“The Battle for Mewni” Recap – Star vs. the Forces of Evil
By: Dylan Hysen
Dylan Hysen, Delaney Stovall, and Michelle Anderer recap and discuss the two hour Season 3 premiere event of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, “The Battle for Mewni”.
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Dylan Hysen
Dylan is a software developer from the DC area who hosts the Overly Animated podcast discussing everything animation.
9 Comments
First thing first, I loved the Starco in this episode it’s subtle but I can definitely see the difference in how Star treats Marco. I think my favorite episode was Moon the Undaunted or Puddle Defender. Both episodes start to get more into the monster mewman divide and it has been more of a background thing for the past couple seasons. I believe Toffee is dead for now but he always manages to come back so I’m not sure if it’s permanent. I think that we might bring in Eclipsa as a hero, me and my friend spent about half a hour coming up with theories. In the end we agreed that Eclipsa was good but she took the blame for something that the monsters did. The purple veins had been passed to her from the monsters. Also for Moon’s mother my friend is convinced it’s Ms.Heinous but I think she’s more likely to be a great-aunt. We weren’t able to figure out from the hall of queens because we weren’t able to find a specific order for the pictures. All in all I loved Battle for Mewni, Glossaryk, Ludo and all, I can’t wait for the rest of season 3 to come out. I hope that the show keeps up the quality with Giancarlo Volpe gone though.
I’ll just leave this comment here about this podcast. This is why I’m a patron. Dylan, you do a great job steering the ship and making sure everyone on the panel gets a comment in. Delaney and Michelle gave really interesting and insightful feedback mixed in with some zaniness. This “long” podcast felt like it was over in a flash and was thoroughly entertaining. In short, Overly Animated is easily my favorite podcast at the moment and you are awesome at what you do! Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much Phoenician!! Really means a lot and thanks for your continued support as a patron!
I think Marco giving Moon the piece of broken crystal and saying “try this one” was really important – right after that Star found the last tiny piece of uncorrupted magic. I believe that the connection of their friendship helped her find her way.
I think Star didn’t come out of the air, I think she came out of the wand – we know she can exist inside of the wand and when she restored magic it brought her back through the wand.
I think Star was able to destroy Toffee because of Moon’s spell – it didn’t work at first, but when Star restored magic the spell worked and allowed Star’s magic to destroy him.
Oh yeah, Eclipsa abdicated (left her husband to run off with a monster) so it will be interesting to see if she has any claim on the queenship.
Star said “You betrayed me” and Glossaryk says “I’m sorry it had to look that way”.
Star has grown because she lives on earth with Marco, Moon has never left Mewni.
I don’t like the new end credits – Star standing alone is NOT what this show is about – it’s about her winning through her friends and family. I hope it’s for the movie only – switch to something else for the season.
Star loves big floppy hats (and looks good in them!). Eclipsa wears big floppy hats. Coincidence?
I loved “forbidden chapter – is that what they call it now?”
She fell in love with a monster. Star has made friends with some monsters. I think Star will pick up some of Moon, some of Eclipsa, some of Marco, etc., which will make her a great queen in the end.
Self-correction: looks like Moon the Undaunted and Puddle Defender were the Giancarlo Volpe co-directed episodes here. It was impossible to tell from the way the credits were for the combined event, but we have the individual episodes up on disneyxd’s site now.
Return To Mewni
Star still spying on Marco, I guess she still hasn’t learned. So Lekmon is confirmed, they even said the “d” word, I still think maybe one day he will be revived, maybe reborn as a baby goat, as for the High Magic Commission, we won’t be seeing them for a while, but I hope they are okay, especially Heckapoo, she better be okay show.
Moon The Undaunted
Interesting look into the past, and one can understand poor Moon’s grief, she can’t grieve for her mom, she has all this responsibility now. And looks like River had a rival back than, I wonder if we ever see him in the present day. And Eclipsa she is alive, and she finally speaks. I agree with Moon, she don’t seem so bad. And Eclipsa she was a heart breaker back in the day it seemed.
It seems that Eclipsa will be freed when Toffee dies, that is interesting to know, and maybe knowing that, Moon doesn’t want Toffee to be killed. Star is not thinking that through, she just wants to kill Toffee, which good be a mistake, but Eclipsa might be someone who can reason with more, at this point in the show, I think Toffee is more evil than Eclipsa.
Book Be Gone
Oh no Glossaryck is dead, he wasn’t one of my favorites in the world, but Star and Moon they will be devastated when they find out. Maybe not as much as Roombulous when he comes back and finds out Lekmon is dead. Speaking of which, it seemed Glossaryck was a father figure to Ludo, and he has to deal with that. But now Toffee has full control over his puppet.
Marco And The King
River he is a good man, but not the best ruler in the world. He is more suited to be a warrior than a ruler, seem thing for Mina Loveberry. So poor River just partied his sorrows away, that is not healthy. And Marco is finally back in the picture, that is great to see. So this is when Ludo invades, between River and Ludo as rulers, either way Mewni is screwed.
Pubble Defender
Great to see Buffrog again, and seeing how close him and Star has become, that warms my heart. And the Tadpoles are back and little Katrina can talk, so cute. The one problem I had with this episode was character inconsistency with Moon, why is she a monster raciest all of a sudden, this is no the same Moon from the season 2 finale, even if being civil with Ludo’s parents was just for show, the moment she had with Dennis and they bonded, that was for real, you can’t pretend that never happened. I guess they just wanted to create conflict for conflict sake. And now Star is out there, what will happen now?
King Ludo
The poor Mewnis, having to have this idiot as a leader. And no one likes Ludo, even the monsters, just Dennis and his animal army. The song writer and the court jester don’t get a long, the more they fight, the more I want to ship them, I am sorry. Marco goes though all this trouble, and River just gives up. Man if I am Marco I am frustrated.
So will Ludo kill River and Marco, not if Star has anything to say about it, I am sure.
Toffee
Wow what a way to end it, first of all I thought Ludo killed those people and River, and Star grand rescue attempt awesome, and we had the reunion hug. And all this build up to Toffee’s resurrection, all this trouble to get his finger back, I guess it is a pride thing.
I can only imagine how Moon felt when she thought Star was dead, this guy kills her mother and now her daughter, she must hate him, that is a under statement.
I thought Marco leaving the resistance in the dungeon was kind of cold not cool Marco.
And in the end Ludo got the last laugh, taking down Ludo, and I guess he is going some where to think, maybe become a good guy later on, who knows?
But Eclipsa is still not freed, that must mean Toffee is still alive. Personally giving the choice of Toffee being alive and Eclipsa being freed, I take my chances with Eclipsa. Until proven other wise, Toffee is more evil than Eclipsa.
Now than what are we going to do with Mewni, I am hoping after this, Moon decides not to treat monsters as second class citizens. Granted there is going to be some push back from the citizens, maybe not yet, or maybe it is time and deal with the fearful citizens. And lately is the Magic High Commission back? Please let that be the case, we are going to need them.
Whoot whoot! Everything about this premiere is kickass!
Only downsides were nitpicks at most. Like I would’ve liked a more dramatic Moon and Toffee flashback fight, but they made up for it in the Star vs Toffee fight later. People might complain about the Star/Marco/Jackie love triangle not being addressed, but honestly there are more pressing issues to solve and we have the rest of season 3 to sort things out with the teenage stuff.
For some reason I loved “Three artists and a buffoon” the most. “The jester, the musician, and the mime” had the best chemistry and were hilarious. Star’s transformation and the ending credits were a real treat. I also liked how they edited the scenes in the sneak peaks and deliberately cut out everything spoilery. Eclipsa was really cute and I think she’d make an awesome tertiary villain for the show. Buff frog was MVP, and I think we still have the monster/mewman conflict to handle for the rest of the series. Overall the “movie” felt like a real movie, and that’s quite the achievement for an animated tv series.
This will go down in history for sure!
Whoot whoot! 2 hour podcast!