School Daze review

Back to School

These reviews do contain spoilers. Read on at your own discretion.

In the seven years since FiM has started, we've seen plenty of new places and explored a lot about Equestria. From the Dragon Lands, to the Griffon Kingdom, and so on. The characters have grown immensely since they were first introduced eight years ago and have achieved their own goals. It's really amazing after being on for so long, the show continues to get better and improve in some ways. So with the eighth season now here, what's next for our heroes? Well, let me ask you this question:

Do you think we didn't get enough of the school setting in Equestria Girls?

Well, it doesn't matter whether you said yes or no because FiM has decided it's time to go back to school (and no, not Cheerilee's school). I've made it no secret I'm not a fan of the school setting in most shows. Mostly because they can result in them being boring, generic, and overall being a bland mess. However, rather than a typical school teaching the three R's, it teaches the three F's; Friendship, Fun, and...um, more Friendship. Yes, rather than this being a more traditional school setting, it's a place where the magic of friendship is taught to every creature who wants to learn. I don't know how that's possible, but this is the major draw in for this season of FiM; the school of friendship.

When the map in Twilight Sparkle's castle expands beyond Equestria and shows more of the world, she and the others decide that they must take on a bigger role and spread the magic of friendship to the farthest reaches of the world from the Dragon Lands to Yakyakistan. Things go initially well until several new students cause a massive accident, and it prompts  the head of the Equine Educational Association, Chancellor Neighsay, to close the school. So now it's up to Twilight, her friends, and the students to get together and get the school back.

Sounds like a really thrilling opener right? Facetiousness aside, the whole setup sounds pretty much boils down to Twilight vs. bureaucracy. Which doesn't exactly sound like one of the more exciting setups for a season opener compared to the other entries. Thankfully, while part of the focus is on dealing with the E.E.A., it doesn't turn into a massive legal battle that feels drawn out.

Unfortunately though, as Twilight put it, this premier doesn't involve fighting against evil to save the world. The whole premier is basically trying to get the school established and show that every creature out there can learn friendship. Again, not exactly the most exciting thing for a premier. In fairness, much like the season 7 premier, I appreciate them trying to approach a season premier differently. I do like to see them try to do new things and explore different ideas.

But the first half of the premier boils down to the struggles of running a school and the dissatisfaction of the students about how it's being run. Well, that's because of Twilight being so strict about following what the rules the E.E.A. set, and forcing the others to follow them. Yeah, much like in Shadow Play, Twilight is once again being a big part of the problem. I get she wants to follow the rules and make her school a success, but she comes off as obnoxious when it comes to how the others react.

When the Mane 7 complain to her about how the students aren't happy, and they voice their issues about the E.E.A. standards, what does Twilight do? She decides to scold them and tell them to enforce the rules harder. Yeah, ignore your friends there, Twilight. Nothing could possibly go wrong there. You would really think after how she brought back an ancient evil by ignoring her friends, she'd learn to listen a bit better, right? Twilight must really have a bad memory I guess if she's forgetting stuff like that and blindly going into stuff without thinking it through.

Alright, to be fair, after the school gets shut down, Twilight does think about it, with the help of Starlight Glimmer, and realizes her own faults about how things went downhill. She realizes she went about things the wrong way, and that she made school even more boring than it already is. She does work hard to make up for what she did, and tries to find a way to get around the E.E.A. itself. So at least Twilight is making an active effort to make up for her mistake.

Our villain of the piece is Chancellor Neighsay, who is voiced by someone you should all be familiar with; Maurice Lamarche: voice actor famous for his role as The Brain in Animaniacs. Yes, he's moved on from trying to conquer the world to something smaller; ruling the school district. As a villain, I got to say, he can be intimidating and rather scary. I do like how he can just teleport through that portal rather menacingly like that. His major reason against the school stems from the fact that he's discriminant towards the other species like changelings, dragons, and so on.

Now, I get that this is supposed to be some comparison to what's going on in today's world. I'd rather not try to open that can of worms though. But what this results in is that Neighsay's rants about the other species' makes the leaders mad naturally. What doesn't make sense though is that they're all pissed off at Twilight and her friends for really no reason. Now, I get they're angry at what happened, but it makes no sense for them to be angry at the Mane 7. If anything, they should be furious at Neighsay for starting this.

It's made worse considering they know the Mane 7 personally, and know they don't discriminate. They know they've helped them before in the past with problems. Why the Hell are they being so unreasonable and comparing them to Neighsay? I get they're mad, but they know the Mane 7 aren't anything like Neighsay. So why are they angry at them for what he said? This comes off more as a forced conflict than anything else.

Along the way, we do meet the new students and who they are. They're all different creatures of all kinds form the other species we've seen in the show and in My Little Pony: The Movie. Smolder the Dragon, Silverstream the Hippogriff/Seapony, Gallus the Griffon, Ocellus the Changeling, Yona the Yak, and Sandbar the Earth Pony. They all seem to have some personality traits similar to that of the Mane 7. Smolder loves competition like Rainbow Dash. Silverstream seems very excited and joyful like Pinkie Pie. Ocellus is similar to Fluttershy with her meek and shy nature. They're all closely similar to our main characters.

Just because though they have similar personalities though, they aren't completely copy and paste onto a different species. While the focus is on the school and the Mane 7, a huge chunk of the focus falls onto the new students and we learn about them. While the premier does have a lot of characters in it, I'll grant it credit that it at least manages to give us time to get acclimated to these new students, who they are, and their own personalities. Sure, they may seem similar to the Mane 7, but they aren't complete copy and paste and they all have their own unique traits.

For example, Gallus seems to be somewhat lazy like Rainbow, but yet be apathetic like Gilda was. Yona is easily the best yak so far and seems to combine the joy of Pinkie and the kindness of Fluttershy. Sandbar seems far more laid back like Tree Hugger is. Not sure if this was intentional or not, but the similarities are easy to see.

There are two songs in the premier as well; one for each episode. The two songs are good, but I prefer the second one at the end of the premier over the first one. The first one wasn't bad, but it kind of had some awkward lyrics; especially from Twilight correcting her friends about the way they're teaching. Not a bad set of songs, and certainly better than the one we got in the season seven premier for sure. Although, it was funny to see Ember plead with the others to stop singing. Who knew dragons could easily be defeated by the power of singing?

As for the conflict, there's not really much of one outside of dealing with the E.E.A. and the world leaders being angry at how their students were treated. The most they can do is have the students be attacked by some porcupines creatures called puckwedgies. It's always good to see a new species on the show itself; even if they look like rainbow colored killer porcupines.

Eventually, it all boils down to one last confrontation with Chancellor Neighsay. Twilight this time decides to stand up to him and tell him off by showing that her school isn't one like the E.E.A., and they don't have to follow their rules. Neighsay says it may lead to destruction. It should also be noted that despite Chancellor Neighsay being in front of all the world leaders and Princess Celestia, he still acts like a discriminant jerk, and both Celestia and Twilight let him go off without doing anything. Yes, let the guy who nearly started a war between others get away without any repercussions. Smooth work, princesses. I get this feeling he'll be back in the season finale, but who knows?

School Daze is a good premier, but compared to the other two part openers, this one is probably one of the weakest yet. Don't get me wrong, this isn't an awful pair of episodes; far from it actually. Let's get the good stuff out of the way first. First of all, I'm glad they acknowledged the events of My Little Pony: The Movie with different things like explaining what happened to Tempest Shadow, to the showing of Kludgetown. While it has a ton of characters in it; new and old, it does a good job giving us focus on all of them without it feeling like it's focusing strictly one one character alone. The new students featured are good and we do get to learn about them and who they are in the short time we're introduced to them. They all come off as likable in their own way, and they all have differing personalities; despite feeling somewhat similar to the Mane 7. The songs themselves were good and the comedy itself was very entertaining.

However, the pacing kind of felt iffy at times in the premier. Sometimes it was fine, and sometimes it felt either rushed or a little too slow in places. There's not really much of a conflict aside from dealing with bureaucracy of the E.E.A.. It just boils down to Twilight taking on some big wig who's really discriminant towards other species.

Let's not also forget how stupid the characters are. Twilight once again ignoring her friends when she knows from the last time she did that in Shadow Play, it nearly caused a big disaster. At least she realized her mistake and wanted to make up for it. The world leaders, while having some good reason to be angry, are unnecessarily hostile towards the Mane 7 for no reason, despite knowing them personally and know they aren't jerks like Neighsay. Princess Celestia, despite seeing and knowing Neighsay hates other species and nearly caused a massive war, doesn't do anything to remove him from power or even placing him under arrest. No wonder Equestria is always facing massive threats; the royalty doesn't do jack to prevent further attacks.

All my snide remarks aside, this isn't a bad opener for the season as it establishes the theme and the new characters. It opens the door for future adventures with the new students, and the school itself. If you've seen the leaks or read some of what's to come, you already know what I'm talking about. But compared to a lot of the two parters, this one kind of feels on par with The Crystalling. It's far from a bad set of episodes, but it didn't need to have most of the characters being moronic.

Normally, I'd rank these episodes, but because I count the premiers and finales as together, there won't be one yet. I think though between the two, I liked part two more because there was more going on, and the song at the end was good. The premier itself is good with a new set of characters, introducing the school, and opening doors for the future. You know, I did mention earlier how I didn't really like the school setting thing. There's one thing I will definitely say to the way FiM handled it:

Still a much better school setting than Equestria Girls could've ever hope to be.

FINAL SCORE: 7.5 out of 10 (B)