So I just marathoned the entirety of Gravity Falls.
First off, I was an idiot for not watching it when it was airing. This show is practically PERFECT. I don't think I could praise it enough. Every episode feels handcrafted, pun intended - not like literally EVERY SINGLE other modern cartoon garbage I've tried to watch.
But you guys keep complaining about the show, and most of those complaints are about Mabel. I have one question: WHAT THE FUCK!? There was not one point in the series, not ONE point, when I felt that Mabel was a bad person or had gone "too far", so to speak. In fact, MANY times I was more irritated with Dipper, and that was THE POINT - they were written extremely well-balanced!
And yes, this includes season 2B. I don't know what is up with you guys, but you had me scared for a drop in quality as some point. It just never came. The finale was so fucking epic...
The ONE thing I can agree on to some extent was the treatment of Pacifica in the finale, but it didn't bug me much for two reasons: the line about her parents where she clearly realizes now her family is in the wrong in some way at least, but also it's much more realistic that way - a childhood of snobbish upbringing isn't going to go away that quickly, but her signing the letter (with a heart no less) and participating in practically every major wrap-up scene shows that's she's changing for the better. (I also noticed her parents were portrayed in a slightly better light in the finale, which may keep them from drifting apart and hating each other in future.)
tl;dr: My hat's off to the entire crew, who somehow managed to break through the horror show that is modern Western animation (the fact that a lot of character stuff was apparently based on the real life experiences of the show's creator may have had a LOT to do with it). And shame on you, Sup Forums. Shame on you.
(OH, AND THAT FUCKING THEME SONG, MAN. THAT FUCKING THEME SONG. That's what finally got me to watch this show, in fact...)
YOU LIED TO ME Sup Forums
...
There's a tl;dr in there you idiot. And it HAS to be long, I'm pissed off as fuck.
If you think that's good. Wait until you see the sequel that's coming out in August.
The finale was a bit disappointing, but the show itself was fantastic. People tend to only remember the ending.
>The finale was a bit disappointing
How? Other than the very minor issue with Pacifica's characterization, I just don't see it.
As a rule of thumb, you should check out a show if it has constant threads. Regardless of how many people say it's bad in them.
Not , but my only issue was that the circle that was hyped the whole series turned out to be pretty underwhelming. But man...the way that Bill DID go down in the end. That made up for it in SPADES!
none of the clues that Alex left were useful in the finale. What was the point of any of it? The circle was especially useless. And Bill wasn't even supposed to be the main villain, but he decided to rush to end the show so he could get a shitty show on fox that hasn't even revealed yet.
Plus Stan getting his memories back without Bill coming back is stupid.
>And Bill wasn't even supposed to be the main villain
What!? Who was then? Were there any hints?
HEEYYY DIPPER
WANNA SMOKE SOME
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED?
>Question: Before you decided to make Bill the main bad guy, did you have another character in mind that would have been the villain?
I would've preferred if he wasn't the main bad guy but Alex ran out of ideas
>some sort of cthulhu
Glad they didn't go with that. Keep cosmic horror away from kid shows. Either you debase it into nothingness, or you'll just have a fuckload of crying children.
Gravity Falls did a lot of teasing, with implications of complicated and sinister backstory, many many codes and hints embedded in the episodes and supplementary material, etc. After the finale, it became clear that a lot of that stuff had been made up as they went along and that they hadn't had time to tie it all together. The wheel of symbols associated with Bill is a good example. That's why people are disappointed with season 2B, the show set high expectations then failed to meet them.
That's the immediate post-viewing hype speaking. It will pass.
So basically, no. Got it.
(Seriously though, that's a cool piece of trivia.)
What's with this wheel meme? It was there, we saw it was probably going to work. What more did you want?
BUT MUH MABEL
BUT MUH PACIFICA DEVELOPMENT
Gravity Falls is a good show, but the fact that people get hung up on those two points is astounding to me. Considering how much of a none thing they are compared to over 35 episodes.
i'm five episodes in and really not seeing what's so great about it
it's perfectly fine and all, but nothing to write home about
Sorry man, I've never been much of a fan of Disney's mainstream stuff. Too overproduced IMO.
Some of it might be, but again: I kept waiting when the issues Sup Forums constantly talks about would start, especially with Mabel's character. It just never happened. The show maintained an astoundingly high level of quality throughout.
Mabel is an awful shadow haunting all the episodes.
To be fair, if Mabel HAD become as selfish as Sup Forums seems to think she did, it may have seriously damaged the show as a whole due to her main character status. Pacifica, not so much.
Ah, a Mabel hater. Care to explain, user?
It became fairly clear they put the wheel in first and then thought up what it meant later, and given the huge emphasis they put on it, it made the finale seem weak when the payoff didn't match the build-up.
The OP marathoned the show so probably doesn't realise exactly how much teasing it did. We all got blue balls and we never got our BJ.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Wendy. I've seen a lot of criticism around here about her character in the later episodes, which I don't understand either. She remained a major character right up to the end of the show, even getting a chance to finally show off her hyped physical skills in the finale.
And the crush thing with Dipper was overblown here as well. It was clear he still had lingering feelings at times, which is much more realistic than just "getting over" her in one episode. But they never came back in full force, only teases. I also liked that they showed he could be wildly successful with other girls if he actually tried and got over his confidence issues.
You just have low standards, you can't blame that on us. But if you liked it more power to you, I guess.
Not him, and I don't exactly HATE her, but on too many occasions if Dipper and Mabel wanted something different, Dipper had to give up his wants so that Mabel could get hers. The reverse rarely happened, if at all. She was having her cake and eating it too, often making Dipper feel like shit, and almost always got away with it, as she rarely learned any moral lessons, unlike most of the other characters in the show: she just went to being selfish again by the next time a conflict of interests arouse.
Now, this didn't really bother me much, as she is just a child in a cartoon. But the real offender for me happened in the finale. Not only she didn't care about the real world and all the people, including her friends and family, in it suffering (which is still somewhat understandable for a 12 y.o.), but she said she wanted her brother to stay with her while in fact she has already given up on him and had replaced him with an imaginary "cooler" version. This was the "What the actual fuck?!" moment for me.
It's a case of willful blindness. No other way to explain it.
There were MANY times Mabel dropped whatever was important to her to help/save Dipper instead. I don't know if it was quite as many as the reverse, probably not had I been keeping count. But then Mabel wasn't the twin running around with a dangerous-as-fuck book!
And the time travel episode pisses me off the most. Dipper was being a DICK the whole ep. All else being equal, the timeline with the pig was the ORIGINAL one, he had no right to change it for his selfish purposes. But all else was not equal - Wendy was not likely to like him back (something that was later confirmed), while he nearly cost Mabel a dear companion.
Such low standards that I find overhyped series like AT, SU, SVTFOE, etc. to be trash at best (and absolute trash at worst)?
>inb4 SVTFOE gets better in season 2
Yeah, I know, I'm talking about that season. It's still bad, in some ways I even prefer season 1 (though on balance it IS an improvement).
>AT, SU, SVTFOE, etc
I also think those shows are garbage, pal. When it comes to story-driven cartoons there's really not many good examples, Gravity Falls just did an okay job overall, but calling it "perfect", that's an overstatement.
It was practically perfect for what it tried to be. Only the overall concept is really open to criticism.
I know that's hard for Sup Forums to accept, but it's true.
I liked the show better when it was a chill Eerie Indiana type show with the vague hint of an overarching story. But it kinda stopped being that show after episode 12 and became a wacky mid-Golden Age Simpsons show that spent a lot of time trying to hype its mysteries and continuity. And I'll admit I had fun with what it became but looking back I never enjoyed it as much as I did those first 12 eps. I didn't even have expectations or any investment in the hype
tl;dr: when the show stopped being what I loved most and started to service shit I didn't care about it became less fun. But it probably achieved what it wanted to. I just don't care. It's a B- for me.
See, now that is understandable.
I also noticed the shift, with the humor being emphasized significantly more in the first part of season 1. But IMO the show pulled off both the humor and mystery parts surprisingly well, so it didn't really bother me.
>so fucking epic
Come on, I literally just watched it today.
God, Hirsch is such a piece of shit. Truly one of the most detestable individuals in the entire animation industry. Gets gift-wrapped handed a show after screwing around on Fish Hooks and Adventure Shit for a few seasons, never really producing anything of note or distinguishing himself in anyway, just kissing up to the right people (G*d's chosen ones) and bashing everyone and everything else that came before him (not just Republicans or Drumpf or whatever, but things like Scooby Doo, Spongebob, Deux Ex, and his bosses/benefactors themselves). Then he crumbles under the pressure of making a good cartoon, meeting deadlines, or in general just being a good leader. Rather than come clean and take the blame for some of his mistakes, he takes his ball and goes home, surrounding himself online with an army of tween worshipers and blocking anyone who violates his safe space. It's absolutely telling that this man, who was the face of this generation of animation no more than two years ago, cannot even find any real work other than a subordinate role on a shitty live action Pokemon spinoff, and a Fox cartoon that has been in development hell for over a year now.
>First off, I was an idiot for not watching it when it was airing.
No you weren't, because then you would have to deal with one month waits between every episode, which would completely ruin the experience. Especially when you waited one month after a story heavy episode only to get filler.
Hmmm, good point, thanks! (It's not every day Sup Forums tells you you're smarter than you think.)
I'll agree with you. Although I don't think it was quite perfect. The finale had a few loose ends and all but they are explored in the novel so it's not that bad. Mabel's development was kind of weird but I'll let that slide too because she apologized. Over the course of its 40 episodes I really enjoyed what it set out to do. It was the most enjoyable experience I've had with a TV cartoon to date and it was fun as hell posting with you guys about here. Just the concept of the show was great alone, but the people at Disney truly made Gravity Falls something special I don't think we'll see again for about 10 years, like Avatar The Last Airbender or Samurai Jack. It's a beautiful, heartwarming show full of weird and interesting characters. With a plot that actually did wrap itself up. Season 1 was just astounding alone. It was funny as hell and probably the funniest cartoon since seasons 1-3 Spongebob. That's not to say other shows are shit though. I really much enjoyed Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, and Wander Over Yonder as well. All had tight plotting and interesting world building. The only one I don't like is Star Vs., it's okay for a one time watch but I'm just not invested in it's world or characters.
>The finale had a few loose ends and all but they are explored in the novel so it's not that bad.
What would those be? (Curious if I should check out the novel myself...)
>Bill's true fate
>Blendin's time dodge
>Where Ford was in the portal
>What the nightmare realm really was, etc
you still trust Sup Forums to tell you what's good and what's trash? it's not our fault you're a sheep, judge cartoons for yourself next time
Sup Forums hates women for being women
In other news Star is a cuckold and Steven Universe is gay.
Sup Forums usually aligns with my opinions almost perfectly, though. That's why this time caught me off guard.
yeah well let this experience teach you that exceptions exist and you might miss out on some gem if you follow other people's judgement of things
Shows that Sup Forums says are shit but are not that bad
>Adventure Time
>Gravity Falls
>Regular Show
>Steven Universe
>Clarence
>Uncle Grandpa
>We Bare Bears
>Gravity Falls
>Pickle and Peanut
>Billy Dilly
>12 oz Mouse
>Rick and Morty
>Barnyard
>Korra
>Harvey Beaks
>Pig Goat Banana Cricket
And the list goes on. All these shows were said to be shit and I loved the fuck out of every one. Just watch things for yourself and enjoy what you want.It seems like a majority of Sup Forums has unrealistic standards and/or gargantuan shitty tastes.
Hold on, what novel is this? All I know about is that Journal 3 which came out a while back, are there other books?
user, you're proving my point. Every single one of those shows is trash - EXCEPT Gravity Falls!
Funny how you listed it twice.
You don't understand. The only thing that Sup Forums cares about is waifus. If the waifus aren't up to par then the fanartists and the shippers can't produce enough juice to lubricate their keyboards.
>SU
>Korra
>Good
Maybe when they began sure.
You have astoundingly shit taste then.
Steven still is good especially the Wanted special. It gets shit at intervals sure but most of it is good.
Korra was alright honestly, that was a bit of a quality rollercoaster though.
My first watch of Battlestar Galactica was a pretty non-stop marathon and it had the same effect on me. You watched it so fast in such a mindset created by continuous flow of a single canon of art, that you ceased to be objective and simply absorbed.
That said Battlestar still kicks ass, but I can meet the writer's strike episode haters half-way. I love the zaniness. of it all.
Sorry for name posting. I use different browsers and am drunk
Shit, you may be right. Gravity Falls doesn't really have any decent waifus, because most of the girls are too young and the few older ones (e.g. Wendy) aren't all that interesting, even if they're great characters in-universe.
Lesson learned, OP: Sup Forums has no real opinion about anything. They just have a desperate need to complain and they'll find an excuse to bitch about whatever is placed in front of them.
Just finished it 2 days ago, also loved it
I don't doubt that my enthusiasm for the show will subside somewhat, like it has for every other show. But that's NOT what I'm talking about primarily.
The big issue is Sup Forums hating aspects of the show undeservedly, especially certain characters.
Fun to see a personal OP for a change
thanks
My armchair theory is that the series took too long( 2012-16 only two season,a one year hiatus)
Anons had alot of time made up lore speculation. Some was right.Most of it was bs. At the finale when it turned out different than expected then loretards got confused and mad and blamed the bad ending on Mabel.
it's easy to find flaws in anything because a perfect cartoon does not exist, as a rule of thumb if someone tells you a cartoon is shit, ask them what they think is a good cartoon instead. Chances are it's pretty easy to find flaws in that too.
I enjoyed it, but the ending disappointed me. I feel like it needed a third season.
The only reason it didn't get one was because Hirsch is lazy and did not want to finish his story, so he cut out about a third of the plot.
The show itself is fine.
I think both Mabel and Dipper were shitty people, but at least Dipper got his comeuppance most of the time.
Ugh, I hate it when someone comes in and just says they liked/hated something. This isn't a poll!
WHY did the ending disappoint you, user?
Quit being a faggot, we need to cut down on absolute shitposting today. Every thread is just full of shit and people arguing as if they were children. It's the worst it's been in a year and you are not helping.
But they were paralleled much of the time. Like Mabel gets a lot of shit for the guy in Sock Opera being a weirdo anyways, but guess what? Wendy wouldn't go out with Dipper anyways, so he avoided the exact same thing in the time travel ep - though what he did was far worse, and also he boneheadedly kept going after her and made it worse by refusing to tell Wendy how he felt until Mabel finally did something about it, which she gets shit for too.
Again, that's not the only example.
>major character
That's a laugh
>It became fairly clear they put the wheel in first and then thought up what it meant later, and given the huge emphasis they put on it,
they did not, only autists online knew and or cared about the wheel
She got a lot more screentime overall than pretty much any non-Pines character I can think of.
Something something go back to tumblr
Wait wait wait. How is letting some rando get a pig to win over a girl Dipper never had a chance with worse than Mabel willing to give away her brother's body for eternity to win over a dude she turned out to not even really like being around?
Honestly the Mabelverse episode was probably the biggest mistake of the finale. After spending multiple episodes setting up the underlying theme of Mabel wanting things to stay how they are, being with her brother, her friends, and having their nice, happy Summer last forever instead of growing up and going back home - basically everyone who was watching the show on Sup Forums was expecting the episode to be a kind of Gravity Falls twist on "For The Man Who Has Everything", with Mabel living in an idyllic, but believable dreamworld and having to ultimately give up her perfect Summer and choosing to do the right thing.
Instead we got 20 minutes of Wackyland and it absolutely killed the emotional pacing of the finale.
>Wheel pops up in the intro
>Bill, the main villain, refers to the main cast exclusively by their symbols (Pinetree, Shooting Star, Sixer, etc.)
>Wheel pops up again at the end of Dreamscapers with Bill attaching himself to it
>Wheel pops up again when Gideon uses it to make a deal with Bill while in prison
Without going conspiracy nut about it, anyone in the general audience would assume that the wheel was crucial.
The last minute explanation about a prophecy and the quick dismissal of it screamed that its significance was cut down due to time constraints.
>Regular Show
>Clarence
>Pickle and Peanut
>12 oz Mouse
>Rick and Morty
>Harvey Beaks
On a good day those shows have better episodes than most of S2B, you're just putting GF on a pedestal.
Did you even watch that episode? Mabel almost immediately went to help Dipper after a few seconds of banter, despite the risk to the play. Then when she was tempted again she took another few seconds and decided the whole play wasn't worth it - even though she still had a huge crush on the guy at that point, she had to save Dipper.
Meanwhile, Dipper messed with TIME. Just to get a date. He also seriously fucked over that time dude, which could have led to disastrous consequences had they not won the game in the follow-up episode, and DID lead to disastrous consequences in the finale, albeit indirectly (if he hadn't done that, they would never have got to know that guy well enough for Mabel to trust him).
Fucking shit, the hate for Mabel is insane here.
>Gravity Falls doesn't really have any decent waifus
That's what I'm trying to say.
>because most of the girls are too young
But I don't think you've got your head around how this waifu thing works yet.
>Wendy
>Major character
Come on son
>There were MANY times Mabel dropped whatever was important to her to help/save Dipper instead.
Can you name 3?
They're the two most obvious victims of Hirsch deciding mid-S2 to abandon all character development and put the show on autopilot to get it over with a season earlier than originally planned.
EVERYTHING goes downhill the instant Ford shows up.
So was that conincidental, or was the problem related to Ford?
It was the timing. Not What He Seems was the last episode written with a three-season arc in mind. Everything after that was written to end the show in two.
There sure is a lot of "opinions are subjective except for mine which is absolute and perfectly objective" rhetoric in here. But it's Sup Forums. Shouldn't have expected anything better.
But WHY do you think that user? You have to EXPLAIN it so I can tell you why your wrong.
So, what you're saying is, you have shit taste, and are incapable of watching something critically?
>tl;dr: My hat's off to the entire crew, who somehow managed to break through the horror show that is modern Western animation (the fact that a lot of character stuff was apparently based on the real life experiences of the show's creator may have had a LOT to do with it). And shame on you, Sup Forums. Shame on you.
>>>>>
Fuck it, you nearly got me there, I barely got 3, though again I've only watched the show once:
1. Sock Opera
2. Roadside Attraction
3. Into the Bunker
I probably worded that too strongly, but how many examples of the opposite can you find?
>praise ONE show while still realizing almost every modern cartoon is trash
>be told off to tumblr
You sound like either a shill or underage
>while still realizing almost every modern cartoon is trash
That's the problem, Gravity Falls is really not above the average modern cartoon.
This isn't true. Even if you don't like the ending it's save to say it's much better than the average.
JG go home
First of all, Mabel is just fucking boring. She does her boring girly shit, and it's not even written by a woman, so it's not even an authentic girly shit, just some stereotypes, wasting our time.
Second of all, she's always feeling entitled to Dipper, and doesn't feel like she owes him anything in return. Sure, if she has nothing better to do, she'd help him, but if she accidentally actually makes any sacrifice for him she's going to guilt him until he fixes it back. At no point it was treated as wrong or flawed approach.
In fact, nothing Mabel does is treated as wrong. At times story seems to approach the idea of Mabel being wrong but it always swerves to prove her right. The only time she was actually wrong was Boss Mabel where she was wrong to underestimate how much worse everyone else is compared to her.
>hirshposting
>not understanding the development process behind animation
>not understanding the process behind writing
Go home, Pacificafag.
Sometimes I wonder if the show would've been better off if Mabel didn't exist and it was just about Dipper doing supernatural small town mystery stuff. She didn't really add much in the end except for some forced cuteness and quirkiness
But it really is, though. It's leagues above them in terms of writing, for mystery, humor, and yes, even characterization. Fuck it, even the animation is way better than average.
The show is very fun and solid. Everyone who binges it agrees. But the folks who watched live had to wait through long hiatuses, and filled that time with impossible expectations and headcanons that weren't fulfilled. ALL of the mega-rage comes from people who watched it live. There was also drama where the creators Ex girlfriend stopped posting here after their breakup and there are fags STILL white knighting her with hate memes to this day, like the autist who posted the essay in this thread
The show would be better. If Dipper needs a partner, he could always have Soos or Wendy tag alone. Wendy might be pretty bland herself, but at least she wasn't Mabel.
You did not understand anything about Gravity Falls
And what makes you say that, OP?
The only real point of comparison is with Dipper. So let's see: Dipper never learns either, does he? He never changes his approach to the mysteries of the journal, despite the danger. He never changes his approach to Wendy, until (irony of ironies) MABEL forces him to. And he never considers that his rational approach may not always be right, even if all the evidence seems to point to it (see: Not All He Seems).
The amount of selfish shit he pulls throughout the show is also insane. Yes, he probably gets punished for it somewhat more often than Mabel, but it's worse to being with on average. AND the fanbase seems to only call Mabel out.
I finished it 4 or so days ago and thought it was great and really enjoyed my time with it. I also thought the whole Mabel thing was way overblown.
Not him but:
>2. Roadside Attraction
>3. Into the Bunker
What?
And
1. The Time Traveler's Pig
2. Little Dipper
3. Summerween
4. The Deep End
5. Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality
?
SU was absolute shit when it first started, the animation and writing were abysmal