October Video Followup

Now that we've all had a few days to calm down after the new video, let's take a closer look at it. There are several interesting things in the trailer - it's the second one after the very first one to have dialogue, it's the first one to show a long, (seemingly) uninterrupted sequence from an episode, and it was released to Funtasia Daily first, which was really cool. Senpai noticed me!

The video itself was noticed by plenty of other people too - it's the first one since the very first trailer to make the rounds on the websites of that other fandom. To all my new visitors - welcome. Be sure to check out the third trailer if you haven't seen it yet - it got a lot less attention in the ponynet than the new one, but it's certainly worth seeing.

The analysis follows, after the break.


The entire trailer shows Rose, Zach (formerly known as "Al") and Fabian (formerly known as "Elio") entering a cave and getting lost in it. This is a scene from the episode tentatively identified as Episode #5. The basic synopsis of the episode seems to be that a blue crystal falls from the sky, after which Zach the Angel appears. (Angels seem to be connected to starfall) Zach is in a classroom with a depiction of the crystal falling from the sky on the blackboard - we then see Rose raising her hoof enthusiastically, perhaps volunteering for a mission to... do something with the crystal? The next scene we seem to have is this one where Zach and Rose fall down:

Notice the roots! Compare them to the roots in the next screenshot.

This is where the new video seems to pick up. We start off here:

Looks similar enough to me.

There are a bunch of things going on here! Fabian says "There are you are", and Zach's wing is already bandaged, so some time has passed since they fell. (and since they presumably can't get back up, so it looks like they probably won't have the ability to teleport themselves or levitate themselves - at least not that far) We can see a nice cross section of the ground around them, and two hovering mirrors are sending up a swirly blue-red dual beam which combines into a purple beam. In the third promo, we can see Rose conjuring a red beam from her mirror - Rose and Zach seem to be sending up a beam each which combine into a larger one. The purpose of the beam seems to be to act as a beacon, like previously speculated about the similar beam in the previous promo. Fabian is magicking the crystal and mirror forwards in this scene, which then push him off the ledge.

This is probably the best closeup of the crystal we've had so far. It looks even more similar to the 3D prop design previously posted.

It's hard to make out the gem on the mirror, but it appears to be pink, which would match Fabian's crown and continue the crown gem-mirror gem match pattern.

Too silly.

(The crown gem probably looks purple here because the whole scene appears to be tinted just a bit red.)

Fabian about to fall on Zach and Rose

Yep, looks like they are sending a beam each.

feels bad filly

 As the Fillys lie on the ground, the crystal bounces off into a hidden cave.

Sparkly!

The Fillys enter the cave to try and find a way out of there. What happens next is pretty interesting. First, Zach summons his mirror, using a hoof gesture (more support for Filly magic being done through gestures, guess I'll have to update the Guide).

Then, he uses his mirror to cast a beam of light on the crystal.

Then, he desummons his mirror.

After that, the crystal levitates, and he seems to be able to control where it goes. So it appears they can use their mirrors to cast spells! We've also seen them levitate the mirrors themselves plenty of times - that probably happens automatically when they summon the mirror as it'd be hard to make the mirror shine a levitation beam upon itself... unless they can summon multiple mirrors, of course.

The following scene where they walk next to the pool of water was also in the third promo, which means we can compare how they look! To help us with that, we have an excellent comparison video by Zejgar.



Looks like they brightened it up! I think it looks better now, you can see more clearly that the foilage outside the cave entrance is outside and not simply another part of the cave.

2spooky

The next surprise was getting a song from Filly Funtasia's soundtrack! Just like the music from the third promo, it grew on me after a couple of viewings, and I now think it's pretty good.

I must say I also really like the neat lightning effect the orb's light makes in the cave and the varied camera angles they use.

More shipping fuel!

And then, the Fillys start getting lost in the cave. We see some more ground cross-sections again.

This is another shot I like - a nice perspective view from a creepy vaguely heart-shaped rock opening... and the quadratic plates on the surface of the rock below them look somewhat similar to the surface of the blue crystal, though there's probably no deeper connection there.

I'm not sure horse legs can bend like that, though.

And we're back at another pretty glittery section of the cave. Another neat detail I noticed in this scene is the noticeable hoof sound effects when they walk here.

The Fillys are at a dead end as the video comes to an end, and Rose asks Zach (name now canon!) where the exit is. Fabian's name then became canon through the comments.

Canon!

There was some unfortunate news in the comments too.

As we say in Sweden, "whoever waits for something good, never waits too long"

And that's pretty much it! What did you guys think about the new video?