Hello there, fellow Stargazers!
Time for another review!
And wouldn’t you know it, it’s the time of year to celebrate the foundings of Mewni, so Star decides to celebrate it with her friends by reenacting a major battle. You can tell how short and questionable it will be when I discuss it in 11A--”Mewnipendence Day”.
And if that wasn’t enough for Star to combat the ides of disaster and boredom, 11B--”The Banagic Incident” has her trying to fend it off by searching for a new device that’ll cure the boredom...by making Banana Pudding. I’ll be honest in saying this before you reach it: I got pissed with this one...and a little confused.
Oh, well. Let’s get this over with.
Let’s begin this review with…
The episode begins at the Diaz Family Home, where Star has converged Marco and their friends/acquaintances--Alfonzo, Ferguson, Miss Skulltroll--I mean Skullnick, Janna, StarFan13, the nerd student first shown in “Monster Arm” (his name’s Ed, by the way), the guy from the Awesome Opossums Cheerleading Squad and Marc’s Dojo Sensei--in the living room for a meeting. She has invited them for a celebration of the day her home dimension Mewni was founded by reenacting the battle of its founding. But nobody knows what all this means. So Star grabs a pull-out book briefing the founding of Mewni. When all is said and done everyone begins preparations for the battle reenactment.
--That book Star has looks like something made by Golden Books. If I can picture it, it would’ve came with a CD that would’ve had narration and the sound of a harp playing signaling a page turn. That would’ve be boss. Ahh, nostalgia.
Marco points out the floating eye, which Star reveals is the All-Seeing Eye, in which the Royal Family sees all that the villains are doing. But that’s not happening--It’s the VILLAINS watching.
Ludo and Toffee (Hey, it’s Toffee! Toffee’s back! Hi, Toffee!!) are taking a look at the preparations with a decoy of the All-Seeing Eye, and are planning their upcoming attack. Buff Frog tries to convince him to keep him as the lookout, but is shot down, because of the Eye’s flexibility.
--Buff Frog and Toffee’s reactions to Ludo pointing out that the Eye has a channel showing Star’s bathroom were hilarious.
--“Sometimes, your biggest threat is right under your nose.” -Toffee
“My nose is in my beak.” -Ludo
I don’t know why, but that line is very funny to me.
Later in the day, everyone is in costume and are ready for the reenactment.
Meanwhile, Buff Frog tells Ludo’s other Minions about Toffee and his new fangled flying machine, but is interrupted by the lanky lizard in Louis Vuitton, asking any of them to sneak into the Mewnipendance battle with a device to capture the wand and easily transfer it to to Ludo.
BF stands up to the challenge, and Toffee begrudgingly obliges.
--What the hell happened to his finger?
The battle has begun!! The Evil Repulsive Monsters vs. The Brave Powerful Soldiers of Mewni!!
During the fight, Ferguson gets scared and camos into a tree--During which, at that exact time, Buff Frog appears and begins his chase to reach Star’s Wand. He gets close to the Wand, but the device isn’t responsive, causing him to stall and try to grab it himself. But that doesn’t work either, when Star notices him and a soldier’s horse knocks him off her perch and onto the ground. Star freaks out (thinking that’s actually Ferguson) and rushes to not-Ferguson’s aid. Fergy reveals himself from behind a tree, and Star realizes that’s Buff Frog. BF runs off, and Star is close to blasting him, but relents.
When Marco calls off the reenactment--everyone goes inside, ready for the feast--Star looks straight into where BF ran off.
--If you notice Star’s reactions to the battle, that means she’s very worried of the well-being of everyone involved (especially the monsters). From reading the book, she realizes something about the first Mewnans that That’s sweet and humbling.
Back at Ludo’s castle, Buff Frog tries to explain himself about his failure to capture the wand (along with trying to reveal it was Toffee’s bidding), but Ludo wouldn’t have any--showing his mistake over and over, and chewing him out. He then makes the conscious decision (made by Toffee) to kick him off his team of minions and out of his castle. BF begs to be taken back in, but is shunned away. Toffee commends Ludo on his decision,. but the latter is saddened by it.
Back at the DFH, everyone is enjoying the end-of-the-celebration corn feast. Star is asked by Marco if the book is accurate, but she pushes him off to eat her corn. She then sees Buff Frog on the tree branch moping from his new firing. She gives him a plate of corn. He smiles.
During the climax, where Buff Frog is given the Wand task, I thought and knew that Toffee had something to do about this. He sabotaged the machine to embarrass Buff Frog and get him banished from Ludo’s Army and out of his hair. Toffee really didn’t like BF’s demand to stand up to him and kick him out, so he made the plan to kick him out. That’s devious. That’s cunning.
Toffee has continued to make his mark as the member of Ludo’s army. While I’m not supposed to like his actions, I can’t stop loving them. He’s so perfectly slimy and sly, that it’s hard to not hate him. I can’t find a reason to. In fact, I’m beginning to like Toffee more than Ludo.
As for the battle itself...Meh. It was short and wasn’t as great as I actually expected it to be. But what Star did to stop it so early was really sweet. She cares about her friends so much that she’d stop a celebration of her home dimension to spare their lives. That’s just lovely.
And another thing I just noticed as the real reason she stopped the battle, therefore also humbling, is that when Star was asked by Marco if the battle was unfair. When she read the story of Mewni’s independence, it was shown that the founders and the people succeeding them weren’t nice people and were very harsh in the war against the monsters. In fact the monsters (which, yes, weren’t good creatures either) were terrorized by the people before they even got a chance to attack. That explains why Star didn’t attack Buff Frog, and her even giving him a plate of corn at the end. That was also sweet and humbling.
As a whole, this was a really solid halfer. I actually enjoyed the villains side-plot more that the heroes side more. I laughed more from Ludo’s dialogue, the Minions lines, and even Toffee’s little aside crack to Buff Frog: “...you fat bag of garbage”.
And speaking of crack…
I did not need to see that. But I admit, it was funny the second time around. Anyway...
Let’s see what the next episode will do. It’s…
In it, "Star sees a commercial for a "magical" Earth product and sets off on her own to buy it, but the mission goes south when her lack of earth knowledge gets her into serious trouble."
In her Expansion Pack Bedroom, Star is in a bathtub (please don’t ask me why) reading magazines and trying not to be bored. She fails and is close to conceding, but tries not to. (Maybe she can build a rollercoaster.) She then finds an ad in one of them for the “Banagic Wand”. She then sets off on a quest to find one... But first she doesn’t know where to find one, and sees the “As Featured on TV” logo, but doesn’t understand that, and runs to Marco for help. Marc is brushing up on his karate skills, and is about to break a board. But Star suddenly appears. She asks him to help her in finding the Banagic Wand, but Marco has to practice for an assignment--”channeling your emotions”. Star doesn’t listen and instead drags him to the TV to find out where the Banagic is sold--the Better Store. She drags Marc (more like throws Marc) to his bike
--This scene frustrated me. Like, more than I could admit. I could barely get more from this than Star being bored. And I actually didn’t find much funny either. I know Star still can’t grasp much of Earth culture, and I feel sad to say this, but it feels annoying at this point. Her voice doesn’t help, either.
--Also, if you notice, Marco was barefoot when practicing karate and watching TV with Star, but is then suddenly wearing his sneakers when Star kicks him out the house (literally) and then back to barefoot when reaching the Dojo Karate Studio. It may be because Star made them magically, but she didn’t. Yeah, a goof.
(You know what? I can’d do more story anymore. You know why? Because this episode was frustrating as hell to me. So I’m just going to go on a rage-filled review on this halfer.)
Again, I know Star isn’t doing well grasping Earth culture, but this is ridiculous.
She has been on Earth, and specifically Echo Creek, for as long as 11 episodes can entail. She should know how to find a way to any place there, let alone the Better Store, by now without getting herself into a mess like this. Her actions make her look less than...sigh. And I laughed less than I would expect myself to. Plus the product itself barely makes sense; how can it work? You just jam a banana in, squeeze it, and suddenly it turns into pudding. Where does the peel go? How do you clean it? I’m getting ahead of myself.
Another thing: she had no regard for whatever Marco was doing, and forced him to help her out. I know this happens a lot, but here, it just comes off as a little more than rude.
And when she was at Davy Jones’ Fish Locker, she didn’t realize that she was in a themed restaurant. The pirates didn’t even do anything to her. What she did was rude and uncalled for. That made their chasing her (or at least being angry at her) justified. Even Brittney Wong’s appearance was frustrating to watch. Sure, she’s a jerk, but this was just sad.
And then there’s this...Marco saying he underestimated Star. My God, that was uncomfortable.
The vibe was just dead on arrival and withered away as it continued. I never felt this bad feeling from anything in animation before from what I can remember (even from Family Guy and South Park), but this was...wow.
And her reaction to Marco saying he underestimated her was...weird.
I mean what he said understandably caught her off guard, but can you blame him? And another thing: was she hurt by it? If so, I can understand that. It’s as if someone was saying they couldn’t believe you doing something like this at that time. That hurts. But that came at a weirder time. This was one of the more stranger moments of this series so far, and no magic came from it. I’m wondering what will happen next, should this continue. Will Star actually get angry with Marco over his line? Probably. Will it get painful and awkward? You bet.
On the other hand, despite the crap, Marco’s subplot was really entertaining. I loved seeing him finally channel his emotions and chasing Jeremy for being an annoying pest (which was refreshing and cathartic), and stepping on the Coals successfully (even if that hurts like hell).
-Also, the little subversion on the “Someone Save My Baby” thing, as the little bugger was in a bjorn his mom was carrying.
Star’s journey to the Better Store was pretty entertaining in doses. And it was good to see that, (again) despite the crap, she did get to the Better Store by herself, and that was pretty good. Granted, I was still pissed the first time, but it was still pretty good. Ugh...
Remember my rant at the end of my review of “Monster Arm”? Yeah, uhh...
I’m sorry. Forget everything I said about that. Everything I said about Marco under the Arm were wrong and me over reacting. I was wrong for all of that and I apologize. This here is the pits.
This episode felt like straight-up filler to me. Almost nothing made me enjoy this at all. And I felt ashamed in watching.
But, not everything was real bad. In the middle of it, Marco had a sub-plot that I liked, where he wants to channel his emotions at his karate studio.
No I’m not gonna stop watching this show, but I don’t think I can watch this one again for a long while.
This was frustrating and confusing.
This episode was solid. But to be honest, it wasn’t great. I enjoyed the little things about it, but they didn’t add up to an episode that I don’t think I would remember. I do remember Toffee, and he has really become a memorable character. I’m very curious to see where this development with Buff Frog being kicked off Ludo’s team will lead to, because it’s obviously a part of Toffee’s scheme to get closer to Ludo. Oh and that itself...when that comes, I’ll be giddy and gleeful.
The ending to this episode was also a highlight, showing Star to be on a nicer path with Buff Frog aka the plate of corn. And I don’t think I’ll watch “Banagic Incident” for a while. The fact that the title has “Incident” in the title was really understandable to me.
Well, Stargazers, we have just two episodes left in Season 1. (sigh)
And boy, this is going to be a great end, no doubt. For now, next week’s Episode 12 will have a lot to look forward to. “Interdimensional Field Trip” and “Marco Grows A Beard” should be self-explanatory, but here goes. 12A features Star leading her class on a trip to a museum in another dimension, but knowing this show, things will get weird and wild fast. And 12B has Marco growing facial hair...thanks not to puberty, but by a spell made by Star. You can tell things will get weird and wild fast here too. I’m gonna get that exciting feeling while also feigning a heartbreaking feeling. Huh.
Well, until then, I want to thank the SVTFOE Wikia for everything as usual. Even though there wasn’t much to work with this time. (Seriously, that was hard.) And of course to you all for joining me. I want to apologize for this review being late; I was reaching an impasse in relation to this blog, and I needed to rethink things. Don’t worry, nothing’s too serious.
Well, see ya next week, everyone.
I’m Andrew, saying “Reach for the Star, and Keep looking up!...at your TV screen.”
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