Snowdrop

Hello & welcome back to Trotting Through Life. As I've said in the past,  I would review fan work as myself and today is a fan work as I take a look at the short fan film, from Silly Filly Studios, Snowdrop.  What did I think of it overall?   Snowdrop is sooo cute!  But there are some hiccups within short but enough to detract from my enjoyment. But we will come to that when I talk about the plot.   Also is it just me or is anyone else getting a Rankin/Bass vibe looking at the the font for the opening credits.



The Plot

In this short fanfilm, it takes place years before the show and before Luna as Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon.  Now, the only big issue I have with otherwise adorable short.  The settings of what we see, mostly Snowdrop's school  feels too modern.  But other then that, I can't complain as Silly Filly perfectly captured the look of the show.  Snowdrop is a young pegasus filly that is blind and because of that, she does not have an easy life and in her class, they are working on a gift to present to Celestia and Luna for the big spring celebration. Snowdrop does not have anything to present to the princesses and as we see her sitting on a cloud outside her home,  she is crying over this fact and the tear freezes and she shapes it into a snowflake. Or as she calls it a star,   she may not know what a star looks like but she knows what they sound like and tries to work off that and at the presentation, she takes her star with her and presents it to the princesses and she talks of why, the ponies should love winter too and why she feels, they should not shun winter.   Because they already have a happy spring, summer, & fall.  She asks "why can't we have a happy winter?" And we see this get to Luna as she often feels the same way about her night and the short goes to modern time as we see Celestia and Luna about to drop the last snowflake that Snowdrop left behind and it was the very first one, she made.  This gets to Luna as she said,  Snowdrop was the only friend that truly understood her night, simply translated to she was the only that truly understood Luna. And Luna never got the chance to say goodbye to Snowdrop as she was in banishment, when Snowdrop passed away.  Okay, I really want to see a follow up short or a fanfic exploring the freindship between Luna and Snowdrop.  Also, the moment when Snowdrop got her cutie mark and it was an ice flower was so sweet.  Also sidenote,  but there was a classmate of Snowdrop's, that if she wasn't a pegasus, I'd say she was an ancestor of Diamond Tiara.

Moving on, now.


Characters


Now I won't be breaking down the characters any further then here.  With that out of the way, let's begin.


Snowdrop voiced by Meredith Sims

I adore Snowdrop.    Because she is a character, I feel the show will never tackle.  I've often said in the past that we need more animated characters with disabilities to show how to overcome them and while Lauren Faust may have planned something like that with Scootaloo, it never happened and now it would feel out of place but with Snowdrop, we knew from the get go that she was different. That she was blind and yeah, it got to her because she was different and the other students in her class, I don't know if I'd say they made fun of her so much as they felt sorry for her and didn't want to work with her because of her difference but as we saw she was able to overcome her differences and made a lasting impact on the history of Equestira.    Did feel sorry for her plight? Yeah, a little bit because I can relate to the situation, she's been in.   But as this short showed, don't let your disability keep you from achieving greatness and Snowdrop did achieve greatness.  I really wanted to see more of Snowdrop's life besides her time as a little filly.  That's the good thing about a short, I guess, when it leaves you wanting more.

Luna voiced by Hannah Trusty

  












I love how naturally this short worked Luna into and the fact that a relationship between her and Snowdrop blossomed makes perfect sense to me.   I just wanted to see more of that.   Her face when Snowdrop was explaining why they should honor winter was that of "Someone finally gets it".    It had to be one of the most touching moments and to find out that Luna never got to say goodbye to Snowdrop because of her banishment is one of the saddest things ever.



Celestia voiced by Jen McGregor

Now Celestia did not play as big a role as her (cooler) little sister but we also saw how much Snowdrop came to me to her and for those wondering,  yes Celestia has a different hair color in the past.  From what I understand, when Celestia was originally designed, she had pink hair and many fans use the pink hair to indicate a younger Tia.   That's really cool in my opinion.



Primrose voiced by Kira Buckland

Primrose is Snowdrop's mom and while we didn't see much of her. It was clear that she loved her daughter despite her daughter's differences. They didn't matter to her because she loved her all the same, like a good mother does.



My Final Thoughts


For this being the first MLP short fanfilm, I watched.  I loved it.   It is slower paced then the average MLP episode but it was still very good and I do wish some things had been explored more but for what it delivered in such a short amount of time,   it was fantastic.   I cannot suggest this short film enough.  It captures the look and spirit of MLP wonderfully. It in my opinion is top notch work.