Talk:Bats!/@comment-24349621-20131228163903

Yes, finally made an account so I can write comments on here!


 * ahem*

Here's my first impressions:

Good:

- Did they seriously use the word "sin" in that song? And some other language I wouldn't expect AT ALL in a MLP episode? DANG! Since I love seeing MLP turn towards deeply mature subjects, I'm going to give that one a plus.

- I liked the changes in the song from each character. How, during Fluttershy's part, the music got happier and lighter, and during Applejack's part, the music got deeper and and even the background got darker. Showing all of fluttershy's friends as dark as the song progressed, and then showing fluttershy turn dark later in the song while she was all bright and happy in the beginning, is sort of like a visual transformation of Fluttershy's feelings (a.k.a the progression of how her friends peer pressure her out of disregarding her own morals.)

-Speaking of which, besides from the dark mood in general, this episode had a pretty realistic and somewhat downtoned moral to it- one that I've actually been personally studying. That is, Fluttershy easily giving up her personal morals because she's peer pressured by her friends. What's more, Applejack's moral is almost just as fantastic and connects to one of what I think is mankind's most relevant lesson to actually learn. Which is short term solutions can be short sided. If you fix something at the moment, it'll most likely EVENTUALLY crumble, with a much worse outcome.

-I totally didn't see any of this coming. This season is definitely WAY more daring and ambitious, and even though its been several episodes, i still don't know if this is the best thing for mlp or a fatal mistake. They're REALLY taking chances, and hoping it'll stick. I'm crossing my fingers, here.

-The humor was absolutely fantastic this episode. TV shows don't usually make me laugh, but this was extremely endearing for me. When RD creepily mumbled "WITCHING HOUR" while rubbing her hooves together particularly got me, since I'm into all that witch stuff, and I used to think that all the time every time 12 am or 3 am ticked on the clock. "Oooh demon hour." "ooh witching hour." It was hularious to see RD get into the haunted spirit and put a little humor in the situation. Tons of other humor stuff out for me too, particularly that of Rarity and Pinkie's antics.

- I thought Applejack was being a bit of a jerk in this episode, being kind of mean and short with the others because of her situation (although her situation WAS veyr stressful, i can understand that.) BUT, after all of this episode of her being constantly focused on her apples, she makes a HUGE payoff towards the end when RainbowDash mentions "at this rate, the bats will eat your entire crop" (or something like that) and Applejack, with absolutely zilch hesitation, says, "that's the least of my problems. I just want my friend back." In the beginning, she only cared about her business (understandable, but kind of jerkish), but later, she knows what's more important in the end- her friend over her crops.

-this is kind of overly specific to be called a good quality of an episode, but I loved how Fluttershy was SO QUICK to figure out the bats were ALSO beneficial, as well as possibly destructive. She notes that this is the first time she saw them, and when she did, the bats spit seeds at her. This was, of course, a gag, but Fluttershy definitely noticed it as more than the bats being jerks to her. She realized the bats don't eat the seeds, and thus, they can help. I love how subtle this is, and how quick Fluttershy picked up on this crucial fact. Fluttershy UNDERSTANDS the delicate balance of nature, and that each part plays a very specific an delicate role. Not only does she love that fact, but she understands it better than anyone else- thus, her cutie mark.

Bad:

- I didn't like the song. Normally I would just say it's personal preference (since taste in music is subjective) and disregard it, but from the little I've seen from the fans since I saw the episode, it seems others dislike it too.

-I didn't like flutterbat just because of Fluttershy's normal nature. It deeply contrasts with her, and i know that was kind of the point and enjoyment of her transformation, I still didn't like seeing Fluttershy so out of turn with herself, even if she WAS a vampire at the time. What i'm trying to say is, I went into the episode wanting to see Fluttershy be Fluttersy, not a diferent character posing as her.

-A lot of this was really confusing, as the episodes HAVE been. This one seems to put having a non-predictable situation put in favor of events making sense, and there wasn't much pay off. Because of all this jumbled up events happening, there wasn't a lot of emotional intunement from the audience. I was HOPING that we would see more of the fruitbats' good sides in the episode. The only thing we really got was the visuals in the song, showing their kinder side. Since the episode took a dramatic turn toward drama and comedy, instead of emotional intunement, I wasn't able to stya invested. This episode SHOULD have focused more on emotional attachment to BOTH sides of the disagreement.

-I was expecting a sort of conflict between AJ and Flutters, but that conflict felt very underwhelming to me. (This kind of ties with the above point.) The main problem I had here was the way AJ and Flutters interacted with eachother to this argument. Applejack, someone who has a record of listening to others and being a good judge of character, didn't give Fluttershy even an OUNCE of space to make her claim. She completely disregarded what she was saying, gave it absolutely no thought, and only continued to shove out her own point until Fluttershy eventually let it happen. I know AJ can be stubborn, but she's normally reasonable, and I was hoping she would at least consider Fluttershy's words, especially since she actually had some pretty legitimate support for her claims. Also, Fluttershy hardly made any attempts to back herself up. She had VERY good reasons (I believe she was in the right all along, mainly because the bats don't only destroy- they spit out the seeds and help them grow) but she quickly gave up- too quick- and just let it slide regretfully. That was kind of the point of the moral, but i still think she was too quick to give up. She just pointed stuff out, and didn't bother to further the debate beyond that.

Overall, i think this was an 'okay' episode. Not really even mediocre, I personally didn't really care for it too much. But the good points in the episode made it enjoyable and the concept was overall enjoyable to watch. I liked it on one side, but on another side, it felt underwhelming.

...sorry for long comment....