Thrond

Recent My Little Pony stuff has done a lot to rehabilitate both Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer in my eyes. A year ago they were easily my least favourite main characters, despite my fondness for their earlier appearances. Now I adore both of them. 

"Rollercoaster of Friendship" - I wish this had a less bland story, because it's absolutely hilarious. Moment by moment it's consistently delightful, and even though Vignette is a bland villain, I love how matter-of-fact she is. The Twilight/Sunset stuff is arguably the pinnacle of this entire series; the former actually acts like Twilight now, and the latter is finally a real character. Also it's SUPER gay. Thematically it's kinda malnourished, though, and the series' impulses to 1. have a sympathetic villain and 2. have that villain straightforwardly drive the plot until the very end are pretty clearly at odds with each other... still, it's a lot of fun altogether, and even the cliches are given a nice irreverent spin. 

My running headcanon is that Equestria Girls Rarity is a furry. It explains the Wondercolts costume from the first movie.

Incredibles 2 - This is a weirdly idea-driven sequel with somewhere around four main thematic threads which don't always intertwine gracefully, but it's also super funny, and the action is every bit as inventive as it was in the first one. Lots of fun. 

Seen recently:

Solo: A Star Wars Story - I'm not really on board with this franchise's obsession with its own past, but this is a breezy, very entertaining summer blockbuster. It's no Last Jedi though. 

First Reformed - This is a drama about a pastor's crisis of faith, and it manages a lot of disquieting moments and haunting juxtapositions early on. There's an undercurrent of ever-increasing tension which takes this to some weird and interesting places. A bit heavy-handed, but often quite powerful, and intriguingly toes the line between earnest ecological screed and dark portrait of isolation and radicalization. 

Twilight should hire more teachers. Perhaps non-pony individuals would be a good addition to the staff. 

I enjoyed “Hereditary” a lot, but I have trouble seeing how the emotional nuances fit with the horror stuff.

I still kinda hope that they don't reform Chrysalis. She's possibly my favourite villain in the series, just because she's so fun to hate. If it's sufficiently justified I'll take it, but I feel there's ample evidence that her villainy mostly stems from self-centred reasons, and that she's too stubborn to see any other way.

Anyway! Midway through MLP season 8, my ranking:

1. "Horse Play" (100)
2. "The Mean 6" (85)
3. "Marks for the Effort" (83)
4. "Molt Down" (80)
5. "The Break Up Break Down" (78)
6. "Grannies Gone Wild" (75)
7. "School Daze" (75)
8. "The Maud Couple" (68)
9. "Surf and/or Turf" (55)
10. "Fake It Till You Make It" (35)
11. "The Parent Map" (35)
12. "Non-Compete Clause" (25)

Comparatively, the percentage of episodes I enjoyed by this point in each season (13 episodes in): 

S1 - 77%, 10/13
S2 - 85%, 11/13
S3 - 54%, 7/13
S4 - 54%, 7/13
S5 - 46%, 6/13
S6 - 85%, 11/13
S7 - 46%, 6/13
S8 - 69%, 9/13

Pretty good showing so far. I wish the school premise had a somewhat bigger impact on the mane six, as their starring episodes generally don't seem to have all that much to do with it, but the season has been pretty good about consistently offering up fresh story concepts while still keeping them entertaining, just as season 6 did. I like Starlight a lot more this year than I did in the past, and this is the first time she feels like a satisfying part of the main cast. I just wish the mane six had better episodes, because they still feel rudderless despite the change in concept. Those new students are charming, though, and thankfully stay out of the way, keeping the focus on the characters I already care about. Every season has its stinkers, but the high points this year have been relatively frequent, and especially these past four episodes have been a really strong showing. It's just nice to see that this show still has new things to offer, and hasn't entirely lost its touch yet. Much improved from last year's paltry showing. 

"The Mean 6" - Were it not for "Horse Play," I would declare this the funniest episode of the season. Just love those Discorded personalities, and teaming them up with a newly-bumbling, vaguely deranged Chrysalis is delightful, as is the way they bounce off both each other and the normal mane seven. Wonder what reverse Starlight would be like. There's even a nice moral at the very end. Man, this season has been fantastic. 

"Marks for Effort" - Adorable. Cozy Glow is an immensely charming new character, and I loved seeing people outside the main student characters in the school. Most of all I loved how this was able to keep the CMC in a mostly admirable role while still having them learn something. That they tried to get into the school, and were partially tutoring Cozy Glow in order to experience her homework vicariously, sets them up to learn something just like she did - they may be relatively mature and great at friendship, but that doesn't mean there's nothing left for them to learn. That's something this show should do a lot more of. And it's nice to see the show regaining some consistent charm and humour after the season's rough start. 

Also, I seriously underestimated the impact the school has had on this show. It adds so much context to stuff the show would have tied itself into a pretzel explaining in earlier seasons, and makes it all feel so much more natural. And seeing actual jokes based around Spike's wings proves that this show is capable of direct continuity when it tries. That sense of progress has been the best part of these past few seasons. 

You think ponies often forget that Celestia and Luna are incredibly old? They certainly look great for their ages. 

How did Celestia get Philomena to stop giving her ear infections? Is that something you can develop an immunity to? 

MLP feels like a very different show nowadays from its earlier seasons, for better and for worse. Those earlier seasons are what brought me into the show, and I feel like a lot of their innocence has been lost, but the stuff the show is doing now would never have happened back then. 

"The Molt Down" - Very amusing with the dragon puberty shenanigans, Rarity's deafness plotline, and Pinkie's nonsense, if somewhat uneventful, with scenes that go on a while. I'm sure this one will only grow in my opinion over time; my main complaint is just that it eventually relies on a cliched damsel-in-distress plotline, and doesn't offer up good enough action to compensate. But this episode is up there with "Surf and/or Turf" as having some of the show's best worldbuilding ever, and thematically it's far more mature than what the show usually gets up to. I even enjoyed the multiple references to past episodes, which give this a feeling of continuity which is always welcome in this show. It even breaks the status quo! I'm delighted to see the show is capable of demonstrating this level of sophistication. 

Lately I've been finding myself failing at basically every 2D platformer I've tried to play. At a later world of New Super Mario Bros. U and I'm dying constantly. 

Felt like I had missed the boat with that latest pony episode and didn't trust my sleep-deprived opinion, so I went back and loved it. Missed a lot of the smaller gags.

"The Break Up Break Down" - This actually picks up some nuance at the very end and has a decent handful of clever gags, but it's all organized around a really predictable misunderstanding plot which I wasn't very interested in, and the whole "love is real" stuff is of very little interest to me. As such, I couldn't really get into a lot of the jokes here. I also really wish Big Mac's increase in depth here had a bit more focus before the third act. Didn't care for the CMC subplot at all. 

Equestria Girls pitch: Rainbooms try to reinvent themselves as a rap group, but since they have no edge it fails horribly. 

Stuff I've seen/played lately:

"Firewatch" - neat game. Not terribly interested in the theme of "stop running away from your problems," but the characters and dialogue are great, the world is pretty, and the gameplay hook of wander-and-talk is fairly clever. 

"Tully" - okay movie. Not my thing, but the acting is very good it does get kinda weird and it's reasonably funny. Prefer "Juno" from this writer/director duo.

"What Remains of Edith Finch" - great game. Still processing, but right now I'm thinking this might be some kind of masterpiece.  

Do you think Shining Armour ever met Cadance's adoptive family? 

I was kinda excited for another season of Josh Haber's lazy story editing, especially after I felt the Lewis & Songco way overdid it last season, but the weird creativity which made season 6 appealing to me isn't rearing its head often enough this year. It's too late to find the right balance. 

Oh well, at least "Horse Play" happened. 

"Non-Compete Clause" - If this show is gonna take things I liked about the show in the past and ruin them, I'm not sure I want to watch anymore. 

A disproportionate number of my favourite pony songs from the past few years have come from the recent Equestria Girls shorts. They're so good. 

Hitman 2016 never ceases to delight. 

Season 8, current ranking:

1. "Horse Play" - 100/100
2. "School Daze" - 75/100
3. "Grannies Gone Wild" - 75/100
4. "The Maud Couple" - 68/100
5. "Surf and/or Turf" - 55/100
6. "Fake It Til You Make It" - 35/100
7. "The Parent Map" - 35/100