Welcome one and all to a bone chilling, mane-raising, nightmare inducing episode of My Little Pony, that is sure to give you hoof-bumps.
Okay, so I’m being a bit over-dramatic. Still, we got a Halloween episode on our hands-er, hooves. Plus, this episode marks the return of a certain moon-raising alicorn princess. Was this a triumphant return? Let’s find out by reviewing “Luna Eclipsed”.
We open the episode with Spike taunting Twilight Sparkle on her costume for Nightmare Night, Equestria’s version of Halloween. She states that the costume is of Starswirl the Bearded, however Spike has no clue who that is. This is a running gag for the entirety of the first act. They’re greeted by trick-or-treaters, one of which is Pipsqueak, a young colt that just moved there from Trottingham. Pinkie Pie is also enjoying the trick-or-treating festivities. Because despite being too old for it, she would rather die than give up free candy.
After the intro, we see Twilight and Spike at the Nightmare Night festival. While the duo again chat with Pinkie, they end up scared by Rainbow Dash (dressed as a shadowbolt), who spends the night pranking ponies. The Mayor of Ponyville welcomes all the ponies to the festival, and informs them to listen to Zecora, who tells them the tale of Nightmare Moon, and why they have to give some of their candy to a statue for fear of being eaten. But after the tale, the sky grows ominous, as a chariot is seen in the sky. And in that chariot is, you guessed it…
Frank Stallone!
(oh come on, I clearly have it in my FAN contract to make at least one extremely dated SNL reference every several articles or so.)
No, it is indeed the one you’ve all been waiting for, Princess Luna. She announces her arrival in a loud, boisterous voice. However, despite her entrance being intended to greet herself to everyone, it ends up frightening everyone. Twilight speaks to her, and quickly realises just how out of touch Luna is. Luna refers to herself as “we”, speaks in “thee’s” and “Thou’s”, and of course, has the yelling problem. Realizing that her being a literal loudmouth may not help her in making friends, Twilight takes Luna to see Fluttershy, who is at home due to being scared of Nightmare Night. So bringing the princess of the night is clearly going to cheer her up. Despite a reluctant Fluttershy, Luna eventually learns to speak in a far softer tone. But this doesn’t help her, as Pinkie and the young ones show up. Pinkie freaks out believing that Luna stole Fluttershy’s voice so she wouldn’t scream.
Oh, and she may have literally broken Fluttershy in half, but no time for that now.
Twilight and Luna head back to the festival, and try to get Applejack to help loosen Luna up. Applejack suggest that Luna should just try to have some fun, something that the poor princess has no clue about. After trying her hoof at some of the games, she begins to have fun, and begin to earn the respect of the ponies. However, when Pipsqueak falls into the apple-bobbing bucket, Luna saves him. But again, Pinkie Pie shows up, and riles up the ponies into being scared again. Luna finally gets angered, destroys the festival, and states that Nightmare Night is forever cancelled.
Twilight tries to help a saddened Luna. She lures Pinkie into an alley so she can finally calm down in front of Luna. However, Pinkie informs the two that she was never really scared, and it was all in fun. This gives Twilight and idea. The young ponies give some of their candy to the Nightmare Moon statue, which soon awakens, and…
HOLY CRAP!
The young ponies run off scared again, which still leaves Luna distraught. However, after soon realizing that everyone actually enjoy being scared by her, Luna finally gets it and decides to no longer cancel Nightmare Night. And so the episode ends with Rainbow Dash getting a taste of her own medicine when Luna pranks her.
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This episode is a major mixed bag for me, and while I think they did many good things, there were still some issues I had.
PRO
First off, I love Luna’s character. Her being so out of touch with society made her really adorable in her actions. As well as her redesign being well done, giving her more of a sense of a pony of the night than the original design. Not to mention she has a great voice. Chalk it up to great voice work as always by Tabitha St. Germain.
It was good to see Zecora again. She has always been one of my top characters, and seeing her be more accepted by Ponyville since “Bridle Gossip” was great to see.
All of the ponies looked great in their costumes. And the show even made some interesting references that wouldn’t exactly be noticed by the intended demo. I mean, there was a colt dressed as Steve Zissou. Again, subtle proof that this show is starting to really cater to it’s older audience, and doing a fine job with it.
CON
First off the bat, no Rarity. Not even in the background. Now, many will easily say “Well, this wasn’t really an episode where she was needed”, or “Tabitha St. Germain already has several voices in this episode, including Luna. Why would one more voice matter”? Well, first off, despite not having too big a role in this episode, I still feel that no holiday themed episode should ever exclude main characters. And, according to sources, she was intended to have a slightly bigger role in the episode, but was the victim of the cutting room floor. It’s a big shame, and as a major fan of the character, it did hurt the episode a bit for me.
I don’t care for Pipsqueak. I get the reason for him, since we needed a character who is somewhat unfamiliar to Nightmare Night for some of the things in the episode to work. But he seemed like such a useless character in the end. If this was a one-time for him, I will shed no tears.
Pinkie Pie annoyed me in this episode. Again, it falls into my big problem with her that I had in “Swarm of the Century”. Pinkie’s lack of telling anyone what she’s up to was the reason that the problems escalated. Again, while it was important to the plot, it still annoyed me.
And finally, I just felt the pacing of the episode felt off at times, and the whole thing lacked the flow that other episodes did. And making it a two parter wouldn’t have helped that. Even if it would’ve saved the Rarity part from being unfortunately removed.
Overall, while this episode didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but I still found it a solid episode overall. It was great to see how another holiday works in Equestria, and it finally established Luna. While there were some major issues, it still holds steady as an enjoyable episode.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10.
For the Rarity fans, don’t despair, as when next we meet we’ll be discussing an entire episode on her and Sweetie Belle. How will the two sisters deal with the “Sisterhooves Social”? We’ll find out in 2 weeks.
Have a safe and happy Halloween-I mean “Nightmare Night”, and we’ll see you next time Bronies.