After over a year of waiting, and 28 episodes ever, we finally have our Luna episode! Woohoo! Will she be like the fans imagined, way better, or way worse? Will the MLP community shatter under the pressure of having a canon Luna finally?
Spoilers: they're actually doing pretty well from what I've seen. Let's get right to this! This'll contain spoilers and such, as per usual.
This time I'm gonna try to be less... plot-summary-y. I think I relied far too much on that in my last reviews, so hopefully this one will read more like a... well, more like an actual review!
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Luna Eclipsed tells the tale of the Ponyville Halloween-analogue, Nightmare Night. It's basically just like Halloween except with the reasoning behind the costumes changed and made a bit more important - you must wear costumes or else Nightmare Moon will gobble you up!
...yeah, I don't remember Nightmare Moon doing any gobbling in her legend from episode one, but eh.
Halloween specials are always fun, and this one is no exception. It's cool to see all the ponies in their various costumes, which, while most of them are fairly traditional ghosts and the like, have a few references for fans to spot, like a particular pony who looks suspiciously like he's dressed up like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Which is, of course, awesome.
Zecora also makes a reappearance in this episode after only getting to show up a few times last season, and she doesn't disappoint. She tells the tale of the "origin" of Nightmare Night with help from some crazy green smoke that she can manipulate magically. So zebras have magic in some form, and that is amazing.
But, of course, the real pony everyone was excited for the return of was the titular Luna. Apparently she thought that it would be a good idea to regain the love of her subjects on the one night where they all have fun being terrified of her. And to top things off, she arrives in a death metal-esque chariot pulled by evil-looking ponies with bat wings and wearing an ominous Sith cloak.
Obviously things were a bit different a thousand years ago.
As would be expected, Luna only really succeeds in terrifying all the ponies in Ponyville, helped somewhat by her usage of "the royal Canterlot voice" (read: echoey yelling) and the royal we. Twilight is the only pony that she doesn't terrify, so she goes off to try and help, and things escalate from there, with Twilight getting her friends' help and eventually convincing Luna and Ponyville to accept each other, with the latter having some fun from the former being deliberately scary.
Now, the part of the episode that everyone in the Brony community was worried about was how they would characterize Luna, and I think they did quite well. She speaks in ye olde butcherede Englishe (warning: TV Tropes link), amusingly playing off her being imprisoned for a thousand years, and has a tendency to yell a lot. But when she stops yelling or isn't directly addressing the "commoners", she's about what the fandom expected - a bit shy and insecure, and really socially awkward. Heck, when Twilight and Applejack explain the carnival games to her, she starts talking about fun in a way very reminiscent of Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon. The writers really have given her a nice, unique character that leaves a lot open for some great development if she comes back.
...which I really hope happens, as, unfortunately, there's only so much development that can fit in less than 22 minutes. Don't get me wrong, there was definitely some, but it would really be a bummer if Luna was just forgotten again after this episode. She really needs another episode or two to her own so she can really get that character development through adjusting to modern life.
Although if she does come back, I hope she's gotten over the yelling and aforementioned butcherede Englishe. Both wore on me after hearing them all episode and, in the case of the former, seeing shout marks emitting from Luna's mouth most of the time got a bit annoying as well.
It also doesn't really help that the conclusion and moral of the episode seem a little... lackluster. Ultimately it amounts to "the kids love Luna because she's scary, and the rest should get to know someone before judging them", which bothers me twofold. In the case of the former idea, it almost seems like a cheap way to end the episode, almost suggesting that a problem hadn't existed in the first place instead of Luna being able to work to solve it. In the case of the latter, it seems a tad bit generic and a lesson we've already seen before in Bridle Gossip, where it was done better. I wish that more emphasis had been put on Luna growing and adjusting, much like Twilight did when she first arrived in Ponyville, instead of the other way around.
It also bugged me a little that Rarity was completely absent from the episode, but since her voice actor was already voicing Luna, Zecora, and several others ponies in this episode it's possible that they didn't want her to have to strain her voice too much. But Fluttershy was also practically absent, only in one scene where she acts a bit out of character, being terrified of Luna and Nightmare Night for unexplained reasons. I mean, yeah, Fluttershy is afraid of stuff, but that scene just seemed to... hyperbolize that in a way that didn't make a whole lot of sense in context. It certainly serves as a stark contrast to her appearance in the last episode, where she seemed out of character in the exact opposite extreme.
And, though not unexpected, the episode gave no reason for Luna's absence for the last 28 episodes. She just pops in with no explanation as to what she's been doing, which is unfortunate. Though I suppose it can be guessed that she was resting and regaining her strength, as her mane is now magicy like Celestia's, but it would've been nice to at least have her absence explained briefly in passing.
But that's not to say that the episode is a bad one. Quite the contrary - it's very good, with Luna and Zecora making it particularly awesome, and the other characters making things fun. I mean, Ditzy Doo/Derpy Hooves even got an amusing scene with Carrot Top! Fun stuff, though I wish she would get a real role outside of comic relief, and perhaps even a canon name. But that's neither here nor there.
Overall, I give Luna's first real appearance an
8/10
Pros:
-Luna and Zecora are amazing
-Seeing all the ponies' Nightmare Night costumes
-Fun character interaction throughout
Cons:
-Ending and moral seemed a bit lackluster
-Luna didn't get as much development as I would've liked, and her absence remains unexplained
-Complete lack of Rarity, and Fluttershy's scene was awkward
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And thus every single fanfic with Luna in it has been made obsolete. Okay, that's a lie: the writer's spin on Luna was definitely different, but I feel that there's still plenty of room for the fandom Lunas that we've all come to love.
And now we must once again deal with a break between episodes, though this one is pretty short. I'll see you again in two weeks, when the only one of the Mane 6 absent from this episode gets to have an episode with her little sister! I wonder if they'll offer an explanation for Rarity not being out during Nightmare Night...? I mean, this episode tied in with Twilight having to "iron her cape" last episode, so who knows...
~C.O
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