S04E16: It Ain't Easy Being Breezies

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Re: S04E16: It Ain't Easy Being Breezies

Postby Tears (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:24 am

Man, that was cute as the dickens, and I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected :allears:

I agree with points about how it could have benefited from a little more show don't tell, but it Fluttershy was great and everyone got written well. It's not an especially consequential episode, but it had a nice vibe to it.


Random off-topic sidenote, just noticed Orange Fluffy Sheep's new avatar text :awesomedash:

This ain't some kind of metaphor. Goddam this is real :rainbert:

Edit: The unbearable lightness of page-topping :starity:

Also totally agree with J Jonah that a lot of the antipathy towards the Breezies (in general, not here specifically) is that they're from an older-gen version of MLP.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 3:48 am

Despite their first appearance in G3, I honestly think the Breezies fit in well here. They're basically the pony version of fairies. Aside from what may-or-may-not have been a Hasbro-mandated transformation sequence for the Mane Six, they actually felt well-played in this episode. (Their mention back in Three's A Crowd helped a lot with this. Had the Breezies been dumped on us with no prior warning then they would definitely have felt too unexpected.)
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Postby Rachael33 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:33 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:Despite their first appearance in G3, I honestly think the Breezies fit in well here. They're basically the pony version of fairies. Aside from what may-or-may-not have been a Hasbro-mandated transformation sequence for the Mane Six, they actually felt well-played in this episode. (Their mention back in Three's A Crowd helped a lot with this. Had the Breezies been dumped on us with no prior warning then they would definitely have felt too unexpected.)


Aye, and they were well presented in the episode.

And how they tied the Breezies into the episode explains why there was a gap of episodes between the two.
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Postby acksed (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:50 am

I would swear that style of pseudo-Swedish voice has been used by Ren and Stimpy... Ah! Sven Hoek.
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Postby BartonFink (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:03 am

After Fluttershy got a really good episode a few weeks back and the set up was good enough, this was pretty disappointing. I thought the Breezies were cutely designed, but not particularly funny. Fluttershy's animal schtick is always fun, but I wasn't invested in what actually happened.

The best part was the opening in the town (I "got" the cold opening but it was awkward) and Dash at the end, rest left me pretty dry. Probably my least fav this season. :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:07 am

I did a total double-take when Seabreeze's first intelligible line was a snide "You must be so proud!" :gotcha:

And it was that that gave me a crazy "Irish" vibe at first. Reminded me of when Ned had to send away for a new voice box and got the Irish model by mistake. "Aye, sure an' ye kept the receipt then?"

It really disoriented me. Took me a good few minutes before I could get a bead on just what the hell kind of voice they were doing. And I for one love it when they pull something like that out of their ass and keep me on my toes.
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Postby BartonFink (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:10 am

Wayoshi wrote:Image

:beggarshy: : Please let my butt wiggle satisfy you enough!

I like to believe Fluttershy's flow chart animal control goes:
a) Reasonable dialogue
b) Let's dance!
c) Okay stop this shit

in all situations.
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Postby Rachael33 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:10 am

Headless Horse wrote:I did a total double-take when Seabreeze's first intelligible line was a snide "You must be so proud!" :gotcha:

And it was that that gave me a crazy "Irish" vibe at first. Reminded me of when Ned had to send away for a new voice box and got the Irish model by mistake. "Aye, sure an' ye kept the receipt then?"

It really disoriented me. Took me a good few minutes before I could get a bead on just what the hell kind of voice they were doing. And I for one love it when they pull something like that out of their ass and keep me on my toes.


I too thought it was Irish at first, then I noticed it sounded my Swedish. :P
Now...the voices remind me of a those in a child hood game, Worms World Party. It was a stupidly hilarious game honestly.
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Postby Angel Beat (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:35 am

Well, this episode was weird as hell. :wat: Incredibly cute and relaxing too. A perfect way to end a mostly nice evening. :vogue:

The transformation sequence rather reminded me of that Animorphs show.

Kronos wrote:There is an unsettling trend with Fluttershy episodes this season involving transforming her in various ways. First she turns into a bat pony, then Flutterguy gets resurrected, and now she becomes an entirely different species altogether.

And I love it all. :allears:
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:41 am

:rainbert: can't Fluttershy be awesome just by being Fluttershy?
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:45 am

Yeah, I honestly hope this is the last of transformations. I'm a little tired of them. :-/
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:49 am

Fluttershy is BEST Changling! :yay:
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Postby MLPMan (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:52 am

My thoughts:
1) I'm glad that joke about JB ended up being just a joke.
2) What is with this season and bees?
3) I didn't mind the mane six transforming into breezies. I did get a kick out of the breezies' reaction to Twilight's transformation spell.
4) Dash awesome as always :awesomedash:
5) Overall it was an alright episode, nothing special.

Now based off of a comment someone said earlier (even if it was a joke). I am curious as to what Twilight's key could be, and I am seriously wondering if these episode end journals could possibly end up being part of her key?
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Postby Angel Beat (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:59 am

The Doctor wrote::rainbert: can't Fluttershy be awesome just by being Fluttershy?

Of course she can! :-P I just like transformations. :v:
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Postby Perpetual Lurker (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:01 am

So, there were a few nifty details in this episode:

- The Breezies seem to have at least a little bit of magic they can use at will. We see Sea Breeze lighting up her antennas when she gets stuck in the beehive.

- Twilight's transformation spell needs a a member of the target species nearby to "scan" before it can transform its subjects. When Twilight begins casting the spell, the beam sweeps over the Breezies for a moment before zapping the ponies.

- The fact that Sea Breeze had a wife and child back home was never brought up in dialog, but their mere appearance at the end of the episode retroactively adds a lot of weight and motivation for his anger and desperation throughout the episode. It's my favorite kind of detail, the kind that passes by in a few seconds of screen time, and yet manages to do a lot to flesh out a character and make them even more realistic.
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Postby Ransom (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:02 am

It just dawned on me watching again that although Twilight says she got the spell from the Library at the castle it almost seems like the spell is an enhanced version of the spell that accidentally turned Fluttershy into Flutterbat.

There, Twilight's magic reflected off of the bats and hit Fluttershy. Here, she shoots each pony, then sends a bit of magic over the Breezies, then the ponies transform. We don't know all the requirments, or if it would even work on other species, but theoretically you'd need a member of the creature you wanted to be transformed into, and also possibly alicorn level magic :twiright:

So you'd need a griffon nearby to turn into one. Of course to turn into a dragon, you already have Spike in Ponyville :gotcha:

I guess I'm in the transformation fan group :eep:

EDIT: argh! had it all posted stopped to edit it a bit and got beaten to the punch on the observation. I'm posting it anyway! :applejargh:
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Postby Ragnar (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:20 am

Oh, I remember now. It's plankton. The sea creatures that can't swim against ocean currents are called plankton.

Breezies are like air plankton.
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Aramek wrote: :eyebrow: Hmmf, Ragnar the Red indeed.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:25 am

Ragnar wrote:Oh, I remember now. It's plankton. The sea creatures that can't swim against ocean currents are called plankton.

Breezies are like air plankton.


Do they attempt to take any super secret recipes of a fast food restaurant, too? :gotcha:
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Postby Ragnar (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:27 am

Yes.

Wayoshi wrote:Image

:beggarshy: : Please let my butt wiggle satisfy you enough!

This, the jokes about stepping on Breezies, and the thin Pinkie does at the beginning where she gets vertical on a tree and clops her hooves excitedly on the trunk, were my favorite pony-centric parts.
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Aramek wrote: :eyebrow: Hmmf, Ragnar the Red indeed.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:30 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:
Do they attempt to take any super secret recipes of a fast food restaurant, too? :gotcha:


Now I want to see an episode where the Breezies disguise themselves as a robotic Celestia to get the all precious crown.

:sweetiebot: WHAT?! I did all the rules, everything you said! I even ate 946 jellybeans with a straw!
:pcstare: NOW WHY WON'T YOU GIVE ME THE CROWN?!
:plonk: Image :)
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Postby Jill (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:45 am

juste fuckin belmont that was cute :allears:

I loved everything. Applejack being all :skeptic: , Fluttershy being all :yay: , Rarity being all :vogue: , Breezies being all EYELASHES.SWF , Spike being all :eep:, Fluttershy being all :modesty: , angel being all :nuhuh: , Fluttershy being all :flutterunsmith: , Fluttershy being all :beggarshy: , Fluttershy beeing all :glare: , Fluttershy being all :saddershy: , Twilight being all :twience: , and then Fluttershy being all :dreamworks: .

Basically I give this episode a :ponydrugs: / :ponydrugs:
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:46 am

I have to say while I didn't mind :eep: being his fuck-up self, it was a little tired this episode, if only because he was only in the episode to serve that role to move the plot. Could have used someone fresh failing...

I feel like Levinger took the chance to write based off of her favorite experiences from the show (SR cold open, Rarity being Rarity, Spike being Spike), and whether each hit or missed is subjective on your tolerance for recycled jokes (I liked the first two a lot myself).
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Postby Juniper Phoenix (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:57 am

Wayoshi wrote:Image

Image

First thing that came to mind. :v:
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:13 am

Ransom wrote:It just dawned on me watching again that although Twilight says she got the spell from the Library at the castle it almost seems like the spell is an enhanced version of the spell that accidentally turned Fluttershy into Flutterbat.

:excite: All right, everypony, gather 'round! I have a spell that, uh, I just learned. From the castle of the pony sisters! :sheepish:
:colbert: Is it the one that turned Fluttershy into a b--
:twonk: IT IS DEFINITELY A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SPELL!
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:15 am

Speaking of that, I wonder when we'll see the Castle Of The Two Sisters again...
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 9:22 am

Very late to the episode this week again, and uh... huh. That happened. :wat:

Breezies are cute enough, I suppose, but the story sure went round and round in circles before it settled on the "tough love" moral at the end. I wouldn't call it bad, but it really felt like a different show once the Breezies showed up.

PonyHag714 wrote:I'm a sentimental guy, so I thought the scene with Seabreeze and his baby, probably seeing him/her for the first time was cute. :flutterunsmith:

All I could think was:
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SpaceHowitzer wrote:Did anyone else thing the wing animation looked odd on the pegasi in the later scenes? It just seemed to have more articulation.

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They're Image "flapping" as hard as they can!
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Postby !saak (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:37 am

SpaceHowitzer wrote:Did anyone else thing the wing animation looked odd on the pegasi in the later scenes? It just seemed to have more articulation.

They weren't really clean and smooth from what it looked like, like they missed some tweens or something :ponder:
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:38 am

Huh...is that the first major animation error that's occured in the show? I don't mean something that's only on the screen for 5 seconds, I mean a major event.
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Postby Venusy (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 11:42 am

It looked to me like what I remember seeing from the regular wing loop. The problem is that the regular wing loop takes advantage of perceptual motion - it's going fast enough that your brain glosses over the fact it doesn't look quite right, filling in the frames in-between. Slowing it down breaks that effect.
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Postby Star Platinum (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:03 pm

That was a really good episode, top three material for the season. The Breezies were cute as heck and I liked their silly simlish language. I wish they had gone hog wild with Seabreeze and recorded his dialogue backwards Twin Peaks style, it sounded a bit like that but I'm pretty sure it was spoken normally. I think the conflict between Seabreeze being bossy, the other Breezies being kind of wimpy and Fluttershy being too kind was handled well without Seabreeze coming off as a huge jerk. Fluttershy is one hell of knitter to manage such tiny sweaters without magic. :allears:

Twilight's toyline-enabling Breezy Mane Six™ spell made me roll my eyes a bit, but at least it served a purpose in the episode, letting us see the Breezy dimension and giving us those adorable breezified voices. Also, "too much purple" was the funniest Twilight gag in ages.
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Postby Sind (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:15 pm

J. Jonah Jameson wrote:I like em :rainbert:

Honestly, I feel like Breezies have had a hard time since they were announced almost purely because they have roots in G3, and lots of people are biased against that. I mean compare them to changelings. Both species are bug-themed ponies but while changelings are evil and spooky, breezies are delicate and traditionally "girly". Changelings were met with pretty much no complaint, but breezies are "creepy" and "G3 hellspawn". And because they're delicate and small they're "useless" and "badly designed, not worth saving". Bleh.

Meh.
Personally I don't give a damn if they're from Generation 1, 3, 5 or whatever :pinkieshrug:
I mean, the seaponies worked just fine in the comics


Also, deleted scene:
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:20 pm

Hah, that deleted scene is hilarious. To be honest, I thought that scene was a roundabout way of referencing Sonic Rainboom.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:44 pm

Well, yeah, it was.
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Postby !saak (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:01 pm

ROBOT B9 wrote:Huh...is that the first major animation error that's occured in the show? I don't mean something that's only on the screen for 5 seconds, I mean a major event.

Ooooh... not at all. Rainbow Dash's tail is missing when they enter the Everfree Forest in S1E2 :v: Then there's a variety of layering issues which end up being hilarious if you pause it just right.

Venusy wrote:It looked to me like what I remember seeing from the regular wing loop. The problem is that the regular wing loop takes advantage of perceptual motion - it's going fast enough that your brain glosses over the fact it doesn't look quite right, filling in the frames in-between. Slowing it down breaks that effect.

Right! Pony is animated with every other frame, rather than every single frame, so that's a 'limit' they had to work with. So slow, delicate, yet really articulate movements like these end up looking stuttery.
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:18 pm

Honestly I don't think the slow-flapping wings have any "errors" in the way you guys are describing them; they're animated in a whole different way than wings normally are. Lots more frames, and they bend right up near the tips. The entire wing is differently constructed, too—look at that screenshot. The wings have a whole trailing edge full of feathers, which they hardly ever draw out like that. Usually a pegasus only has three or four main feathers visible at all.

Image
Image

The "error" I see is that in one of the shots, the little slow flaps are animated backwards. :-I

Image

But I'm not convinced this is an error. Here she's trying to "swim against the current" almost, like she's trying deliberately to slow down the wind. And the animators are so careful about the wing animation in the whole rest of that sequence, with close-ups calling attention to it and everything, that I can't imagine they just completely biffed it halfway through that clip and started getting their frames in reverse order.
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:25 pm

Only error i noticed is there was a short scene at the start of the ep where Flitter had the wrong cutie mark.
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Postby Space Ghost (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:28 pm

The animation isn't so much an error as it's just simply awkward. Just didn't work, basically.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:33 pm

Isaak wrote:Right! Pony is animated with every other frame, rather than every single frame, so that's a 'limit' they had to work with. So slow, delicate, yet really articulate movements like these end up looking stuttery.

They have animated a few scenes on the ones in the past. While I don't think they look bad, per se, they definitely are perceptibly different.


As for the animation of Flitter and not-Thunderlane, I think they were both okay. That flying animation looked weird and awkward, but that's because generating such a slow breeze was weird and awkward for them.
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Postby Gravenstein (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:39 pm

Here is my opinion of this episode:

http://gifsound.com/?gif=i.imgur.com/f5 ... GouV7BXcMU

thank you goodnight
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Postby SoundMonkey44 (?) » Sun Mar 02, 2014 1:52 pm

@Gravenstien: Fluttershy really likes shaken her flank this season, don't she? :gotcha:
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