Jounrey of the Spark Animatic Trailer

[Al1701]

The people working on Journey of the Spark, a feature length fan animation, have release an animatic trailer (basically some storyboard panels and rough animations) to give us a taste of what the feature will be.



There are a few problems with using canon villains. The first and obvious one is (when the material it's based on is still running) the show can pull the rug out from under your story. There's no way Journey of the Spark fits anywhere in Friendship is Magic's canon now that we have Keep Calm and Flutter On. However, that's not fatal to a work. It's just a minor irritation.

The second and bigger problem is when the people making the work don't seem to understand the characters involved. This shows Discord being violent when he never uses violence even second hand. He has more effective methods. So him stooping to the level of clobbering Celestia is jarring. It's not Discord and I have to wonder if they're just doing it because it looks cool for Celestia and Discord to have a big battle.

Why not make your own villain? It takes more work but you can do whatever you want with them.

[weirdraptor]

Eh, I'll give the finished product a whirl. It looks okay, even if it does go against canon in some ways.

[Al1701]

I will too. I just get the sense they're having Discord's body do cool stuff because he's popular instead of using the actual character. I made the comparison elsewhere that it would be like Riddler challenging Batman to an arm wrestling match while riding man-eating sharks. It would look awesome, but is completely out of Riddler's character.

[weirdraptor]

Very true. However, if they can keep both characters in-character and still get Discord and Celestia to the point of throwing down with each other, that'd be impressive. I'm hoping that's the case, but getting the feeling it's not.

[Al1701]

I can hope. They say they've only scratched the surface with this trailer. However, being a writer, I can tell the Discord/Celestia fight will come fairly early on as Celestia is shown beaten up telling the others to save Twilight.

Personally, I would have had Discord render Celestia powerless by shrinking her and keeping her in a cage. It worked for the Master (even if he used extreme aging on the Doctor the result is the same.)

[sunstar]

I'll give this a go. Discord is not evil. Chaos does not have to be evil. I feel that Discord is out of character here and I hope they have a good reason for it.

[weirdraptor]

Yeah... That's why I get the feeling that Discord is out-of-character, too, Al.

[Al1701]

Probably. I know they've said they're treating Season 3 like it never happened since the script was written before then. We'll have to see what his motivations are. It just seems like the characters are doing thing because the plot demands they do. As long as it's entertaining I guess.

[weirdraptor]

Yep. That's the only thing to do at the moment: wait and see.

[Al1701]

And wait a long time. This thing isn't coming out until 2015.

I wonder what the process is to query Hasbro. I know you can't just send them a script, but perhaps they accept query letters and agree to let you write a script. It'd definitely be different since they already get exclusive rights since it's they're property.

[Sassaflash]

I think you have to gain permission first. There's a character limit on the request form and nowhere to attach a file as far as I remember.