Rainbow Dash receives an invitation to attend the Wonderbolt Academy, but questions whether she is Wonderbolt material.Rainbow Dash receives an invitation to attend the Wonderbolt Academy, but questions whether she is Wonderbolt material.Rainbow Dash receives an invitation to attend the Wonderbolt Academy, but questions whether she is Wonderbolt material.
Photos
- Twilight Sparkle
- (voice)
- Applejack
- (voice)
- …
- Pinkie Pie
- (voice)
- …
- Rarity
- (voice)
- …
- Lightning Dust
- (voice)
- Spitfire
- (voice)
- Bulk Biceps
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
- Directors
- Writers
- Lauren Faust
- Merriwether Williams
- Bonnie Zacherle(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis episode was accidentally released two days early, on Thursday the 12th, due to the The Hub's "Hubworld" website having the episode's file up that normally would have been made available the Monday after the episode aired. Due to a timecode for automatic release not being entered, the episode became publicly viewable immediately.
- Quotes
Lightning Dust: [after Rainbow Dash manages to save her friends from the tornado she and Lightning Dust created for the cloudbusting exercise] That... was... awesome!
Rainbow Dash: Awesome? My friends could have been smashed to pieces!
Lightning Dust: Yeah, but they weren't, right? Can't say the same for the clouds. We totally wiped them out with that tornado. The other cadets will have to be up there for days to bust as many as we did!
[the other cadets glare at her as she holds a foreleg out in front of Rainbow Dash]
Rainbow Dash: A hoof bump, seriously? You made me clip my wing, you sent half of our students into serious tailspins on the obstacle course. You unleashed a tornado that nearly demolished my friends!
Lightning Dust: Yeah, and?
Rainbow Dash: And, I get that you want to be the best, so do I, but you're going about it in the wrong way.
Lightning Dust: The Wonderbolts don't seem to think so. After all. Spitfire did make *me* the leader and *you* the wing pony.
Rainbow Dash: [sighs] You're right. She did...
- ConnectionsReferences Top Gun (1986)
As far as Season 3 goes, "Wonderbolts Academy" is much better than "One Bad Apple" and "Spike at Your Service". There are also far worse episodes of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' overall. It is nowhere near one of the season's best either, it's no "Too Many Pinkie Pies" or "Sleepless in Ponyville", and there are vastly superior episodes of the show too. If asked to rank it with the other Season 3 episodes, it would be towards the bottom. It's not a bad episode, just that there is nothing special about it either.
Starting with the good things, and there are many, the animation continues to be great. Especially for the academy, which is like a grand character of its own inside and out. The music fits well tonally and in placement, not overused or overpowering. There are no faults to be had with the voice acting, Ashleigh Ball gives a powerful performance as Rainbow Dash. There are some nice moments in the script, whether amusing or touching. The moral is identifiable and not done in a preachy way.
Pinkie Pie has moments of amusement and Rainbow Dash's stepping out of the office moment is heart-breaking. Love Rainbow Dash, in one of her meatiest episodes of the episode along with "Sleepless in Ponyville", she feels like a real character with real humanity. Snowflake and especially Spitfire are fun supporting characters.
Not everything works sadly. Lightning Dust had potential, but managed at the end of the day to be very generic and rather irritating. Basically a jerk of a character and not much else. The ending felt rushed and too convenient, it was not too hard either on how it was all going to map out.
Other than Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, the Mane 6 don't progress or compel all that much and some of the character flaws are exaggerated which makes them less likeable. The writing definitely has moments, but it was also on the whole rather bland and didn't have enough to it to let me properly invest emotionally in what went on.
"Wonderbolts Academy" is definitely worth a look, but the season and the show have done a lot better and the wonder isn't quite there. 6/10
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jul 19, 2020
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime22 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1080i (HDTV)
- 480i (SDTV)