I'm disappointed in the lack of villian. He had cool powers and a cool voice, but was completely wasted. He needed more development other than, "BLARGH, Crystal Slaves!!" Otherwise, the episode was great. The use of dark magic is pretty interesting, which makes me wonder if it'll show up again. Although Luna seemed a bit different. What was that book she had at the end?? Also, what's this gak thing everyone's talking about?
Relevant Spoiler: big pic is big Also, couldn't anyone else feel bad for Sombra during this scene? Spoiler: this scene
I dunno... I personally didn't like it that much, to be honest. It might just me having not watched MLP in long enough, and the style of it having fallen out of interest or my expectations were too high, but... Well, for one, it irritated me how it was reusing the whole "OKAY TWILIGHT YOU AND YOUR NORMAL CIVILIAN FRIENDS ARE GOING ON A SPECIAL MISSION TO SAVE THE WORLD BECAUSE I SAID SO NOW HERE IS YOUR DEBRIEFING OKAY ARE YOU READY NOW POSE AS A TEAM AND GET TO BUSINESS", which I know the show used at least once before, and just feels outside the air of the rest of the show. The plot wasn't especially interesting because basically everything that it revolved around was brought out of nowhere. The antagonist was definitely uninteresting, having *no* personality and not known for anything except for being reeaaallly baaaaaad. He hardly even says anything. He did make me realize how absolutely amazing Discord was, though Also, the singing... did the rest of the show have this much singing? At about 6 minutes in I think the first song came up, which kind of made me want to take out my earphones.. it just kinda irritated me. I'm pretty sure the songs earlier on in the series had more meaning in them, and I never felt against their presence. But these ones felt like they were singing just too much about too little, and was a little bit too Disney for me. @_@ It just didn't get very interesting or eventful to me, and there were some points where I kind of wanted to stop watching it... (I'm sure at least one of these times was during singing. ) I hope that the rest of the season is more suitable to my fancy. The mane six were pretty great (as always), though. I just wish it could have focused more on them rather than Twilight vs the big bad with no personality (aka stairs).
Yeah, I felt the episode fell a tad flat, however, there's lots of things which were established in the episode that I really hope have more of an impact later on. For one, that book at the end of the episode, that book looks evil, and we know how Twilight is with books. Secondly, The dark magic that Celestia and Twilight used in the episode, that looked so awesome, but just the look of it makes me think that they can't use it too much without it having...drawbacks. Thirdly, what was up with Luna this episode? She was angry about something...something to do with Twilight Sparkle, could the book have a prophecy about Twilight bringing about the end of Equestria? Because that would make for possibly the best episode ever if they handle it well. Am i over-analysing the episode? Eeyup. Well theres my 20 cents and everything but the kitchen sink
I disturbingly really want to see Twilight turn evil from using that dark magic at some point later on. They didn't do enough with it as I've said. And going through the drawfriend, A lot of people seem to be thinking the same thing. After all, it would look awesome:
Sooo just watched it... Im torn apart. The Mane 6 and all the important good characters where done great. Shining Armors "protecting" characteristic was beautifully shown. I was a little shocked, when cadence was shown the first time like "wtf did happen to her OMG!!", i was well made. But the story... I think they could have done better. The story per se was good, but he villain didnt have any character except from beeing evil. And to be honest i dont really like his looks... just to much of everything bad they could think of. Also the end wasnt thrilling. I had to cry a little while watching every other starting or ending episode of the seasons, but this time not, it felt to flat with no real climax. The danger was not enough dangerous, i never had the feeling they were all doomed, like i had with chrysalis. Overall i liked the episode, but it was not thrilling enough. I would say: 7/10 (and : Brace yourselfes, awesome pony memes are coming)
I tend to agree that this episode felt flat. I don't think it was so much of an episode on its own, and rather a setup for something else. If we look at what showed up and wasn't resolved in the episodes, we find three things. 1. The dark magic, that wasn't explained, but was used twice, and looked far too evil in order to be just some throwaway tool. 2. That book at the end of the episode, completely unexplained and evil/mysterious looking. 3. Luna seemed mad with Twilight for some reason, or just angry in general. If we put all these together, we get my idea of evil Twilight, the book is prophesising her rise, but Celestia thinks that through guiding Twilight she can stop it. Luna is not so sure that Celestia can stop it, and dosen't trust Twilight because of this. This is entirely speculation, but it would be awesome.
Overall I enjoyed the Premiere, It did a good job on world building and character development. My only real complaint is that with like the rest of the two-parters you have this epic movie level story condensed into 40 something minutes, basically, it felt like watching a movie on fast forward XD. But yeah I enjoyed it over all, also glad Spike finally got a chance to play the hero, lil guy helped save the crystal empire, gotta love that. As for fans complaints with King Sombra, I kind of disagree, the Looming threat type villain can be just as scary as the in your face types, IMO Sombra was meant to be more like Sauron from LOTR of "The Nothing" from Neverending Story, just having him as a constant lingering threat outside the kingdom was good enough. And personally I don't think he's really gone for good, I mean if you notice his red glowing horn goes flying torwards the screen during his explosion scene, so maybe we will see him again someday as a more active threat. But yeah I liked the premiere overall, the mane six and spike all had some pretty good moments, and it did what it set out to do, develop the world and lore more, continue the overall plot point of Twilights training, and we got to see Shining Armor & Cadence again, which was fun at least imo, any who I look forward to the rest of season 3! especially the upcoming Trixie return episode!
Thanks. And yeah even though he didn't do much his affect on the empire was some pretty powerful stuff, the crystal ponies still had mental/emotinal scars from when the guy essentially made the Crystal Empire a living hell 1000 years ago, and Sombra wasn't even affected by Shining Armor's magic, not to mention Cadence having to use her powers to hold him back was a huge drain on the poor gal, she nearly passed out twice, and heck there were honestly times where even though I knew she wouldn't part of me thought "man I hope she doesn't die." And then theres the matter of the Dark Magic, thats pretty wicked stuff, not only can it corrupt the crystals but create nearly inescapable traps like his little "Door of Fear" and that security system around the crystal heart. IMO King Sombra works because his mere presence is a strain on those whom he goes up against, he doesn't need to be as active as Discord or as vocal as NMM or Chrysalis, he's a beast of fear, the impending doom on the horizon just waiting to get in and ruin your life, that in and of its self is pretty scary IMO. And again I personally believe we will see him again some day, be it in a future episode/season of the series or maybe like Chrysalis he'll make his encore appearance in the comic.
Finally finished watching it. I thought that it was brilliant. While some complain that King Sombre didn't have much screentime, which is a valid point, I feel that if he had more screentime, the episode would have to be longer than 44 minutes to do something interesting with him. Also, Spike has a major role? What has the world come too?
Spike has made a major push forward for Dragon rights in Equstria! Spike, proving Dragons can save the world just as well as ponies! XD
lol best dragon in a group where there is but 1 dragon. There is no best or worst without comparison.
