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Conquer
Now we’re on the grand finish for Season 3, placing the entire
series at its most epic and exciting to date.
It starts with tension in an unlikely place with Star and Moon playing
in the Realm of Magic involuntarily without a care in the world. Though there are much more pressing matters,
it’s nice to watch them spend time together.
That said, it’s kind of sad that they needd to have amnesia to truly be on
the same page. Then the firstborn creation
comes and sends them away from the Realm of Magic because they don’t
belong. Star is sent back to Mewni, but
Moon is not. A lot of questions are begged as to where
Moon is. The answers are revealed in time, but with so many possibilities for now, you're left with a few potential scary thoughts for after the episode ends.
Adding to the drama is Marco and his team’s attempts to beat
Meteora. Their extreme measures aren’t
enough, and she sucks out a majority of their souls, leaving only Marco and Tom
standing. Speaking of Tom, he really
stands out in this episode from being the only one to vouch for Marco to
declaring Marco as his best friend.
Marco is then led to confess that he kissed Star after hearing Tom make
such an honor. Tom has all the
motivation to get mad at Marco for this, but impressively, he takes it very
maturely. He still protects Marco and shows concern when Meteora does take his
soul.
The following scene of Star coming
home to the sight of Tom holding an inflatable soulless Marco is highly
emotional. With all her pressures as
queen, failing to bring Moon home, and her best friend out of commission,
Star’s at her most sympathetic. She's all alone with all the responsibility at a dire situation. It's some of the most identifiable anxieties that can be put to media.
Nevertheless, she puts in the utmost effort to be a great queen. She heads to Butterfly Castle to settle
Meteora and save her kingdom.
This leads
to the biggest highlight of the episode, an epic battle between Star in her
butterfly form and Meteora. Through
sweeping angles and Star’s imaginative spells on their biggest display, the
show has never been this visually and dramatically stunning. There’s also a note of consideration when
Star understands Meteora’s anger and lets her consume the power to the
butterfly form.
Following this is a
shocking twist to the battle. Eclipsa
suddenly appears and takes Star’s wand.
Despite trying to be a loving mother in their last encounter, not only
does she discipline Meteora for her destruction, Eclipsa unleashes a Black
Velvet Inferno spell. This spell appears
to disintegrate Meteora, releasing the souls.
Eclipsa’s tearful reaction to what she had to do is an aggressively
heartbreaking display of emotion sealing the deal of her devotion to the
kingdom. Rather than killing Meteora
though, the spell gives her a literal second birth which sets off a huge chain
of events to look forward to in the next season. Star takes action to fix the damage her
family caused to the royal lineage by letting Eclipsa keep the wand which she
uses to fly herself and Meteora away.
Glossaryck, who was faking being brain-damaged the whole time,
explains they’re going to Eclipsa’s monster husband, Globgor. The last scene of them arriving at his own
crystal prison is a special kind of endearing end to this episode and the
season.
I always believe a grand finish
determines the strength of a show’s season, and this episode is just that. With great action, drama, and emotion, as
well as wholesome and frightening build-up to what’s to come, needless to say,
new heights have been reached for this show.
A++
The Ranking
1. Conquer
2. Butterfly Trap
3. Total
Eclipsa the Moon
4. Moon the
Undaunted
5. Tough Love
6. Divide
7. Deep Dive
8. Stranger
Danger
9. Sweet
Dreams
10. Skooled!
11. Return to
Mewni
12. Rest in
Pudding
13. Night Life
14. Demoncism
15. Toffee
16. Monster
Bash
17. Is Another
Mystery
18. Marco Jr.
19. Club
Snubbed
20. Puddle
Defender
21. Sophomore Slump
22. Starfari
23. Lint
Catcher
24. Princess
Turdina
25. Ludo, Where
Art Thou?
26. Scent of a
Hoodie
27. King Ludo
28. Marco and
the King
29. Death Peck
30. Book Be
Gone
31. Booth
Buddies
32. The
Bogbeast of Boggabah
33. Stump Day
34. Trial by
Squire
35. Lava Lake
Beach
36. Holiday
Spellcial
37. Bam Ui
Pati!
38. Ponymonium
Final Thoughts
Some people say that through taking on a more serious
plot-driven approach, Star vs the Forces
of Evil loses its sense of self with its third season. While that is a good point, I think this
change of pace has suited the series well considering how stale it was starting
to get through focusing on random fun magical adventures. This may have been how the show started, but
in my mind, there were just too many weak episodes with that setup. Through building up stakes and
adding interesting history of the setting, this season is the show at its most
interesting. In fact, the change and
pace to the tone make Season 3 the biggest and grandest thing the show has
turned out yet.
Though past seasons of the show have mostly thrived on
creative interdimensional frivolity, there have been frequent hints of
something bigger going on in the midst of everything. They’ve grown with every new season and are
fully realized with Season 3. Exploring
major plot threads like the background of the Queens of Mewni, the mystery of
Eclipsa, magic on the fritz and more are the season’s top priorities. This is key to making the underlying story it
tells so engaging and it’s very rarely bogged down by superfluous fun time, at
least compared to Season 2.
Admittedly,
the story does start off kind of rocky mostly through some episodes focusing
too much on overrunning a gag and overbearing character flaws, especially from
Star. The biggest offense is what’s done
with the previous recurring villain, Toffee.
He started off with strong first impressions as a cold calculating
villain leaving himself open for the audience to find out more about him. However, despite revealing to be the cause
for Ludo’s possession and bringing one of the show’s most emotional moments,
all his potential is soon lost. It just
takes one magic blast to destroy him for good as marked by his demise freeing
Eclipsa from her prison as was planned long ago. We never learn of his true motivations or how
he became so calculated. These things
could come in later seasons, but chances are it will be from exposition which
isn’t nearly as compelling character development.
Fortunately, what the start of Season 3 leads
to greatly makes up for these flaws. Many
episodes set the groundwork for bigger things to come. Some episodes focus on the return of Eclipsa
and how she’s viewed by the new era of Mewmans.
Others further explore a new butterfly form Star unlocked to defeat
Toffee. Even a one-off villain, Ms.
Heinous, has a good number of episodes devoted to her which plays to a major
event later on. Speaking of that, it’s
truly impressive that the season finale, the result of all the focus of these
major plot threads, turns out to be as exciting and epic as it is. Now don’t get me wrong. The show has always been quite impressive, but never has it been so sweeping, emotional, and
large in scope. We have Star start to
directly face the inevitability of becoming queen, Moon is sent away from Mewni
without even the clothes on her back, and there's one awesome battle after another. It’s capped off with a heartwarming yet
questionable ending where Eclipsa and Meteora proceed towards the prison of
Globgor leaving people to guess what this all means. The direction may be more serious than most
are accustomed to with this show, but I call it a welcome change for bringing
what may be its greatest moments.
Among this big grand story and the plot aspects going into it
are the great performances of the formally introduced Queen Eclipsa. Out of everyone in the cast, she’s the
best-rounded and the most strongly fleshed out.
She was somewhat of an enigma when she was first mentioned in Season 2. All that was revealed was that she’s
notorious for writing dark spells and running off with a monster. These acts go against the law, sure, but
Eclipsa shows that even if this is the case, she’s still very likable, fun to
be around, and at times helpful with personal problems. Even after effects of her dark magic don’t
even seem too harmful apart from making her veins dark. It’s this reason why I feel that her spell
doing this to Moon isn’t that strong a reason for her to believe Eclipsa’s
evil. In fact, hardly anything we see of
Eclipsa has a strong suggestion that she’s outright evil making it far too easy
to support one side of the issue and think nothing of the other. Even if she’s under threat of serious punishment over what appear to be small deviant acts, a great thing about
Eclipsa is how she retains a positive attitude all throughout. It’s an approach to serious situations that
you hardly see cartoon characters take these days. This is a shame because it’s
quite inspirational to learn how to face bad issues without giving into
pressure.
However, what makes Eclipsa
well-rounded is that she does have a vulnerability to her character. The thing that gets to her is any problem
facing the life she chose to live. In
the second half of the season, she learns that something happened to her
daughter, Meteora, while she was crystalized.
During this time, Eclipsa is able to break from her positive demeanor
and show genuine sorrow and concern for what where Meteora is like any good
loving mother. This soon leads to an
exciting trial with great staging of drama and characterizations that reveal
Meteora’s fate and the shadiness of the Magic High Commission. Eclipsa’s strong maternal instinct continues
for the rest of the season, and you can easily revel in its genuineness. When she showers Meteora with love and
affection while trying to gently deny her the throne of Mewni, you feel how she
just wants them to be a family again.
When she has to unleash her most dangerous spell when Meteora chooses to
consume everyone’s souls, you’re just as heartbroken as she is. Finally, when Meteora’s turned back into a baby, you
share Eclipsa’s pleasant surprise at the spells effects as it leads to an
interesting showing of family love. As you can tell, I find Eclipsa to be a
strong addition to the series. Her
approach to life and care for everyone she meets despite her mistreatment is an
interesting concept brought to great effect.
She’s easily key to this season’s success and I look forward to seeing
what she brings to the next one.
As for the main characters, the one with the strongest
portrayal this season is actually Star.
It may seem hard to believe at first with most of her actions in the
premiere episodes being far too reckless and foolish than average, as well as
hypocritical. However, when the season
goes into full swing, a more mature and logical side of Star finally starts
making itself noticeable. I guess one
could chalk it up to her understanding the severity of what’s going on in her
kingdom and explore it to compensate for suddenly needing to leave Earth. The moment she gets used to being away from
Earth, symbolized by Marco leaving albeit for a short time, is when she truly
starts shining as a character. Showing
promise as a potential new queen, Star notices problems with how Mewni is run,
and is very vocal about them even around her mother. It’s Star who points out it was Moon’s actions that allowed Eclipsa to be set free and that a trial is the only fair
way to see if she deserves to be recrystallized. She also brings the hypocritical prejudices
Mewmans have against monsters to mind and sets out to fix them. In fact, if it wasn’t for a total freak event,
I’d say she most definitely would have succeeded, or at least bring a step in
the right direction. Biggest of all,
Star is the one who pushes the Magic High Commission to admit their tampering
with Mewni’s royal lineage. Not to
mention before this even happens, she’s the one to get her mom to question the confusing parts of the Butterfly family after hearing a claim about Eclipsa’s
daughter. All this insightfulness from
Star is very welcome after so many moments of her rushing in without thought
and causing problems for much of the series.
Even then, she’s still open to learn through needing to learn to be calm
about certain things so to be taken seriously, which is very much in line with
what we know of her. It’s because of her
apparent growth that Star becomes so sympathetic by the end of Season 3. With a huge crisis and no sign of her mom and
her best friend soulless, you can’t help but feel for Star having no choice but
to take on a position she’s been fearing for so long. Plus, even though fighting monsters is her
thing, the fact that she basically has to do it alone adds a bigger emotional
layer to the already tense ordeal. It’s
great that she holds her own in battle while remaining mature. She allows Meteora to consume her power while
understanding why she’s so mad and starts fixing what her
family broke by letting Eclipsa keep her wand and take the throne. So Star technically does not
keep her queen status she’s been hinted to need to take on at some point, but
giving it to who she feels deserves it is pretty noble. The next season will be the judge of that
though. Character development is to be
expected as more seasons come, but with that of the title character, it’s great
to see her taking some mature steps that benefit the season.
While Season 3 comes with a lot of ambition in what it
covers, the execution is not without problems.
Some of them lie within the structure. While big things like the
battle with Toffee, the scandal of the royal family history, and the
monsters leaving happen, there’s not much time to deal with their emotional
effects. After episodes on those topics,
they’re immediately followed by one on a completely different topic, usually on
more light-hearted subjects. Sometimes,
they’re followed by subjects that appear once and never again like what became
of Ludo, and Marco’s parents having a baby.
Now, there’s no doubt that the following season will expand upon these,
but since they’re covered in one episode and never again, they don’t really
belong in Season 3.
Another execution
issue covers how the conflicts are handled.
To me, the best way to do a conflict is to have both sides have sound
logical points so everyone is understandable and able to handle the issue
maturely. This isn’t really the case
with the conflicts at hand in Season 3.
Previously discussed were the claims of Eclipsa being evil when none of
what she does have strong objectively bad crystallization-worthy offenses. However, that’s nothing compared to how the
Mewmans’ treatment of monsters is handled.
It’s said that monsters are treated badly because they’re dangerous, yet
none of them actually do anything dangerous.
Yes, there are some dangerous monsters like Toffee, but that’s one bad
monster in a huge class, which can be the same for Mewmans too. It can be argued that all prejudices are
irrational, but when other monsters get a free pass for affluence and status,
the hypocrisy costs this prejudice lots of weight.
The big kicker is in “Monster Bash” when Star
seems to get it under control with a party, only for other people to make her
efforts a disaster. No one seems to
point out that she would have succeeded with integrating monsters and Mewmans
if Mina Loveberry didn’t crash the affair.
Not to mention, the attitudes of the Mewmans are just as much to
blame. They bond with the monsters, but
when things go wrong, they immediately blame them, and it just doesn’t make
sense. The monsters were the ones who
were captured and tortured, so how could this be their fault? Also, a princess who was with one of the
monsters witnessed what happened but doesn't explain it to anyone and has no
real reason to not do so. For these reasons,
it’s just not fair for Star to get the blame for the failed party and making
monsters’ treatment worse as a result.
It failed because of something out of her control and the Mewmans
deciding to be jerks by not comforting the monsters in their time of
need. It kind of paints Mewni as a toxic
environment where people refuse to see any obvious societal problems if they’re
not a main character. It’s also disturbing
for coming from the title characters’ home.
I give credit for at least addressing the topic, but it really could
have been better and not make the main setting look so bad.
These issues can be lived with, but there are two major
issues with Season 3 that continue to hold the show back from the big leagues
despite how close it’s gotten. One is
the over-reliance on romance-themed episodes.
I remember when there were only a few couples to anticipate. However, it slowly became more overbearing
once Star found she had a crush on Marco as he started dating Jackie Lynn
Thomas. With Season 3, romance is now at
its most overbearing which is problematic when you have more pressing matters
going on. It also hurts the possibility of Star and Marco getting together which previously
could be accepted either way. They’re
close and show a lot of care for each other, but it’s always been highly likely
that they could just stay friends.
However, things get complicated when Star and Tom start rekindling their
romance. The thing is, Tom does show
great improvement as a character and he and Star appear as a supportable
couple. Then Marco is revealed to not be over Mewni which gets Jackie to break up with him. This is far more unfortunate due to how well
Marco and Jackie have been seen to work as a couple. What’s more, when Marco finds that Star is
with Tom, he starts a new apparent romance with Kelly which isn’t nearly as
engaging. We hardly even see them
together aside from one episode, at least not until Season 4. It’s
not a huge loss to not see much of the Echo Creek characters anymore, but the
same can’t be said for Jackie. Her being
cast aside for a weaker couple makes it seem like all she’s good for is a
potential love interest which isn’t true.
She’s shown plenty of interesting quirks in Season 2, but now with the
show’s new direction, we may never see any of them expanded upon. So, both Star and Marco have new love lives,
but near the end of the season, it hardly feels like they mean anything to
them. When convinced he has to share his
true feelings, Marco kisses Star and she appears to be taken in by it despite
later admitting they shouldn’t have done that.
This means if Star and Marco were to get together, it would be built on
betrayal to other people which does not do justice for either of them. At the very least, Marco admits the kiss to
Tom which is followed up by great development from the latter as he still aids
him in battle. So to conclude about the
romance, it just seems to be a matter that gets worse with every season. You have to admire the efforts to try and
make it work though.
Speaking of getting worse, another major issue with Season 3
is the over-reliance on Pony Head who honestly should have been cast aside with
the other minor Echo Creek characters.
Being back on Mewni may mean more time with interdimensional beings, but
Pony Head is not among the best of that class.
Her valley girl accent, selfish personality, and doing more harm than
good cost her a ton of appeal, so getting a lot of her is not a good route to
take. I could forgive this if she got
some development and offered meaningful substance to goals, but none of those
things happen. Any time she’s featured,
she mostly doesn’t show any urgency to help her best friend, gives bad advice
at bad times, and needs to be the center of attention. Also, when we meet her family, you’d think it
would be a fun entertaining experience but no.
Her horrid attitude brings a tyrannical rule over her family that’s very
uncomfortable to watch. Her family is no
better for willing to go to murderous lengths to beat her and get rid of anyone
who dares disagree with them. Not only
does Pony Head not do any justice for the show, but she’s made worse by coming
from a beyond messed up family. She does
have a good chance for development when an encounter with Meteora makes her
lose her horn. She could learn to move
on without acting cool and flying around with a stylish horn. Despite all that goes on that could help her
accept the occurrence, she’s soon provided with a new horn and she’s right back
to her old ways. This is further proven
when during the season finale battle she expresses her annoying attitude and is
among the first souls for Meteora to take.
I just don’t get that the show can work in good character development,
but won’t allow Pony Head to mature and become likable. Maybe it just wants to keep her a joke
character, but if that’s the case, she really shouldn’t be appearing as much as
she does. Fortunately, Pony Head’s just
one outright bad main character in a cast of more appealing ones who get better
as the season progresses. For that,
despite how nerve-wracking she is, her moments can be accepted to get to the
true highlights.
It may still falter in a couple of areas, but those faults
are worth sitting through to understand the true greatness of Season 3 of Star vs the Forces of Evil. With great ambition and scope in the most
interesting story points and characters, it showcases the series’
capabilities. While I still don’t rank
it as a top contender among all animated series, when it does something good,
I’m pleased to say it gets near the status of the all-time classic Disney
works. That’s a trait I reserve for
Disney shows that truly impress. Given
how strong the best parts of the season are, I anticipate more of that status
in the following, as well as final, season.
Until then, we have this high point of the series about Star Butterfly
whom evil won’t deter because magic flows through her. She is a shining Star!
Highly Recommended
Stay tuned the following week for the conclusions of Hey Arnold Season 4 and the DuckTales Vol 3 DVD. Until then:
Stay Animated Folks!
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