What went wrong?

What went wrong?

Roadside Attraction

Alex Hirsch is a hack millennial who can't write, even on his passion project.

I will never not be mad at this episode

> that "epic" fight scene in the finale.
> Rock version of main theme
Wew

there's something super dumb to me when every cartoon finale has to have all the irrelevant characters do their own "contribution" to the fight, it's so overdone and "cute". oh look the fat guy threw a donut at the bad guy hahahahahahahahahah! (just an example not actually from the show)

>address Dipper's flaws
>don't address dipper's flaws
>dropping the ball with Bill Cipher
>Grunkle Stan being OOC in the finale during the end of first part
>sacrifice he made basically meant nothing
>Mabel gets everything her way she can't ever not have something

Is that all?

kids digs giant robot

What was so bad?

I always like that part about finals but I understand how it could be annoying

Who doesn't?

They tried to set up this parallel between the Mystery Twins and the Super Stan Bros. for drama but it fell flat, mostly because of the way they handled it in Part 2 of the finale. Also, Part 2 of the finale just wasn't great, and Part 3 had its issues too. I can handle giant robot fights, sure. The circle of glyphs ultimately leading to nothing because Stan decided to be a huge cunt for no reason at the worst possible moment was annoying. Bill was somehow more threatening BEFORE he escaped into the real world, and I felt like very little of what happened in the series as a whole mattered in the finale. I love the show as a whole but the finale let me down.

Don't worry guys, the Journal 3 replica is where Alex's talent went. It will be way better than S2B.

everything beside the art direction

Oh it was going downhill way before that episode. Who started the wasted potential meme? Was it Avatar the last Airbender or were there others before it?

This user nicely summed it up.

The show was great at setting up all these different plot threads, but Hirsch wasn't a good enough writer to make sense of them in the end. As long as Bill had obvious limitations, Hirsch knew how to make him look and act scary, since it was all about "wow just imagine what would he do if he ever got all of his power!"

the problem is - once limits went off and Bill did get all that power, he became a cartoon villain and you couldn't take him seriously. Hirsch had all this crazy buildup for him, akin to Over The Garden Wall, but in the end didn't know how to give Bill more power and still make him scary. Garden Wall made Beast hidden in the shadows, he was a puppet master till the very end, but unlike Bill - he never went over the top, since he never needed to.

So yeah, all in all - Gravity Falls had the chance to become something better, but Alex just wasn't good enough. Doesn't help that Mabel never learned anything and was getting everything she wanted, and Stan's sacrifice meant nothing. There was an "okay" way to go out of this - by making Stan seem like he forgot everything and was just a vegetable, with Ford still taking his brother all over the world, showing him new places, just for us to see at the very end Ford talking that he hopes to see Stan someday wake up, with Stan's one finger moving a little. Simple way to give the audience some hope and still end on a positive note, while not cheapening Stan's sacrifice.

Since you're Satan, I'll trust that Alex sold his soul to you for one last fart of lore in journal 3.

No enough room for the ideas to come to proper fruition and Alex burned himself out. When basically every episode of your show has you as a writing credit and voicing half the cast I'm not even surprised he cut back on the original plan, the man must have been ready to keel over and die.

>dropping the ball with Bill Cipher
Bill was a disappointment since the day one.
>expect him to be some cool villain
>he's annoying and unthreatening as fuck despite his powers
He's henchman-tier, making him a main villain was a mistake.

No enough relations between old team.

Bill was threatening because he was a psychological horror of a sort. Not very threatening still, but there were implications that he would mess with characters.

When he broke into real world, peril became mostly unrelateable, and reset button inevitable.

I thought that was the most retarded shit ever and people were saying it was awesome.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought it was dumb

padipshitters learned that their couple was ultimately just another cog in the hack's wheel
he kept changing storyboards around at the last minute, and if voicing like two characters is so hard (he was terrible at it) then he shouldve hired someone else instead of bringing in shitty guest stars like jon stewart.

>two characters

Try Stan, Soos, MucGucket, Bill, Quiten Trembly, Leader of the Gnomes, and a not insignificant handful of the incidental voices.

>last minute edits
Not sure that's a bad thing, but you're right that it probably lead to him chickening out on three full seasons.

Not enough Soos. Especially shirtless.

Fuck off, he voiced much more than two characters and he was great at it.

Weirdmaggedon part 1 really was the show's greatest moment. Unfortunately they couldn't keep their balls to continue going full on Lovecraft.

Part 2 really was any other episode and nothing special.

Part 3, they threw out the circle that was built up over the whole series and never explained it. Why Protags were allowed to fight on par with BI.l, I'll never understand. Oh and then Hirsch screwed over what could have been a heart wrenching bitter sweet victory.


Still the ending was passable, since its a kids cartoon. We all just knew gravity falls could have been so much more.

besides stan and soos they all sounded the same

weird 1? ehhh....
i'd say the last few moments of the episode before it were great, after mabel broke the glass. weird 1 was when the disappointment started to set in.

I was really into Bill's whole Evil Spongebob schtick, actually. He was unsettling because you get the feeling he could just off you but he does weird shit instead.

>MucGucket, Bill sounded the same
user, stop trolling and let's get back to an actual discussion.

Beyond Stan and Soos he only ever had one voice and one mode of delivery, it seemed.

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Yeah man, it was an explosion of anarchy. They really went all out to show the devastation of Bill entering the universe, they even changed the intro.

I don't know, for me that kind of stuff only defuses everything that makes a villain threatening.

>character makes valiant sacrifice
>valiant sacrifice is undone 10 minutes later
>tearful farewell scene
>completely ruined when you realize there's nothing stopping them from coming back every summer

>screwed up a bittersweet victory

first of all, Gravity Falls has NEVER been about sacrifice. That's not a theme it values, it's a small part of a much larger theme it actually does devote basically every single episode to. Family.

Al losing his memory of the journey at the end of FMA 03 worked because that entire show had been BUILT around sacrifice, the thing people were willing to burn at the altar for family or ideals or selfish wants. That's a bittersweet ending that worked.

Gravity Falls was about Family. Family fighting for and with each other, family ties, memories, all that stuff. Stan not getting his memory back is only a good ending in the sense that it's DARK and SAD and NOTHING WORKS OUT FOR HIM EVER BECAUSE IT'S SO FUCKING TRAGIC!! Bullshit is that a good ending, it means his years of struggle where pointless and that he doesn't even get the dignity of going to his grave.

I'm not gonna argue that the snapback was sudden and could have been executed better, because it was and it could have been. I will argue until my dying breath that Stan not getting his memory back period would have been an awful writing turn and I would never have forgiven them.

Oh and the gun didn't even really stick for McGucket, who had been abusing that thing for goddamn years.

Why do you keep making GF threads? My life is shit enough why bring up the hacklet's disappointment?

The statue was a lie.

The codes and hints trying to make the show appear deep and foreshadow when it just progressed averagely.

that's what pissed me off the fandom most. Sup Forums, reddit, tumblr obsessed so much about it when it was just an accessory that added nothing to plot.

>Tearful goodbye with Waddles
I'm sure Soos will take care of him. Dipper had to let go of Wendy, so I guess Mabel has to-
>She gets to keep Waddles
I guess Mabel doesn't have to grow up after all.

could be Alex projecting more from his own life than he already is. Growing up, my bratty sister always got what she wanted too.

Alex Hirsch is a pleb, the end.

I could forgive them everything. But the whole ordeal with Mabel and blunt feminist instruments absolutely ruined the show.

Everything up to Ford's appearance is great.

Then Ford sucked, all the stories after him sucked, and everything was rushed to conclusion because Alex didn't want to do another season.

>all those different theories the entire fanbase comes up with
>they get whatever happened in the finale

It was a decent finale, but horrible in terms with how much potential it had. The show had tons of potential.

It's fucking hilarious. Alex had something great and he just gave up on it.
>Don't forget to buy the journal!
>Make sure to watch my new show on fox!

Regardless, I'm still a excited to discuss the journal with fans of the show on Sup Forums. It should be fun. The only Gravity Falls threads we get now are just AU threads, which girl was sexier, and Mabel hate.

>What went wrong?

Mabel got everything she ever wanted without having to grow, sacrifice anything and basically manipulated everyone while getting away with it.

I don't think it's appropriate to call Mabel "the bad guy", but she's definitely an "Antagonist".

She never grew, she never changed- she was constantly a point of conflict through her own -very human- selfishness and was basically surrounded by a hugbox circle of friends whom prevented her from growing or developing.

Mabel Won.
Dipper Lost.

This show would be better if Mabel turned out to unknowingly posses psychic powers making everyone gush about her.

Because of Mabel, Dipper had to sacrifice his dream, whereas she causes the fucking Weirdmageddon, places all blame for it on Dipper and she gets off without any consequences, that definitely bugged me

Alex let that shit get to him and burned himslef out.
Also, no Padippica.
Mabel was always right.
Dipper was always wrong.

Dipper's dream was just to be Ford's tagalong, which would have left nowhere for Stan to go either.

That's not really the point. And it wasn't really his dream, but that's not the point either.

Point is, Mabel was angry at the idea that Dipper might have his own life, tried to hold him back, locked herself into imaginary reality and ultimately learned nothing.

>Working for Disney for the first time proved to be a massive burden for Hirsch.
>Because of said massive burden, there was only so much Hirsch can do to cater to the 20 episode rule for modern Disney cartoons.
>Mabel was essentially Creator's Pet for the whole series.
>Season 1 had too much Wendip.
>Dipper never moved on from Wendy.
>Pacifica's redemption went nowhere, bar the attendance at the Pines' birthday party.

Despite these flaws, I still stand by my stance that this was a great show to help break Disney's creative slump in the early 2010's.

BELIEVE

The finale, everything else was pretty spot on

>Stan decided to be a huge cunt for no reason at the worst possible moment was annoying.

This part was especially frustrating because they kept hammering this point in every goddamn time Stan showed up on screen for the first half. It was like the writers were afraid the audience would forget Stan was mad at Ford if they didn't bring it up once every ten seconds. It made the story dragged and Stan seem frustratingly out of character after a while.

It also seems like the whole circle part only happened the way it did because they couldn't figure out how to make it go wrong naturally. It would've made more sense if Stan made a single comment about not wanting to be part of the Kumbaya Circle Jerk but begrudgingly joins in anyways, have nothing happen, and then when they're trying to figure out what the hell's going on they show the only place that's not glowing is where Stan and Ford or connected - maybe with the implication that that the circle can't be complete unless everyone's issues/conflicts have been resolved. Then you could have their argument play out from there and at least make it seem a little less petty.

Nothing, simply because:

>Sup Forums has a weird fetish for seeing mabel suffer
>they also wanted dipper to have sex with someone in an episode and call him a cuck for something that he would've been fired for
>it started getting popular, and Sup Forums can't stand things that aren't known by like 6 people

>Sup Forums has a weird fetish for seeing mabel suffer
No, they just wanted her character to develop by facing the same amount of consequences that Dipper had to face.
>they also wanted dipper to have sex with someone in an episode and call him a cuck for something that he would've been fired for
what
>it started getting popular, and Sup Forums can't stand things that aren't known by like 6 people
That's simply not true, GF was already popular as fuck back in season 1 and people still liked it.

Sock Opera

Weird fetish for seeing Mabel suffer?

Nigga, are you fucking serious? What we hate is that Mabel is praised to high heavens while she is an entitled little brat. All her suffering amounts to "Waaah, my entitlements aren't heeded". Never she met any hardship and never learned anything. The whole story warps around her to make her right.
She's a bad character and it's not weird to want her to be better character one way or another.

Mabel has made sacrifices for Dipper.

She sacrificed her entire social life just so Dipper wouldn't be alone. She was popular as we saw when she got all those valentines

>Mabel starts show unable to impress any boy
>Literally her entire story is that she doesn't get a boy
>Her characterization is that she's weird and dorky, disliked by popular girls and hanging out with outcasts
>In a flashback we see that she's miss popularity

Even in areas where she didn't start as Mary Sue, she became one later. This is ridiculous.

I don't really remember people praising Mabel within show. If anything Dipper gets it more for being smart

She's Stan's favorite
Wendy speaks high of her on many occasions
Just watch The Last Mabelcorn
Finally, even though not spoken by character, she's often validated by narrative even when she does objectively dumb shit.

>She's Stan's favorite
Always figured that was Dipper. Especially after his dream sequence at the end of season 1
>Wendy speaks high of her on many occasions
I dunno. I definetely felt Dipper got more praise from Wendy. Especially since they hung out all the time
>Finally, even though not spoken by character, she's often validated by narrative even when she does objectively dumb shit.
You're not wrong although that's kinda seperate from what I was saying

>You're not wrong although that's kinda seperate from what I was saying
It was what I meant though. I didn't mean praised by characters so much as praised by narrative
>I dunno. I definetely felt Dipper got more praise from Wendy. Especially since they hung out all the time
Wendy compliments Dipper's actual merits when he actually shows them, but compliment Mabel on vague and grandiose things unrelated to her actual conduct, as if writers wanted to make sure we like her.

Cipher was originally supposed to become Dipper's friend in the long run.