Comment on The Return of Harmony Review by Cuddlepug
Let's try this again after an unfortunate blackout deleted everything I'd written...
I must admit that the second part kinda disappointed me the first time I saw it, and it was again mostly because of the issues that had bothered me the most in the first part: namely time constraints. The story itself was good and all, but to cram it all into 44 minutes unfortunately was at times way too noticeable. I'd have liked if there would have been another 5-10 minutes of extra stretching between the two episodes to flesh out certain moments, like Discord's conversion of some of the ponies, their eventual resurrection, and the final defeat of Discord. Maybe by just dropping off one of the gazillion commercial breaks American TV seems to love (seriously, were there like three or four breaks in 22 minutes!?).
However, what helped mitigate these issues somewhat (if not completely make them disappear) was to simply watch both episodes consequtively back-to-back as a single lengthy episode. I find this is the only way you can truly experience the full impact of the story, and as a result the plot's progression also felt much smoother on the whole. So my overall impression still remains very positive, and the writers at least kept a logical progression to the episodes so as to not write themselves into a plothole bag... though the CMCs in the beginning still feel rather incongruously inserted into the beginning when they really didn't need to be there to make the plot work.
I did love Fluttershy being just a total bitch at every turn she got that even I was getting annoyed with her, which just shows that her twisted personality worked exceptionally well here. And Rarity's "Tom" was just hilarious at taking the rock to a point I was not expecting it to go: actually making Rarity assign a name to it as if to a boyfriend. And Twilight's annoyance was really palpable to make her growing frustrations throughout the second part truly resonate in things like her trying to get the book, her manic possessiveness when she finally got it, her flat rallying speech "Here's your effin gems, now let's go defeat Discord so we don't ever have to talk to each other again" followed by her just making Spike the new Rainbow Dash since she really couldn't bother trying to find the real one, and then her failure at initially defeating Discord was quite emotional.
The third act (or I guess sixth) kinda paled in comparison to this due to the reasons I already outlined above, though the chase for RD was really excellently done (one of the few moments where I felt the pacing really was perfect). The Elements still feel borderline deus ex machina fodder, but on the second hand I was also pleased that they were actually brought back this one time so as to not be complete plot contrivances for the original Pilot episodes. Though the downside, of course, is that they also as a consequence feel like a lazy excuse now that the same shit is seen being repeated again as with NMM, only less effectively since we already know how the blasted things work, so there's no surprise element (totally not a pun intended) involved here.
Discord... I though was a fine enough villain character. Maybe not the most remarkable in the history of villains, but fun enough for his intent as a manipulative jokester. And I admit, the geek side of me was quite amused to have John de Lancie in the voice role simply because I've always loved Q in TNG, so it was fun to get the reference through a fairly similar character here. And the Star Wars finale was a nice touch as well. As for people moaning about the absence of Luna? Well, I can somewhat understand why some would be a little upset in her not making a single appearance here, particularly at the end since you'd have expected to at least having her been present. She's supposed to be the second ruler of Equestria, and her not participating in a big royal ceremonial event, particularly one celebrating the very ponies who had freed her earlier, seems odd from an in-universe point-of-view. But I'm sure the writers will explain her general absence when ever she finally DOES make her return appearance. And what it comes to the music, I'm personally partial to the Discord Theme, with its elusive chromatic lines giving an eerie, yet playful, edge. It's really amazing the quality of the music Will Anderson can come up with on such a short production schedule.
Also as a funny sidenote, when I saw Chaosville, I was immediately reminded of an episode of the old Ghostbusters cartoon where the Sandman made the whole of New York City fall asleep, and their dreams to start wandering around the streets in a surreal world of chaos, with the other Ghostbusters eventually being ambused until only Winston was left to defeat the Sandman on his own. Left me feeling a bit nostalgic actually. And thus Season One is finally concluded! Next up, I'm anxiously waiting to see whatever Season Two will bring with it. There's promises that it'll be even better than S1, so I'm sure it'll be fun times ahead.
I must admit that the second part kinda disappointed me the first time I saw it, and it was again mostly because of the issues that had bothered me the most in the first part: namely time constraints. The story itself was good and all, but to cram it all into 44 minutes unfortunately was at times way too noticeable. I'd have liked if there would have been another 5-10 minutes of extra stretching between the two episodes to flesh out certain moments, like Discord's conversion of some of the ponies, their eventual resurrection, and the final defeat of Discord. Maybe by just dropping off one of the gazillion commercial breaks American TV seems to love (seriously, were there like three or four breaks in 22 minutes!?).
However, what helped mitigate these issues somewhat (if not completely make them disappear) was to simply watch both episodes consequtively back-to-back as a single lengthy episode. I find this is the only way you can truly experience the full impact of the story, and as a result the plot's progression also felt much smoother on the whole. So my overall impression still remains very positive, and the writers at least kept a logical progression to the episodes so as to not write themselves into a plothole bag... though the CMCs in the beginning still feel rather incongruously inserted into the beginning when they really didn't need to be there to make the plot work.
I did love Fluttershy being just a total bitch at every turn she got that even I was getting annoyed with her, which just shows that her twisted personality worked exceptionally well here. And Rarity's "Tom" was just hilarious at taking the rock to a point I was not expecting it to go: actually making Rarity assign a name to it as if to a boyfriend. And Twilight's annoyance was really palpable to make her growing frustrations throughout the second part truly resonate in things like her trying to get the book, her manic possessiveness when she finally got it, her flat rallying speech "Here's your effin gems, now let's go defeat Discord so we don't ever have to talk to each other again" followed by her just making Spike the new Rainbow Dash since she really couldn't bother trying to find the real one, and then her failure at initially defeating Discord was quite emotional.
The third act (or I guess sixth) kinda paled in comparison to this due to the reasons I already outlined above, though the chase for RD was really excellently done (one of the few moments where I felt the pacing really was perfect). The Elements still feel borderline deus ex machina fodder, but on the second hand I was also pleased that they were actually brought back this one time so as to not be complete plot contrivances for the original Pilot episodes. Though the downside, of course, is that they also as a consequence feel like a lazy excuse now that the same shit is seen being repeated again as with NMM, only less effectively since we already know how the blasted things work, so there's no surprise element (totally not a pun intended) involved here.
Discord... I though was a fine enough villain character. Maybe not the most remarkable in the history of villains, but fun enough for his intent as a manipulative jokester. And I admit, the geek side of me was quite amused to have John de Lancie in the voice role simply because I've always loved Q in TNG, so it was fun to get the reference through a fairly similar character here. And the Star Wars finale was a nice touch as well. As for people moaning about the absence of Luna? Well, I can somewhat understand why some would be a little upset in her not making a single appearance here, particularly at the end since you'd have expected to at least having her been present. She's supposed to be the second ruler of Equestria, and her not participating in a big royal ceremonial event, particularly one celebrating the very ponies who had freed her earlier, seems odd from an in-universe point-of-view. But I'm sure the writers will explain her general absence when ever she finally DOES make her return appearance. And what it comes to the music, I'm personally partial to the Discord Theme, with its elusive chromatic lines giving an eerie, yet playful, edge. It's really amazing the quality of the music Will Anderson can come up with on such a short production schedule.
Also as a funny sidenote, when I saw Chaosville, I was immediately reminded of an episode of the old Ghostbusters cartoon where the Sandman made the whole of New York City fall asleep, and their dreams to start wandering around the streets in a surreal world of chaos, with the other Ghostbusters eventually being ambused until only Winston was left to defeat the Sandman on his own. Left me feeling a bit nostalgic actually. And thus Season One is finally concluded! Next up, I'm anxiously waiting to see whatever Season Two will bring with it. There's promises that it'll be even better than S1, so I'm sure it'll be fun times ahead.