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Goblin Dogs
Interdimensional
travel episodes often thrive on imaginative worlds and the characters. While there is imagination in some areas here,
what the major characters are in the dimension for isn’t all that
engaging.
It is nice that we see what
became of Star’s old friend, Pony Head, since her last appearance. She’s free to do as she pleases now that the
reform school she was sent to is overthrown and has really gotten around many
dimensions, including getting a special snack called a goblin dog. She convinces Star and Marco to come with her
to get goblin dogs too. For the most
part, this is basically it. They wait in
line for goblin dogs, and very little of it is interesting or pleasing.
Regarding Pony Head, her know-it-all attitude
and unappealing valley girl voice always worked against her, but she was
enjoyable enough in her two other appearances which were sparse. Here, she’s prominently seen and shows little
to no growth, making her flaws stand out more which lowers her likability. She’s not fully unlikable yet, but her
unappealing traits work against her.
As
for waiting on line, since the major characters are only doing this to get a
snack, moments don’t feel like they’re worth your time. They basically stand around while the vendor
advertises how great goblin dogs are, buy stuff they don’t want after getting
snuck onto the VIP line, and to top it all, they have to wait in many more
lines after making it to the truck. The
latter point is just as ridiculous to the audience as it is to the
characters. I know that every big place
often has a lot of waiting in line, but waiting in another line when you make
it? That’s a suspension of disbelief I
can’t go along with.
Fortunately, the
wait in line isn’t all bad since we do get an exciting retaliation when our
main players chase the vendor and fend off blasts from his T-shirt cannon. Granted there are some uncalled for mind
games played when the vendor says goblin dogs don’t exist but then saying they
are later, begging the question: why did he say they weren’t real in the first
place? The payoff to the waiting is also
exciting and creative. The vendor takes everyone to a dimension where he
prepares the goblin dogs like regular hotdogs, and the actual taste sensation is
a thrilling visual sequence with creative distortions of the characters
visualizing how good the goblin dog tastes.
One last good thing about the waiting is the debut of Pony Head’s
friend, Kelly, the person on line who gets the most focus apart from the main
characters. She has a creative design of
being engulfed in hair, some of which is actually her boyfriend, and amusingly
stays quiet for the whole episode before finally breaking her silence and
saying that goblin dogs are worth it.
Given the cool visual sequence we already discussed, Kelly was certainly
right to do so.
Even if it does have its
good moments, you still have to sit through a lot of mundane, ridiculous, and
unentertaining moments to get to them.
It’s true that the journey matters as much as the destination, but very
little makes the journey stand out, and most likely isn’t one you’ll want to
take continuously.
D+
By the Book
One
confusing element to this season is that a big deal is made of Star’s wand
having half its power, yet while there have been times where it’s much weaker
than it was, other times it works as well as it always did. A good move made from this is that either way, Star still
needs a lot of training with her wand, and that’s where Glossaryck comes in as
her mentor.
However, this episode
features a particularly unpleasant training session with Star being
particularly undisciplined when learning how to work certain spells, not even
trying to listen to Glossaryck. She’s
even inconsiderate when she decides to ditch training to hang with her friends
which offends Glossaryck, and she only makes things worse through a feeble
attempt at saying she didn’t mean it.
As
for Glossaryck, while it is understandable that he’s upset, the lengths he takes
with these feelings are borderline overblown.
He hides in a donut box refusing to come out no matter how many times
Star tries to apologize, so now it’s him who’s being stubborn and in turn makes
life difficult. From ruining the simple
fun Star and Marco are trying to have with his inconsiderate remarks to failing
to see how desperate they are to bring him back with staged fights, it’s
concerning that Glossaryck is taking this long to accept Star’s apology. He’s a kind of character holding a grudge no
one should aspire to be like, yet it’s a problem because he’s one of the
protagonists.
Fortunately, all this
animosity reaches a good concluding point when Ludo gets involved. The opening to the episode features a strange
occurrence when his piece of the wand appears to talk to him, begging a lot of
questions as to how this can be. Ludo
and his bird and spider are prompted to cross dimensions to go after Star,
resulting in a confrontation where they’re both surprised that they each have
wands, giving a good opportunity to see how well they are with working
them. As it turns out, for all their
training, neither of them cast spells that are strong enough to make a big
attack. Suspense builds when Star has to save Glossaryck’s donut box from getting
crushed by a garbage truck while fighting.
During which, there’s a big emotional scene where the box ends up
crushed, though it would have been more impactful if Glossaryck was more likable.
Then, in his trickster ways, he turns out
fine and even helps Star by manipulating the box to temporarily knock out Ludo
and bring over Star’s spell book resulting in a grand conclusion to the battle
where she finally masters the spell that initiated the conflict and beats
Ludo. If that’s not enough, Glossaryck’s
claim that acting hurt was all part of the plan to get Star to successfully
pull off the spell. Personally, this is
one of the better use of Glossaryck using trickery as a teaching tool. It plays with expectations and actually leads
to a greater good, so even if he is somewhat of an enigma, he can still
enjoyable as he is.
As a result, the
episode is a good example of how good conclusions can make up for any prior
flaws even if certain negative points still leave a sting, and with Ludo now
aware of Star’s wand and spell book, it also brings promise for the bigger
conflict to come.
A-
The Ranking
- Ludo in the Wild
- On the Job
- Mr. Candle Cares
- Wand to Wand
- Starstruck
- By the Book
- Starsitting
- Star on Wheels
- Camping Trip
- My New Wand
- Red Belt
- Star vs Echo Creek
- Fetch
- Goblin Dogs
The next Star vs the Forces of Evil review brings us to Star's home, Mewni for a Game of Flags, and during detention, Star finds a friend in former background character, Janna.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is an OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode that claims "You Are Rad."
If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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