 |
| Competition to succeed Daniel Ingram was fierce |
S5E13: "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?"
My original rating: ★★★★
IMDb score: 8.7
Thoughts: "Amending Fences" was a hard act to follow, but this episode – the last before a two-month hiatus – managed to hold up well in the eyes of the fandom, and it's still remembered fondly by many. It's certainly got a lot of interest, centred of course on Luna's guilt and the monster that has resulted: the Tantabus. This provides both some quite serious threat and the main emotional pull of the episode, and it generally does it rather well. On the other hoof, the animators also get to run wild in the dream sequences, with everything from literal LyraBon to Buff Spike riding Giant Derpy into battle to the singing flowers that quite understandably creep Rainbow Dash out. And, of course, that Sailor Mac sequence, which at the time led to so much fanart. Strangely enough, the brief return of Rainbow Power didn't. Funny, that. ;) There does remain one other nagging problem, that Luna could have explained to the Manes much earlier where the Tantabus came from – but I can process that as it being Luna's guilt itself that doesn't let her do so until she's convinced of how much the ponies believe in her now. The big deal here is that Luna gets more depth, and this show is often at its strongest when the focus is on character. This one can keep its four-star rating from 2015.
Choice quote: Twilight: "You can leave out the yawns."
New rating: ★★★★
Next up is "Canterlot Boutique", an episode which I originally felt was generally enjoyable but had a few too many rough edges. We'll see if the passage of time has smoothed them.
I had a thorn in my side regarding this episode for the longest time. That thorn being that I felt it combined one great idea – Luna can't defeat a dream monster alone, so she enlists the Mane 6 – with the far more mature topic of Luna's guilt over her past actions as Nightmare Moon manifesting in self-harm. Not because the latter is inappropriate: in most treatments it would be, but they integrate it fine from a "suitable for TV-Y" context. It was because Luna letting it spiral so far out of control, and harbouring it for so long, reflects weakly on her character. Plus self-harm stories are… usually poor. Because of that, I'd pigeonholed myself into a space where I'd written the episode off.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't even sure if I still agreed with that view, so I was eager to revisit this episode. I'm glad I withheld judgement, because this episode is great, regardless of that aspect. It may well be one of the show's best adventure episodes (a rare breed in single episodes after the first two seasons), and even higher on the action tier. Turns out when your antagonist is not a character, just a malevolent evil force, the usual moral scruples applied to a TV-Y show don't apply! I remember one fan saying the 2017 movie felt lacking even in the scope and scale when we had episodes like this. They may have had a point.
One could argue this episode has a lot of profound subtext given minimal shrift from working with a 21-minute runtime, but it wouldn't be able to do much more there, target audience and all. Otherwise, it's well-paced, especially impressive for sustaining the shared dream for eight whole minutes. Though the reiteration of the theme and impending danger does grate a bit, even for the target audience. Many of the dream visuals and gags, fandom nods or not, are delicious (honestly, I think getting fandom stuff like that here makes me a little cooler on "Slice of Life"). The characters are all proactive and full of will, and I am especially happy there regarding Luna. Even when she's being her stubborn "I cannot let this be your burden" self, she’s great.
Tabitha St. Germain did have a few slips with Luna's voice throughout dropping to some of her other characters, making me question again if perhaps casting her here was wise (she has said voicing Luna is quite a strain for her). But she nails the painful moments of her with the tears so well, it's an acceptable tradeoff. The animation of her facial twitches and such there too makes it even more harrowing, though I don't doubt the facial expressions in the storyboard were probably even better.
On my original issue… I'd almost say "just make the Tantabus an unintentional product of her guilt, with her realising only at the end", but even if it being intentional is only a dialogue focus for a few moments, it underpins the whole episode. Not as simple as altering a few words. In any case, even if I'm unsure of it, I can applaud and praise the episode otherwise. As it happens, we'll see a similar thing next episode.
So, despite my misgivings, great episode, full of weird, touching and action in nice measures. And with Episodes 12-15 of Season 5 being a stretch almost comparable to late Season 1/early Season 2, my mood's high for the next two.
SIDE NOTE: While I am not fond of most times the show has sprinkled lore into Nightmare Moon (the red-herring-cliffhanger flashback in "Princess Twilight Sparkle" especially make it seem like her terror basically wasn't), I am totally for it here. The episode borderline renders the "outside forces possessed Luna" theory incompatible, even if it doesn't explicitly say so. Thank goodness, that’s just weaksauce writing on so many levels, and being an argument many have made, I don't feel the need to repeat the reasoning, beyond it giving Luna far more depth of character. And Luna is nothing if not a proactive character here.
"Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" – Production Changes
ReplyDeletePREMISE
Literally just a single paragraph from Jayson Thiessen and Jim Miller, which can be summed up as "Luna cannot defeat a Baku feasting on nightmare energy, alone, and rounds up Mane 6 to help her beat it." A revised Premise adds extra sentences specifying Luna challenged it alone against her better judgement, puts the Mane 6 through dream training before the battle, and admits afterwards that some battles cannot be won alone.
The Tantabus being a Baku is pretty cool! More noticeable is the lack of its intentional origin as Luna's guilt. We'll come back to that.
OUTLINE
Reasonably close to the final episode already, and all the major differences survive some or all scripts. Mostly, this just bears signs of figuring out when to deliver the exposition, with some info delivered earlier (Luna warns of dreaming of other ponies when she first arrives). One thing unique to here is Dash's dream being cutesy stuff (rainbows, flowers, sparkles. etc.), and thus she is actually relieved when it's turned nasty, to hide her embarrassment that Luna saw it.
SCRIPT
Again, the big differences largely carry through to the final script. The dropped/revised parts worth noting:
In the 1st draft, the pet grooming was a spa day at Twilight's castle instead (this was carried over from the outline). Spike is absent when Twilight needs him, and thus the pets are sent to fetch him.
In the 1st draft, Dash's dream still starts off cutesy, though she seems to not like it even before Luna shows up.
In the first two drafts, the Mane 6 used the Elements of Harmony in the opening scene, not their Rainbow Power forms (not a change that makes much sense, frankly).
Until the polish draft, the dream battle, once others pitched in, ended with everypony successfully herding the creature towards Luna, only for her to state her intention to reabsorb it, returning to her self-inflicted nightmare loop. The dialogue and resolution thereafter is functionally similar to what we got.
The Tantabus only gets a proper name at the polish draft, being just an orb or creature of blue smoke to that point.
ANIMATIC-STAGE CHANGES
This was the longest final script I've ever seen in the 39 episodes since Season 4 began, at over 35 pages. So, there were lots of cuts. Though not as many as you might think, for much of the fast-paced, incident-heavy action was in the script.
* The opening scene showed Luna's nightmare twice, first as it normally plays out (with her clarifying this) before the one where the Tantabus escapes. Easy cut, would have been repetitive to see twice.
* At the grooming playdate, Pinkie clarifies how she feels without proper sleep by bouncing around. When Rarity then asks how Pinkie is when she does get proper sleep, Pinkie clarifies it's the same.
* Spike wasn't present when Twilight called for him, coming in shortly after with grooming gear for himself (a line about him sleeping fine was moved up to facilitate him being always present).
* After sending off the letter, there was a transition to later, everypony about to head home as Luna was probably busy, only for her to arrive on chariot at that moment. Much funnier to make it take mere seconds!
* Twilight originally got the shared dream idea from Applejack saying the best way to catch a loose chicken was corralling it into a confined space. Pinkie misinterpreted this as them using the chicken's egg to make a prison for the Tantabus, requiring Rarity to catch her up.
* In the shared dream, Granny Smith and Snips butted heads about the other being in their dream. As neither were voice-credited, this might have been cut before recording.
* After the dream battle, we saw incidental characters who spoke waking up, remarking it was just a dream, and going back to sleep.
[animatic additions, and final thoughts, below]
[continued from above]
DeleteUnusually, the ideas of almost everything we see visually were in the script. They were all elaborated on to great degree at the board and animation stage, of course. Outright inventions include:
* Some of the pet reactions in the grooming playdate were changed/new.
* Rainbow Dash's dream assailants were just shadowed figures originally.
* The script specified that the Tantabus got bigger every time Lua vocalised her guilt, making it clearer much earlier than the show, where most of us didn't realise that until it was stated in dialogue.
* Big Mac's Sailor Moon transformation was quicker and less showy in the script.
* Derpy originally just got a background gag of being small. Her being huge, and Spike's mount, were board additions.
* Lyra and Bon Bon being conjoined like CatDog? Board idea.
* Mr Cake's line was just a random pony. Fitting to give it to him, as Brian Drummond was already present for Filthy Rich's line.
Animatic feedback is the usual praise, and otherwise just wanting an alternate take for one line, and visual sparkle on the Tantabus shrinking (for those two points, they joke about having copious notes).
This is also the first animatic feedback after the Hub changed to Discovery Family, and their response, all Standard and Practises notes about the threat level at a few points (mostly the changeling impact bit, cautioning that Dash be defending and that we don't see full impact) has no personality, like a bot wrote it. Ironically fitting, given how the channel compared to The Hub.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Just a few takeaways from this. One is that this was a long script, and thus required a fair amount of cuts, but not too many, given how specific the action description was. Otherwise, it was fairly locked down, right from the outline stage (the major cuts all originated there, even a seemingly small thing like Applejack's chicken coop anecdote. Kind of amazing, how early Scott Sonneborn locked this down. Given his two prior triumphs in "Trade Ya!" and especially "The Cutie Map" were at least partially the result of others, it's all the more telling of his growth, producing one of the show's best adventure episodes quickly, and possibly its best dream one (depending on if we count "Sleepless in Ponyville" into that equation). Pity he left after this, but it's a great final outing.
Not to dismiss Jayson and Jim's contribution, but it really was little more than an elevator pitch. Though I'd have liked to keep it being a Baku! While I remain mixed about making the Tantabus a product of Luna's guilt that she intentionally inflicted upon herself, I am fully capable of admiring the excellent work otherwise. Especially impressive that the shared dream battle occupies eight minutes, yet never lags either. You rarely get scenes that long in TV, especially children's cartoons, for a reason!
Just the fact that this episode was able to hit so hard after Amending Fences is the entire reason I held season 5 up as the show's best for a long time. (I've since cooled on it, but these are still two of the best episodes, period.)
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to see that anew with this more relaxed rewatch. I've always known Season 5 was the inconsistent one among the first five, with high highs and low lows. But watching it at a proper non-binge pace has let me better see why many regarded/still regard it highly. And honestly, being a few episodes ahead of My Little Repeats, I can say Ep. 12-15 here make for a fantastic four-episode stretch, with even the one non-fantastic episode in there still being really good. It's like something out of 2011, when the back half of Season 1 and the first chunk of Season 2 were putting few hooves wrong.
DeleteIt'll be like having withdrawals, going back to the inconsistent ping-pong rhythm for the rest of Season 5 in a few episodes' time…
Luna's final peaceful dream is another of my favourite shots in all of Pony.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest of the episode, I adored this then and I adore it now. Another one of those episodes that's packed with enough things happening to fill a two parter, but never feels rushed.
In an era when even most two-parters don't have the correct amount of incident, instead stuffed with too much or skipping along with too little, that's a worthy achievement as adventure episodes go. Reminds me of the first two seasons, when adventure episodes that managed to be well-paced in spite of their amount of content abounded quite a bit, both singles and two-parters.
DeleteDissenting voice here, again. At best, my attitude towards this episode is mixed. I love the Tantabus as a monster, and the dream imagery certainly makes the episode stand out. I'm also a keen fan of the idea that Luna still harbours guilt over the Nightmare Moon incident. That's a no-brainer of a winning concept.
ReplyDeleteCombining the two this way, though...
To sum up my biggest problem with this ep: Luna being remorseful is somehow more dangerous than Luna being evil.
Especially when you've got Season Four's lacklustre Nightmare Moon flashback in mind, I feel it reflects really badly on her character here. That means when it's time to draw out the sympathy for Luna's self-harm complex, it's marred by the fact it's not exclusively SELF-harm, and I don't mean one or two bystanders are in the line of fire, but that this is all to a scale of astonishing enormity. It honestly made me question whether canon-Luna is really that great a character, independent of fanon.
At the very least, it dampens down my enthusiasm for the episode. It's similar to the problem I have with Wallflower Blush, where it feels less like I'm sympathizing with a tortured soul and more like I'm being asked to excuse the incredibly unnerving harm they're inflicting on other people. It just works at cross-purposes at best.