How Star Vs the Forces of Evil Fell From Grace

In 2017, a lot of people had requested that I react to a show called Star Vs the Forces of Evil. A Disney XD cartoon created by Daron Nefcy and produced by Dominic Bisignano. At the time, the show rivaled the likes of Steven Universe and Gravity Falls. After slowly making my way through Season 1, I saw what the hype was all about. This show was good. It passed Gravity Falls and Steven Universe and became my top favorite show within the first season. And Season 2 only amplified my like for the show x1000. But, as the show went on, something changed for me. My appreciation for the show slowly started to decline throughout Season 3. I started to raise an eyebrow at some of the decisions the writers were making, until the inevitable crash and burn that was Season 4. So, what happened? How did a series that was once my top favorite show by a long shot, eventually drop underneath my top 10? Well to answer that, we’re gonna have to figure out what made this show great in the first place. Right from the start, the premise of the show is set. Magic girl gets sent to Earth to train in magic. She stays with a boy named Marco Diaz. Along with his henchmen, a little kappa named Ludo will repeatedly throw themselves at her to try and steal her magic wand. Simple, but strong. It immediately tells you, this ain’t your normal “princess protagonist” TV show. Since story isn’t immediately introduced, Season 1 keeps you watching through its comedy and sense of continuity. It takes a few episodes for the story to start showing signs; Episode 8 introduces the true “antagonist”, Toffee. The show doesn’t explain Toffee’s motives, or anything about him really. This gives a sense of mystery that kept people interested. We see his plan slowly unfurl up until the Season 1 finale, where things get crazy. So many hints were dropped in this episode that the story goes much deeper than it seems. Season 2 eventually starts off strong by immediately suggesting it’s not over. The wand starts doing wacky shit, it’s missing a crystal, and there's also a demon horse in there. So that's fun It also immediately covers what happened with our puppet antagonist, Ludo. It’s done through a 1 episode story of him trying to survive in the wild, which went better than it sounds. This was actually a really good way of changing his character to make him an actual threat. The episode ends with Ludo finding the other half of the wand. And if you weren’t convinced enough that the Toffee-story isn’t over, the writers also throw in this hint by having the wand's crystal being held by Toffee’s right arm. Throughout Season 2, the writers swap between Star’s point of view, and Ludo’s point of view. All while progressing Toffee’s plan. Shows the effects of Toffee on the universe’s magic, and shows every bit of his plan carefully unfurl. Honestly, seeing this Season was an amazing experience. I had done an event in Summer 2017 where every weekday, I’d react to a new episode of Star. And watching each episode, seeing all of the hints the writers dropped, and getting very invested into the plot was incredible. As I said before, this season only amplified my like for the show. We finally get to see Toffee return, using Ludo as sort of a puppet, and this comes into play during the most epic Season finale I’ve ever seen. This finale transitions right into their TV-Movie, The Battle for Mewni. Where they wrap up the overarching story from the past 2 seasons. Now, don’t get me wrong, Battle for Mewni does have some problems; but we’ll get into that much later into this video. The season had a pretty good balance of filler and story. In total, the season had ~13 plot episodes, and ~9 filler episodes. If we’re counting by the half-episode format that the show uses, then there were ~24 filler episodes, and ~20 plot episodes I’m not using ‘filler’ as a bad term either. All of them were enjoyable episodes, even featuring a lot of my favorite jokes from the series. In most of them, it never felt like there was wasted time, as the ‘lessons’ learned seemed to contribute and grow Star’s character. I’ll touch more on this in a bit. Hmm hold on, I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah, LITERALLY THE BEST EPISODE IN THE SERIES. Bon Bon the Birthday Clown did everything so well. It was a really heavy story episode, and continued the Shipping side plot in a way that wasn’t intrusive. Literally the first minute of this episode explains why it’s so good. I remember being pretty low on energy starting out this reaction. Like I wasn’t fully awake. Then the clown fucking EXPLODED! THAT’S How you start an episode! Just that woke me the hell up, and gave me energy for the rest of the reaction. This episode also perfectly continues the Ludo/Toffee plot in a major way, with him stealing a precious family heirloom that could easily help him become an unstoppable threat. The amount of fear that came from Ludo actually succeeding was insane. He can learn any spell in the book and use it to do anything, such as destroying the entire kingdom. And don’t even get me started on the absolutely flawless buildup of fear for the attack through the use of RATS EeH there's rats. There's rats everywhere. “Get out of here you giant rats” [REALIZATION] I can guarantee you guys, I didn’t feel that kind of REAL FEAR anywhere after Battle for Mewni. And I think Nicholas Devia kind of summed up this episode very well. It had both normal problems that people could relate to, And Mewni related problems which progressed the story. And that’s really what it was all about. It was a mix, a balance. The show kept a perfect harmony between filler and story. Filler contained all of the fun episodes, star’s school experiences, Marco’s karate and rivalry with Jeremy, and the shipping subplot. And the story section contained-- well, the STORY. The mix of relatable Earth things, and an interesting story was a huge part of what made this show great. And Bon Bon the Birthday Clown is the perfect embodiment of this. In short, this story was the thing I loved most about this show. A bit complex, but not difficult to keep track of. For both the viewers, and the writers. Now, if you’ve watched my Star reactions, you’ll know that I’m a pretty big fan of Toffee. If you couldn’t already tell from my 3 framed pictures of him But why do I like this Raptor God Man so much? Introduced in Season 1 Episode 8, from the first second Toffee is on screen, we can already tell he is completely different than what we’ve seen for the past 7 episodes. The tone immediately shifts to serious and mysterious, as opposed to the humorous tone we’d been used to. His deep, calm voice and professional attire suggests that he is not at all like ludo And within the same episode, it’s hinted that he has ulterior motives. Within his first encounter I already knew he was going to be a big deal. Okay so this guy is absolute demon-lord and he has the potential to destroy everything, Got it I also really liked his unique design. The whole “professional business man” look isn’t something you usually see every day. Also, he’s a raptor. Raptors are c o o l But what I really liked about Toffee, was how much potential he had for the story. It’s made clear that Toffee isn’t some random raptor guy that crawled out of nowhere just to destroy everyone. He’s been shown to have connections to Star and even Marco Having this hinted connection to the main characters opened up for a lot of potential for plot points. And in the official “Magic Book of Spells”, there were hints dropped of Toffee being connected to a potential endgame villain. Which would’ve been an amazing finale. Overall, Toffee is shown to be a very big threat to the entire universe, and is honestly one of my favorite antagonists. On the other hand, we have Ludo. Ludo was mainly just a puppet antagonist at first. Some little runt the writers kept bringing up until they eventually went “Surprise! This is the actual big bad” However, in season 2, Ludo had one of the most incredible character transformations ever. Season 2 Premiere, we immediately see what happened with Ludo after he was thrown into the V o i d As a last minute gag. Through a single episode we get to see him progressively learn how to fend for himself, as opposed to how he was in Season 1. Not doing anything for himself and instead bossing around his henchmen to do so. By the end of the episode, he’s able to conquer and tame two wild beasts that had given him trouble. He eventually finds the other half of Star’s wand, which then puts him on a whole new level of threat. Throughout the season we get to see him build this whole giant army, 1 step at a time. The tone clearly shifted whenever he was on screen. Before, we got “haha funi green man get annihilated xd” After, it’s more like “oH GOD FUNI GREEN MAN HAS A GUN; HOLY SHIT, RATS ARE HERE; ARACHNID AVIAN COMBO; TIME TO RUN” Like seriously, look at the REAL FEAR in my eyes after I recognize the symbolism of rats. His transformation isn’t even unrealistic and out of character. It was done really smoothly. The pacing wasn’t too fast, so nobody really batted an eye when someone who was so useless in Season 1 suddenly becomes one of the biggest threats ever. Parts of his season 1 self still shine through at times. He’ll still blindly follow Toffee, albeit without knowing it’s actually him that was in the wand. And he still shows signs of his immaturity from the first season. Certainly doesn’t make him any less of a threat though. Let’s just take a moment and view what this little man-man has accomplished. I MEAN LOOK AT THIS MAN, HE IS GOING TO KILL YOU Seeing the point of view switch between Star and Ludo throughout the season really solidified that this season and the story was important. Like, THIS is the story of the show. The combination of Ludo and Toffee as a threat really made Season 2 interesting to watch Remember how I said that pre-story Season 1 kept you watching with it’s comedy and sense of continuity? Well this is what I mean. The way this show worked, never really felt like the filler was wasted time. As I said before, each “lesson” that was taught seemed to have contributed to Star’s overall character growth. And even the little things in some of these episodes would stick. Laser Puppies are spawned in as a joke, they stay there throughout the series. Teacher is turned into a troll in 2A, stays like that throughout the entire series Marco chucks some bubble gum into the-- mouth plant?... in 5A, the gum is shown again in the Season 2 finale. Marco breaks Jackie’s skateboard in S1, this is mentioned on their first date. (in Bon Bon the Birthday Clown (S2E14)) Marco being 30 in the neverzone is mentioned throughout the series. EVEN THE RANDOM LEGS JOKE FROM THE ST. OLGAS EPISODE IS BROUGHT UP AGAIN IN S2E16A I remember thinking throughout season 1 that it’s nice how everything stays like that But one of the best displays of continuity, and it’s one of the things I liked most about this show, is seeing how Star grew as a person. As you may already know, Moon and River sent Star to earth because she was too much of a menace to society, so they’d rather send her off to train somewhere else. So THEY don't get destroyed. Star actually shows signs of improvement when she’s on earth. She literally learns more about being a decent person and grows from it. And her knowledge of magic, and earth, grows as well. Seeing that improvement really shows the continuity between episodes. And again, it makes every episode seem worth it. You see her turn into an actually decent person. The writers also usually made sure there was a smooth introduction to various plot points. Glossaryck appears briefly in Season 1 episode 3A (when the book is first shown/used in general). He doesn’t say anything, just blips in as Star is frantically sorting through the pages. But this shows they at least had a plan set out, as they took the time to show his existence before his actual introduction. Tom is introduced during a joke where star says “Call mom” and it ends up calling Tom. While it’s not completely clear, we do get “ex boyfriend” vibes from the brief encounter. Tom is later formally introduced in episode 8A: Blood Moon Ball St. Olgas is geniously set up through the use of recurring jokes, as well as various characters on the run from getting sent there. This leads up to Season 1 Episode 10, where they actually go there and tackle the problem head on. Eclipsa was hinted all throughout Season 2 before her actual debut in Season 3. The Magic High Commission members each had their own separate episodes to introduce everyone before they started doing actually important shit. The Effects of Toffee are all hinted and demonstrated before the reveal in Battle for Mewni. Even side characters like Jackie, Janna, Buff Frog, Red Lobster, and River have clear introductions before they become relevant. And of course, the story has continuity. For a lot of the stuff established outside of the main story, it definitely seemed like they had plans for it. Various past queens Monster arm Toffee’s ominous final message. Unfortunately, you’ll see how that turned out in a little bit. The characters… MMMMM The characters. It’s insane how much charm these characters added to the show They’re all so funny and unique. And the main characters were pretty well written. Star started out as an ignorant schmuck, but as I said before, we were able to see her growth as a character. We see her actually become a better and more responsible person. Marco was one of the most relatable characters in the first 2 seasons. And I don’t wanna be the corny “oMG SO #relatable!” I mean, he was actually someone I could relate to. And I’ll explain that in more detail in a little bit. He wasn’t some generic “BOY STUDENT PROTAGONIST” He had personality traits, quirks, insecurities. Like a regular human person! Overall Marco was a really nice and likeable character. And even the background characters are frickin awesome. For starters, Here’s some background characters that are recurring. They show up in multiple episodes. They’re not just some character that the storyboarders coughed out after being told “gHA FiLL THE BACKGROUND WITH CHILDRENS” They’re all surprisingly distinct and they give the show a lot of charm. Guy that constantly says “Star Butterfly rules!" Nerdy manman. Guy who’s birthday happens to fall on random days Skullnick Principal Oskar Ludo’s whole Army Starfan13 Beautiful Business Man Brittney Random janitor that wants to burn shit Alfonso and Ferguson And those are just the characters I wrote from the top of my head. As for Alfonso and Ferguson, they’re a special case. Evidently Disney had butted in during the writing process and said that Marco should have more male friends. While I’m not sure why they had to specify male, they did end up saving Marco’s character a bit. Think about it, what other friend would he have had in the beginning of the series if Alfonso and Ferguson didn’t exist? Literally no one, except maybe Gustav. He would’ve just been some alone kid chasing after a girl. Which is kinda sad. So I’m not sure what Daron’s plan was for him there. Regardless if they were “forced” or not, Alfonso and Ferguson were actually really funny and good characters. Likeable, and again, added charm to the show during Season 1 However, I assume the producers only had their voice actors be contracted for Season 1, because they don’t speak or do anything in Season 2. Their absence was even referenced as a joke in S2E20A. That kinda sucked, you should really treat your background characters with more respect, especially if they were the ONLY people close to Marco before Star showed up. Really, you shouldn't just drop characters out of nowhere like that- Moving away from the background characters for a second, let’s talk about some people that’ll be very important later on. The Magic High Commission. If you’ve watched the series already, you already know how these guys turn out. Rhombulous was actually likeable when he was introduced. He was flawed with trusting his gut, but he genuinely had good intentions. Good guy overall, just bad judgement. Omnitraxus is similar to Rhombulous. Again, was likeable in S2. He didn’t show much of a personality though. He certainly wasn’t bad. Wasn’t much to go by character-wise outside of Mathmagic, which many consider to be a generally forgettable episode. Hekapoo was probably given the most character out of the MHC. Also ended up being the most consistent member throughout the series. And, like I said before, likeable in S2. And there's also Lekmet, whiCH LEKMET DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE, HE WAS JUST A NICE GOAT MAN. WHO WANTED TO HELP OUT. . LOOKATHIM Finally, we have Glossaryck. Glossaryck didn’t have that big of a role in Season 1. He mainly just was shown as a glossary. Hence, the name. In season 2, he got a bigger role that solidified him as the “all-seeing mentor”. The idea of him being tied to the book was well executed. And his death was pretty powerful. All of these characters just made the show feel so, filling. Like you definitely see Echo Creek as some sort of "home". And combined with the good character-writing, it really felt like all these characters are people you recognize and know. Well, everyone knows the shipping scene is usually the most tame/calm part of any fandom, right? In all honesty though, the shipping subplot was actually pretty good. And yes, I say subplot. Shipping is not the story of the show. Apparently some people don't get that- And if you genuinely believe that, let me ask you a question: What's more creative? Raptor Man manipulates little green man leads up to him blowing up a castle, splitting one of the most powerful relics in all of the universe And then CONTINUES to manipulate said 'little green man' from beyond the grave. Leads him to complete all of the steps for him to return and grab his FINGER- Or, highschool romance drama... I think we know which one is more creative here. The shipping in this show was originally done really well. For the first 2 seasons, the 2 primary ships were limited mainly to Jarco Starco Let’s go through each one. Although it was one of the oldest clichés in the book, that being of the ‘school crush’, Jarco actually offered an incredibly unique and new take on this cliché that gave it new life. Remember what I was saying before about Marco being relatable? This is where that shines most. Now, the thing that sets this apart from the regular “school crush” cliche, is how Marco went about the relationship. Marco was shown to have a crush on Jackie Lynn Thomas for a long time in his life. He wrote out a whole plan to eventually get with her. Now this is something that a lot of people, myself included, can relate to. With me, I’ve liked someone for a few years now, and I also had made up this whole great plan to eventually get with them. But just like Marco, I was unable to actually progress with it. And each step in the ship’s progression is surprisingly realistic for a show about a magic girl. Marco eventually having to confess his crush on Jackie was a really intense moment, as this relationship has been building up since episode 2. And the fact that Marco had to do this as well was a nice touch, because he would never have been able to tell her that himself. Like, he wanted to, but he didn't have the courage to do it. And this moment is especially powerful because of Marco's little speech here: "I told you! I have a crush on Jackie. at least I think I do... but what does that really mean? I put her on this sort of pedestal. So, do I like the image of her-- or for who she really is? I mean-- I like her enough to know that she deserves someone who wants to get to know her, which is definitely me." Seriously, everything is right about that scene there. A lot of crushes form mainly with the want of getting to know the person better. And the way Jackie responds to this is realistic, she doesn’t immediately fall head over heels for him, and she doesn’t reject him either. She feels unsure, a very realistic response in that situation and she’s respectful to Marco about it as well by not making fun of him for it, their interactions are extremely realistic and relatable. And every step afterwards feels very natural and well-paced. When they finally get together, we see them genuinely happy as a couple. And in Jackie’s case, we started out not knowing a lot about her personality. But as time went on, we see her develop character. It seemed like her extroverted and casual personality was a perfect opposite to Marco’s introverted and worried one. It’s like they kept each other centered. On the other end, we’ve got Starco. Fans started shipping this one since the very start. Because y’know, B O Y protagonist and G I R L protagonist need to get together. Being real for a second, the chemistry between Star and Marco was written really well in the first 2 seasons, and they would have worked as a couple. There are some problems though, and I’ll get into that mainly in the second section of this video, but I’ll name a few that pertain to this section. This will DEFINITELY be brought up later. But even in the first 2 seasons, the Blood Moon Curse caused problems. It directly interferes with Marco’s current relationship with Jackie and it’s something that neither Star nor Marco actually wanted. Essentially, the “disqualification” factor means that the Starco moments from when the curse was placed, to when it was broken, do not count as actual-- consensual starco moments because we’re unable to tell whether or not the moment was caused by the moon’s manipulation. So essentially, there isn’t a lot of concrete establishment for Starco that isn’t caused by the moon. For the first two seasons, I actually liked the ship. But when I realized that the moon was forcing them to be together, that’s when I kinda started to back away from the ship. I had shipped Starco during the first two seasons, as well as Jarco, and... Tomco- Yeah I was kinda all over the place. I remember thinking that I wished there was a way for all of them to happen. "Like again, it's like you want both things to happen... but, the show forces you to take a side and-- ugh god." Now I regret that statement immensely. Out of all of them, I shipped Jarco the most because it was something I could personally relate to. To conclude, Season 1 and 2’s shipping scene was pretty good because of it’s realistic writing combined with well-written and relatable characters. And that, ladies and gentlemen, are the various reasons why Star Vs. the Forces of Evil used to be great. Now, I’m gonna pull an Emperor Lemon here, and ask you to take a good long look at these reasons, while I carefully explain... how the writers managed to fuck up every single one of them. Because Star vs. the Forces of Evil fell from grace. So remember those strong starts to Season 1 and 2? Yeah... Well let’s take a look at Season 3 for a second. Battle for Mewni does not count as the Season 3 premiere, it was it’s own separate TV-movie that closed up the story from the past 2 seasons. So the actual Season 3 premiere is the episode “Scent of a Hoodie” The episode starts out with Star and Marco saying goodbye, and Star is grieving over this. Makes sense in context. But then we get these really long and awkward sequences of her smelling marco’s dirty hoodie?? (what.jpg) The episode is solely dedicated to her not wanting to wash it so she preserves marco’s scent??? (WHAT.JPG) LITERALLY IN THE LAST EPISODE THE KINGDOM WAS IN SHAMBLES BECAUSE OF TOFFEE AND THIS IS THE FOLLOWUP?? WHAT IS THIS?? WHY IS THIS THE FOLLOW UP? As for Season 4’s premiere, it was actually really good. We get a two-part special about what happened to Moon, and we get her back. It gave me a lot of hope for the last season. The comedy (as usual) was spot on, it quickly and swiftly wrapped up a plot point, and it even gave a little hint towards Toffee plot. Something that-- you’ll find out in a bit-- is exceptionally rare in these latter 2 seasons. But this is short lived because it’s immediately interrupted by the setup of a Starco moment. Oh yeah, for the last two seasons, the writers decided to ditch the “Overarching Story” technique mid way in favor of a seasonal approach. Essentially there will be a different “story” for each season. This... didn’t work out so well. You can’t just swap that kinda thing out of nowhere. That's literally the fundamental structure of your show, you can't just change that midway. That isn’t what the audience is used to, and it gives a lot less time to develop each story. During the overarching story, whenever something important happened, it had much more of an impact rather than when something important happens in the seasonal plot era. And really all the change did was confuse people. In my case, I kept thinking that Toffee was going to return. Because we spent 2 full seasons hyping him up to be the main-big-bad antagonist, only for it all to end with a rushed, anticlimactic death that didn’t even make sense continuity wise. Toffee himself even hinted that it isn’t over. You can’t just drop that. You can't just leave a thing like that out there and not do anything with it- This also leads to my next point. Nearly everything from the overarching story was forgotten, and was hardly ever mentioned again. Let’s go through a list of times Toffee was mentioned since Battle for Mewni Dave of all people mention Toffee in Club Snubbed Moon and Marco mention Toffee in Sweet Dreams And uh-- those are all the mentions for Season 3... ...Yikes. For season 4, Toffee is mentioned again in the premiere by Star. Glossaryck suggests that defeating him might of been a mistake. Leaves a megalodon hint that Toffee may not have actually been evil. Moon references Ludo’s killing line to Toffee in “Moon Remembers” Toffee appears briefly in “Meteora’s Lesson” and it establishes what his motive was (war on magic) Raised more questions than answered though. Toffee says his signature “Surprise!” in Tavern at the End of the Multiverse. Last Toffee sighting or mention we ever get. But yeah. The biggest antagonist of the series is hardly mentioned in the last two seasons. A lot of people got interested in Star because of the story. I did as well. I remember when people were requesting the show, and while I was reacting through it. A lot of the things that people would point out was specifically the story, and how good it was. You can’t take the story that got the majority of the fans interested in the show, scrap it and do something completely different. That’s just wack. By the way, there was a lot of important information about Toffee that dropped in the M A G I C - B O O K - O F - S P E L L S Information that DEFINITELY should’ve been introduced in the show. Like the fact that Eclipsa knew, and used to know and DATE Toffee. Or that Toffee KILLED Queen Solaria. So they gave away a lot of information in the book, and what do they do with it? [N O T H I N G] Also, GOODBYE EARTH. Mewni’s the main setting now! The audience is used to Earth, and that gets abruptly ripped away and you’re thrown into the PERMANENT Mewni setting in the most not-smooth way possible. We lost the charm that the various Earth background characters brang. Janna was now a rarity, Jackie was completely written out of the show-- she's gone. The old intro and outro are gone. And despite the fact that Marco has dimensional scissors and can visit at quite literally ANY TIME We hardly see anything of Earth for 2 seasons straight First Earth episode we see since “Sophomore Slump” is “Marco Jr.” The episode highlights how little Marco’s parents really know about him. But yeah, this setting change really wasn’t a good idea... The atmosphere in Mewni is so much more...bland. Everything’s so dull-colored. There’s non-interesting background characters. Random classical music that shows up with a lot of the royalty stuff (AKA, a lot of the time). And don’t get me wrong, I'm okay with classical music. I dabble a little in classical music, but right here it doesn’t work here in the context of the fun, bouncy atmosphere and music of Season 1 and 2. For a lot of the first 2 seasons, when we see Mewni, it’s a total shithole. It shows that things clearly aren’t run well here, and it has a lot of fundamental problems. This is all mainly used as humor, but then in Season 3 you're thrown into this environment and they try to fix their societal problems. And speaking of societal problems. OH BOY. That is like, the main thing of this show for a long time. Essentially, the whole monster-mewman racism plot had been hinted since Season 1 when Star realizes the Monsters had it really bad during Mewnipendence Day Civilian monsters are first introduced in S2E15A (Raid the Cave). When monsters start to live in Ludo’s abandoned hideout. Even so, they’re introduced as “alternative monsters”, I don’t think they intended for the monsters to be like regular citizens. But regardless, this certainly isn’t something that came out of nowhere, And when it first really started to become a plot point in Season 3 Episode 9, I was all for it. I thought it’d be a really interesting plot point. But the thing is, it went on for a REALLY long time. It carries out through Season 4 as well. It literally worsens because of Eclipsa becoming queen So take all the stuff that Season 3 had- Nope! Now it's worse. Nothing happened, really. I will say though, they did a good job with showing things gradually changing. It started out with everyone being upset, except the monsters, and eventually got to the point where everyone was just kinda all good with each other. The racism plot felt realistically paced. But from a storytelling standpoint (and what people are watching), It's not really a good thing to drag that kinda thing out. And again, a lot of the buildup to the plot was just thrown away at some points where it just gets worse. You thought the issue was fixed? but oops no, more racists. Oh, but now Eclipsa is queen, maybe it'll be better?- Oh no, everyone's STILL racist. Oh look, everyone's happy again-- OH MORE RACISTS. And defeating them isn’t even gonna help because-- the whole thing that happens at the end This thing went on for 2 full seasons. We could’ve done with it being A LOT shorter. And the only thing that could even be considered overarching from Season 2 is the Eclipsa plot. Honestly, out of everything in the past two seasons, I enjoyed the Eclipsa arc the most. Seeing her being proven innocent and finding out about the coverup was the most interesting part of all this, but I still don’t think it quite lived up to the original story we had before. Even this kinda gets thrown away because after she's proven innocent, the writers go back and forth from hinting she's evil or not evil. Like initially, she was hyped up a lot to be evil in Season 2 and Season 3 But then it’s like, oh nah she’s just a quirky lil gal who’s innocent and lost her daughter But maybe she’s evil??? Nahhh, don't worry. She’s still good. M a y b e-- Seriously they wasted so much time doing this. Just pick one! Is she wack or not?? Any question really should’ve been eliminated during the Butterfly Trap episode. Oh, and speaking of that episode, think about this for a second: What if Eclipsa was actually all she was hyped up to be? What if she was actually evil? Imagine in the Butterfly Trap episode, they don’t use the box for the trial. Just basic questions. After Moon, Eclipsa, and Star confront the Magic High Commission. They determine that they did-- in fact get rid of Eclipsa’s daughter. The MHC is placed under arrest, and Moon/Star hand Eclipsa the wand, and the kingdom. Because y’know, she's SUPPOSED to be queen. And neither Star nor Moon are actually royalty. But once everyone leaves the room, Eclipsa smirks or some shit. And it’s confirmed that she faked the whole thing. Festivia WAS her daughter, Meteora never existed, and now the entire kingdom is hers. This would’ve been a mind-shattering reveal. It would've perfectly lined up with all the hinting of her being evil and “manipulative” And it would've actually handled the plotholes of the cheekmarks. And I'll talk about those cheekmarks in a bit. Regarding the cheekmarks, that’s a big enough thing that it’s gonna have it’s own mini section. But while we’re on the topic, it’s also worth mentioning that they established that Marco could do magic, and has crescent moon cheekmarks in Season 3. His cheekmarks are the exact same as Celena’s, she was one of the queens that was specifically pointed out in S2E12 “Into the Wand” There could have been a lot of story potential with this connection, like if Marco was actually part of the butterfly family, but instead the writers ignored it and used it mainly as a Starco mechanic. Although, if this were the case, that would make the whole blood moon thing and starco in general pretty weird. Wouldn’t be the first time that kinda twist would be pulled though [O O P S] Oh yeah, speaking of the blood moon, it kinda sucked as a writing decision in general. By the writers having a plot point like this, it really only dug them into a rabbit hole. It prevented the two main characters from being happy in their other relationships And it prevented the writers from establishing Starco while the curse was still active because then it wouldn’t be a consensual relationship. And that would be [an act of unconsent--which is illegal and frowned upon in most developed countries and is punishable in a court of law] In the end, it made the writers scramble to A. Break the curse after it was almost completely ignored by the main characters for 4 seasons. And B. Break up two perfectly healthy relationships And C. Rush their favorite ship getting together. To summarize. Season 3 and 4’s Seasonal story approach really only led to undeveloped and uninteresting plot points, the setting change really only made the show lose a big part of why people enjoyed it, and the complete discardal of the previous story only caused confusion and disappointment. So remember all that stuff about how Seasonal Plot structures causing underdeveloped stories and stuff? SURPRISE! Underdeveloped stories means underdeveloped antagonists. Because now we get a new antagonist for each season!! All the old antagonists? Nahhh, they literally do not exist anymore. Remember how Ludo became a literal god and 100% actual threat in Season 2? Whoops! He gets jack shit after Battle for Mewni. He’s seen briefly floating in the void in “Sweet Dreams” And then eventually he finally gets an episode that solely follows him. It highlighted more on Ludo’s family issues. How it affects Dennis. And also establishes that Ludo is going through some mental problems. Even after we think we got a bit of closure, they sneak in a little hint that he’s still insane, and he’s going to possibly attack Star and Marco. Are the writers ever going to bring that up again (No!) Eventually, after a LONG TIME, he gets a single followup episode in Season 4. Which shows him trying to move away from his past. The episode ends with him rekindling with his siblings to rebuild their family home. Honestly I wished they focused more on Ludo’s arc here. Trust me when I say this would’ve been more interesting than a LARGE majority of Season 3 and 4. With Toffee, you already heard me say that they like NEVER mention him again. Which genuinely sucks. There were so many things about him that still needed to be answered. They did pull something nice at the end and confirmed that he was in the right all along… kind of- But even though he was right in the end, he was the only antagonist that didn't get "off the hook." Meteora gets off the hook after killing the ENTIRE KINGDOM because she was turned into a baaaaby Mina gets off the hook after threatening mass genocide because of.... Why didn’t we just kill her again?? And… Moon gets off the hook because she’s ma. And we can’t kill Ma. But not Toffee, nah he’s just d e a d. And it sucks, because Toffee had the most potential, especially if you take into consideration his boss. Oh wait, you didn’t know? HUH, WHAT A CONCEPT! If you didn’t know already, in the official Magic Book of Spells, a Septarian named "Seth" was depicted. He was revealed to be behind the whole rebellion against the monster king, and he lead the war on magic and mewmans. Basically, Seth is the motivation for Toffee to kill Queen Comet and Queen Solaria. Seth is behind all of this. He would have made a fantastic endgame villain. This is an absolutely crucial part of the backstory, yet the show failed to mention Seth even once. Why would you give away such big information in your book and then never do anything with it?? And no, this isn’t a simple “fun fact” The overlord behind Moon and Eclipsa’s mothers’ deaths is NOT A "FUN FACT." This is serious shit, and plays directly into the overarching story we had. This would’ve been the best continuation of the story, but they did NOTHING with it! And also, for a full half of Season 3, we go without an antagonist. We have a running plot of Star trying to fix Mewni’s societal problems, but that isn’t really all that interesting, and it ran for way longer than it needed to. The other plot is Star opening up her portals while she’s sleeping. In the end, we didn’t really even fully understand why that was happening. We never figured that out. And that plot didn’t continue after the midfinale. And same thing with Season 4. There was like no antagonist until midway. For both of these seasons, two halves went antagonist-free. That’s literally a whole new full season where nothing happened. But as for the villains we DID get, here they are She started out as a simple villain who aimed for Marco, much like how Ludo aimed for Star. However, once she learned the dark truth of her past, she became a walking apocalypse. One thing I like about Meteora is how she ties into the Eclipsa arc--again, one of the only interesting things about Season 3 and 4--, and how it cleared up stuff from the overarching story. However, looking at Meteora overall, she was a really flat villain. Her primary motive was “Throne mine, I go get throne now” and she essentially just killed everyone in her way to do that. Which is a complete 180 from Toffee. The thing about Toffee, is that his motives were complex and interesting. He carefully planned out every single move he would make, and he was a master of manipulation. And despite him having regenerative powers, Toffee was just a guy. A semi-retired war general guy, but a guy nonetheless. He didn’t have some insane strength. Like, it seemed like he had some sort of power outside of regeneration, but the writers most likely forgot about that. And his arm gets blown off within a full 5 seconds of Star entering the room. Not even any of Ludo’s army was ever hurt that bad. The most powerful part of Toffee was his 2 million IQ brain. Meteora was a brainless, powerhungry, monster. She didn’t have a plan. This made her very uninteresting as a villain. And then in Season 4 we get… Mina. This is the decided “endgame villain” not Seth, or even Toffee again, Mina. Mina Loveberry... I guess they did an okay job with tying it back to the racism story that dragged on for 2 seasons. Her character was at least consistent. From the very beginning, she was always the mad monster killer. But again, why is SHE the endgame villain?? To be fair there was definitely a lot of potential for a redemption arc, as she was once a regular person. She only got corrupted due to the Solarian magic. They could have played with this idea to make the audience actually sympathize with Mina despite her radical views. But they didn’t. they didn't do that... And they definitely could’ve utilized the demon bird more. That shit was terrifying and we really only saw it in action during “Junkin Janna” But no, she ends up being a lackluster final villain, topped with a shitty plot twist Oh, and about that plot twist, there’s actually one more antagonist we didn’t cover yet. This plot twist was really dumb and makes no sense, here’s why. Moon still distrusts Eclipsa, despite having a gradual introduction to the new additions after losing her memory, bonding over various activities, and after Eclipsa profusely and genuinely apologized for what happened. Moon even ACCEPTS THE APOLOGY WHOLEHEARTEDLY. Moon knew how much helping Eclipsa meant to Star. Why would she A. Ruin that for her, and B. Put her daughter in real mortal danger to the point where she and her friends literally almost died. Moon claimed “she kept me away from my family” to try and justify betraying her. Even though She was canonically completely ignorant to it during that time, it would’ve made absolutely no difference. And Eclipsa only wanted her daughter to not be killed. Last time I recall, MOON was the one who opened up the portal and fled through there. Eclipsa had no idea that would happen And you say that, but Eclipsa has been kept away from her family literally for 300 years you asshole. Moon knew how bad the Solarian times were, and literally explained that to Mina in “Ghost of Butterfly Castle”, which is the episode that classifies Mina as an antagonist. She turned down her offer right then and there. Moon being fuckin' lazy all this season contradicts her overly-responsible nature that we’ve seen for the past 3 seasons. Even River was confused as to why she was choosing not to stop her. And she could’ve at least told Star about it, KNOWING SHE’S LIVING IN THE CASTLE WHERE MINA IS PLANNING TO ATTACK T H A T ' S - Y O U R - D A U G H T E R ! And also Moon was talking about Mina like it was only her doing shit. There was no "we." Moon harboring an army of racists (and doing nothing about it) goes against her developments in Season 3, when she realized monsters are regular people too. Moon WEAPONIZING an army of racists is even worse in that context. Moon having her own little group where she teaches people how to provide for themselves was actually a really good idea. For the entire show now, we’ve always seen the citizens of Mewni just being dumb blockheads who can’t do anything for themselves, so this idea would've worked. Instead it was used as a pawn in a shitty plot twist. In “Cornonation” Hekapoo and Omni are pissed when Rhombulous confesses to breaking Globgor out, and they brought up logical reasons why. They were also surprised when Eclipsa announced that Globgor escaped (minus Rhombulous) This wouldn’t have happened if they were in cahoots with Moon. They would’ve already knew. And they wouldn’t still be talking about Rhombulous going to jail even when no one else is watching. Even in “Doop Doop” she even says how she doesn't want to change a single thing about life. She says there's a beautiful simplicity to living in a yurt. So why would she uproot everything to try and take back the throne out of nowhere??? There’s no way they could’ve gotten all that armor. That’s real, that's not magic or anything. That's real armor. Seeing how long it took Mina to get her full set of armor, I highly doubt they just found a hundred pre-made sets lying around. And THIS ONE: Moon claims by doing this, she stopped Mina from doing “far worse.” Like what, Moon? Genuinely I wanna know what she fuckin meant by this. What could be so "worse" that you had to intervene by giving her an entire ARMY OF RACISTS WITH GOD POWERS- Literally what could’ve Mina have done?? Eclipsa used the “darkest spell” and insta-killed Doug-Doug. What would’ve been the difference if Mina was actually in there? The threat would be over like that! Moon has been shown to be one of the more levelheaded characters throughout the show and she apparently wasn’t smart enough to consider the possibility of the army with extremely racist beliefs turning against her when she tells them to not be racist. Also, Moon didn’t even have the book of spells, how did she know how to create the warriors?? Did her past self just decide to memorize a spell like that J U S T - I N - C A S E? So yeah, There’s our “antagonists” At this point, it literally would’ve just been easier for them to just continue the overarching story and have Seth as the endgame villain. But yeah. Now for the big category. Okay, I’m gonna level with you guys for a second. I’m not even sure if all this can be compiled into an actual structured thing... So I guess let’s just go down the line here… This is going to cover the entire show. Whether it be stuff they forgot from the first 2 seasons, or just stuff that makes no sense in context. Essentially this category is a dump of problems with the show. HERE WE GOOOOO The monster arm had hinted he would never be gone, Yet he never actually ends up returning. He was hinted again in the Season 1 and Season 3 finale, but again, he never returned Daron had said in the AMA that the Monster Arm still lives inside of Marco, despite magic being destroyed at the end. Like, fully, sentiently lives in there it's not like Rhombulous or Omni or the puppies, it’s just regular monster arm in there. And that kinda makes no sense... River and Star didn’t know what a toilet was. Normally that would imply they don’t have sewage systems in Mewni, but Star also said “Humans put things in there.” Implying mewmans don’t even shit. But toilets are shown to be existing things in Battle For Mewni (S3E3) Star’s family in Flag Day doesn’t align with her family depicted in the Magic Book of Spells. Moon apparently has an aunt, so why didn’t she become queen when Queen Comet was killed? Why did Moon automatically become queen? Speaking of the Book of Spells it’s stated in there that the old Book of Spells was burned, that’s why all of the past queens weren’t shown. So what happened to Glossaryck with that then?? And no, there aren’t two glossarycks. It was confirmed in Meteora’s lesson that Glossaryck himself (the one that we know) gave the first wand to the first queen. In the book, it’s stated that he was “On vacation.” And that's how he didn't die. And that makes no sense-- Glossaryck is literally tied with the book, it doesn't matter if you're "on vacation" or not. If the book dies, you die. There's no way around it. Buff Frog saying “Must Warn Star” was used only as a joke in Raid the Cave. He is illiterate, so Star couldn’t read his letter. But like, he has her number, and dimensional scissors. He literally could have told her in person (especially considering the circumstances of Ludo ATTACKING AND TAKING OVER Butterfly Castle) Star’s spell book hardly is actually brought up again, just kinda forgotten Hekapoo said that she forges all dimensional scissors for those who earn them, so how does Ludo have them? Or Buff Frog? Or anyone? If Marco didn’t earn those scissors after like 10 days of trying in the Neverzone, how the hell did everyone else get them? He spent 16 years getting those! Moon is so hesitant to give Toffee his finger, but it’s never shown why. It’s not like he gained some extreme power from it. He just reformed from it, and walked away. Toffee’s knowledge of Star and the royal family goes unexplained. Toffee was shown to have some emotional connection to the great monster massacre, this was never covered or played with. Marco’s nightmare had no closure to it. It seemed to foreshadow stuff about Toffee and the Blood moon. Nothing came of it. Father time warns about freezing time and potentially breaking it. This either could’ve been a foreshadowing thing, or just an excuse for Star to not use the spell to solve real problems later in the series. Never explained how Bird and Spider returned after being sent to Britta's Tacos. They just kinda show up on Mewni without any question Eclipsa’s chapter was hinted to be really serious and dangerous but later on they make it seem like it was just “controversial magic” They completely forgot about the effects the chapter had on both Marco and Ludo/Toffee And speaking of, they forgot about the hints that Toffee was connected to both Marco and Star More about that is in my own separate theory video. Whispering spell is completely different in Cleaved than it is everywhere else. Like seriously, the spell was only used 2 other times. You couldn't have just looked up clips on YouTube of it (if you were too lazy to look back in the episode itself?) And yes, the old whispering spell had WORDS to it. And you were able to tell what it was saying. There's really no reason to go and change it like that. It seems like more was going to be done with the whole “moon” story arc. River’s staff in the intro is a crescent moon, Marco’s cheekmarks are a moon. Combine this with Eclipsa’s dad telling Marco to go to the ball. Queen Celena’s cheekmarks were crescent moons Something was going to be done with it. Oh yeah. About Eclipsa’s dad: In S1E8A, while sitting around in Star’s room, the painting of the sailor (who is revealed in the BOOK to be Eclipsa’s dad) SPEAKS TO MARCO and advises him to go to the ball. Why though? No, like literally why?? That was never explained. What was the reasoning behind Eclipsa's dad telling Marco Diaz, a random schmuck from Earth, to go to the blood moon ball so he can have his soul forcefully bound with his friend which he had little to no romantic interest in? AND BEFORE YOU SAY “MARCO WAS JUST INTERESTED IN STAR” LET ME TELL YOU WHY THAT'S BULLSHIT The only moments that can even remotely be considered “Starco” are in 4A, with just a nice look And in 6A (Marco and Star’s interactions during Mewberty.) Literally makes it indifferent though, because Star was attracted to anything that had a d i c k. And Star's "interest" in Marco ceased after that. And even after the Blood Moon, Marco didn’t show any interest in Star until Season 3. AND ALLOW ME TO DEFINE A “STARCO MOMENT” REAL QUICK A Starco moment does not count as “aaa they talked and had a nice moment!” Friends can do Literally anyone can do that. It doesn't mean they're in love with each other. And their relationship for 90% of the show is under the context of being best friends. A starco moment counts as either party showing romantic interest towards the other… Like how it works anywhere else. That being said, here's the Starco timeline until Marco started showing interest in her. S2E9A - Star's crush is revealed. Doesn’t seem like she fully even realizes it though. She seems happy for Marco that he progressed his relationship with Jackie. The box was the one that confirmed it. And how did we know that Marco didn't have a crush on Star at this point? The box literally CONFIRMED that Marco was telling the truth when he said he had a crush on Jackie. He even gave him props for it. So we can confirm that Marco did, in fact, NOT have any romantic interest in Star, otherwise the Box would’ve called him for it. Star begins to be jealous over Marco from Bon Bon up to the season finale, where her crush is revealed to him, and she leaves earth. S3E8A Star whines about Marco’s hoodie losing his scent, Marco gets the hoodie back and likes that it smells like Star And in "Sophomore Slump" - Marco becomes obsessed with Star and Mewni, and gets dumped by Jackie. When he arrives in Mewni in Lint Catcher, Star wants no part of him, as she is dating Tom now. Marco tries swoocing in, but gets friendzoned. So Marco only showed romantic interest in “Lint Catcher” But yeah, moving on. Celena is the only queen shown in “Into the Wand” that didn’t really get covered. What were her “secrets”? Glossaryck comes back to life after Star threw a random piece of the book that she apparently had into the magic sanctuary. Her having that piece of the book make no sense because the we saw the book be COMPLETELY burned on screen. There was no corner piece to that in sight. The only explanation to her having that thing is that "THEY found it when they were searching the remains of the Monster Temple" Even though the whole thing was burned ON SCREEN?? So yeah, Glossaryck returns. But he can only say “Globgor.” [G L O B G O R] He says that for the Whole Fucking Season He’s done things like beat the shit out of Star in “Nightlife” And destroyed her room in the same episode He acted like an actual animal for the whole season And at the end, it’s played off as a punchline. He had full mental capability all that time, he was just “trying to tell her for months” This is a huge fucking problem, don’t pull this shit with one of the most important characters in the show! Evidently, Glossaryck’s voice actor was accused of getting all touchy-touchy, so they fired him real quick. But it seems like that threw off some plans for Glossaryck’s character. So they must of stalled the situation by pulling this stunt. Which kinda sucks, literally take all the time you need to figure that out. Literally no one is rushing you, we'll understand. Regarding the whole “Evil Eclipsa” tease, here are some moments that show the writers were still hinting this In Eclipsa’s first real episode, Stranger Danger, Moon says “It’s complicated, Eclipsa can be very… convincing” when Star asks why everyone’s against her. Moon recognizes that she thought the same way when she first met her That's never explained, neither is this quote. She also said “she can get in your head and make you do things you don’t want to do” Again, nothing came of that. What did she do that-- like, happened like that?? She had also gave seemingly shifty advice to Star in “Sweet Dreams” And even after Season 3, they were still hinting this. In the Season 4 premiere, sinister sound effects play when you see the monster temple Eclipsa has the tendency to use her "controversial magic" to retrieve information / to get what she wants. This is used as a way to suspect she might be shifty But that never really got resolved. She stopped doing all that stuff when she got what she wanted (Globgor) Eclipsa completely dismisses the MHC’s warning about powerful magic being used in the Monster Temple And that's never actually covered again. We don't know what was actually causing that- And Eclipsa does another shifty thing by stealing the book piece (uses mind spying to find it) Not to mention them teasing evil Globgor. Glossaryck SCREAMS his name for an entire season Sinister sound when his crystal is first seen. Star is hesitant and hell-bent on not telling Moon about Globgor when she’s regaining her memory. Star withholds the book piece in fear that Eclipsa will let Globgor out In “Surviving the Spiderbites”, the Spiderbites describe the horrible things Globgor has done (like burning down their village and eating their uncle). This is never brought up again, despite the Spiderbites being present there at the “Cornonation” And Eclipsa responds with “The truth is a bit more complex than that… but yes” when confronted about Globgor eating her mewman king. We never ended up knowing the truth, what actually happened?? OOPS, THEY FORGOT ABOUT IT. Eclipsa also reassures the Spiderbites that Globgor cannot get out, and WILL not get out BUT THEN HE GETS OUT (while they’re at the event) during “Cornonation” Again, never mentioned afterward. The Whole Jarco Breakup was a continuity fluke. (More on this later) Star makes Buff Frog the royal monster expert, and we hear literally nothing of it for almost 10 episodes. Then Buff Frog just gets up and fully leaves Mewni for no reason. 'Claimed that the racism problem is something that she 'can't fix' Even though monsters have been oppressed for hundreds of years, Now the princess, someone with real power, is holding an active campaign to end the racism. So they just leave??? Would’ve made more sense if the episode was released closer to Monster Bash. But in this context, it came out of literally nowhere, and I called this in my reaction too. And Buff Frog is not seen again until S4E10A(Cornball) So he's just fuckin' gone! Like a full season, gone for no reason. Ponyhead is still somehow able to fly when magic is gone in “cleaved” (there's just no sparkles.) I highly doubt that the only connection that magic had with her species floating was visual. River uses magic to attack Meteora, he apparently has magic with his staff. (Conquer) This is quite literally shown nowhere else in the series. Neither before, nor after. In fact, that's like one of the only times we've ever seen his staff in general (outside of the old intro) Mina was defeated off-screen in the S3 finale by Meteora. She used her “soul” succ powers and insta-killed her. This could’ve been used in Season 4. It would’ve been so easy- we didn’t even need to destroy magic, -assuming Moon wasn’t so stupid. And they even established that Meteora could still do it as a baby. Meteora gets defeated and turned into a baby for no explained reason. This was something that really easily could’ve been explained too. It could be tied back with her ability to create life in “Baby” But they didn't, and they didn't explain why Meteora just turns into a baby. In season 4, Star can suddenly do magic without a wand, something that has been hinted/shown before with Moon, but requires years of experience. (Star only had the wand for about 1-2 years now, as “Curse of the Blood Moon”, confirmed that two years has passed since the curse was set on them (S1E8A)) Star calls King Pie a liar when he explains that Moon is actually pie folk, and the whole deal with Festivia. Even though she already knew that from the whole trial deal in Season 3??? Like, you heard this exact thing before- Why are you calling him a liar?- Rhombulous’s other nipple demon’s crystal breaks after he is smacked against a wall in Swim Suit. This literally does not make sense in context. Those demons were there before the fritz, so it’s not even like the fritz caused the crystals to be weak or something And the whole conflict of this episode is Eclipsa asking Rhombulous to decrystallize Globgor because physical force does not work towards breaking the crystal So why the fuck does the nipple demon get out?? Star is “confirmed as bi” in Ransomgram because she blushed at a girl Even though by that logic she was already “confirmed” in Season 1 Yet, this is treated as the great-reveal. Goes to show how little the shippers pay attention to the show- Janna specifically hypnotizes Marco for 14 hours to not have any feelings for Star, but the curse bypasses this. So why does Marco still “have feelings for her” after the curse is broken? Marco’s bullshit “the blood moon was bologna” comment directly contradicts this. Marco still wouldn’t like Star if Janna hypnotized him and the Blood Moon truly was “bologna” Star held an integrated match of Cornball between monsters and mewmans, but for some reason, they were already color coordinated to suggest they’d be versing each other. Yet she’s upset when they don’t shuffle the teams. Like how didn't you see that coming they're literally color coordinated? The Meteora’s Lesson episode really ended up just being pointless in the end Provided some backstory, albeit backstory we didn’t really need because we already knew Toffee was at a war with magic. (besides the whole first Queen of Mewni thing. This is important, but it sets the foundation for the whole “magic exposure” explanation, which is actually a plothole. Toffee is seen again (finally) in flashback form. This is mainly to confirm he was at war with magic. Which-- again is something we could already tell before, so thanks for nothing- Toffee is seen as a loose-canon of sorts in this episode, but we never end up seeing anything about his transition from arrogant general, to professional general, to professional business raptor. Glossaryck says “I think magic's gonna be in pretty good hands” implying that Meteora is gonna be 200IQ magic user. But magic gets destroyed in the end, and Glossaryck should know this, considering he knows everything. By-- in canon, knows everything. Unless they “planned” for the baby to dip down at complete will, obtain her butterfly form without going through Mewberty (or becoming anything more than a toddler) and SAY the whispering spell. Which, sorry chief, but I’m gonna call bullshit on that one. Marco says he’s been knighted ~9 times in the Neverzone. So why was being vaguely knighted in Mewni the thing that causes him to go ape shit and obsess over it?? I've said this before, but the MHC in “Junkin’ Janna” tell Eclipsa and Star that some powerful magic is coming from the Monster Temple And like I said, this is never resolved. Mina isn’t in the Monster Temple, it would’ve made more sense for the magic to be coming from Butterfly Castle. I believe this was an “evil eclipsa maybe” moment, but they never did anything with it. And they forgot about it. Just like all of the other moments. Wasted time. When spells die in the spell-dimension, it’s never shown how that actually affects the outside world. Can Eclipsa no longer do those spells because they died? We have no idea, never explained. Marco breaking up with Kelly was also bullshit. And just like the Jarco breakup, I'll explain this later. In the “Monster and his Queen" episode, Eclipsa said Meteora “just learned how to crawl on the ceiling, even though she’s shown doing that in the S4 premiere. Also, Rasticore regrew WITH his cybernetic arm??? And it’s never actually explained how he lost his original arm, wasn’t that supposed to grow back? What happened?? The writers tried to be slick by having Marco show up on Star’s doorstep, mirroring how Star came to Earth. But in context it doesn't make any sense. They had each other’s numbers. they literally could have just called each other. AND MARCO HAS SCISSORS, HE COULD’VE VISITED AT ANY POINT. It’s as easy as walking into another room! This kind of big change literally should not have happened. Oh, and Just a little note here: Remember that intense fuckin theme that played that actually made me scream in “Into the Wand?” The next time that theme plays is when they’re running away from pigeons that shit everywhere after Marco breaks Rich Pigeon’s leg. I just found it interesting how the definition of “conflict” changed. Throughout the last two seasons, there will be these random moments where it seems like the writers are just stalling for time. Star smelling Marco’s dirty hoodie in “Scent of a Hoodie” Ponymonium when Star tries talking to Ponyhead but she’s ignoring her for like a full minute. Star describing the annoying noise she hears in “Deep Dive” Star talking with the Ponyhead-sisters in “Bam Un Pati” Star falling and it takes a FULL 20 SECONDS TO GET BACK INTO THE ACTION KELLEHHH (interrupts the action in “Conquer”) Marco dances for a looooong time in “Out of Business” Sloth guy walkin', slurpin for a looong time in “Out of Business” And AGAIN in "Out of Business" we got this really long awkward insisting that they're not gonna get trapped there, no sir-ree, we're better than that. And there's no punchline to this, they just leave. Why'd they spend so much time on that? Really long eating sequence in “Curse of the Blood Moon” Really insanely unnecessary conflict sequence in “Curse of the Blood Moon” that could’ve been easily used providing more closure to the ending. They really didn’t need to make the ending so vague. They could've saved 3 minutes by cutting that whole conflict sequence. The time where Eclipsa and Star are waiting for MHC in “Junkin’ Janna” and Shaun is being a dickwad with his vegan artificially grown in a factory donuts. This time could’ve been spent elaborating on what the MHC actually wanted to say and what was happening. Star and Rhombulous’s fight in the same episode, and it is literally the most pointless and tedious thing ever. Again, time could’ve been used for elaboration. And regarding the comedy, I believe the comedy is probably the category that stayed the most consistent throughout the show. The show stayed pretty funny all the way through. Here’s a few of my favorites from each season “Yeah, we have something like that on Mewni” [DEATH] "Hey everybody! It’s me Otis, I’m back! hEHhe" "Otis! OTIS WE LOVE YOU-" "Don't cry River... here." "rAAAAH MARCO-" "I just knew we had a connection you little-" [SWIPE'D] But even in Season 3 and 4, they stooped kinda low. Fart joke when Ponyhead shits out treasure she stole from the pigeons “Death Peck” Fart joke with Marco taunting Star in “Divide” Fart joke with the Alligator in “Conquer” Fart joke with the mock play in “Butterfly Follies” (S4 Premiere) Fart Joke when Marco’s on Nachos (literal full fart though. Like why) Also don't fart on Nachos, you asshole. And there's Mina's fart analogy in "Cleaved" Yeah I dunno why they got really into those types of jokes in the latter 2 seasons- Okay, back to the other stuff: Nachos is put through seemingly THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF SUFFERING in the Neverzone. If 16 years in the Neverzone = ~8 minutes on Earth, and the Ransomgram girl said she was trying to deliver the message for “months” For every earth-day, 180 years pass in the Neverzone 5580 years for every month. She said “months” (plural) so at least 2 months 11160 years. AT-LEAST 11160 years Nachos spent there, freezing, probably longer. In the S2 episode "Page Turners," Glossaryck is real miffed at the MHC for pulling him away from his work But in the S4 episode "Swim Suit" it's shown that he can apparently be in 2 places at once. Yeah they kinda put that in as a joke but didn't consider how that'd affect the logic of the previous seasons- Marco claims it took him “months” to get over Jackie BUT HMM, LET'S COUNT FOR A SECOND. "Stay amazing, okay?" [Tony Hawk Pro Relationship Troubles 3] [single tear] 7 Seconds it took for him to get the idea to leave And here he is, parading a smile about it. Marco breaks his arm in the 3rd episode in a realistic manner. 14 year old man-man probably would have a hard time breaking 3 pieces of wood and maybe the entire cinder block. However, we never see him get injured in general after that point. This leads into the next thing: It seems like the writers never really planned for Mewmans and Humans being the same thing One piece of evidence is Star constantly being surprised about regular human things during her time on Earth. Even this movie scene suggests they’re different. And Marco was hinted a lot to be a mewman, I mean, like A LOT He was hinted A LOT to be MEWMAN. Yet the writers just chuck in a confirmation that "mewmans were actually humans the whole time!" This doesn’t line up with Marco’s strength though. If he’s a regular human Why is he able to survive being thrown at a rock with enough force to crack it? (Toffee) Why is he able to fight a giant, swole bird guy with no problem? (Nightlife) Why is he able to kick a giant Meteora with enough force to knock her down? (Divide/Conquer) And why is able to flip a horse? (Cleaved) Oh yeah, here's just a little side note: By the end of the series, the cheekmarks were said to be caused by magic exposure. This is a plothole, here’s why: Heinous was shown to have cheekmarks, besides her life having little to no magic exposure. I believe the writers were intending to limit the cheekmarks to the royal family only. They’re shown again in the episode titled “Heinous” S2E19A Again, literally no magic exposure at all in this case. The first thing that suggested that Marco was not human (besides his super-strength) was the fact that crescent moon cheekmarks appeared when Marco used the wand for the first time. His wand also had the same wings that are on the word “Evil” on the show’s logo. Which ties into how much foreshadowing there was that Marco would eventually become evil. This was before the “magic exposure” explanation, so it caused fans to theorize that Marco is actually part of the butterfly family. Because even with Heinous, it was confirmed she was part of the Butterfly family all along. But this is where it gets confusing though, because they also confirmed Star is not actually a Butterfly, So where do the cheekmarks come from then? I wouldn’t say magic exposure, because again, that’s a plothole in itself. It doesn’t line up with Meteora having them. Also, Janna and Marco were both standing in pure liquid magic, so why wouldn’t both of them get cheekmarks in this case Why didn’t all of the settlers of Mewni have cheekmarks when they were fuckin drenched in it? Also, Janna clearly saw Marco with the cheekmarks, it’s weird she never said anything about them. And his cheekmarks show up again in “Booth Buddies” DOCUMENTED BY PICTURE, and Star never acknowledges it. And why would he have the exact same cheekmarks as Celena then?? In a lot of moments in Season 4, the writers will occasionally throw in some vague explanations to questions brought up. Questions that I know for a fact that a lot of people legitimately had. Marco and Kelly break up offscreen for no explained reason. Instead of explaining why, Marco claims it was a unanimous decision (even though it wasn’t, and Kelly was upset about it) Manfred escapes being turned to stone. Eclipsa established that he’d get out eventually, yet the writers still felt the need to have him say “Ugh, I do not want to get into THAT” when asked how he got out. Like, you didn’t have to do that here- Star declines Tom’s trip out of nowhere, using the excuse “I need time to figure things out” / “ I’m free” Despite showing no disinterest in Tom or the trip beforehand Tom justifies the breakup with “We’re heading in different places” and never elaborates. Marco asks why they’re breaking up and Star replies with “It’s complicated” No, really it’s not complicated. Daron wants Starco. Dominic wants Starco. Everybody and their fuckin mother wants Starco. It’s not fucking rocket science. Moon claims she stopped Mina from doing “much worse” in attempts to justify her betrayal, she never explains specifically what. hEy DiD yOu GuYs kNOW thAT iN thE oFFiciaL MaGiC BoOk oF SpELLs BOOK ThAt theRe's A- One of the problems I’ve noticed throughout Season 4 is that the writers often bring in stuff that was only mentioned in the “Magic Book of Spells” book without any prior introduction to those who don't have the book. The book itself is *15 dollars on amazon. Yet I can guarantee that the large majority of the fanbase doesn’t own the book, simply because it costs money. First example of this happens in “Surviving the Spiderbites” Star keeps the book piece a secret from Eclipsa, I was initially confused as to why. As it turns out, there’s a spell in the book that pulverizes Rhombulous’s crystals. This was never shown (or even mentioned) in the show beforehand, yet it was used as a plot point suddenly. I still wouldn’t have known that if you guys in the comments hadn’t pointed it out to me. Next example is in the same episode. Glossaryck’s silkbugs were shown and described in the book, never described in the show. Thankfully, this one isn’t actually much of a problem because Eclipsa explains what they do before they’re used. Then, in "Meteora's Lesson" we get introduced to Reynaldo, someone who USED TO BE A MAGIC HIGH COMMISSION MEMBER. In the book, it’s said he once spoke normally, but a queen put a spell on him so he could only speak in riddles This got him kicked out. This interaction confirms (again) that Glossaryck is father to all of the MHC The original confirmation is said with two lines when MHC is introduced in Season 2 These are kinda completely forgettable lines, and considering how much screentime the MHC had overall, they definitely could’ve reinforced this more. Again, Reynaldo was only shown in the book, yet he's introduced like everyone knows who he is. Eclipsa uses the spell (the exact same one from the book) to try and free globgor, without any prior introduction to those who don’t own it. THIS IS A MAJOR PLOT POINT RIGHT HERE, WHY IS THERE NO INTRODUCTION? The mark of the Solarian blade is only mentioned in the book, and context is given after Globgor is already inflicted with it. But yeah. Moments like this really only confuse the people who don’t have the book, which, again, is a LOT of the people that watch the show. When the story starts to get unintentionally confusing in a story-heavy show, THAT'S NOT GOOD. In “The Spell With No Name”, a skull-butterfly spell is being tracked down by the rest of Eclipsa’s spells The episode confirms that this spell is Eclipsa’s most powerful spell And it's shown to be an insta-kill for anything it touches So… what’s the deal with this then- Is this different than the raptor killing spell then? Why couldn’t you just use this spell on Toffee then? Or vice-versa? Eclipsa claimed her mother started making the spell, and she(Eclipsa) she finished it after she(Solaria) died BUT THAT BACKSTORY IS THE EXACT SAME AS THE RAPTOR KILLING SPELL? AND IT’S CONFIRMED THIS ISN’T THE RAPTOR KILLING SPELL, THEY’RE DONE COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY. So, what is this then?? *deep breath* Alright, so for 'Continuity' I think that covers it. Of course, the other problems are gonna be brought up in a little bit- But for now, let’s talk about characters: Let me start this section off by asking you what is the difference is between these two intros? Ooo, uh. Did you notice that right there? Well, if you didn’t, let me spell it out for you. Yeah- WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE? Oh right, they’re GONE. As another side-effect of the setting change to Mewni, we lost all of those various characters from Earth that we’ve known for 2 whole seasons and gave the show it’s initial charm. Oh yeah, and while we’re talking about the intros, take a look at this. In the first intro, they loosely tell the whole story of the show. Magic Girl gets a magic wand, causes some trouble, her parents send her off to Earth and she meets a boy named Marco, along the way we got various notable characters, and Ludo’s army is runnin’ at them constantly. Boom. Geniuously set up. What the hell does the 2nd intro tell us? What story is there here? It doesn’t show Marco coming to Mewni or anything, they just slide down the castle and ruin dinner. Why are they fighting the goblin dog guy? The only parts that tell us anything about the story happen 30 seconds into the intro and they show up for 2 seconds. There's Meteora/Heinous Eclipsa And Toffee/Ludo And the ending part is so sad. In the first intro, we had a shit ton of these characters. And I COULD NAME ALL OF THEM FROM MEMORY! They were all so distinct and memorable. In the second intro, we’ve only got 6 characters. Because... That’s pretty much the bulk of it! That’s the bulk of the characters we see in the Mewni Setting. For main characters, we’ve got Star, her parents, Marco, Eclipsa, Pony Head, Janna, Tom, and Kelly Secondary characters could count as Seahorse, Ruberiot, and Foolduke, And of course… MONKEY. Seriously the monkey was fuckin hilarious, I loved the monkey in season 4. Aside from these characters, who else is there?? We’ve got guys like the laundry dude, Manfred… this family.... Polite giant monster person And... whoever else I actually can't think of anyone there- And regarding Manfred, his literal character design is to be annoying. He’s a nuisance whenever he’s on screen. I mean just look at his face! What an asshole! And a lot of the unnamed background characters are just plain annoying because all of the background characters in Mewni were only used for the racism plot and nothing else. The most memorable background character for me was the fuckin’ lady raptor because I screamed their name every time they were on screen! "RAPTORS??" "RAPTOR!" "They made my Genie thro-" "R A P T O R." Honestly, who do we have?? If you guys can point out some memorable background characters in Season 3 and 4, point that out in the comments. I genuinely want to know, I can’t think of any. Oh wait, we still got the Magic High Commission! Oh wait, the writers turned them into... complete assholes, despite the various episodes in Season 2 showing they were decent people… Oh! But we still have Star and Marco. O H W A I T- Marco goes away from being quirky and relatable and becomes annoying with his obsession of Star and Mewni, that happened in Sophomore Slump, this is where his character takes a turn for the worse. He tells off Sensei for trying to be like him He completely screws up his whole relationship with Jackie (Something that, for him, had AN ACTUAL DECADE OF BUILDUP) All because he wouldn't take off his fuckin cape. He is a dick when Star puts him as a squire to the laundry guy He’s an asshole to the rich pigeons and breaks the prince’s leg. And he makes various wisecracks after that even though he’s the one that caused this! He puts several dimensions in danger by not telling Hekapoo that it’s actually Star opening the portals in “Night Life”. Put Star in danger for the same reason. He kept it a secret for his own personal entertainment because he liked working with Hekapoo so much. He never talked with his parents after he left. Didn’t even know he was getting a baby brother because he’s too “busy” And the parents even mention “Visit any time, those scissors work both ways” And he hardly ever does, despite saying that he will. He completely doesn't care about Star’s problem when her mom goes missing His giant ego in the Neverzone / NEGLECTING NACHOS FOR 11K YEARS AT LEAST- Breaking up with Kelly for no explained reason even though Kelly’s side of the “getting over someone” thing isn’t at all complete. And he knows she’s been going through some tough times. That's all Marco, in Star’s case... Star is seen becoming more responsible and princess-like in Season 3. That’s her reasoning for not going back to Earth, That's why she's staying on Mewni But she still will randomly do completely irresponsible things. Her personality has split and is going back and forth like a metronome. Overly responsible to the point where it’s annoying in “Princess Turdina” Adopts the idea of “I’m a teenager, I don't have to worry about shit” in “Swim Suit” and she leaves Eclipsa and Rhombulous alone. Despite it’s clear they're trying to kill each other. Acts completely childish in “Ransomgram” Childish schmuck in “Lake House Fever” Unnecessarily mean to Rasticore in “Yada Yada Berries” Makes constant short jokes at him "Thanks, LITTLE GUY." [slap] “I’M NOT TINY I’M COMPACT” Irresponsible in “Surviving the Spiderbites” by not looking at simple shit that’s part of the tour. ON A WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL OF BRAT IN “Junkin Janna” Plain dumb and rude in “Curse of the Blood Moon” And straight up asshole in “Doop Doop” Not to mention Cleaved! And Star is shown downplaying Marco’s time in the Neverzone. She ignores the fact that he spent 16 years there trying to get “her” scissors back. He did it for Star, and she never said thank you. She only uses him as eye-candy in that dimension DESPITE HER ALREADY HAVING A BOYFRIEND! All the buildup of seeing Star become a better person in Seasons 1 and 2 gets fuckin thrown out of the window! We can’t even pinpoint her personality at this point, she’s all over the place! But THAT’S OKAY, because after all, SHE'S JUST A TEENAGER!! TEENAGERS ARE DUMBBBB RIGHT?? God is there any genuinely good characters in this shit anymore?? (TOM COMES IN) TOOOOM!! MIO BELLISSIMO TOM!!!! I commonly say that Tom was the best part of the latter 2 seasons. His character arc was amazing! Starts out with him getting back together with Star (by her want specifically). This is after he came to realize that she wasn’t interested, so he backed off for a while. Got a demoncism and decides to become better for Star. His “schmuck” side still shines through in some places, so it’s not like he unrealistically changed over night. “Monster Bash” when he only looks for time with Star, ignoring how important the event is to her and for Mewni “Is Another Mystery” when he tries to pull Star away from finding Buff Frog He apologises to Marco for treating him badly, and later calls him his best friend in “Divide” Sacrifices his life for Marco even after he said he kissed his girlfriend. Fully recognizes how screwed up the Blood Moon actually was, regrets trying to take Star to it, and felt so much guilt about Marco and Star being chosen. This kinda continuity is similar to Star in Seasons 1-2. When we see her legitimately grow as a person. It’s nice to see that kinda thing again. And there’s Eclipsa and Globgor too. Now, some people are happy that Eclipsa turned out to be good, while others would have preferred to see her as evil. However you feel, it’s indisputable that a large part of her character was the uncertainty of whether or not she's good or not. Season 3 really nailed this with the constant kindness of Eclipsa, contrasted by the beliefs of the MHC. The main deciding point seemed to be Butterfly Trap, when it is revealed that Meteora was switched out with Festivia., leading the viewers to see things weren’t clear-cut. If not here, it would be set in stone in Conquer, where she was willing to kill her own daughter to save Mewni. However, for some reason, the back and forth of good and evil continues in season 4, despite it seeming resolved. It was shown as the foreshadowing that Globgor was actually the evil one. This plot line, while less developed, mimics that of season 3. - while you could argue that it’s different, Eclipsa is in love with Globgor and thus making Globgor evil would likely make Eclipsa evil too. Situations such as the Spiderbites painting Globgor as evil are never touched upon again; leaving these moments to have no impact. Really it was just the same arc used twice. Eclipsa also has a very realistic personality - her flaws are openly acknowledged, and they aren’t all gotten rid of, but they don’t get in the way of her being an enjoyable character, unlike others. Along with Tom’s change, another arc that had similar growths that Season 1-2 had was with Eclipsa trying to get the public on her side. While this--again-- went on longer than it needed to, I will say they did a pretty good job showing things gradually changing. And as utterly annoying as the Ponyhead Show was, it did do a good job of showing the progress towards getting the public on her side. Right up until Cornonation, when the public is seen being near-100% on her side. Let’s get through the last of these characters: Ponyhead Widely considered to be greatly annoying. I hadn’t really minded her, until Flanderization kinda amplified that annoying side of her in Season 3 and 4. Janna Same as always Thank you, Janna for staying consistent. Nachos: [PRECIOUS] Kelly… Oh boy, this one’s… a real tragedy. Okay, so this will be covered more in a second, but I just want to point out that 90% of Kelly's screentime is her dealing with some relationship problems. Like constantly, she’s shown to be upset about it too Tad constantly keeps calling her to nag about how well he’s doing without her. And on top of that she gets wrestling ruined for her. As an extra kick in the face. She’s shown to literally be depressed over it. It sucks that the writers only decided to use a character like this for relationship drama. Okay, so that about wraps it up for Characters. But wait a minute, I’m missing something. What was the thing I talked about last time, that I didn’t talk about this time- Y’know, the tamest part of any fandom, right? So, remember how the shipping scene was actually GOOD in Seasons 1 and 2? NOT ANYMORE.mp4 Alright, let's take a moment and go through each ship. Whether you like it or not, this ship had the most establishment throughout the entire series. The Jarco buildup went on for so long. Marco was shown to like Jackie for whole life. It made so much sense for Marco to eventually get with her. Most, if not all of the “shipping” episodes in S2 was based on Marco getting with Jackie. The ship had been set up since Season 1 Episode 2. And it’s not a fan-establishment, a canon one I CANNOT EXPRESS HOW IMPORTANT IT IS THAT IT WAS A “CANON” ESTABLISHMENT AND NOT A FAN ESTABLISHMENT. They literally CANONICALLY SAID TO OUR FACE "Marco likes this girl. Jackie’s character started out pretty flat, but moments like Naysaya and Marco’s blunder in Bon Bon gives her character. Oh and one thing I found interesting, the Naysaya curse was said to prevent the host from asking out his “one true love”. SO WHAT HAPPENED THEN- Why would it appear when he’s asking out Jackie then? Wouldn't it be S T A A A R ??? Overall, Jarco was a really solid ship with a lot of establishment. CANON establishment. The chemistry between Jackie and Marco worked surprisingly well, and their relationship helped contribute to the “relatable” feeling to the show. That all changed though, in one fateful episode… Sophomore Slump: If you didn’t know already, this episode is centered around Marco annoying everyone with his obsession with Star, Mewni, and his stupid cape, a problem that was introduced only in that episode. When Jackie tried to talk some sense into Marco, it seemed to work, Marco agreed to be better for her. And again, it seemed to be working. But he apparently just kept the cape in his hoodie, which causes her to break up with him. Only hint of this obsession is him wearing the cape for a brief scene in S3E8B. Nowhere else could we have possibly ever have guessed this would've been a problem. Jackie and Marco had been together for 3 months but a lot of it was spent “long distance”. It is now also nearing the new school year. Evidently Marco had spent more time in Mewni than we thought And Sophomore Slump was actually a fun episode right until the ending. Episodes like that is what Season 3 lacked (minus the breakup) This episode gave Jackie so much more character, it’s a shame to see it actually thrown away like that. By the way, the “You’re my best friend, Jackie” line is bullshit and throws away all of the previous establishment to the ship. Again, this ship has been building up for nearly a decade in canon. And then Marco IMMEDIATELY leaves, like the day after kind of immediately. Like, he got the idea right seven seconds after she broke up with him. AND THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE- This single episode completely throws away REAL buildup over the course of many episodes since Season 1. THIS SINGLE EPISODE The cape obsession was a problem that was introduced, and “resolved” in the same episode. It was resolved with him going to Mewni. Also, not sure what was so great about Mewni that caused him to go apeshit. Literally the moment he arrived it was a dump in shambles, then Ludo took over, which only amplified that negative aspect. The only possible likeable factor is Star. This way, it can be inferred that the moon has caused this newfound “obsession” It wouldn’t be the first time the moon interfered with their relationship. And this problem is immediately diffused, and marco’s ego is put in check when he is laughed at by real knights in the following episode. Turns out, he was never actually a knight, and the cape didn’t mean shit We don’t even see the cape again until S4E11A “Knight-Shift” when Marco gets actually knighted Doesn’t do much anyway. We don’t see the cape again, and Marco turns down being knighted after learning about the commitment required. W O W - G O O D - J O B - M A R C O ! Good thing they threw out an entire ship over it then- But yeah, Jackie is completely written out of the show at this point, it’s almost as if they only kept her around for shipping drama with another character. HMMM Jackie eventually shows up in the late-season-4 episode Britta’s Tacos. The writers attempt to add some closure to the tragic end of the Jarco ship, by A. Having Marco realize he was a terrible boyfriend and confirming that Jackie broke up with him because she thought he was in love with Star. (which was true) And B. Having Jackie be implied bi. Now, I feel like this was an "okay" way to pick it back up, but I can’t help but feel that they're only doing it for the fan reactions and for the sake of being inclusive- But yeah, that’s the end of Jackie’s story. Next. Okay, so this ship technically started out since Season 1, as Tom had already dated Star in the past at this point. But when the ship actually becomes healthy is in Club Snubbed, where Tom had accepted that Star isn’t interested in him, and he gave her space. Star eventually gets back together with Tom by her own want. She is now over Marco. Like I said before, Tom went through an amazing character arc, he betters himself for the sake of Star. Tomstar actually was being integrated into what the show’s plot at the time was: the racism plot. And that honestly gave it more charm and made the relationship feel legitimately important. It even had probably one of the best lines at the time, "I'm a monster, you're a mewman. If we can make it work, then there's hope for everyone." Usually this would be sweet, if this ship wasn’t used only as a ploy to eventually make Marco jealous. Tomstar seemed doomed from the start, considering the blood moon and the loud majority of the fans and people working on the show wanted Starco. Throughout its course, it demonstrated what seemed to be a semi-toxic relationship, but the show never committed to this path, so it's a strange, in between situation where neither partners are fully in the wrong or right. And speaking of that: Star was a terrible girlfriend to Tom. Here’s why: Star uses Marco (someone she KNOWS has a crush on her) as eye-candy in “Ransomgram” as well as “Gone Baby Gone” Star never told Tom about the kiss, Marco did. And when Tom confronts her about that, she gets mad and tries to leave Star commonly mistreats him and nags him about little things Throwing the lava suit on his face in “Lake House Fever” Angrily asking him to translate in “Curse of the Blood Moon” Blowing on his face after Tom wanted to kiss her in “Monster Bash” Tom went through this whole arc of changing himself for the better, all for her. He literally rebuilt his entire character from the ground up for her. Shown in the Lake House Fever episode, Tom went through SO MUCH for Star, and Star never returns the favors in any way Star and Tom had so much history Knew each other and had romantic history since they were little Star’s horns were a GIFT from Tom, and yet she forgets about him in the magic dimension. Tom was at her going away party to Earth, she never noticed him there. Tom even let her know his mom is afraid she'll hurt him again. Star uses the excuse “Everybody breaks up! That's what teenagers do! Teenagers are dumb” Tom didn’t really have any other friends. He even said this in Friendenemies. He started hanging out with Janna in its own episode, and only because Janna wanted to blast the bird. He considers Marco his best friend, but doesn’t help that he’s about to get cucked. What great friends! Tom literally had no-one before they started dating again, and Star has the audacity to treat him like shit and then run to Marco’s dick after turning down his plan of a romantic vacation. Moving on. Kellco had started out in Season 3, and it surprisingly had a lot more buildup and establishment than I had initially thought. Kelly x Marco is first introduced in Lava Lake Beach when they have a heart-to-heart. They bond over the fact that they’re both having relationship troubles. Tad and Kelly broke up again. And Marco has feelings for Star that he can’t get rid of, or act upon. Marco doesn’t WANT to be in love with Star And Kelly doesn’t WANT to be in love with Tad There was actual real chemistry between them. And their relationship was shown to be getting better and better since then. Kelly asks Marco to dance in “Monster Bash” Kelly and Marco are seen hanging out together in “Booth Buddies” Kelly and Marco try doing a cooking segment on Ponyhead’s show, and when it falls through, Kelly invites Marco to cook at her house. In Kelly’s World, Marco and Kelly officially get together as “breakup buddies” They were able to do a dual-move. Which was said to require “perfect synchronization between partners”. I feel like this would’ve implied they’re pretty good partners Kelly and Marco are only seen as a couple in “Cornball”. This is after the Blood Moon Curse was broken. Marco didn’t even wanna hang out with Star at all this episode. They didn't even talk! Marco himself even further confirms that breaking the curse worked And Kelly is actually HAPPY. Compared to how she was in “Kelly’s World”, this is a miracle. She was dealing with borderline depression-- if not, ACTUAL depression, and the fact that being with Marco flipped that around for the better is amazing. But it all gets ripped away. After all of this, Kelly and Marco’s relationship ends… with an off screen breakup Now… I don't care who you are... I don’t care what your show is. NEVER E V E R BREAK UP A RELATIONSHIP OFF SCREEN Why would you ever think that’s an okay thing to do?? That is just disrespectful to not only the characters you created but your viewers as well! If you're gonna go out of your way to have a whole episode dedicated to these two getting together, at least give them the respect of an on screen breakup! This off screen breakup also made Marco look like an even worse character considering Kelly never really got over her hardships with Tad. She finally found happiness with Marco, and then he goes and breaks it off for no explained reason. And it's completely glossed over in five seconds that the breakup-- or the ship in general happened at all. This ship literally served no purpose to anything, not to emotionally develop other characters, advance the plot, cause jealousy, nothing, actually pointless. And Marco didn’t give a single shit about Kelly after the fact. You dick! I don’t care what you ship. Breaking up a relationship off screen is a horrible writing decision. Especially when you REFUSE to give reasoning after the fact! But why… why would all these perfectly healthy relationships just be killed off like that. Unless. (deep breath) Okay, now, before I say anything. Let me just restate that I used to ship Starco. Marco and Star were both very likable characters and they would have worked very well in a relationship. And had things been done differently, I would’ve been all for a Starco endgame. But things weren’t done differently. If you’re a starco shipper who’s listening to this currently, I ask that you please at least listen to what I have to say before you kill me in the comments Now let me carefully explain to you all how the writers managed to completely fuck up what is probably the easiest ship they could’ve done. In Season 1, Marco and Star were really close. They quickly became best friends (albeit, a bit too quickly), and although there weren’t too many moments that suggested romantic interest, it didn’t seem too far off of an idea for them to actually get together But then the blood moon happened. This one thing was able to completely turn me off from this ship. And I’ll explain why. Blood Moon Disqualifier Remember earlier when I mentioned something I like to call the “Blood Moon Disqualifier” Well, like I said before, the “disqualification” factor means that the Starco moments from when the curse was placed, to when it was broken, do not count as actual starco moments because we’re unable to tell whether or not the moment was caused by the moon’s manipulation. They are “disqualified” as actual, natural establishment to the ship. Here is a list of “starco moments” And in case you need a refresher, a “starco moment” counts as either party feeling some romantic interest towards the other. These moments were all during the blood moon's active period. We are unable to tell whether or not the moon had a part to play in this. Therefore, we can't determine them as consensual and natural In Blood Moon Curse, the curse is broken, and Star still shows signs of fully liking Tom. and showed no signs of liking Marco afterward. Star confirms this by still being with Tom and doing romantic shit. And Marco confirms this by staying with Kelly and doing romantic shit as well. And regarding Booth Buddies, not only were they canonically HELD HOSTAGE until they kissed, the Blood Moon shows up at the end, signifying that it had a hand to play in this. Seriously, the fact that a FORCED KISS both through manipulation and hostage is included in Disney’s official “Best Starco Moments! Compilation” says something. So the moon ruined his relationship with Jackie Shows up when they kiss and MAKES him think of Star. Makes him “obsessed” with Star and causes the breakup Got in the way of his relationship with Kelly Marco literally said this himself. And I know what you’re about to say: they “deconfirmed” the blood moon during the later episodes. Well, I wouldn’t be so quick to trust the things that were said in that last batch of episodes. Right now, we’re gonna label those moments under “The Wendy Disqualification” I’ll explain who Wendy even is after this, but she plays a large role in this next section. For now though, let me steer back towards the problems with how Starco was done. Along with the whole Blood Moon Curse forcing them to have feelings for each other, the writers also had a habit of having the characters themselves talk about how they DIDN’T want to be together. In Season 2, Star had trouble with her feelings for Marco. On the one hand, she was incredibly happy for him because she knew how long he wanted to be with Jackie for, but on the other hand, she has feelings for him that are interfering with that. In “Sophomore Slump” Marco’s feelings for Star and Mewni cause Jackie to break up with him, he didn’t want this. He wanted to be with Jackie since he was a toddler! In “Lint Catcher” Star wants nothing to do with Marco romantically, and tells him off. And in “Lava Lake Beach” Tad, of all people, tell Marco that he has a crush on Star. Marco replies to this with an ACTUAL CRISIS AND DENIAL. Like, he is CLEARLY not happy about this And, even the music in this scene suggests he doesn’t want this. In Booth Buddies both parties react negatively to the forced kiss. And then there’s times where they flat out SAY they don’t want to have feelings for each other! "I mean, I don't WANT to have feelings for Star" "Every time I think I'm over her and I like someone else, I get marshmallows..." "Do you have a spell to make my feelings go away?" "But they hurt." "I just DON'T WANT TO HAVE FEELINGS FOR HER ANYMORE." "This kills me." "Let's go destroy our feelings!" Like, if this was the planned ship from the start, you’d think they’d try making the characters at least even a little on-board with it. And even after both Marco and Star are single, the writers still take up several episodes without them getting together. Marco doesn’t actually show any real signs of being romantically interested in Star until the episode “Mama Star” when he confesses to her while under the influence of the magic dimension. And even then, they waste more time and throw them together in the second to last episode. Then they try and make their relationship a major emotional factor in the finale. Honestly, this moment would’ve been so much more powerful if they had gotten together much beforehand, or even if they just stayed friends. The fact that they’re willing to die over a relationship that just started within the same exact day is a bit weird and forced. But yeah. Starco didn’t have very many NATURAL establishing moments. All because of this one writing decision. So, really, this whole shipping thing was supposed to be a subplot. And instead it turned into something that completely sacrificed the pacing, and quality of the story. Oh, and by the way, I called it. I called that the ship wouldn't work in the "Curse of the Blood Moon" episode. "Doing that would literally sacrafice the whole pacing and quality of the story." "Cause by the way, this show is ending really soon There's not enough time to naturally progress things in a way that Star and Marco are gonna get together. Unless they do some (w a c k y - t i m e s) at the end. Which is DEFINITELY gonna feel forced!" Fuckin' called it. But this kind of behavior is completely justified right? After all, THEY’RE JUST TEENS! Daron Nefcy commonly tries justifying the shitty relationship drama in the show with the explanation that “They’re teenagers. And teenager relationships are messy!” She claims that having relationships jump all over the place like that is“realistic” But just because something is “realistic” doesn’t mean it’s good. This still doesn’t justify the completely wack pacing and how several ships and characters got screwed over in a matter of days. And y’know what, Daron, I think you’re giving yourself a little too much credit there. What about this is realistic?? I don’t know about you, but I certainly haven’t seen any teenagers do this shit. All of these characters were perfectly level headed individuals, breakups like these don’t normally happen like that. And breaking up with your boyfriend, forgetting about him completely, getting together with someone else the day after, and suddenly determining it’s worth dying for isn’t called being a “teenager” That’s called being a sociopathic megalomaniac! From what I’ve seen the primary audience of this show ranges from Tweens to young adults, teenagers being right in the middle there. By pulling this shit and then turning around and saying “That’s what teenagers do! Teenagers are dumb!” you’re completely failing to cater towards your demographic. And I can imagine that I’m gonna get a lot of comments ignoring what I said, and just saying “you’re just mad that your ship didn’t happen!!” And while that's not true, let’s say for a second-- For one second that I am upset that "my ship" didn't happen. So is everyone else. You have to understand one thing about this show, there were a LOT of ships. And this divided the fandom into many little groups, One thing’s for sure, Starco was the most vocal. But the problem is, by the end of Season 4, the writers had managed to piss off every single group except Starco Pissed off Jarco shippers by breaking up a relationship with 2 Seasons buildup due to a Mewni obsession that was established and “resolved” all within the same episode. Pissed off Kellco shippers by ending a relationship with 2 seasons buildup OFF-SCREEN for no explained reason Pissed off TomStar shippers by dropping a break-up bomb nobody would have been able to predict from the show (I say specifically “from the show” because I was able to predict it by taking in consideration the writers’ bias towards Starco) Pissed off Markapoo shippers by damaging / ending their relationship through Marco’s selfishness Pissed off Tomco shippers by teasing the ship (carrot on a stick style) even though there’s no canon probability of the ship anyway. The entire Friendenemies episode, and it's promo art. “If I kissed Marco, wouldn’t you be mad?” Tom sacrificed himself for Marco. This little quip after Kellco breakup. "Hey everybody!" "OoOOo. The lovebirds finally show up!" (also wtf is quirky doin there lmao) "Hey careful, Tom! Bein' 'breakup buddies' isn't all it's cracked up to be." [high five for no reason And their performance in Cornonation. In the end, the writers only catered towards the Starco shippers And they didn’t even do a good job of that. Various Starco shippers are upset about how terribly the ship was done. The large majority of the fans are upset. It’s just that the Starco shippers that are happy are far more vocal about it. And jesus christ some of you guys get way into this. Like seriously, telling someone to kill themselves, calling fan works trashy, calling people dumbasses over some dumb ship? Calm the fuck down- Oh and this isn’t even mentioning the fact that she shipping game was fucked from the start. Did it ever occur to you that Marco is actually a 30 year old man dating a 15 year old girl? [ILLEGAL] Now, they’ve offered explanations [after the fact] that the neverzone works kind of like a dream. They claimed Marco doesn’t really remember much besides skills and muscle memory stuff. At least until he encounters something that does make him remember. But regardless, the show canonically recognizes Marco as over 30 years old, and by the concept of time through human perception, Marco has been alive and growing for 30+ years. This wouldn’t just screw up Starco, it would screw up every single other ship he’s been in. Besides maybe Markapoo. This one would at least be legal- Honestly that whole thing is a creepy moral gray area that I don’t want to touch with a ten foot barge pole. So let’s move on. Now that the shipping category is done, I want to take the time to look at each of these ending episodes. One by one. This is what I call the “Post Wendy Era.” Now again, I'm gonna explain who Wendy is in a little bit, But just remember that these next episodes-- these final episodes, SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH THEM. PRODUCTION WISE, SOMEHING IS WRONG WITH THEM. So again, let's go through each one. Marco officially moves back to Earth, which was hinted in “Knight Shift” Eclipsa’s father is shown briefly, under the name “Alphonse” But nothing is ever done with this. Again, no explanation as to why he had Marco go to the ball. Star and Tom travel to visit various characters before they head off for their trip, but Star is shown to be stalling for time. Tom even says “I love you so much in this episode” Buff Frog specifically warns Tom to watch out for her, yet Star is the one who ends up hurting Tom in the end. Buff frog should have gave that warning to her! Moon says more things that directly contradict the upcoming plot twist. Star showed no signs of not wanting to go until Doop Doop is brought up, like 3/4ths into the episode when Doop Doop is first brought up. Again, NOTHING would’ve suggested she’d back out. And the whole Doop Doop encounter was downright uncomfortable- The encounter is funny in the context that it’s Justin Roiland voicing Doop Doop. This type of humor is right up his alley. But in the context of Star Vs the Forces of Evil, not so much. Eventually, she hits Tom with “I think I need time to figure things out” [DISAPPOINTMENT] Nothing about their relationship would’ve suggested this would happen. She was 100% for a trip in the last episode, and even in this episode. After Tom leaves, clearly upset, she IMMEDIATELY GOES TO THE DIAZ’S HOUSE. Marco Jr. is changed to a girl for like no reason?? (and they tried covering up the clearly random change with this little joke by Mr. Diaz. All just so they can go “OOoo lOook. Mariposa and MeteorA as TeEns!!" "OOOoo LooK, thEY’rE LikE SiStERS!! TheY'RE aLL GroWn Up!!" "OOOAOo LoOk how StrOnG and InDEpeNDenT theY ArE!" In Britta’s Tacos, we get to catch up with all of the Earth characters that the writers abandoned. Honestly, watching this, I really enjoyed seeing everyone again. But I couldn’t help feel like this was a hollow shell of what the show used to be. Not to mention they kept bringing up relationship shit, which happens to be this show’s worst feature right now. Y’know what this felt like? Okay, imagine the fuckin nuke drops on your city. The fallout of 1983 actually happened and everyone is dead. You survive, and you wander the wasteland for 2 years, life constantly getting worse. Eventually, you find that some of your old friends survived the nuke and you rekindle with them. --Only to find out they’re also dying because of radiation poisoning-- That’s what this feels like. It’s nice seeing all of these wonderful characters again for the first time in years, but I can’t help but feel a sense of emptiness because of the hell we just experienced. In the episode, everyone makes jokes about Star and Marco having a baby, even though STAR 15 YEARS OLD. FUCKIN GROSS, AND NOT LEGAL Literally so many people brought this up in the episode! But wait, if we combine this again with the moral gray area of Marco technically being 30 years old- [CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY] Then that makes it even worse! Jackie ends up having a chat with Marco and gives her blessing to date Star - Which kinda completely takes you out of the moment to remind you that the writers are pushing their own personal wants/desires into the show. For those of you who are still accepting this as canon, Marco even confirms they broke up because Jackie thought he was in love with Star (HMMM) From the very start, the whole premise of “Beach Day” directly interrupts Toffee plot given by Glossaryck. Which is more interesting? The hint that the main antagonist was actually good? Or a Starco fanbait beach episode? Regardless Beach day is a large premise throughout Season 4. Star is seen preparing for it constantly, And Tom is told “he’ll be the one taking the photo” This poor lad. At it’s core, Beach Day is unneeded Starco fanbait. They didn’t even start the ship in this episode. This was the last possible time for them to start the ship and make it work in the slightest. We sit through this very uninteresting episode where Star whines about the fucking beach And this moment right here really made me stop and think about the images that were being projected into my retinas. "Seagulls go to the beach I guess..." "You're just gonna run after this frickin seagull." "WHAT AN IMPORTANT EPISODE." At the end of the episode Father Time said “Too bad the hardest times are still ahead” This makes no sense, step 1 Star evidently got the photo towards the beginning of the series, so how could Mina possibly be worse than Toffee, Ludo, Meteora, and all the racism shit? Spoiler alert: She's not. She's not worse than all that the writers just did nothing with that line. In "Gone Baby Gone" Hekapoo comes into Marco’s house while he’s babysitting Meteora and Mariposa and warns him to stay on Earth, do not go to Mewni Doesn’t end up making sense in the end because he HAD to go to Mewni to even return Meteora in the first place. It's not like Meteora never returned after the whole babysitting thing. Then we get this unnecessary plot point where Meteora and Mariposa crawl into the portal that Hekapoo left open, and enter the neverzone. I can’t help but feel that the writers changed Marco Jr. to be a girl and had this whole episode to serve as a timeskip Again, “WOW LOOK aT TheM AS as TeEns!! ThEyRe Sos--, SiStURRS!! This episode doesn’t amount to anything. It's a complete waste of an episode slot Tom returns and immediately breaks up with Star For one, I think it’s definitely better that Tom was the one to break off the relationship. But he had said it’s because “they’re going in different directions”, not because she was a terrible girlfriend to him. This is--again, another vague excuse. Tom even takes the time to give a vague blessing to everyone's favorite ship!! Again, takes you out of a nonexistent moment at this point. Marco claims it took “months to get over Jackie” HMMMMMMM REALLY? I THINK THOSE 7 SECONDS SUGGEST OTHERWISE- Even Tom calls him out on this! "I get it. It took me months to get over Jackie." [X Doubt] "Did it though?" "Yeah but did it REALLY?" "Seems like you were pretty quick to leave..." Star recognizes something is actually wrong on Mewni, decides to go there In Jannanigans, Tom gives Marco his blessing to date Star. Literally the next day after he broke up with her. And he also decides discredits the blood moon curse. SOMETHING THAT BY HIS NATURE HE IS FAMILIAR WITH. AND HE EVEN ADMITTED TO FEELING GUILT BECAUSE HE KNEW IT WAS MANIPULATING THEM So that moment is just fuckin bullshit. So even after they’ve established that some serious stuff is going down, the writers don’t forget to shoehorn some more relationship shit in. Star and the gang chuck Oskar’s car into the well and have the firstborn take them through the magic dimension to the Mewni well. The majority of it is a filler episode, filled with the characters acting like dumbasses due to the effects of the magic. Marco had this weird (Split 2017) moment, which would’ve suggested Evil Marco, but let’s face it, there’s no way the writers would tie up any loose ends at this point in the downward spiral. Instead, he spouts some shit about being in Star’s pocket (??), technically confessing his love for her That apparently spawned out of nowhere because, may I remind you, Marco showed no interest in dating Star up until this point. Corruption from Moon’s shit in the S3 finale has spread in the magic dimension, and it’s corrupted the unicorns there. The small unicorn from the finale shows up as a big horse, and attacks the first-born. Later revealed that she’s dead. And Tom gets left there. Star never realizes or considers this, despite the fact that they were still dating just 2 days ago. More Starco shit with them “raising” a unicorn Directly interrupts the tension and everything Also, if cheekmarks are caused by magic exposure, why doesn’t Janna have cheekmarks? Or why doesn’t Marco’s appear? Janna puts a small corrupted unicorn in her hat, and it seems like its gonna come up afterwards, but it never is. It's never brought up again. Marco discovers that Mina is on her way to attack Mewni, and the MHC is apparently in on it. MHC was also apparently in on the Cornonation tragedy. (Bullshit) Marco leaves to warn Star Star meets up with Moon, and yet again, more evidence is given that contradicts the plot twist. She said she’s staying there to defend the yurt people, as she’s the only powerful one there. For what it’s worth, this episode did do a good job as painting “Mina” to be a decent endgame villain, definitely upped the “dangerous” meter. But this is short lived, because the following week they would release some of the worst shit I have ever seen in television. Star arrives just in time to save Eclipsa from being killed She also brought here friends! She assembled people from A. Different Dimensions And B. On complete different sides of Mewni She did that when there’s no phone lines, Or portals. WHAT HAPPENED. That's literally established the episode before this How could you POSSIBLY forget that- Ponyhead is an annoying asshole here. Says some dumb shit when actual people have fatal wounds. Also, they didn’t even keep Seahorse consistent, he shows emotion and care here. He doesn't normally do that. You had one job! Typical “inspirational speech sparks some big powerup” cliche Ponyhead is the one to give this speech for some reason. Would’ve been more powerful from literally anyone else Also, her powerup is a random literal sense of plot armor. Really, where did this come from? Oh and look at this! This is the WORST offender... Eclipsa’s holding a box of explosives in this scene, then in the next frame she's not. [I KNOW EVERY CONTINUITY MISTAKE EVER MADE-] Eclipsa uses her insta-kill spell-- which again is different than the raptor killing spell Star interrupts Marco bringing crucial news to the kingdom and the livelihoods of all the citizens just for a cheap Starco moment. Next is the beginning of the shit plot twist. Mina actually comes in after “Doug-Doug” is killed, and she has a whole army of solarian warriors in solarian armor First of all I had asked “where did she get all these people from” "What the frick is this??" "Who the hell was in there then?" "Where the frick did she get all these people?" And again, where did she get all this armor from? It was difficult enough to get her own set. How did she get literally hundreds? (And no, they are not created by magic. If they were magic, they would’ve disintegrated during the finale. But they didn't) In "Here to Help." Moon and River fly in through River’s eagle wife. She claims they’re here to help. Now, River is actually there to help. He's a good lad. I love him. Moon, however. Speaking of River, he delivers the best line in this episode “I’m going to get that man some meat, he’s a king for corn’s sake!” “He’s a vegetarian-” “Fine, I’ll get him some chicken!” Can’t get over that line. Moon sees for herself the effects of her “betrayal”. People are wounded. Quirky fuckin DIES. Eclipsa and Star are hellbent on not using the spell again, even though mostly everyone in the village is either dead or hiding in the castle with them, so it wouldn’t be much of an issue Also, if they just chuck it at Mina and insta-gib her, it’ll likely scatter the troops. Eclipsa even suggests this, and it was a good idea. but no its too dangerous dont do it MM and get this: While everyone’s going off to do important shit, Star takes Marco away to go “take care of the pig goats” And now we get the worst fucking scene in this entire godforsaken show. So right off the bat, I’m already saying “Why does this matter? Why are we doing this rather than anything else.” Marco even points out that this seems “a little random. Shouldn’t we help out with the evacuation?” Y’know, the thing that actually matters? Then Star replies with some whiny excuse about how “overwhelmed she is” Brings up how her friends came to help, but got wounded, and it’s all her fault. OH! SO I DON’T KNOW, HOW ABOUT GETTING THEM TO THE SANCTUARY SO THEY DON’T FUCKING DIE? Star even confirms she’s a bad person in this moment, but Marco goes through with it. THEN WE GET THIS REALLY LONG, UNNEEDED, AWKWARD AS FUCK SCENE OF THE TWO OF THEM SLAPPING AND FINGERING GOATS’ ASSES But hehehehe MArco’s so Quirky lOOkathim hEHEH relationship goals (he doesn’t like their eeeeyeees HE'S SO WEIRD!) Also, the goats canonically have assholes, so Marco literally was fingering a fucking goat. Oh and lOOok- the pig goats are conveniently helping them with getting together Then, it happens. Star tells Marco that he confessed his love to her while under magic influence. Marco “confirms” despite not showing any signs of liking her prior. Literally no actual signs until “Mama Star” Now, for the most insulting line “Y’know the whole Blood Moon Curse? That ordeal? Well, it’s bologna. I’ve felt like this since the beginning” This line, EVERYTHING about it is wrong. Marco canonically didn't show any romantic interest in Star until Season 3. And this line is just the final confirmation that the writers have 0% interest in quality storytelling, and the images being projected into my retinas and the sounds I'm hearing is just a hollow and shallow shell of what was once a fantastic show. That happened to be created by writers who will sacrifice any quality they had for the sake of the desires /ship of themselves and a rabid fanbase. Then, they kiss. Eventually, they finally get the fuck back to the important stuff, and we find out that Moon betrayed everyone. Now I've already said why that makes literally no sense, so we're just gonna move on. Starts out with a flashback of how Mina was recruited into the Solarian army. We finally get to see/hear Solaria. One episode before the finale. The flashback is short lived (about 2 minutes), and establishes Mina was once a sane peasant girl who joined the army out of ignorance. But they never do anything with this, Mina never returns to sanity. Nor is this ever used to induce sympathy from the audience. Again, nothing. We cut back to reality to see Star fighting with Moon about the twist. Moon claims she “stopped Mina from doing far worse” Which, again doesn’t make any fucking sense. And she claims she doesn’t like Eclipsa because she was trapped in the magic dimension because of her. Which--AGAIN, bullshit she was ignorant to the whole thing. And Eclipsa says “I tried my best, but it appears my best wasn’t enough” But... she was literally doing fine. The majority ended up supporting her in the end. The only reason why this happened is because Moon kept these people from dealing with the reality like everyone else. Moon also claims she never intended for the soldiers to attack monsters, even though she literally knew that all of the townspeople were racist and would attack monsters if given the power And she acts like this isn’t a big deal. THEY’RE LITERALLY ABOUT TO CAUSE A GENOCIDE, AND THEY ALREADY WOUNDED VARIOUS CIVILLIANS. We get a scene of the MHC, Rhombulous is now 100% irredeemable, so is Omni. Even Shaun, who’s supposed to just be neutral to everything. Hekapoo is the only sane one. Eclipsa surrenders the throne, and Moon tries to call off the warriors BIG SURPRISE, THEY DON’T DO IT. Also, the oath excuse for the power spell makes no sense- “This wasn’t supposed to happen” W O W, G O O D J O B! Star is the better character for calling Moon out for her bullshit. And on top of this, we get a halfhearted “this is sparta” reference. But then Hekapoo rescues them just in time, thank you. Meanwhile River is actually just the best character. He helps Globgor escape Mina and is taking him to the sanctuary. Thank you River being one of the only characters to stay consistent throughout the whole show. Then in Tavern at the End of the Multiverse, it starts out with a really dumb Marco line that has no business being there in the first place. “Hekapoo, we were kinda in the middle of something” I’m sorry? You were literally about to die Marco? Shut your mouth?? Hekapoo decides a better solution is to hide out in the Tavern. Eclipsa eventually tries going back to help her husband "Globgor needs my help!" "Yes, but it's too dangerous!" [N O B O D Y - L I K E S - Y O U , B I T C H !] Star is actually the good character here for calling out Moon. I’ve already shown to you that there was literally no reason for this plot twist. Star even goes as far to say she should stand in the void, where she doesn’t exist. Writers try justifying the plot twist by shoehorning in some fabricated flashbacks of Moon asking Rhombulous to release Globgor, and also shows her creating the solarian warriors. Quirky DIES due to the solarian wound, again, it's Star’s fault for not helping with the evacuation Also no evacuation actually occurred, what happened to everyone else helping with this part? Why are they still in this room?? Star throws a temper tantrum and suddenly declares that she hates magic, and wants to destroy it. She also somehow comes up with the idea that using the whispering spell in the realm of magic would work. In the grandma room, the past queens are seen. Although for some reason, Moon’s cutout is seen here. even though she's still alive and out there- She's not seen in the grandma room. Star’s tapestry is finished, showing her destroying the magic. But then Star starts whining about how Marco isn’t in the tapestry, despite the fact they only started dating within the same day. Star lists off her, Janna, and Marco when explaining where the magic put them, somehow completely forgot and left out Tom. Glossaryck also confirms that destroying the magic would destroy him, and by extension, all magical beings. Star says the line, confirming Toffee was right all along. "So I have to destroy the magic... I guess this means Toffee was right..." "YES!" [AGGRESSIVE CLAPPING] "S U R P R I S E !" [R E A L - H A P P I N E S S] This is the last moment I felt actually happiness with this show. And it's also the last sighting, and mention of Toffee. But we're not done yet, we have one more... So here we are, the series finale. For starters, the intro isn’t even changed, just shortened with a very sloppy edit. Both Eclipsa and Moon seem to be apprehensive about Star’s plan. Star explains her plan to Hekapoo, and she just nonchalauntly agrees to help her by opening the portals. When Marco asks her if she’ll die from it, Hekapoo only replies with “I always had the feeling this stuff did more harm than good” She’s apparently just okay with dying. Marco just says “aw I’m gonna miss her” SHE’S GOING TO DIE, AND YOU’VE KNOWN HER FOR A LOONG TIME. LIKE OVER 16 YEARS LONG TIME. I FEEL LIKE YOU’D BE MORE UPSET ABOUT THIS- Marco takes the wand and we see it transform back to the wand we saw in S3. Eclipsa says “Are they (dating)? Aww” Even though the last time Eclipsa saw Star, she was just about to go on a perfectly fine romantic getaway with Tom. Now, she suddenly comes back and she’s with Marco. Also the firstborn is dead. It got ganked. Then the writers pull a trick out of their magic hat, and now pudding is apparently the secret to not losing your mind in the magic dimension. And conveniently, Marco happened to get a bunch of them. Then she says... “Yeah magic’s weird” (which is another beat around the bush statement) We see the corrupted horse and Tom riding it. Star seems surprised that he was still in here She forgot about him despite the fact they broke up 2 days ago. Speaking of the horse, it’s really fucking loud and annoying. Like, shut up- Mina and the rest of the warriors happen to find Eddie, River, and Globgor near the sanctuary. They pull the thing up and conveniently hear Star saying the whispering spell Y’know something funny about this, not only is Star considerably far away from the Mewni well, she’s also saying the “whispering spell” Y’know, you’re supposed to w h i s p e r? Also, the whispering spell is completely different than the time's we've seen it before? Again, before you’re still able to hear she’s saying. They made up actual words for it. Why did they forget this? It’s really not that hard- The spell is only used 2 other times in the show. You can literally look up the clips on YouTube if you’re too lazy to watch the episode back. Moon comes by and says “please stop” which confirms she’s still against this idea Also, how did they even get here? And in literally 5 seconds, she changes her mind and agrees with Star. Even Eclipsa. With that being said, Moon is forgiven way too quickly, especially since the fact that she’s the sole reason the magic needs to be destroyed in the first place. Marco learns how to do magic in a very short time, considering that magic is usually something that requires years of training. Also, his cheekmarks don’t show up while he’s doing spells. One of the only good parts of this episode is when my wish is fulfilled, and the unicorn gets kicked. "yEaH DoeSn'T ThAt SouND GReAt??" "No, I'm gonna kick you across the room." "He'S OnE WiTH MAgiC NoW!" "Kick him!" [JOY] Marco feeds Tom the pudding, but gets PHYSICALLY STABBED ALL THE WAY THROUGH by the unicorn’s horn. PHYSICAL, MIND YOU, NOT A “MAGIC WOUND” The stab wound is hinted to be a serious thing, but is later scrapped in its entirety with no explanation. Meteora also uses her butterfly form, again-- despite never going through Mewberty or becoming anything more than a fuckin baby. And also starts using the whispering spell???? And if she’s not saying the spell, then what is the point of this part??? Corrupted magic is the same Goo as Toffee was made out of in Battle for Mewni, yet no mention of him is even made in this episode. The antagonist for 2 whole seasons, forgotten. Past queens show up in ghost form. And now all the queens are apparently happy they’re destroying it??? Even though they were upset and angry about it in the last episode. They even help out??? It did lead to some of the only good parts of this episode: Moon seeing her mother again,. Solaria rejecting Mina and seeing Meteora Finally gives some closure to their complete opposite views. This was much needed, but it only lasts for 8 seconds. Mina enters the realm of magic and gets trampled by the loud horse. Not sure why the horse conveniently went for Mina and not the people trying to destroy him. Marco celebrates about flipping an average sized horse, even though he’s been shown to do much stronger things in the series. And again him being so strong in the first place makes no sense because he's "still a human and not a mewman" Magic gets corrupted fully, and the same stormy environment we saw in BFM is seen And the queens start to disappear . The next conflict is Star leaving Marco behind, they have to go separate ways. Marco needs to go to the Earth well, and Star needs to go to the Mewni well. But then Star randomly decides that she’d rather abandon everything and everyone to be with Marco, and she jumps back into the well, except the Earth well has already closed. And Marco evidently decided to do the same. Also, the Earth well just so happens to be pretty close now, and it doesn’t add up to the long time it took to get there in Mama Star. Glossaryck’s final line is kinda ruined here. His last words are “but the kid’s still here” Which is a pretty big downgrade from this “Well, A good captain always goes down with his ship” Little details like that add up and make this a really bad episode. Marco’s cheekmarks show up again in this next part, but nothing ever comes of it. Again, I think this plot point has been scrapped by now- Star and Marco then do something through the power of love. And create a link between the dimensions And this really only implies that only “relationship love” can do this Again, it really would’ve been more impactful if they were just best friends, because that at least had 4 seasons build up. Their romantic relationship had 2 episodes. They teleport to “where they belong” Star, Moon, Eclipsa, and Meteora no longer have cheekmarks, confirming to us that it was caused by magic exposure. You already heard me say why this is a plothole, so I'm not gonna waste your time more. Solarian soldiers turn back to regular people, and most of them just go “wow that was real scary, I’m reformed now” or “Haha we’re free!” No actual punishment for their actions Mina is still insane, just without any powers now. Moon tries to help her, but she declines and then this random monster girl tries killing her. You missed a little Then Mina spouts some ominous shit about how she’ll never really be gone, and walks off with Manfred. No punishment for Mina. At all. At this point, everyone is off the hook. Meteora is off the hook, Mina is off the hook, all the townspeople are off the hook, Moon is off the hook Toffee was the only one who wasn’t off the hook. And he was the only to be confirmed to be in the right. It would have been so simple to give Toffee a proper farewell, they didn’t even need his voice actor for this! This would have been something, and it was so easy. But they didn’t do it. Also, Globgor, someone who was hyped up for a full season, didn’t have a single line in the series finale. Ponyhead is apparently still able to float, even though that makes 0 sense. Although it probably wouldn’t leave the best feeling if Star knew she crippled her friend’s entire species. Star starts to feel guilt and sorrow because she’ll never see her friends again Marco, Kelly, and Talon are all from different dimensions. Then the writers give a sad attempt of like an epilogue of sorts for those characters that aren’t on Mewni. Kelly is apparently so happy on some adventure right now (despite the fact she will never see Marco, Star, or ANYONE again) Talon is bragging at a bar. Which-- honestly is the most likely thing out of all this. Theses aren’t even real, this is through the fucked up mind of Ponyhead. We don't actually ever see these characters again. Ponyhead asks what happened to the MHC, we see that Rhombulous and Omni are dead. This is played off as a joke, despite them being really important characters. Here’s what isn’t a joke Hekapoo is dead, she was actually a good person that had multiple episodes dedicated to building her personality and relationship with Marco Reynaldo is dead. He died without ever getting his father’s love or approval. Glossaryck is dead. The most important being in the multiverse is gone. All of those spells we had multiple episodes dedicated to? Yeah, those spells that all had families, friends, complete sentience, thoughts, and aspirations? Dead. All of them Father time is dead. Those animals that helped turn his wheel are dead. In that case, TIME IS DEAD TOO. No one's pushing that fuckin' wheel! Doop Doop is dead dead. And the laser puppies... are apparently not dead. At first, we were very skeptical at this, as it really doesn’t make much sense. The puppies were made from magic, they poofed into existence through Star’s wand. How do they survive but not the Magic High Commission? But later on, we were given an explanation that makes sense a little. There’s still problems with this, but I’ll cover that in a sec. Star destroyed magic with only Mewni in mind, she never considered the dire consequences. Countless dimensions with societies that rely on magic to function are going to collapse. She didn’t care that she would never see friends like Kelly again. She didn’t care that it would cripple the ponyheads’ entire species, because again, the fact that they can float without any magic makes no sense. And she didn’t care that she would cause full-genocide of magical beings. And she never considered that destroying magic would render them powerless against any remaining Septarians who still hold grudges against the mewmans and Butterfly family. Like, oh I don’t know, SETH?? Because, hey! By the way! HE’S STILL ALIVE CANONICALLY! W H E R E - I S - H E ? All she cared about was not being able to be with her boyfriend that she only started dating within that same day. TV Tropes has summed this up pretty well - Any other civilizations in the multiverse that relied on magic for one reason or another will (at best) face significant societal upheaval and chaos, and at worst collapse entirely (if they don't outright die with magic). The actions of the four Butterflies were meant to avert potential genocide of the monsters, but they ultimately caused a genocide in the process. (TVTropes 2019) Marco’s physical wound just disappears. Why did they even take the time to have that happen in the first place? Janna gives the best last line she could ever give. "I know how to drop my pulse to 0, but only for 60 seconds." "RUN!" [DEAD] A portal appears on both sides, suggesting it’s not gonna be as simple as “no magic, so they’re separated” Now we get this running sequence where the writers desperately try to make this seem more like a finale by chucking in a bunch of background characters and references. But similar to Britta’s Tacos, it only feels empty. The music is good though, that’s one thing that never changed about the show. Brian H. Kim is a good lad. His Jeremy is Awesome joke is god tier. I love this man. Ludo, an extremely crucial part to the show’s story, gets 4 seconds in the series finale. The portals explode, and somehow combines Mewni and Earth This still doesn’t help the fact that Kelly, another big character that was friends with both Star and Marco will never see any of them again. The writers then paint this as a happy ending. Oh Nice! The worlds are combined so TheY CANBE TOGETHeR! LoOk AT THEESe niCE COLoRFULL BacKGRounDS OoOO Despite the fact this would cause mass chaos on a universal scale. Not only did Star and Marco uproot 2 (or more) dimensions for the sake of being together They likely caused the racism to get worse Caused governmental panic and chaos by merging a monarchy and democracy (US Government) Cause mass panic to both sides, citizens are not used to this and they are LITERALLY SCREAMING- I DON’T SEE VERY MUCH HAPPY ABOUT THIS SITUATION But don’t worry, because they can be together now. And that's what we've always wanted. Right? So fans were pretty mixed about this finale. Out of every episode this is the one people were most critical of. Daron had stated that she thought the ending would be “satisfying” to everyone, "Lot's of fun, adventures, a lot of Eclipsa, a lot of surprises!-" "I think everyone's gonna really enjoy it. [ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?] Evidently that wasn’t the case. Daron would continue answering non important/random questions on her twitter up until 3 months later, an AMA was held on the official Star Vs. the Forces of Evil subreddit. It was held by Daron Nefcy (Creator), Dominic Bisignano (Supervising Producer), Aaron Hammersley (Writer), and Adam McArthur (Marco’s VA) ...It was kind of a disaster! They mainly only answered the simple questions, while dancing around the important ones. They would also take the time to respond to things that were clearly answered in the show. And some of the answers they did give to the important questions were downright confusing. "Was there a planned Season 4 intro? It felt weird to still have to go through the Season 3 intro cause it was so outdated, still seeing Ludo taken over by Toffee and all." "A G R E E D" [THIS IS ALL VERY NICE, BUT IT DOESN'T SOLVE THE MYSTERY] Or this one. This one’s a classic! "Uh, does Toffee have a backstory or was he just included for the plot?" [random moaning emoji] "Y E S !" "May I see it?" "n o." Like what even was that?! Also apparently Toffee was a historian?? And that’s how he knew about the whispering spell? I'm not so sure about that one chief. I highly doubt the spell that can delete an entire element of the universe is included in any book at your fuckin' local library. Also that still doesn't explain how he knew that it was the first spell her mother taught her For all we know the first spell she taught here was fUCKIN DOOP-DOOP! And apparently now Toffee’s only motive was to get his finger back?? Even though they literally confirmed in Season 4 that he was at war with magic? And that was his motive. Tom can apparently still make portals even though it was shown that was controlled by Hekapoo’s magic. (AND HEKAPOO/MAGIC IS NOW GONE) Any question that even remotely suggested anything bad about starco or its arc either got downvoted into oblivion, or removed by the subreddit’s mods. Oh but nothing takes the cake like this right here. Evidently quite a few people were asking about Seth. Y'know the giant overlord of the series? So… let’s see what they responded with. According to Dominic, Seth is still alive. Evidently he WAS included as a “fun fact” in the book. But he would be the antagonist if the show had another season. Alright. That “fun fact” part is kinda wack, y'know, that’s kinda a big thing to be have as just a “fun fact” but oh well. Good answer. Good job. Let’s see what Daron said. "Seth has been dead for a long time." "We only get so many episodes per season so he'll need to just be in the book for now." Okay, so according to Dominic, Seth is Alive, but less than 15 minutes later Daron comes in and says he’s been dead for a long time... Did-- Did you guys just contradict each other... whEN YOU’RE IN THE SAME FUCKING ROOM?? [HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.MP4] Did you guys like talk to each other during this? Did you guys make eye contact? Were you even in the same room or was this photo taken 3 days prior during your lunch break?? Like what happened here?? Also I find it interesting how Daron’s favorite episode of the show is the episode where the main characters are held hostage and forced to kiss. The other one is fine though, Into the Wand was a fantastic episode and I agree with her decision there And I also find it interesting how Daron didn’t understand the cliche of “boy protagonist and girl protagonist get together at the end” So yeah. The AMA was kinda a disaster. But it doesn’t stop there. Part of me wish it did stop there… but it went further. After the AMA ended, one of the people on my discord, Inazuma, had taken to Twitter to voice their disappointment Evidently, Marco’s VA, Adam, saw this and decided to retweet it and call them out. Like, he didn’t even know why we were upset or anything, he just-- yoink! Post it right there. Call 'em out. Now before I continue with this part, let me say that Adam is a good person. I don’t have anything against Adam. Adam, on the very rare case that you’re watching this, I respect the work that you do, you were the perfect casting for Marco Diaz. Now, him retweeting that had gotten a few others from the discord-- myself included involved. We eventually had asked him some questionsabout the show, and for the most part, the answers he gave lined up with that of Daron’s. Common answers like “that’s how it is,” or-- sorry, “that’s how they BEEEEEEEEE” However, a few things actually did end up getting answered. We got some insight on the magic genocide. So essentially, there’s two outcomes to the effects of Cleaved on magical creatures. Magic is used to create actual organic material (i.e puppies). Magic is further used to give them laser capabilities. When magic is destroyed, the laser power goes away, and they remain as regular puppies made from organic material. So Daron’s explanation of the puppies being alive actually makes [kinda] a bit of sense. However, there’s no telling who dies and who gets to live then. The warnicorn from Battle for Mewni died, they didn’t just turn into a regular horse or anything, By that logic, the sentient spells would still be dead. And the fact that magic could create organic material like that is something they really should've said in the show. That's kind of a big thing. Like again all these "answers" are coming after the fact, they were not put in the actual show like they should've. We're reaching some J.K Rowling type shit here. I had snuck in one last question to Adam, but he was unable to respond. Regardless, thank you for your time Adam. Again, I respect your work So overall, looking back at this show, it was kinda a mess. So… what happened? What went wrong? In 2018, Dominic Bisignano replied to an anonymous ask on his tumblr account. In the reply, he had confirmed that Star Vs. the Forces of Evil was being written as production went along And you’re able to see this in action right here. Daron tweeted out after the finale of Star finished production, 1 month before it aired. Now, that writing method works if you're writing for a fun cartoon like Spongebob or something. But if you're writing like that for a story-filled show like SVtFoE, THAT'S A BIG PROBLEM. Writing without a set plan is dangerous, you're more susceptible to forgetting plot points you established. And sure enough, there are a multitude of plot points they set up in previous seasons, but didn't do anything with. I really don’t understand how Dominic flaunts this like it’s a good thing. Every person I’ve asked about this have agreed this is a terrible idea. And if you scroll down, you’ll find a post of him contradicting himself when he was accused of “pandering” to starco fans. And I love how he suggests that the fans have no influence on the show in that way, yet if you scroll up for two seconds you’ll find this shit Also, Daron had said in this interview that suggests otherwise By writing as they go along, they’re able to “see what works” for people. So yeah, they alter stuff based on fan reception. Also, Daron in the AMA had said that she started working on Star since 2007. Even though the premise that she pitched in 2007 is like completely different than what we have today. She had originally wanted Star to be a 4th grader who only THOUGHT she was magic. I'm not sure what kind of story could've come out of that. And in the same interview, she says this: "When I started pitching Star in 2007, no one wanted to make a show with a female lead character." hmm im n o t - s o - s u r e - a b o u t - t h a t - o n e . . . Alright, getting away from the interview, I’m not done yet. While rewatching the show, I decided to pay a bit more attention to the credits. And I discovered something. Throughout the show, there was a role called “Continuity Coordinator” held by Wendy Jacobsmeyer. As the (role) name suggests, she is in charge of continuity, and mainly making sure they don’t break it. Wendy stayed with this role for the entire show up until “Cornonation” Where she’s suddenly placed as “Animation Checker” for two episodes. And then… gone. Wendy is completely taken off of production, and no one held the role of Continuity Coordinator. The role was gone in its entirety. ...Why? No, literally why? Why would you remove a role that’s sole purpose is to make sure you don’t break continuity in a show that HAS A LOT OF STORY AND CONTINUITY???! No matter what way you look at this, this is a problem. Writing without a plan, and then taking away the one thing that prevents you from making mistakes is a flaw. No way around it. "BUT BUT BUT WAIT--" "DISNEY RUSHED THEM!! DISNEY BAD!! " Okay, let’s say for a second that Disney did rush them, I get it, it happens. But the problem is they prioritized shipping drama over the story almost entirely. Even if they were told “hey, by the way, this is the last season” midway through production, they still made the wrong choice by choosing to ignore so many loose ends in favor of shipping. But HEY WAIT A MINUTE- WHAT’S THIS? Daron confirmed herself that she knew she was only getting 4 seasons prior to all this?? So what the hell happened then??! "THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS??" Okay… now, again I want to restate. I don’t have anything against you guys as people. I’m sure you’re both very sweet and nice people. And if we talked over lunch, we would have a good time. I'm sure you're all great people. But as showwriters, you guys got some stuff you got to work on. And that’s what it boils down to. This was Daron Nefcy’s first show. Most writer’s first shows don’t even get this far. She had a show that had the potential of going down as something amazing, but in the end, they dropped the ball. In case you don’t know, Gravity Falls is pretty much unanimously held on a high pedestal. You should WANT your cartoon to be a Gravity Falls. This show had the potential to go out as a Gravity Falls. The problem is, it went on for longer than it needed to, and left way too many loose ends open. The most loose ends were established in the earlier seasons (or the book, in Seth’s case) And it primarily deals with Toffee / Raptor plot in general / Star’s Family What was the whole in between from the BFM flashback to when we saw Toffee in Episode 8 Where is Seth? Or ANYTHING about him, really Does he even exist at this point? Because he was a thing created after Battle for Mewni) Where was Toffee going to go after he “succeeded” How did Toffee really know about the Whispering Spell? What's the deal with Toffee’s hinted connection with Marco? What's the deal with Celena, or anything about her in general? What are her secrets she apparently had? What is Marco’s connection to Celena? Where's Marco’s monster arm? What's up with Marco’s cheekmarks-- and again, “magic exposure” is not a reasonable excuse. It could’ve been easy connecting it back to the Butterfly family considering Eclipsa's dad's little cameo here. Though it still wouldn’t explain why non-Butterfly family people (Moon/Star) still have them. So really, Marco’s cheekmarks should’ve never happened. It only caused confusion. Ludo’s redemption arc was horribly underdone (2 episodes ain’t enough) They never elaborated on Toffee’s ties with Eclipsa How did Toffee even corrupt magic in the first place (did he use the whispering spell? Like this could’ve been answered in one second) What was the deal with Marco being hinted to be evil so many times? There were SO many opportunities to explain all of these, but they missed them, and instead favored filler and random shipping drama. And with them continuing it for longer than it needed, it opened up for lazy writing, which caused the various problems I stated before. So… How could it have been done better? I had mentioned before how this series had the potential to go down as a “Gravity Falls” The thing about Gravity Falls, Alex Hirsch knew EXACTLY when to end it. He understood that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And he took it upon himself to end the show. That’s right, Gravity Falls was ENDED (by his own will), not cancelled not rushed, no bullshit. He ended it. That being said, Daron Nefcy should’ve known when the perfect time to end this show would’ve been. And that time is riiiight about *here* Battle for Mewni This event was the conclusion of the overarching story that was being set up over the first two seasons. Also, if you’d notice. It’s actually the only “special event” of the entire series. Even the series finale wasn’t considered a “special event” And any large writing issues happened after this event. Ending it here would’ve left it off at a high note. But, admittedly, Battle for Mewni isn’t perfect, not at all actually. But I believe with a few tweaks, this could’ve been a fuckin awesome series finale. Toffee’s death in the original BFM was rushed, and never really explained. How on Earth did Star even revive ALL OF MAGIC from a tiny little nugget of uncorrupted magic? And his death doesn’t even make sense. The raptor killing spell was specifically designed to kill Septarians that can regenerate. And it took time, and effort to develop, enough time was taken that Solaria had originally started developing the spell, but then was killed by Toffee in the process, so Eclipsa had to finish it And Star just comes in and does this mindless anime blast, that doesn’t even 1-shot him! The final blow is a pillar falling on him. Like what is realistically stopping him from regenerating from any of that goop? Or this eye, that's perfectly intact? If a random magic blast could kill Septarians, then the rebellion wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. They’d be just like any other monster attack. I feel like cleaning up this ending a bit so it isn’t as rushed and anticlimactic would help make this a really good finale. For the main antagonist of 2 whole seasons, we sure don’t know a lot about Toffee. His plan was to destroy all magic and get his finger back. And he immediately left everyone alone once he achieved that. And again, we don’t know about any of the in-between of the BFM flashback and when he first appears. What was he doing this whole time? How did he plan ALL of this out? Time spent on episodes like “Marco and the King” and “Puddle Defender” could've been better used adding more closure to these types of endgame-plot points. Especially since the events of these two episodes can easily be told in short. Marco arrives at Mewni, Ludo finally attacks the kingdom Done. Moon begins to be less racist, Star heads to Butterfly Castle. Done. That's *22 minutes that was just kinda wasted. So yeah utilizing that time to cover endgame plot points is a must. Unfortunately, having this be the finale would get rid of the few things that made the last two seasons enjoyable. The Eclipsa arc was by far the most interesting, but it doesn’t live up to the hype and mystery that the whole overarching Toffee story had. So unfortunately, we’d need to take a lot of the Eclipsa stuff out, if we want this to be the ending. All of the hyping of her being evil (which didn’t actually do anything in the end), the encounter in Battle for Mewni, the contract, etc. The Into the Wand stuff can stay. That was a frickin awesome episode. But all of the foreshadowing of her chapter would probably need to be changed a bit. Eclipsa was the main continuing factor from BFM into Season 3. So taking her out leaves no other reason to continue the story. It sucks, yes, but this is for the sake of having a better ending. Because obviously the one that we got was pretty shit. Remember that some of these foreshadowing moments can stay. A series finale should wrap up the main story, while leaving a bit of mystery to the imagination. Adventure Time and Gravity Falls do this very well. This also means that Tom would never have his redemption arc. Which also megalodon sucks, but to be fair, I don’t think Daron really cared for his character to begin with, seeing that she based him off of “all her ex boyfriends” ...yikes If Battle for Mewni were the ending, “Into the Wand” would lose a lot of it’s far-foreshadowing factors. We do end up learning about Moon in BFM, so the only ones that wouldn’t be covered from the episode would be Eclipsa, Solaria, and Celena. This may make the episode lose just a bit of meaning, but overall, the episode is still fantastic. Seriously I can’t get over this moment: "But I didn't fix my wand!" [DANGER] "IT DOESN'T MATTER." 'YOU'RE GOING TO DIE." "Y O U - A R E - G O I N G - T O - D I E ." And again, little loose ends like this that aren't too big leaves stuff to think about after the finale. A montage at the end of Battle for Mewni could cover a lot of ground. We could see things like: people rebuilding the kingdom It could handle the racism plot instantly by simply showing Star/Moon signing some sort of law into effect where Monsters and Mewmans are equal. Really, it didn’t need to be a 2 season arc- Could have Marco and (Whoever) still together, and could show various moments of everyone still hanging out again. Again, Battle for Mewni would’ve been a good ending. Especially with these little tweaks here. The story really didn’t need to continue that much. But wait, I’m forgetting something again... "BLUE, WHAT ABOUT THE SHIPS????" "THE SHIPS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!" Ahh yeah, we gotta give the people what they want, right? So it’s no surprise from this video that shipping is one of this show’s main flaws. It overpowered nearly any logic or quality to the story. And evidently it’s what people care about the most for some reason. Even though if all you wanted was teen romance drama you could go watch literally any other show- So with this vision of a Battle for Mewni ending in mind, what do we do with the ships? Keep in mind, this is assuming that the Blood Moon incident never happened, because I feel like this writing decision only caused trouble for the show. Again, the writers kinda dug themselves a rabbit hole that they would need to dig themselves before they establish Starco. Otherwise it would be established through manipulation, and that would be wack for everyone. There are two paths that could be realistically here: Jarco and Starco. I'm gonna go through what the finale would look like with each ship. Again, like it or not, this ship makes the most sense in context. And it wouldn’t require any changes throughout S2, as they were doing perfectly fine as a relationship for a full half of a season. So nothing needs changing on the Jarco side, but there would need to be a resolution to Star’s feelings for Marco. Probably the best way to do this is during “Just Friends”. Instead of Star being secretly dying inside, we could have a moment where she realizes Marco is genuinely happy like this, and she naturally gets over her feelings for him. Thus, resolving the jealousy situation, and diffusing Starco. Marco can then be with Jackie after BFM, and still hang out with Star. Now let's look at the Starco ending This one is also surprisingly easy to fix. But it would sacrifice the Jarco relationship in its entirety. I wouldn’t have Marco break up with Jackie, because again that doesn't really make sense in context of the past 2 seasons. Instead, I would have them not get together in the first place. In “Sleepover” S2E9A, Jackie is over at Star’s house, this is the first time Marco has been this close to Jackie. The most natural way to diffuse the ship at this point is having Marco realize that maybe Jackie isn’t as good as he thinks. This would be done by having Jackie doing, or saying something that would lower Marco’s interest in her. Not something shallow like “Oh she likes this random thing? That’s weird, I don’t like you anymore”. Something that actually says something about her core personality. Something Marco as a character wouldn’t feel right with. After Marco gets over Jackie, Star will eventually notice that Marco is feeling down about this, and they can talk about it. Star being there for Marco’s time of need establishes a canon interest for their relationship. The rest of the season can be spent SUBTLY making them closer and closer together (Same way that Jarco was done). Eventually leading to Star leaving during “Starcrushed” because of Toffee returning, and Marco follows her into Mewni during “Battle for Mewni” and then they can get together in a way that doesn’t completely interrupt the story. Or better yet, they could get together in the “Just Friends’” episode, cause since Jarco doesn't exist now, that episode slot is kinda just empty. This way, it would have no chance of interrupting the story during the finale. So there’s how I would’ve done it different. I’m no show writer, but I can guarantee that having a better ending would’ve made this show more memorable. Shaffrillas Productions summed this up pretty well "And then Blue Order asked:" "Any opinions on Star vs. the Forces of Forces of Evil's final season? Are you aware of the writing issues it had?" "Y'know what?" "It was- I really liked it at first, and then it just collapsed into such a mediocre finale that did not answer any questions "I think endings really make something, like, stick out a lot more in my mind." "But that's how I feel about Star now, with the last season. It felt like such a non-climax that I just like-- "The whole thing just kinda fell apart for me, so..." A show’s finale is what leaves the lasting impact. That’s part of the reason why we all love Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls so much. They both had very good endings. But that’s all for this giant video. I’m sorry this took so long to make. This was over like *6 months in the making. I used to absolutely love this show. But it’s a shame that everything happened the way it did. Good news is, if you’re ever looking for a rewrite of the series, TBlofeld’s got you covered. He's doing this whole rewrite after Battle for Mewni and I haven’t caught up all the way yet, but so far it’s really good! I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the project, and participated in the Star discussion chat, or any discussion in the comments or anything. This video would simply not exist without you. And I also want to thank my community in general for accepting how I feel about this show. From what I've seen in some other communities, if you bad-mouth this show you're gonna get killed. So yeah, thank you guys for not killing me-- up until this point at least. And now, I can rest easy, finally putting this show behind me for good. Headband Guy: "HELP I'M EDITING THIS WITH NO PAY" "THIS IS ILLEGAL" "I'M A SLAAVE?!"

Channel: Blue Order

Views: 1,949,402

Rating: 4.8602943 out of 5

Keywords: Star Vs the Forces of Evil, Star Vs the Forces of Evil Review, Star Vs the Forces of Evil Full Series Review, SVTFOE, SVTFOE Review, Review, Full Series Review, How Star Vs the Forces of Evil Fell from Grace, Blue Order, Blue Order Star Vs the Forces of Evil, Blue Order Star Vs the Forces of Evil Review, Blue Order Megalodon Star Video, Megalodon Star Video, Blue Order SVTFOE, Fair Use

Id: ua-ANnAVLjA

Length: 132min 43sec (7963 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Spoderman77]

"Just because something is realistic doesn't mean it's good."

PREACH my brother.

[u/RK128]

I've been a fan of this series since the end-tail of S2 and been watching the show since then. It's been an active part of my life for the longest time in both past (both made things worse/better during a dark time in my life) and present (being one of the many inspirations for an original story I'm brainstorming). But this video, really does a good job diving into exactly WHY the show fell apart and just... Failed, putting it harshly, with its final season.

I do appreciate you actually started out with what the show did right, giving a nice 'listen, I love this series too man and didn't want to make this' vibe to the entire video. Most would just dive into 'this is crap for X reason', but you didn't. And that deserves respect.

Regarding the shipping, which is a low hanging bruised fruit at this point, I agree with it surprisingly. I shipped and ship Starco still and find how the show used the Blood Moon to be horrid overall. It was a plot device, just like TomStar, Kellco, and Jarco, to prolong Starco at the show's conclusion. Not something that was ever fully 'explained' in-universe. So no wonder you latched on to it 'forcing them together' for a majority of your video. I cannot fault you for that when the show itself butchered the possible potential of the Blood Moon. The bond of Star and Marco was honestly tarnished during the third and fourth seasons, but the bright spots of their bond really did help through the bad ones.

Aside from the specifics about Starco... Nearly completely agree with everything you stated. The lore wasn't used as well as it could have been used, Toffee was abandoned waaaaay to quickly when he should have stuck around and them firing the one KEEPING THE LORE IN CHECK was a shitty move.

Critical and harsh videos on Star Vs have been popping up more lately but I really like the angle, amount of depth you went into your various points and little touches (the timestamps to various sections) were great. And your 'possible endings' was another nice touch too. Both endings hold merit that you went into.

[u/Connll]

Have watched half of the video. Will edit if needed.

I appreciate the effort and I appreciate the thought processes behind most of what he said, even though I disagree with several points (You can´t say that the Blood Moon made Starco "non-consensual", because there was NOTHING shown in the cartoon to support that view; Eclipsa wasn´t the real queen because she abandoned her kingdom and defected to the enemy kingdom during war, 300 years ago, etc.)

He was spot on on Tofee, Seth, Ludo and story continuities, tough.

Thanks for this video analisys. I will watch the rest and edit this post If need to comment on something else.

edit1: 1 hour, 20 minutes mark. He got *everything* about the Blood Moon wrong. Its hard to even begin. Basically, he *started* by his conclusion, "that The Blood Moon made Starco non-consensual", and ignored everything that could contradict that conclusion. I Will edit again if needed.

edit2: 1 hour, 39 minutes. He is also wrong when he *repeats* for the nth time that Marco had shown no interest in Star. The show was clear in showing some form of attraction since episode 1. Just because it wasn´t explicitly stated doesn´t mean that it wasn´t implied.

edit3: 1 hour, 50 minutes. He is 95% right about the final episodes. There are a few rough edges (Moon didn´t "betray anyone". A deposed monarch is *supposed* to try to reclaim his/her kingdom. if anything Star betrayed Moon by handing Mewni over to Eclipsa) but thats it.

edit4: Finished the video. As I said before, I disagree with a few points, (Mainly the ones I mentioned before), but overall, his review is good and many of his criticisms are well-tough. The only parts in wich he went REALLY off-course was on the Blood Moon stuff and his perceived "effects" on Star and Marco.

It was well-worth watching. Thank you for posting this.

[u/Spoderman77]

Not sure I agree with the Blood Moon take. Given that you don't have to interpret the moon as forcing two people together in those early episodes. It was left intentionally vague.

[u/Direnta]

Wow! A 2 hour critique of a series that is actually constructive.

cough lily orchard cough

[u/Inazuma-sensei]

I think this is a video every fan of Star should watch. It's not a hate video, it points out either the good the series had and what went INDISPUTABLY wrong in latter seasons. I think it could serve to take some notes.

[u/Blierr]

Yeah, this video really covered everything.
He explained why the show was good, and carefully deconstructed just why the last two seasons ruined everything

[u/NLSS_Highlights]

Just a great video. It points out everything fantastic and everything terrible about the show.

Edit: Look at those downvotes. From 9 upvotes to 5. Kinda funny how salty this fandom can be over complimenting a great video.

[u/Spoderman77]

Wait a minute, I swear last time I checked the wiki it said the words were incomprehensible. Where is his source on saying the whispering spell had actual words?