Once Upon a Zeppelin: Brittany Jo Flores (New writer, previously worked on Skylanders Academy)
Secrets and Pies: Josh Hamilton (Parental Glideance, Triple Threat, used to write for Avatar and Korra)
Uncommon Bond: Josh Haber and Kevin Lappin (Lappin wrote Honest Apple and used to write live action sitcoms)
Shadow Play: Josh Haber
Overall the episodes were a strong ending to a really good season for me. Weakest out of the bunch was Uncommon Bond and even that one had quite a few good moments for me. I'll probably do a bigger season recap in the coming weeks but for now it was a really strong season for me and showed a lot of promise going forward.
Josh Haber really knocked it out of the ballpark with Shadow Play imo. It's not as great as The Perfect Pear or Secrets and Pies were imo, but it's a really good season finale.
Definitely excited to see the seasons ahead. Kinda surprised that the show seems to still have this much vitality and potential in it this far into its run.
Even if you don't factor in all of the "unintentional" humor it's definitely one of the funniest episodes of the show. My favorite of the bunch and a top 3 contender for the season for me.
Oh Hamilton had to have known what he was writing with this episode. He was using classic sitcom married couple episode tropes all over this episode, even if it was under the guise of "friendship." It was shipbait to the core and I actually kinda applaud him for it.
But yeah, I definitely agree that Secrets & Pies is one of the top episodes of the season.
In relation to Uncommon Bond
I guess this means that Starlight is the highest level unicorn since she did an age spell.
Honestly the only sensible place for the movie is between seasons 3 and 4, or between Season 4 opener and the first normal episode. No Discord, no Starlight, Twilight acting much less sure of herself as a Princess. But i guess that's for the movie thread.
One of the other lessons of this week's episode was read the fine print. Something too good to be true probably is.
Honestly the only sensible place for the movie is between seasons 3 and 4, or between Season 4 opener and the first normal episode. No Discord, no Starlight, Twilight acting much less sure of herself as a Princess. But i guess that's for the movie thread.
One of the other lessons of this week's episode was read the fine print. Something too good to be true probably is.
Honestly the only sensible place for the movie is between seasons 3 and 4, or between Season 4 opener and the first normal episode. No Discord, no Starlight, Twilight acting much less sure of herself as a Princess. But i guess that's for the movie thread.
One of the other lessons of this week's episode was read the fine print. Something too good to be true probably is.
Well no, it's definitely post Season 6 at least since we see Starlight and Trixie hanging out in the film at some point, or at least that appears to be the case in the trailers. No clue if that shot made it into the final film or not.
As for this week's episode, it was a blast to see Ironwill again after all these years. I haven't seen Putting Your Hoof Down in probably a good five years or so and the only actual stuff I'd seen of Ironwill anywhere since then was in various skits of the Pony Anthology series depicting him as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson on WWE, so I didn't recognize his voice on the speaker when they first got onboard the cruise at all.
Josh Haber really knocked it out of the ballpark with Shadow Play imo. It's not as great as The Perfect Pear or Secrets and Pies were imo, but it's a really good season finale.
Definitely excited to see the seasons ahead. Kinda surprised that the show seems to still have this much vitality and potential in it this far into its run.
Oh Hamilton had to have known what he was writing with this episode. He was using classic sitcom married couple episode tropes all over this episode, even if it was under the guise of "friendship." It was shipbait to the core and I actually kinda applaud him for it.
But yeah, I definitely agree that Secrets & Pies is one of the top episodes of the season.
Oooh, good catch there! Hadn't thought about that in full.
One of the best things I feel this season has done is really open up the world and expand the core cast of characters. A lot of characters that felt largely ignored up until this point finally got some time in the sun. (Celestia and Luna being the biggest examples, but Rainbow's and AJ's parents also made an appearance as well as some other characters) And fan favorites have been put in much more prominent positions as well such as Trixie and Maud. And I've really liked what they did with the Changelings and Dragons. Between all of the new stuff added in season 7 and from the movie, there's countless different stories that they can do for episodes now.
Especially with all of the legends being in present day. I hope that they all get an episode in season 8 since their inclusion is right up there with Twilight's ascension and the castle being created as potentially the most game-changing thing to happen to the show
It really feels like the team in charge really sat down and tried to figure out how the show should proceed forward. In addition to doing a fantastic job of just giving the fans what they wanted the whole season feels like there was a lot more references to episodes from the current season then usual. It feels like there is a cohesive direction that the show is headed rather then just having a bunch of different episodes that were made because the authors wanted to make them. Characters that needed development got development. Major events that happened were talked about. And although the buildup to the finale was unfortunately largely contained in what was for the most part the weaker episodes of the season it was still pretty neat to see it build up to something.
The last thing is that they definitely seem to be doing a much better job then season 6 at hiring new talent. Hamilton definitely is shaping up to be one of the show's best writers ever, and there were others that showed promise too. Crowley and Wetta didn't do a half bad job in Flurry of Emotions, Lappin had issues but had some funny moments too, and Flores was fairly impressive in Once Upon a Zeppelin. I didn't care for Marks and Recreation but that was also done by a newcomer too. It's pretty crazy that they had 7 new writers/teams for this season and it still turned out as well as it did. Nevermind that it didn't have any episodes from Vogel or McCarthy and only one from Confalone, and aside from maybe McCarthy both are returning for season 8 I believe.
There's a reason why I put unintentional in quotes. I don't think Pinkie every actually says "eat my pie" the whole episode which I can only think is Hamilton knowing what was up. She always said it plural in those situations. Even still it's really hard to avoid it and he had to have known.
At this point I think that Starlight and Twilight are on more or less the same power level when it comes to magic, with Twilight knowing more stuff and Starlight being better at creating things on the fly. And the Pony of Shadows said that Twilight was almost as powerful as Starswirl, which means that Starlight is as well. I really hope that the 3 get an episode in Season 8 together.
As for this week's episode, it was a blast to see Ironwill again after all these years. I haven't seen Putting Your Hoof Down in probably a good five years or so and the only actual stuff I'd seen of Ironwill anywhere since then was in various skits of the Pony Anthology series depicting him as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson on WWE, so I didn't recognize his voice on the speaker when they first got onboard the cruise at all.
I always said that Iron Will had a ton of potential and should return. He reminded me of Rex from Napoleon Dynamite. I had a fangasm when I heard his voice on the PA since I know who it was. I wish he was in the episode a bit more but even still it was just really awesome seeing him again. I hope he becomes more of a recurring character like the Flim Flam brothers since he still has a lot of potential.
As for the movie, I said it before but trying to make sense of it doesn't really work. Regardless of when they set it the movie would have had numerous continuity issues and they would have been ignoring a ton of characters.
Also, pulling the trigger on this. UberTag, if you're reading, here's the link to the Discord chat! EDIT: It worked! Removed the link.
That isn't the right link. To get it to work, remove two letters, the first two letters of your main avatar's character. I'll remove it when you log in there, or in a few days.
Successfully got UberTag into the PonyGAF Discord! It isn't a permaban, but he's banned until December.
His thoughts on the episode:
Once Upon a Zeppelin was fine. I enjoyed seeing more of Twilight's parents - clearly we can see where her OCD habits come from. Poor Shining Armor gets treated like a big goof like always. The conflict was pretty contrived and I would have liked to have seen Spike tag along as he's pretty much family... but otherwise it was fine. Nice seeing Iron Will again.
By the way, for future reference, relevant subjects covered on Discord today so far, mostly pretty briefly:
* The season 7 leak.
* The episode guide.
* How we got started with the show.
* The Equestria Girls web series.
* How terrible Juniper Montage is.
* Getting UberTag in the chat.
* Best pony moms.
* Iron Will's return.
* Iron Will's comic appearances.
Further thoughts on Once Upon A Zeppelin: I don't think Twilight's parents are even named in this episode, which is a problem when they're a big focus here. Also, Twilight takes the time to mention that she and Shining weren't born in Canterlot. ...So where were they born? Couldn't take the extra few seconds?
Secrets and Pies
This essentially is another Party of One, but I do love having manic Pinkie around and it was a great episode. I think Rainbow should have just fessed up after Pinkie stopped blinking.
Uncommon Bond
Let's be honest: childhood friends grow apart. I don't think I'll be able to reconnect with people I knew in school 15-20 years ago. I don't know if using a life-sized board game was the right solution though.
Shadow Play
I think the best part of this is that we didn't really know that all the previous episodes were leading up to this. It's not like the Rainbow Items where they shine at the end of each episode. Heck, I just assumed most of these characters just died of old age. I thought these stories were told as world building. Also, it seems the writers are acknowledging the word "pone". The Pony of Shadows is a good villain, but considering how similiar his origin was to Nightmare Moon, I wonder if there's a connection at all.
Further thoughts on Once Upon A Zeppelin: I don't think Twilight's parents are even named in this episode, which is a problem when they're a big focus here. Also, Twilight takes the time to mention that she and Shining weren't born in Canterlot. ...So where were they born? Couldn't take the extra few seconds?
"Once Upon a Zeppelin" followup. There's bizarrely little fan content for this, given all the material in it. I can only imagine it's a combination of the movie and the leaks.
NOTES
Is this the first time we've seen Twilight actually have to do paperwork as a princess?
I noticed that Twilight Velvet and Night Light don't have Twilight's eye shape, instead having the rounded eyes of the Mane Six earth ponies and Rainbow.
People pointed out that Star Tracker does seem younger than Twilight, yet he doesn't specifically have the teen pony design we've seen earlier. Seen well here. Yet another intermediate stage of pony development! Or maybe it is the teen pony design, and it's just that this is the first stallion we've seen with it. Also, TFW you'll never be hugged by Twilight.
Also, "Star Tracker" is probably a reference to his admiration of famous people, but it's totally his destiny to track Twilight's flank.
FAN CONTENT
Like I mentioned above, this episode has oddly little art for an episode with Twilight's parents, Iron Will, power-mad Flurry Heart, and the hilarious Star Tracker, plus all kinds of new background ponies.
Comic - Director's Cut by anontheanon - I didn't see anything NSFW on the first few pages of the source blog... but I don't trust an anon-centered blog to be SFW. So linking to Derpibooru. The text says "Hang on a sec... who's piloting the ship?"
Movie
I haven't gotten around to looking for art that ED missed yet. As a reminder, I won't post movie spoiler art until after season 7 ends in the US.
A Health of Information - There is no cure by feng-shui1301 - That's Meadowbrook turned into a tree, if you can't tell. Look at the tree base.
A Royal Problem - Redraw by KeryDarling - As in a screenshot redraw, not a redraw of old art from this artist.
I'm catching up right now and just saw the episode about Applejack's parents. Dear god, I was actually teary eyed by the end. Such a good episode. I can't believe we finally learned about them.
AND HOLY SHIT IRON WILL. I'VE BEEN WAITING FIVE AND A HALF YEARS FOR MORE IRON WILL WOOOOOOO!
Let's be honest: childhood friends grow apart. I don't think I'll be able to reconnect with people I knew in school 15-20 years ago. I don't know if using a life-sized board game was the right solution though.
Shadow Play
I think the best part of this is that we didn't really know that all the previous episodes were leading up to this. It's not like the Rainbow Items where they shine at the end of each episode. Heck, I just assumed most of these characters just died of old age. I thought these stories were told as world building. Also, it seems the writers are acknowledging the word "pone". The Pony of Shadows is a good villain, but considering how similiar his origin was to Nightmare Moon, I wonder if there's a connection at all.
The resolution was one of the stupider ones that I could think of. Starlight being stuck in the past kinda comes out of nowhere for me, like he wasn't interested even in the stuff that was completely new that she was suggesting. And them making it bigger is really dumb. The scenes with Trixie and Maud were pretty great but everything besides those are pretty bad, and it largely comes down to Sunburst being fairly unlikable. Even after he clearly made Starlight really upset he doesn't even seem to feel bad about it he's just afraid of not having her as a friend.
Also there's some foreshadowing with it being stated that Mage Meadowbrook mysteriously disappearing 1000 years ago. And the plot synopsis that was revealed for it more or less gave away most of the plot.
I guess I'm alone in feeling the the Pony of Shadows was one of the weaker villains of the show. He doesn't have much personality as a bad guy besides liking darkness. His backstory is kinda silly. And perhaps the biggest problem is that he's pretty much never shown to be an actual threat. When he first shows up he's weakened and Twilight+Starlight are easily able to defeat him. When they finally confront him the spell that they came up with would have completely worked if Twilight and Starlight pitched in to help, and even when they're trying to save Stygian there's still no potential for them to be defeated. The only thing that could have gone wrong at that point is not saving him. He's not offensive in any way so he stays out of the bottom of the barrel but he's nowhere near as good as many of MLP's better villains for me. I thought the episode was pretty cool because of all the lore and the character drama between Twilight, Starlight, and Starswirl, but the Pony of Shadows didn't do much for me. His visual design wasn't too cool either.
Yeah, that art is pretty great. I would say it's a bit of a spoiler, but is there anyone who didn't expect Tempest to be reformed? Besides, it doesn't depict a particular movie moment.
I'm catching up right now and just saw the episode about Applejack's parents. Dear god, I was actually teary eyed by the end. Such a good episode. I can't believe we finally learned about them.
AND HOLY SHIT IRON WILL. I'VE BEEN WAITING FIVE AND A HALF YEARS FOR MORE IRON WILL WOOOOOOO!
That Zeppelin episode was completely inoffensive! That makes it an okay episode, but I also wish I had spent my 20 minutes doing literally anything else.
Complete waste of time.
Last week's comic was a nice ball of adorable/fun though.
Glad this is getting more attention now. It was weird how few views the Derpibooru image I posted earlier had gotten. Anyway, the fact that Holiday's relationship to Scootaloo's parents is spelled out, but nothing is said about Lofty, combined with that kiss on the top of the head, definitely points toward discrete lesbians.
^ I agree on the comic, but I can't disagree more about the episode. I still find myself smiling about Star Tracker's awkward creepiness.
Glad this is getting more attention now. It was weird how few views the Derpibooru image I posted earlier had gotten. Anyway, the fact that Holiday's relationship to Scootaloo's parents is spelled out, but nothing is said about Lofty, combined with that kiss on the top of the head, definitely points toward discrete lesbians.
I feel like you might be a bit biased Sigma. You'd probably like an episode with Twilight just organizing her books the whole time. (Ok come to think of it I'd watch that too)
I never really gave my full thoughts on the episode. It started out a bit slow but it picked up later. The moral was handled pretty well and it was nice seeing randys not be jerks for once. Overall it was pretty good IMO.
Also I've already watched all of the new episodes but I'll be doing full responses for them each week as they air. They're all pretty good so I'll have no problems rewatching them. The finale is only 2 and a half weeks out anyway.
I think we should wait until after the season fully airs in the US before talking about movie spoilers.
I feel like you might be a bit biased Sigma. You'd probably like an episode with Twilight just organizing her books the whole time. (Ok come to think of it I'd watch that too)
The book clarifies that her parents are still alive, but are always gone and never pay attention to her. Her aunts only started staying with her recently, and are much nicer.
Well, if that's the case, assuming the book takes place after that episode... they're still awful because they haven't cared about their nephew for years.
Apparently it was confirmed later on Twitter that they're indeed lesbians. The post on EQD talking about it is a mess, although all I've seen are people complaining about those complaining about a gay couple, rather then the people actually complaining about it. Either way I was going to say something but then I saw this neato image macro that more or less summed up what I was going to say
ED's post and Mike Vogel's tweet, for reference. "No true Scotsman" and all, but I can't imagine someone who's a real fan of this show that would get angry about there being gay ponies. But this fandom has always had a history of doing more complaining about people complaining than actually complaining.
On another note, Japanese "Mirror Magic" clip, featuring the first appearance of Starlight in the Japanese dub (which has mainly been focusing on Equestria Girls). You need an account to watch Nico Nico. Sunset has the same voice as Holo from Spice and Wolf. Starlight has a pretty unexpected voice, which sort of makes sense given that she hasn't been presented as a villain in the dub yet (and probably won't be).
EDIT: Oh, and yes, that Rarity art is great. I'm impressed how well the shading of her mane and tail are handled with only black and white.
EDIT: Just remembered. I rewatched "Cart Before the Pony" (the cart racing episode) today. First of all, it's more entertaining that I remembered. Second, in light of episodes like "Fame and Misfortune", it sort of feels like this episode is talking about the adult fandom and the show, though that might be reading too much into it. But what drove me to make this edit is that at the end of the episode, after mainly sticking to the term "older ponies", Applejack refers to her and the other "older sisters" as "adults". So another bit of proof that the ponies are older than their Dougworld equivalents!
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if many shippers actually had not so favorable views on homosexuality. Like, as long as it is a fantasy it's all okay, but when it becomes 'reality' - for lack of a better term - it's just not fun anymore.
I've spoken with a friend of mine, and in Italy they aired Rock Solid Friendship yesterday. Apparently, they cut that little part in which Pinkie burps and spits out a pencil with which she intends to write down the qualities Maud values in a friend.
Why would they do that, I wonder. Maybe they thought kids would end up eating a pencil to emulate?
Just an irrelevant curiosity, but I found it rather funny.
One of the best things I feel this season has done is really open up the world and expand the core cast of characters. A lot of characters that felt largely ignored up until this point finally got some time in the sun. (Celestia and Luna being the biggest examples, but Rainbow's and AJ's parents also made an appearance as well as some other characters) And fan favorites have been put in much more prominent positions as well such as Trixie and Maud. And I've really liked what they did with the Changelings and Dragons. Between all of the new stuff added in season 7 and from the movie, there's countless different stories that they can do for episodes now.
Especially with all of the legends being in present day. I hope that they all get an episode in season 8 since their inclusion is right up there with Twilight's ascension and the castle being created as potentially the most game-changing thing to happen to the show
It really feels like the team in charge really sat down and tried to figure out how the show should proceed forward. In addition to doing a fantastic job of just giving the fans what they wanted the whole season feels like there was a lot more references to episodes from the current season then usual. It feels like there is a cohesive direction that the show is headed rather then just having a bunch of different episodes that were made because the authors wanted to make them. Characters that needed development got development. Major events that happened were talked about. And although the buildup to the finale was unfortunately largely contained in what was for the most part the weaker episodes of the season it was still pretty neat to see it build up to something.
The last thing is that they definitely seem to be doing a much better job then season 6 at hiring new talent. Hamilton definitely is shaping up to be one of the show's best writers ever, and there were others that showed promise too. Crowley and Wetta didn't do a half bad job in Flurry of Emotions, Lappin had issues but had some funny moments too, and Flores was fairly impressive in Once Upon a Zeppelin. I didn't care for Marks and Recreation but that was also done by a newcomer too. It's pretty crazy that they had 7 new writers/teams for this season and it still turned out as well as it did. Nevermind that it didn't have any episodes from Vogel or McCarthy and only one from Confalone, and aside from maybe McCarthy both are returning for season 8 I believe.
I just finished the season and came to post my thoughts, but it looks like you already did! And more elegantly than I ever could.
Season seven had so many throwbacks and old characters and really felt like it was tying the universe together.
The finale totally took me by surprise, I had no idea that these legends throughout the season were leading up to an interlinked story like season 4. Having Starswirl alone is HUGE, but having these other legends back too that we now know of?
This universe is getting so vast, it's really amazing that what was supposed to be a nice little show to teach friendship to little girls has grown into this huge thing.
I'm really excited to see where Starlight (best pony) goes. I assume she's not just gonna be Twilight's subordinate forever. With such powerful magic (she altered one of Starswirl's spells for god's sake!) I can only hope and assume that they've got big plans for her character going forward. Maybe she'll get her own wings someday...
I expect big things from season 8. I would LOVE a Tirek reprise, especially given that season 8 teaser of Tartarus.
Oh, and even if I'm on the "equestria girls does not exist I don't know what you're talking about" side of the fans, I guess it was a little neat seeing the Dazzlings get banished by the legends. Must have been pretty cool for Rainbow Rocks fans.
I've spoken with a friend of mine, and in Italy they aired Rock Solid Friendship yesterday. Apparently, they cut that little part in which Pinkie burps and spits out a pencil with which she intends to write down the qualities Maud values in a friend.
Why would they do that, I wonder. Maybe they thought kids would end up eating a pencil to emulate?
Just an irrelevant curiosity, but I found it rather funny.
Yeah, that is pretty weird. I can see why a children's network would be worried about that, though.
Back in season 1, the Canadian airings famously silenced all uses of the word "loser", ironically making it seem like everyone was saying something much worse. I recall the UK actually skipped "Super Speedy Cider Squeeze 6000", thanks to cider only being alcoholic there. More recently, some Netflix uploads of "Where the Apple Lies" replaced all instances of "cider" with "juice".
Are there other weird bits of censorship I'm missing?
If I had to guess how things probably played out it was probably something like:
> EQD post goes up. People that aren't happy about it post their displeasure and upvote the other ones that didn't like it either.
> Due to people being passionate about it they get a disproportionate amount of visibility even though they make up a very small chunk of the population
> Everyone else responds and points out that it's sad that there's people that are that bothered by it.
> The responses eventually get upvotes and cause the anti-gay posts to be more or less buried.
This kind of stuff happens a lot on places that have upvotes and extremely polarized opinions.
"No true Scotsman" and all, but I can't imagine someone who's a real fan of this show that would get angry about there being gay ponies. But this fandom has always had a history of doing more complaining about people complaining than actually complaining.
EDIT: Just remembered. I rewatched "Cart Before the Pony" (the cart racing episode) today. First of all, it's more entertaining that I remembered. Second, in light of episodes like "Fame and Misfortune", it sort of feels like this episode is talking about the adult fandom and the show, though that might be reading too much into it. But what drove me to make this edit is that at the end of the episode, after mainly sticking to the term "older ponies", Applejack refers to her and the other "older sisters" as "adults". So another bit of proof that the ponies are older than their Dougworld equivalents!
Thing about MLP is that a lot of its inclusivity stuff is hidden behind a metaphor since the characters are ponies rather then humans. The least subtle example I can think of in the show is back in Bridle Gossip where it was extremely obvious that Zecora was an analogue for being from Africa. When I read through some guy who runs a blog called "My Nationalist Pony" the guy dismissed most of the show's morals as just being generic morals that you teach little kids, which leads me to believe that he doesn't take any of them seriously and don't think they apply to him. Since everything is done through a metaphor there's still some plausible deniability that the show isn't REALLY talking about how you should accept people that are different races or have different personalities. Also for what it's worth the show never has actually tackled same-sex relationships before unless you count the extremely implied one between Lyra and Bonbon that they've shown through the series. (In that vein I wasn't really following the fandom at that time but I don't remember there being any outcry about Lyra and Bonbon being gay back when Slice of Life aired) Yeah I would say being homophobic (or being a full-blown White Nationalist) goes against the spirit of what the show stands for, but since the show technically hasn't called out these things directly I guess they just ignore all of the morals that clearly go against what they believe.
Honestly there's a lot of episodes that I watch through in the show and just go "I seriously don't know where all the hate comes from." I recently watched through 28 pranks later and I thought it was pretty funny even though the actual plot was bad. I still like the song in Cart Before the Ponies quite a bit. Think that saying it's a criticism of the fandom is a bit of a stretch, although it's definitely aimed towards older audiences. In the same vein something like Celestial Advice is clearly aimed at an older audience but isn't really directly talking to the fandom.
Also like we needed more proof that the ponies are older characters. I was going to find some picture of Twilight getting super excited over some small detail and compare you two, but I found this instead and now I've lost interest in the joke.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if many shippers actually had not so favorable views on homosexuality. Like, as long as it is a fantasy it's all okay, but when it becomes 'reality' - for lack of a better term - it's just not fun anymore.
I think it's probably a group that didn't really participate in shipping before but didn't really care enough to get worked up about it. (Or they did at one point but have up) And now that it's actually happening in canon they're upset by it. Also I think there's a lot of people that essentially have the thought process of "I'm not against the existence of homosexuals. I just don't want them to exist in any capacity where I would ever have a chance of running into one in real life."
I just finished the season and came to post my thoughts, but it looks like you already did! And more elegantly than I ever could.
Season seven had so many throwbacks and old characters and really felt like it was tying the universe together.
The finale totally took me by surprise, I had no idea that these legends throughout the season were leading up to an interlinked story like season 4. Having Starswirl alone is HUGE, but having these other legends back too that we now know of?
This universe is getting so vast, it's really amazing that what was supposed to be a nice little show to teach friendship to little girls has grown into this huge thing.
I'm really excited to see where Starlight (best pony) goes. I assume she's not just gonna be Twilight's subordinate forever. With such powerful magic (she altered one of Starswirl's spells for god's sake!) I can only hope and assume that they've got big plans for her character going forward. Maybe she'll get her own wings someday...
I expect big things from season 8. I would LOVE a Tirek reprise, especially given that season 8 teaser of Tartarus.
Oh, and even if I'm on the "equestria girls does not exist I don't know what you're talking about" side of the fans, I guess it was a little neat seeing the Dazzlings get banished by the legends. Must have been pretty cool for Rainbow Rocks fans.
There was a comic series running parallel to this season of the show that showed off all of the legends that were featured in the various episodes this season and there was a bunch of promises that they would tie into the series and the final comic of the series which featured all of them was said to have tied into the finale in some way, so it was kinda given away for me that they would likely play some role in the finale. I wasn't expecting them to bring them to present day though, at least until the plot synopsis said that Starswirl and Co were freed for the second episode. So I did kinda see most of it coming due to all the news about the episode and the comics. Even still it's something that hasn't really been done before and was cool to see.
I read through the original bible for the show and one of the first things that Lauren mentions is that they needed to create an interesting world for the characters to exist in. One of the biggest draws for me in the show is that it took place in a unique and interesting world that merged a lot of traditional fantasy elements with more modern day stuff and some original things thrown in there as well. On top of that the show's writers have created a lot of really fun characters that had a lot more potential then what has been shown off. With the Mane 6 as a whole sort of reaching the end of their own character arcs having mostly fixed their largest personal flaws and achieved their lifelong goals there is the risk of things getting stale. This was one of the bigger problems with season 6 overall. As I said before they did a much better job this season keeping things fresh by taking a lot of the stuff that has always been there (who were AJ's and Rainbow's parents? What do Celestia and Luna do normally?
Who really was Starswirl and were there other legends like him?
Why hasn't best character Iron Will made another appearance yet?) and really fleshed it out. And before it was usually several seasons before you actually got to see a continuation of a character's storyline unless they were the Mane 6. Trixie was one of the biggest fan favorites ever since her inception. It took till season 3 to appear a second time and her third wasn't until Season 6. In this season Ember taught Thorax to be assertive and literally two episodes later we're seeing how his character has grown because of it.
I feel like there's been a more fundamental change recently in that the characters that appear in the episodes are being treated as their own separate thing rather then being used as a foil to compare the main characters to. For example Trixie in Boast Busters was largely just intended to be someone to compare Twilight's modesty towards and show the wrong way to show off your abilities. In Magic Duel she's little more then a bitter rival trying to get revenge on Twilight. But in No Second Prances and beyond they've done a much better job at making her feel like a standalone character rather then just existing to play off of one of the main characters and highlight the differences between the two. (A lot of MLP's single episode villains fall under this category such as Suri and Lightning Dust. Their whole purpose is to show how much nicer Rarity is and how Rainbow still cares about others even though she still pushes herself hard) I hope that they can try to do similar things to other characters as well. The one I feel REALLY needs it is Diamond Tiara. She went from being in virtually every CMC episode to essentially being written out of the show after her face turn, largely because I'm guessing no one knows what to do with her now.
My big impression about Starlight back in Celestial Advice is that the show staff were still trying to figure out what to do with her. After all they would have started working on that episode as Season 6 was beginning to air and as such they wouldn't have known what the public reaction to her as a good guy was going to be. They wouldn't want to push her into some super important position only to find out that virtually everyone hated her. (Which obviously isn't the case but it was a possibility) Now that she's gotten some development and people are becoming more accustomed to seeing her they can do whatever they want with her. My big fanfictiony hopes for what they do with her
> Starlight eventually gets her own element some time in the 9th season. This would be after she's had some episodes bonding with the individual members of the mane 6 and have gone on a couple adventures with them so she already feels like a member of the group
> She graduates but stays with Twilight in sort of an advisory/royal magician/bodyguard kind of role.
> She continues her magical training and sort of becomes the next Starswirl the bearded in terms of magical skill.
I was actually hoping for this even before seeing the finale. Now that Starswirl actually exists in their timeline he could take her under his wing and teach him.
Although people's tears would be delicious I hope that Starlight doesn't eventually become a princess. That happening would really just make her feel like Twilight 2.0 and she already borrows a lot of things from her without being a princess as well. Being a princess is Twilight's thing and besides they got to keep the pony race balance of 2 of each intact. That being said there was a picture I saw today that ties into this so I have to post it (I feel like Starlight would probably just figure out how to get real wings but how well)
Yeah, that is pretty weird. I can see why a children's network would be worried about that, though.
Back in season 1, the Canadian airings famously silenced all uses of the word "loser", ironically making it seem like everyone was saying something much worse. I recall the UK actually skipped "Super Speedy Cider Squeeze 6000", thanks to cider only being alcoholic there. More recently, some Netflix uploads of "Where the Apple Lies" replaced all instances of "cider" with "juice".
Are there other weird bits of censorship I'm missing?
Yeah, apparently the Italian episodes have quite a few. I'm inclined to believe that for some reason they license and dub the UK version, rather than the original product, so every alteration made in the UK is also present in the Italian counterpart. Even in Italy SSCS6000 was never aired, and the same goes for Where the Apple Lies. We know the latter was slightly changed in the UK, as you said, and I suppose that may have caused some delays that prevented the Italians from working on it. I don't think their skipping the episode has anything to do with the cider mentions, since in A Hearth's Warming Tail the line "the cider's flowing, this is living" in Pinkie's song is cut, but then in the same episode they literally translate eggnog with liquor, so it's not like mentioning alcoholics is taboo there. The only logical conclusion is that such an omission comes from the UK cut, although of this I'm not sure.
That said, there are also some changes that (I think) are exclusive to Italy. Other than the one I already mentioned, for example, when in Newbie Dash Rainbow Dash accidentally goes through the storm cloud, they cut the part where she's struck by lightning and you can see her cartoony skeleton for a few moments. Which, again, is a stupid edit, first because kids certainly aren't so sensitive, and second because the exact same thing happens to Spike and Big Mac in Dungeons and Discord, but they didn't cut that.
In summary, I have no idea of what their rationale is.
I suppose it makes sense that people would go, "We don't have to pay attention to the morals, they're just for the kids and aren't actually important." In retrospect, "Fame and Misfortune" maybe should have had a section about waifus. (Speaking of "Fame and Misfortune"... eh, later)
About Lyra and Bon Bon, the response to them in "Slice of Life" was entirely positive, as I recall. But I suppose "best friends" really was enough to keep the homophobic bronies at bay.
For "28 Pranks Later", the hate at the time really came from shock that, yes, they are doing "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" again. I haven't gotten around to watching it again, but I imagine it's a lot better on a second viewing.
I can't comment on how the characters turned out this season yet, but you can't bring up Starlight and wings without Starlight vs Mane 6 and the end of Celestia is best princess by ForgaLorga.
Yeah, apparently the Italian episodes have quite a few. I'm inclined to believe that for some reason they license and dub the UK version, rather than the original product, so every alteration made in the UK is also present in the Italian counterpart. Even in Italy SSCS6000 was never aired, and the same goes for Where the Apple Lies. We know the latter was slightly changed in the UK, as you said, and I suppose that may have caused some delays that prevented the Italians from working on it. I don't think their skipping the episode has anything to do with the cider mentions, since in A Hearth's Warming Tail the line "the cider's flowing, this is living" in Pinkie's song is cut, but then in the same episode they literally translate eggnog with liquor, so it's not like mentioning alcoholics is taboo there. The only logical conclusion is that such an omission comes from the UK cut, although of this I'm not sure.
That said, there are also some changes that (I think) are exclusive to Italy. Other than the one I already mentioned, for example, when in Newbie Dash Rainbow Dash accidentally goes through the storm cloud, they cut the part where she's struck by lightning and you can see her cartoony skeleton for a few moments. Which, again, is a stupid edit, first because kids certainly aren't so sensitive, and second because the exact same thing happens to Spike and Big Mac in Dungeons and Discord, but they didn't cut that.
In summary, I have no idea of what their rationale is.
After season 2, I hadn't heard anything about censorship in non-US airings, besides what happened with "Where the Apple Lies", so that fact that it continued to this level is pretty surprising. A cider reference being cut but them adding liquor drinking is especially odd. Does liquor have a different connotation in Italian? As for Rainbow and Big Mac, maybe it's good old fashioned "guys are tougher" thinking?
Art dump, catching up on older episodes. Still not caught up on movie art that ED missed. Unfortunately, "Once Upon a Zeppelin" still doesn't have much art, not even of Twilight Velvet.
After season 2, I hadn't heard anything about censorship in non-US airings, besides what happened with "Where the Apple Lies", so that fact that it continued to this level is pretty surprising. A cider reference being cut but them adding liquor drinking is especially odd. Does liquor have a different connotation in Italian?
Nope, not really. An alcoholic drink - very alcoholic, usually - the meaning it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make sense, unless they thought the image of a pony actually holding a mug is much worse than alluding to a way stronger alcoholic. It's stupid in any case, since it's not like kids never see adults drink a glass of wine or whatever during meals.
Just to be sure, anyone has a British fella who can confirm if that line is missing or not over there?
As for Rainbow and Big Mac, maybe it's good old fashioned "guys are tougher" thinking?
If that's really the reason, boy, they're even sillier than I thought. Honestly, I find it easier to believe that they just do a rather half-assed, inconsistent job when it comes to certain things.
Anyway, speaking of Fame and Misfortune, EQD reports that Mitch talked about it a few weeks ago at BronyCAN. Frankly, I'm surprised some people were so 'offended' by that episode, I actually really liked it. Maybe it's because I watch the show regularly, I follow EQD daily, I post here, I even check /mlp/ from time to time... but I don't really consider myself part of the fandom?
Nope, not really. An alcoholic drink - very alcoholic, usually - the meaning it's pretty much the same. It doesn't make sense, unless they thought the image of a pony actually holding a mug is much worse than alluding to a way stronger alcoholic. It's stupid in any case, since it's not like kids never see adults drink a glass of wine or whatever during meals.
Just to be sure, anyone has a British fella who can confirm if that line is missing or not over there?
Maybe liquor is a known Christmas drink there while eggnog isn't? I don't know.
Anyway, speaking of Fame and Misfortune, EQD reports that Mitch talked about it a few weeks ago at BronyCAN. Frankly, I'm surprised some people were so 'offended' by that episode, I actually really liked it. Maybe it's because I watch the show regularly, I follow EQD daily, I post here, I even check /mlp/ from time to time... but I don't really consider myself part of the fandom?
To be fair, the episode was oddly harsh compared to "Slice of Life" and even "Once Upon a Zeppelin". Even if you aren't offended, it isn't strange to wonder if you were meant to be. I hear there's more interesting stuff in that video, but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet.
While I do complicated posts there, go to EQD, lurk other boards (but not /mlp/), do fanart collection posts, and even read fanfiction now, I don't consider myself a brony per say, though I do consider myself a fan. "Brony" just has such a strong connotation of the negative parts of the fandom, plus it implies that the show defines me more than it does.
Today's episode is
23. Secrets and Pies
When Pinkie Pie thinks she sees Rainbow Dash throw away one of her pies, she suspects the worst. Pinkie Pie attempts to catch Rainbow Dash in her web of lies... using pies.
Even without the leaks, the comics have already revealed how Rainbow feels, but that won't stop Pinkie from making Rainbow taste her... pie.
TVTropes calls it "Misaimed Fandom," which i would feel like is pretty much any alt-right type who likes Friendship is Magic (although someone made a good argument that the show's themes could be misconstrued as Fascism, given the setting under a demigoddess-ruled monarchy and the cutie marks that assign everyone their role in society, plus the early seasons' focus on harmony and controlling disorder in the world. If not a fascist society, then an authoritarian-traditionalist one).
Ahem, anyway, you'd figure the fandom would celebrate canon lesbians. Also i'm pretty sure Slice of Life was making the same implication about Octavia and Vinyl as it was about Lyra and Bonbon.
Speaking of innuendos, this episode was very good. Not for the innuendos but for scarily-competent Pinkie going through a fit of madness, and also having an episode where the protagonist of the episode isn't the one who needs to learn a lesson. The ep doesn't follow Dash at all, but she's the one in the wrong in the end.
I love how Josh Hamilton went all in with those 90s sitcom Married Couple tropes for Rainbow Dash and Pinkie in this episode. Not just for the innuendoes, but the structure of the episode. It was hilarious.
Overall, I think Secrets and Pies was enjoyable although it's another one of those things that could have easily been solved if there was some communication. There was a lot of good expressions (Twilight and AJ at the end when RD was talking to PP to apologize was pretty good).
Secrets and Pies
Yup, that sure was a lot of innuendo. And that sequence revealing that Rainbow did all this just to see Pinkie happy is pure shipping fuel.
This was a really fun episode. I liked seeing Pinkie be analytical again, even if she needed way more evidence than necessary to figure out what was going on. But then again, I suppose she has just that much faith in her friends. It actually is pretty remarkable how the party planning lair and all that implies were introduced so late in the series, during season 5, yet it's had such a consistent impact on her portrayal.
Crazy Pinkie at the end was good, and it was nice to see it handled in a different way from "Party of One", yet still be funny. Actually, come to think of it, I'm surprised they didn't repeat the Pepe Le Pew gag used in "Griffon the Brush Off" and "Party of One", since both involved her chasing Rainbow.
With Rainbow's pie at the end, it's now confirmed that she is the lethal chef of the group, not Twilight like some assumed before.
I liked that with the lesson being about honesty, Applejack was offended that no one asked her about it.
With Pinkie providing a crazy number of training sessions Rainbow has had with the Wonderbolts, I was kind of hoping for her to reveal something ridiculous like that it's been 20 years since Twilight came to Ponyville, and ponies just age slowly.
If I have one complaint, it's that they revealed that Rainbow wasn't eating the pie way too early. There should have been some ambiguity. Granted, that wouldn't be an easy change to make, with so many gags based around how obvious Rainbow was being about the whole thing.
Overall, definitely a fun episode. And those pies looked good.
