Alright, I was bored earlier so I decided to look up "Double Rainboom" on YouTube (since I had yet to watch it; I'm not exactly up-to-date with the rest of the fandom quite yet). Beforehand, I already knew about this project (mostly): the hype, the trailers, the everything else, but I never actually got around to watching it. I read some reviews about it (most being mixed to negative) and never really felt like wasting my time. But finally, I got around to watching it. What did I think of it? Well, you'll find it.
I'm probably gonna do reviews for MLP:FiM episodes or fan projects from time-to-time through my journals (as I'm not entirely sure how to play the video and do my commentary at the same time through YouTube, nor do I want to take so much time trying to do so). So, why not start off with the probably most hyped up project out of all of them? And this is how I'm going to do these reviews on my journals: I'm going to go through the mane (lel) synopsis, then rate the project/episode on different things: animation quality, character (if the project uses canon characters, I'll rate how in-character they are, but if its OCs, then I'll just judge how developed and legit the OCs are), voice acting (again, depends whether the characters are canon or OCs), the storyline (the main storyline of the project) and pretty much the overall rating. Seems simple enough?
"Double Rainboom" was a MLP:FiM fan project created by Zachary Rich/FlamingoRich on YouTube, who presented it as the first full-length MLP fan episode (it wasn't, "Dusk's Dawn" was) and promised show-quality animation. It basically focused on Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, Twilight, whom had been working on a supposed talent-enhancing potion ever since magic kindergarten (Lesson Zero reference XD). But Rainbow Dash breaks sneaks, wondering what kind of "egghead stuff" she was doing. Blah-blah-blah, Twilight doesn't know what the potion does, then she does, explains it, then Rainbow Dash drinks it while Twilight is randomly talking to herself.
After Twi runs a few tests on Rainbow Dash to test out the effects of the potion, she allows Rainbow to fly away (who flies out fast enough to put a huge crater in the ceiling and remain unscathed) and abruptly finds herself many feet in the air (my headcanon is she was momentarily knocked out from the force of her take-off). She flies back down again, flies throughout town, way too many reference jokes happen, and then she flies up into outer space for some reason (and can still talk and breathe normally, for some reason).
She suggests she do a Double Rainboom, does the Double Rainboom, destroys town, and ends up tearing a hole into the presumed fourth wall and later ends up in the Powerpuff Girls universe.
She helps the Powerepuff girls defeat a monster, whom the later end up killing (I think) and then they chase Rainbow all throughout Townsville until her wings become rather disfigured when the potion wears off, rendering her unable to fly altogether. She screams for help as the Powerpuff girls close in on her, deus ex Pinkamena appears and drags her back to MLP:FiM, the rest of the Ponyvillians repair the town (for some reason) while Rainbow Dash writes a letter to the Princess and then the episode ends.
Animation</u>
Okay, let's start on the animation quality of this fan episode. It's rather stilted in places, nothing too glaringly obvious though. But despite that, it's surprisingly legit and pretty close to the show quality animation that they promised. Probably the animation that stands out the most was the Double Rainboom itself; it looked really amazing, especially for a student project, and could be compared with the canon Sonic Rainboom, maybe it was even better, I dunno. The animation of the characters themselves though was...passable. Like I said, it was a little stilted in some places, but probably the closest to show quality I've seen from a fan animation (other than JanAnimations and other shorts).
There's not much else to say here. I'll give the animation quality a 9/10.
Character</u>
Okay, let's start with Twilight Sparkle when it comes to being "in-character". With Twilight, it was more or less in my opinion. She most likely would've watched Rainbow closer when it came to the potion. She said straight-out it might be dangerous and should've known, by the way Rainbow was acting, that she might be a little inclined to take it and drink it (then again, she might've been thinking of the canon Rainbow Dash, who would never steal from her friends, but I'll get to that later). Another thing, later in the project, Pinkie Pie reveals that she drank another potion Twilight whipped up to go save Rainbow Dash.
Okay, wait. What? In the beginning, she's been working on this thing since magic kindergarten and suddenly, she can make a new one in mere minutes? Unless Dash was in the Powerpuff Girls universe MUCH longer than we thought, or floating through that void between the two universes longer than we thought (which would make a bada$$ twist), that made no sense, making that serious deus ex machina. Because seriously, we know that much time didn't pass because Ponyville was still in ruins later on. Anyways, lets get to the cyan Pegasus herself.
Rainbow Dash was way OOC in this, if you ask, well, anybody. First of all, this is the Element of Loyalty. In canon, she'd never steal from her friends (she stole the potion from Twilight to use for her own selfish needs) and she'd never do something that would put others in danger (she DESTROYED the whole of Ponyville and many ponies' lives for Celestia's sake!). First of all, let's start with her actions throughout the episode. She'd probably more likely be found clearing the weather, practicing her stunts, something along that line, but she normally doesn't care what Twi is doing unless it's something concerning her or the rest of their friends. Otherwise, she was just there randomly as a plot device, nothing more.
Second, she was no Element of Loyalty in this fan ep. Like I've said probably a thousand times before, she'd never steal from her friends, nor would she put other ponies in danger for her own selfish needs (the Double Rainboom itself). As depicted in "Sonic Rainboom", she was practicing the Rainboom in a clearing far from Ponyville, so if she pulled it off, it wouldn't harm anypony nearby (except maybe Fluttershy). When she did it at the Best Young Fliers' Competition, it was done accidentally while trying to save Rarity, and she was far down below the stadium when she actually pulled it off. Here, she did it directly above Ponyville, which, like I said, turned it into Fallout:Equestria (seriously, in reality, none of them would've survived the destruction caused by the blast, many of them were depicted trapped beneath rubble and debris, but mostly unscathed).
I'll give the in-character portion 5/10 (Twilight was mostly in-character, while Rainbow was drastically OOC, it's 50% pretty much).
Voice Acting</u>
Alright, I don't really have much to say about this one. Probably the most accurate voice actor was Pinkie Pie and the Powerpuff girls (I'm really surprised how the Powerpuff Girls sounded more accurate the MLP:FiM characters). But let's stick to the MLP:FiM side of the project; Pinkie Pie's voice is pretty easy to do, so yeah, of course it was accurate, it's accurate in almost every fan short/project she's in. Twilight's voice seemed to be slightly higher pitched than her voice is in the canon show, the same goes for Rainbow Dash.
Seriously, they pretty much got Rainbow all wrong in this project, from her character to the voice acting, the only legit part was probably her general appearance. The voice acting was passable as well. I understand that her tomboyish voice is kinda hard to fake, but in some places, it sounded pretty accurate, in others, it sounded painfully obvious that it wasn't Ashleigh Ball (I know it's not in any of these projects, but still, your goal is to make the voice actors sound as close to the official ones as possible).
I'll give this one a 7/10. 'Nuff said.
Overall</u>
Alright, overall, this project was, well, let's just say it was okay. Probably the worst parts were the overuse of popular references (the BG characters getting more screen-time than the rest of the Mane Six, the meme and reference jokes around every turn, the unexpected crossover, I could go all day). To be honest, though, this seemed more like a bad crossover fanfiction than a legit episode of MLP:FiM. My overall rating on this fan project is an 8/10. It was okay, but it wasn't the best thing in the world and wasn't all tha the team promised.
Secret Cheesecake is out! XD