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| Rather serves you right for your attitude, Spike... |
Written by Cindy Morrow
24 Dec 2010
My original rating: N/A
IMDB score: 8.4
The one with Twilight's "Nopenopenope" backwards run
Thoughts: Christmas Eve 2010 was quite an occasion for the nascent MLP:FiM fandom. We got so much lore about how much work ponies actually do to clean up winter – by choice, given that Canterlot uses magic. (And so does Twilight later on, much to AJ's annoyance!) It is really interesting – and very S1! – to see the details of how everything's done. Mayor Mare even gets a decent-sized role, plus we get bouncy grinning Lyra in the crowd! To be honest, though, I find Twilight's succession of failures a tiny bit sad to watch, especially when Spike outright laughs at her. Thankfully her organisational skills eventually find her a place, though far in the future ("Slice of Life") Amethyst Star will hint that maybe she isn't entirely happy at having been deposed as Ponyville's best organiser! One tiny, lovely touch: Twilight makes the bird whistle by magically controlling it. Later on, Fluttershy merely needs to wink. Buuuut we all know that, to many, this episode is all about the song. It must have been amazing in those pre-leak days to have a fully-fledged musical number of this quality sprung on you after little more than silly Pinkie ditties in previous episodes. I really like the instrumental reprise, too. This would have been a three-star episode without it, but the song is so good as to add an extra one.
Choice quote: Rarity: "Oh, Spike! It's not so bad. Maybe the birds can use it as a..." Spike: "An outhouse?"
New rating: ★★★★
Next up is "Call of the Cutie", an episode that in hindsight is far more important than it may have appeared at the time. I remember being a bit meh about it the first time around.
This episode was indeed memorable in some ways, but I can definitely agree that for everyone else it's the title song 'Winter Wrap Up' that's the biggest takeaway from the whole project. Having said that, it's all about giving us one of Ponyville's notable past-times, when the whole town gets together to 'wrap up' the winter season, clearing the snow, removing the snow clouds, welcoming the birds, chipping the ice, and waking up all the animals from hibernation. And yet if it weren't for the inclusion of the song itself, being that most songs we've received are 'itty-bitty' Pinkie's series of randomness, it would probably be just be an 'okay' episode. And a bit formulaic too.
ReplyDeleteTwilight Sparkle doing everything she can to help her friends clear up winter, only to fail at everything (This is before Twilight got her wings to fly, mind you). It's not like her friends did any better to encourage her, pretty much giving up on her after the first try. Even Applejack came off too hard on Twilight Sparkle just because she thought to use magic to make the work go faster (Which she wouldn't have done had Spike not insisted on doing that in the first place). I get that every pony has been going through a ton of pressure, up till Twilight's arrival they've always finished late when it comes to Winter Wrap Up but tradition deems that they can make way for spring without the use of magic thereby expressing the value of hard work and such.
Plus, this was probably not Spike at his best. Here we see that Twilight is struggling to do her part and Spike laughs at her for each failure (Even when she was stung by bees). I get Spike is like the little brother who loves to see their older siblings get into a mess for their amusement and this is WAY BACK when Spike wasn't a real likeable guy, but in a way I did like the comeuppance he gets when he gets a cold for being on that one block of ice in the middle of the river (Cold-blooded to say so, I know... Heh, "cold-blooded"). Although to be fair, Twilight did wake him up WAY TOO EARLY just so she can be at the town square on time.
Still, this was indeed a fun episode for the season even if it's mainly memorable for it's one major song based off the title. But yes, if we it weren't for Amethyst mentioning how she was the organizer before Twilight Sparkle came into town, I probably would never guess there was already some pony in charge (Besides the Mayor).
I love this episode, not only because of the nice message about finding one's place, but there's also a subtle one about respecting others (hence Applejack being angry at Twilight for using magic when it had already been explained to her why it was inappropriate).
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite song from the whole series, not only because it's so darn catchy, but also because it does everything I want a song to: it's not overly simple, it's a style I enjoy, the visuals that went along with it were cool, and it does its fair share of the heavy lifting. That last one is a biggie for me. A significant amount of the plot was advanced because of the song. If it were removed, the rest of the episode would feel like there was some background missing to understand the plot well enough.
Agreed on all points, even if I didn't actually mention them all in the review. (The subtle AJ point I didn't think about, but it's an excellent one.)
DeleteI sometimes wonder how successful FiM would have been had it had poorer-quality songs in the first season or two. I suspect it might have made a difference, though of course there's no way to be certain.