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| One thing I will say for this episode, it's very visually interesting |
S7E16: "Campfire Tales"
26 Aug 2017
My original rating: ★★
IMDb score: 7.6
Thoughts: Ah yes, the only episode credited to Barry Safchik and Michael Platt is the one where we meet the Pillars (in the show; the comics got there first) for the first time. I've never found them all that interesting, which doesn't help this episode in my book. It's not a bad ep, but it just feels too disjointed and irritating for me. Not the least of my issues is Scootaloo's demeanour, which suggests she hasn't toughened up at all since "Sleepless in Ponyville". I find that hard to credit. I'm not fond of the flyders, either as interesting critters or for producing those unappealing bites (especially on Dash). Rockhoof's apparently hopeless task is fixed out of nowhere with "and then magic happened!" Good things there are in here: Mistmane's legend is more interesting than the other two. The episode looks very nice, and the background music is very fittingly chosen. The brief moments of Rainbow/Scootaloo sisterly bonding are adorable, and the other Crusaders aren't bad either. It's maybe slightly risen in my estimation since 2017, but not enough to lift it much. A top-end two now, but still a two. It's all a bit blah.
Choice quote: Apple Bloom: "I've seen the way you two get when you miss breakfast."
New rating: ★★
Next
time, I'll be rewatching "To Change a Changeling", which I enjoyed in 2017, albeit not entirely without reservation. I hope I shall enjoy it again this time around.
Funny thing is that - on reflection - I agree with you (right down to not rating this episode, as it stands, all that highly), but I still find myself more interested in this and other Pillar episodes than in most of the rest of the season.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong: this episode is a weak effort, with Scootaloo's regression if not outright flanderization and the arbitrariness of the besieged camp as a framing device both standing out as especially unimpressive. To say nothing of how the legends mostly feel like missed opportunities (with the exception of Mistmane's, which I think gets the balance just right and has more than a few pleasing parallels with the game Okami here and there). This is just too blatantly a concept promotion rather than any kind of satisfying narrative in its own right.
That said... I really like the Pillars conceptually. Similar to how the Shadowbolts in EqG3 were a great idea on paper but undernourished in practice, so the Pillars offer another chance to reconsider the nature of the six Elements of Harmony and reflect on the virtues of the main cast (even Star Swirl being recruited as simple "sorcery" versus "the magic of friendship" offers potential commentary on the different focus then and now).
Plus, the legends at least offer a starting point for fleshing them out further. Were it not for the rubbish about magically transforming like an evolving Pokemon (trade it for a montage of him working out the harder and more time-consuming way), Rockhoof's would've been a nice enough tale of determination and hard work. It's that close to working.
Admittedly, Flash Magnus' feels a bit stale compared to the other two: between the pegasi already being represented by Greco-Roman soldiers back in Season Two (and Cloudsdale's general aesthetic in the present day), and the tale leaving a lot of holes (so dragons can bathe in lava but be hurt by lightning?), and of all three it feels the least developed with no real payoff beyond a standard fight/chase scene. Namely, Flash Magnus doesn't GROW so much as the other two, so his tale comes across as the weakest.
Made less convincing by the character shilling in the modern day. I'm fine with the CMCs and the Main Six picking favourites, but I find it hard to believe they'd gush about them so much.
It's also a mystery who came up with the Pillars (Lewis and Songco? Haber? Someone else entirely?).
Overall, I can't say I disagree with your assessment of this episode as a weak flop, but neither can I dismiss it entirely for one or two (in my mind) banger concepts I can really dig.
A charitable person might argue Flash Magnus not growing is the point, that Dash would value a hero already awesome and brave and loyal who didn't need to become those things.
DeleteI am not that person, or at least don't feel like giving the staff the benefit of the doubt here with all the other weak sauce decisions, but I've seen worse arguments.
I think I liked the Pillars just because they were once again doing a finale that was set up during the season. Granted, they could have spent, y'know, a lot more time doing it...
ReplyDeleteI mean, imagine if we just had a single episode dealing with each story, whether incidental or focal. And imagine Rockhoof's was... say, number three, and Applejack tells the story the same way, and whoever she's telling it to is like... Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense, that's not how I heard it. And the rest of the episode involves various ponies telling the version of the legend they heard, something something, moral. (At the risk of Applejack learning something she's already learned, admittedly.)
And then those varying tales could eventually be echoed in the episode where he tries to commit suicide in S8, that was a good one. :)
I was rather surprised on the rewatch last night that I found Mistmane's tale rather worked. Mostly for being the longest, only having Rarity's narration to interject rather than cutaways back to the group for reactions, and the tale being sturdy enough internally until the end contrivance of healing magic stripping one of their own beauty. It's also the one that is playing with expectations slightly of the usual virtues of the pony telling it, which lends it more than the "yeah, of course, that pony would value that tale" vibes the other two have. Also, it's by far the most visually inventive, off the vaguely Asian aesthetics (I don't want to commit to it being Chinese on paper, even with the presence of their style of paper lanterns). Above and beyond the okay repeat of Greco-Roman soldier for pegasi and the fine-if-unimaginative Bronze Age/Middle Ages for the earth ponies.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, yeah, the episode just feels weak in pretty much all of its ideas and executions. The framing device and modern day shenanigans, in particular, reek of flop sweat in stringing together contrivances, majorly regressing Scootaloo, and the constant cutaways for reactions (the tales themselves take up barely half the episode). The pieces never really gel, either with itself or the tale, and you can feel the script being slogged through so heavily.
And there is another thing we see elsewhere in this season, of over-repeating points to make sure the audience gets it. This damages both some okay-if-used-once jokes and the authenticity of the three liking these tales, with how much they gush about it. You can practically hear the screenwriters thinking "have they got it yet? What about now? Surely now?"
I'll say more on it come the finale, but whatever the potential of reconsidering the Elements of Harmony and the casts' virtues, even this episode being overstuffed and undernourished with just three of them as the main selling point (as opposed to all six as basically window dressing there) is a pretty clear warning sign of how nothing is done with it. Leaving us just a retconned and frankly stupid new origin for the Tree of Harmony (a retcon the show itself later retconned in "Horse Play" off Josh Haber not giving the writer anything to work with, the writer referencing the Journal of the Two Sisters, and Haber lazily passing it through).
Really, there are so many questions around why the Pillars plot line, why it was done the way it was, and why it was never returned to again. Okay, that last one less so: Jim Miller said Hasbro tended to resist using too many new characters again, and the timing of Haber not doing anything this season until the end, him and Nicole Dubuc coming out of nowhere, and totally abandoning them thereafter makes it likely-ish it was Joanna Lewis and Kristen Songco's idea. But what with the comics meant to tie it with this, getting released first due to Discovery Family's wacky scheduling, and being a mixed effort leaning good that pissed all over the notion of them connecting together (Rockhoof doesn't get his strength via a Pokémon evolution, for one), none of it comes together as it was promised it would. Especially stings to lose Friends Forever out of it, which was mixed but could always rebound with the next issue.
Really, outside of Mistmane's tale trumping the other two hands down, unless one places a lot of value on the potential of the concepts over their execution, I can't disagree with the nothingbuger reputation of this one.
Lastly, an interesting parallel with the later "Frenemies", in that this episode feels weaker in hindsight with knowledge of the events of the season finale. There, mostly for the Grogar "twist" and how much that finale blew. Here, because many of the plot holes in the tales could be excusable if they were legends that naturally morph and distort over time, but nope, the finale reveals the Pillars to not only be real but pretty much exactly as in the legends. Boo-urns.
I know I'm most likely in the minority on this, but I liked this one. But then again, I seem to like episodes that most fans either dislike or don't care for - Made in Manhattan, for instance, is one of my favorite episodes out of season five just for its message about community spirit, which has been really lacking in recent years.
ReplyDeleteBack to Campfire Tales, and this is probably the sneakiest episode out of season seven. Up until that point, it was more or less a return to the more episodic approach of the earlier seasons, but then this episode throws a bit of a curveball at us by establishing the Pillars of Equestria (side note: it's a shame they didn't get much to do afterward), or at least, half of them.
Scootaloo's nervousness didn't really bug me since this is most likely a different wooded area to the one from Sleepless in Ponyville. No matter how tough you think you are, you never know what might be lurking around the corner. As far as character derailment goes, I've seen way worse. (Spoilers for a later episode, by the way.)
So yeah, I liked this one; it's not the most groundbreaking of episodes, but then again, it's not trying to be. And that's not a bad thing.
Yeah, this one was just utterly forgettable.
ReplyDeleteThe whole concept was very poorly thought-out, and not rescued by the execution. Two stars is generous. Changing the elements around is... weird. Particularly when Strength is one of them. All the others can be practiced by anyone, except that one. Being strong makes one a better friend? Makes no sense. Shovel-pony should have been Determination. Using the Norse runes when every other bit of text in the show is distorted out was weird. Extra creepy because they're strongly associated with white supremacist groups nowadays.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably being slightly more generous because of Mistmane, since I like her legend and the way it was depicted. I'm still not a fan of the Pillars overall, though.
DeleteExtra creepy because they're strongly associated with white supremacist groups nowadays.
Hmm, I didn't think about that, probably because it's not a particularly big thing here. That use of runes exists, but not (it seems) to the same extent that it does in parts of the US.