Tailspin wrote:People bring up how the big fight scene is something to show to people who refuse to watch the show, but you know what? If someone showed that to me and told me to check it out, I would humor them with a "sure", but never follow up on it.
That fight is everything I've ever seen, right down to the typical "superhero/villian gets punched straight through a building/mountain" routine. There is nothing in that fight scene that tells me that this is something I should watch or that this show has something unique to offer me, it tells me this is something I've seen before. I would say the same about the entire episode, it's a by the numbers episode that's all flash and no substance. The characters are forgotten in favor of its epic plot. Sure, there's some flash of character with Fluttershy and Discord, but really all that gets lost in the show moving from one big event to the other and collapsing under its own weight. In the end there isn't anything uniquely "pony" about this episode, it could be any cartoon with humans or talking animals. It's just a thing that exists.
Though I'm the one who made the "show the clip out of context to nonbelievers" comment, I want to clarify that I don't think it's a
good thing to do. Just that you know people will do it anyway.
For my part I totally agree that such epicness does distract (if not detract) from the show's "heart", as it were. Tears really captured it well:
Tears wrote:There's an inherent absurdity to the more epic stuff in MLP that I sort of love, that this is a proprietress of a small fashion boutique or an outgoing bakery assistant trying to save the world (also they are pastel horses), and when that gets lost entirely and they're just throwing down with a supervillain like there is nothing ridiculous about that at all, it can feel more generic.
The fight between Twilight and Tirek was awesome and the landscapes surrounding it were incredible - like when Twilight comes ploughing through the earth and everything around her is black and red and blasted - but I preferred the rainbow ponies section just because the colour scheme and the music shifted back from the sturm and drang of the previous scene to a kind of symphonic MLP theme and pastel colours, and all of a sudden we are in an episode of My Little Pony and some brightly coloured horses are throwing down against a giant centaur. As great as the blasted, windblown hellscape of the previous scene was, it felt like it could have been in any show where such things take place.
A lot of this is down to preference, I'm not huge on the Lord of the Rings movies (the books are cool) or Star Wars or anything else like that, so when the epic fantasy gets too epic I get a little less involved. And man I cannot take it seriously when huge demon creatures are yelling GIVE ME YOUR ALICORN MAGIC.
I certainly don't hope every season finale is along these lines. In fact I think it really
can't be. Each big baddie so far has been dealt with in a way appropriate to their presentation:
Sombra (ethereal Sauron stand-in): defeated by a magic Ring-like talisman being kept from his grasp
just long enough
Discord (goofball prankster): blasted with rainbows in the midst of checkerboard hills and ballet-dancing buffalo
Nightmare Moon (personal grudge inflated into spiteful megalomania): attacked one-on-one by a new Chosen One with newly invented magic
Tirek (ancient evil grown to the size of mountains and encompassing the sum total of all the powers of agency shown by all characters in the entire show to date): global thermonuclear friendship war
You're not getting bigger than Tirek, show. To do so would become grotesque. And honestly I don't think it's possible anyway. This episode cemented a lot about the world and timeline of Equestria, almost inadvertently: it confirmed quite explicitly that FOUR is the number of the counting of alicorn princesses, and the number of alicorn princesses is FOUR. (Five is right out.) And Tirek coming out of the depths of history the way he did, such that the princesses knowing that it was
Him simply through a shared vision and an instant understanding that this was
the great big dread that they all knew could return one day, means that there aren't going to be any
bigger Big Bads appearing unheralded in the same way. Not if the writers have one ounce of self-respect and pride (and I know they have lots of ounces). Part of the writers' big gamble I talked about earlier is the degree to which they've solidified the universe around themselves with the presentation of this episode. They've cashed in an awful lot of chips on the Biggest Baddie Ever, and while it paid off handsomely, in so doing they've made it impossible to do anything quite like it again.

Any other ancient horrors that were banished to Tartarus thousands of years ago but might randomly escape and threaten Equestria at any time you'd like to tell me about? You know, princess to princess?
S5 and beyond, they'll have to invent a whole new angle. I imagine the two-parters from here on out will be more intense personal affairs along the lines of Princess Twilight Sparkle. (The likeliest avenue for storytelling, if I had to guess, would involve Celestia/Luna and where
their destinies lie. They're really kind of due for some serious face-time, and a real honest-to-goodness followup to MMC that plays along the same themes of mentorship/apprenticeship/mother/daughter/passing-of-the-torch has got to be in the offing sooner or later.)
But no, no more pew pews in the immediate future. If nothing else the show has to catch its breath for a good long while after this.