it have been easier to just let Queen Chrysalis (such a great name, by the way) catch them in the first place?
II. Twilight Sparkle has a Previously Unmentioned Older Brother
[Retconning] is a tool, in other words, but it is one that should be used very, very, very rarely, because it deliberately breaks the emotional investment your fans have in your core product: your story. You take a significant risk that your fans will not then reinvest every time you do it. Which means you'll lose some of your fans every time you do it.
It's also a tool to be used sparingly because the retcon will always feel like fiat, whereas the continuity it replaced was organic. It grew and built over the course of months or years or decades. The resulting patches will be weaker, and won't take the strain the original would.
And it is a tool to be used sparingly because once you start to retcon, you start wanting to do more. It's a rare writer or editor who does what he feels is a necessary retcon who won't then throw in a bunch of flourishes just because they thought it would be cool. And even if the retcon could have worked all right, the flourishes inevitably cause destruction and lay waste to all they touch.
I. Princess Cadance is a Winged-Unicorn
Cadance herself was... just a random alicorn (also a princess I guess!), which means Luna and Celestia are goddesses who happen to be alicorns.
It seems that in the teaser scenes that the HUB has been showing that Cadance is going to be played off as some kind of manipulative character, such as TVTrope's "The Vamp (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheVamp)." However, how will she react when she gets backed into a corner? Will she continue to attempt to manipulate those around her by pulling off something like a "Wounded Gazelle Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WoundedGazelleGambit)," or will she resort to using her god-like magic to such a degree that only the Elements of Harmony could have a chance at slowing her down?
One thing that bothered me was, despite Luna and Celestia both being in the episode I really didn't feel like anything was done with them. Luna's lines were so odd and irrelevant. -"Rest, my sister. As always, I will guide the night." She just needed to point out she doesn't spend her time at another castle as Hoagiebot suggested. -"Who goes there? Stay indoors, Twilight Sparkle!" didn't make much sense to me actually; was there a curfew or something Twilight was disobeying? Didn't seem like it! -"Hello everypony, did I miss anything?" seems like another 'remember Luna still exists!' sort of line. I guess Luna's thoroughly nocturnal but I still would have liked her lines to actually mean something.
III. They are Taking Way to Much Imagery from Prince William and Kate Middleton's Real-Life Royal Wedding
I've read complaints by some people (other places) that called the finale 'too Disney'. And sure, it does feel very Disney, but it was still awesome. I grew up watching Disney movies, so seeing a cartoon like this mimic the formula (successfully, I might add), brought back some memories.
Man, saying that the "A Canterlot Wedding" episodes are like Disney's The Lion King in any kind of capacity is one heck of an endorsement, so these episodes may really be something if they live up to the hype. And while I highly doubt that there will be a Lion King-esque Elton John-sung "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" love scene with Spitfire laying on her back in the grass to make this hopeless-romantic Hoagiebot's dreams come true...(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120422024605/mlp/images/2/26/S02E25_Rarity_in_bliss.png)
I too noticed that despite being a winged-unicorn, Princess Cadance didn't seem to have anything along the lines of some kind of over-the-top winged-unicorn magical powers. She showed none of the terrifying and overwhelming magical might of Princess Luna, she didn't seem to have any kind of royal responsibilities over some kind of celestial object in the sky, and since we saw a young Cadance in the flashback of her being Twilight Sparkle's foal-sitter, apparently she isn't thousands of years old either. All of this leads me to ask why she was made to be a winged-unicorn to begin with. Having her be a member of this extremely rare and exclusive super-race of ponies adds absolutely nothing to the story, and it isn't touched upon much in the story if at all. Princess Cadance could have been portrayed as a regular old standard unicorn with a talent for love spells, and the change wouldn't have effected the outcome of anything! So once again, a change was made to the universe of MLP:FiM that was probably a bit more "flourished" than necessary. I just wish that I knew who was responsible for this particular decision so that I knew who to blame-- is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Megan McCarthy, or is Cadance as a winged-unicorn an invention of Hasbro's toy-line and then shoehorned by the Hasbro executives into the show? The fact that I read that "Cadance" was actually named after a Hasbro executive's daughter makes me start to wonder if the latter group is to blame, but still, there is nothing that I saw with Cadance that justified breaking the two winged-unicorn regal sisters yin-yang that the writers had going in Eqestria up until now. They could have just as easily made her a unicorn like they did previously with Prince Blueblood.
But Cadence has the ability to spread love through magic. This is extremely powerful, and rare, which would be fitting of a royal or pseudo-royal position.
But what she has is a very rare ability, and the show has made this clear in the past. We've been shown that there is no spell for love.
I think the idea that there aren't love spells in Equestria actually comes from the very two love spells that you site, Hoagiebot. Both of those spells went horribly wrong and wouldn't have been used in the first place by a wise, clear-thinking pony. So, that suggests that -- perhaps other than for Cadence -- there aren't useful, successful love spells in Equestria.
article on "Magic" on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic wiki (http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Magic)I believe I've mentioned my issues with this site in the past. They have presented various things as hard fact, which were, in reality, conjecture based on how the show was interpreted by a very small group of people.
It's like trying to find a way to have a villain stand up to the all-powerful Old Testament Hebrew God and somehow survive-- just ask the Ancient Egyptians of the Exodus story about how well that worked out for them!
...Does anybody know if/when Season 3 is coming out?