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| Shall we? Oh, go on, let's do it, for old time's sake... "You know. For kids!" |
S1E02: "Friendship is Magic, part 2"
Written by Lauren Faust
22 Oct 2010
My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 7.7
The one with Twilight forgetting how libraries work.
Thoughts: I like the foreshadowing of each of the ReMane Five's Elements, even though with hindsight it's pretty obvious. The Everfree Forest is a much spookier place than it becomes even later in S1, and I miss that – until this episode, none of the ponies had ever been inside before. The manticore shows the dangers pretty well, even if Rarity does kick him in the face! (But Twi wasn't allowed to hit Tirek years later? Hmm.) We get our first song – not a great one, but it's cute in its place. Steven Magnet appears, though he'd have to wait 98 episodes for his pirate-upload name to become canon. The Shadowbolts sequence is nice, showing just how susceptible to flattery early-series Rainbow can be. And of course there's the dramatic final confrontation and the return of (S1-style) Luna. Interesting that Twilight refers to her friends as "the spirits of the Elements of Harmony", not dependent on the physical artefacts. I suppose that also applies after the Tree's destruction so many years later! Also our first sight of Celestia and the first utterance (albeit with significance unexplained) of "cutie mark". And, right at the end, Pinkie's first fourth-wall moment. A fine episode. Not hugely representative of most of the season, but even so.
Choice quote: Twilight (sarkily) to Dash: "Yes, Rainbow. I was there."
New rating: ★★★★
Next up is "The Ticket Master", which my admittedly rusty memory doesn't recall being all that great. We shall see!
I think is largely a continuation of my thinking from the first episode, but part two really drove it home for me: I wonder if they made the series again, taking in the lessons learned along the way, whether this storyline would have been spread across the season. Because (and I appreciate the target demographic, obviously) there is a lot of stuff crammed into this two-parter. Not actual plot as such, but the emotional content. And honestly it felt rushed and distant to me as a result. The core necessary plot devices and themes here need to be pretty deep to work well. I needed to see:
ReplyDelete- Twilight realising that friendship is indeed magic (in both application but also as a general 'learn to have friends and see the rewards of it' fable.
- The ponies displaying behaviours of their respective elements.
- Twilight realising that now she has friends, she doesn't want to lose them and return (completely) to her old ways.
Now this two-parter contains those elements, but I honestly think that's a lot of development and feelings to cram into a 45/50 minute sequence, especially with the main cast being as big as it is, and with an adventure needing focus too.
So yeah, as a series whereby this was either signposted a little (they defeat Nightmare Moon but aren't exactly sure on the mechanics of what happened) or for this threat to have occurred at the end of the season where the viewer would have gotten a more cohesive sense of character development and arcs. I'm not even sure you would have had to change the format too much away from its SoL focus to achieve that either.
But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I personally have no idea what kind of forward planning and pressures were having to be taken into account at the time. It's probably more an exercise in reconfirming my preferences of the show, series-wise. Outside of that, it was alright I guess. My favourite series are probably 4 and 5, particularly because my favourite main six pony (Pinkie) got some great consistent characterisation, so it's almost painful coming back to the early material where she was just... Yeah, I'll go with misunderstood and misused. But it *was* a pilot after all; those things are rough by definition.
2.5 / 5
The quest aspect is fun and quite strong, and the cast/concept will always be a step ahead of the game compared to rival shows of the time. But it feels too rushed and cramped to be wholly enjoyable.
Now that's interesting, because I've always felt Pinkie was inconsistently written in at least part of S4. It's possible I may change my view as we get there in this rewatch series, of course.
DeleteAs for this episode -- absolutely they're squeezing a lot in, and there isn't room to go into depth. For me, though, that didn't hurt it. I felt it did just enough -- but enough.
Part Two of this opening for the series is in my opinion a bit of a step-up after what we get from part one. Even though this episode doesn't shy away from the fact that Twilight and her group of friends (Even though she didn't want any) were to be the chosen ones to inherit the spirits of the Elements of Harmony (At least the magic anyway). But along the way, we get to see a trace of each character's personality put to use whether it's Fluttershy managing to tame a manticore rather than fighting the beast, Rarity cutting off her own tail to fix a sea serpent's mustache, or Pinkie literally laughing in the face of danger realizing there's nothing to be scared of. Granted, I did question how Applejack could just tell Twilight to 'let go' whether she knew her friends would catch Twilight or if she just had this gut feeling Twilight wouldn't get hurt regardless. Either way, by the time we do get to the final confrontation with Nightmare Moon (Who makes numerous Maleficent references especially the 'Stand back you foals!' line) while it wasn't a big fight we get our first 'Taste the Rainbow Mother-Bucker' moment.
ReplyDeleteOverall, as a pilot it was a fairly decent start as to what we could expect from the series and as months drift into years the show would continue to improve. Especially this early on when everyone's just getting into character, the songs are mostly short and sweet, and the flash animation was still a working process. Not to mention this would be the one time we see Luna in this particular design before the later seasons give her a severe update (As if some form of magic automatically shifted her body so she wouldn't look young before her subjects). True Spike would be left out of such a big adventure and we hardly see Luna for the rest of the season after this opener, but just wait till we, again, get to later seasons.
The important thing is that this opener made a statement as far as what this series was going for: While it seems like a show made to target an all-female audience, the adventure building aspect (Especially early on when the Everfree Forest was strictly forbidden for traveling) would prove we'd get more than a show of ponies having tea parties and dressing up for balls or chasing boys... Heck, certain someponies don't even end up with guys.
Crowd: BOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AW, SHUT UP! THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY!!!
*Clears throat* Anyway, while this two-parter could've been a 'teeny' bit stronger than what we ultimately got it made me look forward to what the rest of the series has in store.
To be fair, the original G1 series (most of the time, anyway) was a lot more than tea parties. So in a way FiM was going back to its roots with an adventure like this.
DeleteActually that part I didn't mind with the original G1 series. I was referring to a time when that was generally the gist of MLP Tales and the infamous Gen 3 era. But yeah, the fact that Gen 1 pretty much opened with the peaceful pony inhabitants kidnapped by Stratodons led by the gargoyle Scorpan, forcing the ponies to submit to the dark powers of Tirek to become his mindless minions and the rest of the ponies needing a human's help to rescue their friends... So how'd the heck did it go from that to what the other generations would do before Gen 4? I don't know. Although I wasn't crazy with most of the singing in Gen 1, some of the songs (If we call them that) were a little corny, the pitches were a little too high (Though I did like Sandy Duncan as Firefly) and when they transformed Meagan's original attire with that frilly outfit that she'd wear for most of the series I was like, "Yeah, it's 'that' kind of show, isn't it?'
DeleteBut it was nice that Gen 4 did return to its roots by how it got started, even though we have to bear in mind that this was a season that wasn't too reliant on a major story arc or major antagonists other than Nightmare Moon to worry about (And that was just for the first two episodes). Technically we 'do' get a bit of a story arc for this season, but... I'll get to that later.