Star Fairies - Animated Pilot Review (Part 2)

Star Fairies (Animated Special)

Hello my beautiful fairies! so nice to see you in my theater again. We're back in Wishcometrue for the last time to wrap up this review of the failed animated pilot/special, Star Fairies. Last week, we witnessed a fairy princess give sentient life to five other fairies who are pretty much completely fine with their sporadic existence and are eager to grant wishes for Earth's children. However, three bumbling elves steal Princess Sparkle's wand, and they have to team up with the dullest child in the entire galaxy to retrieve it. The adventure has truly begun, and we get to see how it all plays out!

The Star Fairies, along with Sparkle and Hilary, fly across the realm of Wishcometrue to see that the selfish elves have used the wand to turn Wishcometrue into their personal playground, turning trees to bowling pins and mountains to ice cream, but the most alarming thing is that they stole The Wishing Well too. Sparkle, being the tutorial guide of the universe, beckons the girls to follow her to a friend named Winthrop the Wizard. They arrive at his forest cottage only to find out the elves have tied Winthrop up with his own beard and transformed his potions to candy. The raspiest-voiced man on the planet is freed, as Sparkle begs for help in finding the wand, “before its wish power bursts out of control!”

Stop making me agree with Hilary, Star Fairies.

But Winthrop uses his crystal ball to help find The Wishing Well, which is imprisoned in a dark mountain. As the fairies fly to the mountain, Spice flies ahead across the river only to end up crashing into an invisible wall. So far, Spice is the only character with any personality that’s remotely likable: she’s sunny, she’s impulsive, she’s headstrong, she’s friendly… this is some semblance of a person! (Or maybe I'm biased because I love that she's voiced by Raggedy Ann.) The other fairies aren’t the blandest characters, and I’d argue they have more going on with them than any of the side characters in Rose Petal Place, but they’re still quite ho-hum. 

Unable to make it past the elves’ magical barrier, they take a detour to a rickety bridge. And after we met the generic wizard, it’s time to meet the generic monster! A fuzzy prune of a troll (voiced by the late Billy Barty, who I remember best as the High Aldwin from the fantasy film Willow) refuses to let them pass. Oh no! If only our fairy protagonists could fly! Too bad they forgot they had wings. Whisper asks why can’t they cross, to which the troll says: “Because that’s the way it’s always been! That’s why I’ve been guarding this bridge for as long as I can remember! And I’m not going to stop now!” …But after this passionate spiel, the troll agrees to let them pass as long as they grant him a wish, but the tricky part is he won’t say what his wish is and they all have to guess. Whisper, being the only intelligent one other than Sparkle, points out that his easy flip-flopping on his bridge policies means he might not be as excited about guarding this bridge as he appears, and his wish is to do something else with his life. He trots off into the sunset happily, as Hilary remarks: “Gee, didn’t take much to make him happy!” Whisper responds that it doesn’t take much to make someone else happy or be happy, which is meant to be an establishing theme, being introduced more than halfway into the running time. I wish this idea was established earlier, but I’m glad this special has an underlying theme at all. 

From the generic troll bridge to the generic spooky forest, the girls are attacked by ghosts. Lavender is so scared that he runs away, taking poor Hilary on a terrifying ride. Night Song uses her flute to drive off the ghosts and lull them to sleep (making her the only fairy who doesn’t rely on magic). That scene with the ghosts was entirely pointless, only existing for… I dunno, to give Night Song something to do? For things that actually affect the narrative, we cut back to Snickerbee and Frunk fighting over the wand, until Bungle Boss betrays his lackeys by stealing the wand, as Bungle Boss crowns himself King of the Elves. 

As the Star Fairies take a rest on their long journey, they accidentally land on and wake up a slumbering giant (voiced by Michael Nouri). He’s quite childishly-minded and is hoping the Star Fairies can be his playmates- under the threat of squishing them if they don’t. They want to make him literally pick on somebody his own size, as Hilary decides that now is the time to be useful with only 15 minutes of the special left. She asks Spice to turn her into a bigger giant, which scares off the giant. It’s another pointless scene, only providing a failed attempt to make Hilary useful.

 

They finally find the stupid mountain and the cave with The Wishing Well, only to be stopped by a two-headed dragon, played by Howard Morris and Arte Johnson. They have the same bickering dialogue as the elves do, saying that they only ever do what the other head wants to do, none of which is to be funny. Even the Star Fairies seem aware of their pathetic aura. Now it’s time for True Love’s attempt to be useful, sweetly offering the dragon heads a present of a bouncing ball (because every monster in this show apparently has the mentality of a five-year-old). Stern for the literal first time in her life, True Love says the dragons must share, to which they prove that every monster in this world really is child-minded as the dragons don’t know what sharing is. They learn the sharing is fun, but still find a way to bicker even as they chase their ball out of the cave. True Love says, “Sometimes it’s best to see both sides.” Which is a good message, but all she really did was give them a present only for the dragons to go back to arguing over where to play with their ball. The message is good, but it’s placed in the wrong situation and doesn’t tie in with the other themes.

As Sparkle approaches The Wishing Well, she asks for where the elves took her wand: “The squalor of the elves’ playground!” (Also known as the Bronx.) The hideous gray dump the elves live in is made more lively with fair rides and popcorn fountains, as we learn that more than three elves exist in Wishcometrue to enjoy the festivities and for Bungle Boss to rule over. The idiot king let Snickerbee and Frunk escape their imprisonment only for them to immediately fight over the wand again. The approaching girls are trapped in a rock slide and fire storm… for about five seconds before it’s Jazz’s turn to be useful and uses her wand to get them past. Riveting danger in this special, as you can see.

The elves have made themselves sick with sugar and rides, only for Bungle Boss and his two lackeys to end up attacking their own people accidentally while fighting for the wand. The heroes arrive, trying to figure out how to get close enough to the wand without being split apart by the seams. Hilary, once again trying to be useful, suggests disguising themselves as elves. They roll for deception. The short male elves are too dumb to notice the tall female elves walking around, until one of them rips off Princess Sparkle’s disguise. Once again, Hilary’s plan was useless. Even more useless than the growing plan because at least they scared away the giant! (Also, the elf who pulls Sparkle's shirt sleeve has a black beard, but as soon as her clothes are ripped off, his beard magically changes to brown. Wonderful animation, guys.)

Bungle Boss decides to confront the Star Fairies by turning their wands into candy canes. But before he can turn them into toads, Snickerbee and Frunk pound on the king to demand that they be the ones to do so. Hilary sneaks into the elves’ fighting dust cloud and grabs the wand, tossing it over to Sparkle. But are they too late? The elves’ magic mischief started a chain reaction, with the land tearing itself apart in earthquakes and fire. But with their magic wands all out of juice, all they can seem to do is pray to Fairy Jesus, but not until they unite all six of their wands together. Their wands are returned to normal in this unity and the land is healed with their cooperation. The day is saved with all the elves’ mischief being erased! Bungle Boss “apologizes”, only to have him brag about him and his lackeys’ new scheme to steal ALL of the wands, with Bungle Boss throwing a pie to their faces for good measure. Snickerbee, Frunk, and all the other elves fail to learn a lesson and get into a giant pie fight. I love one-dimensional antagonists who have barely any motivation and thought whatsoever! They’ll get their revenge by competing with the fairies’ BitCon crypto scheme with their own Elf-NT scams. Call it the Bored Elf Club!

Returning to Wishcometrue, Princess Sparkle decides to reward Hilary for retrieving her magic wand. As expected, Hilary claims that her wish has already come true because of the exciting adventure that has rejuvenated her love for life. …The same exciting adventure she was deeply uninterested in for a majority of the running time. Hilary flies back home on a pegasus-drawn carriage, with Sparkle proclaiming: “Life can be exciting wherever you are!” Hilary wakes up at dawn back in her home, claiming there’s so many exciting things to do in life and goes out into the world with a new appreciation for where she is. All while the Star Fairies, excited to grant more wishes for children, go out into the starry sky and the special finally ends.

Star Fairies has answered my wishes for it not to be downright terrible, but the asterix next to that wish is that this special is aggressively bland. I can see why this franchise was over and done with so quickly, with a limited release of toys and only this special to its animated legacy. While Star Fairies is occasionally imaginative and isn't completely devoid of personality, the generic fantasy world, pathetic antagonists, and easily-solved problems severely hamper it.

To get the absolute negatives out of the way? Hilary. One of the most unlikable self-insert/POV characters I’ve seen in my long time watching cartoons. I’m used to bland characters who just exist to allow kids to project themselves into the adventure, I can tolerate them. What I can’t tolerate is how spoiled and mopey Hilary comes across as. Not only is she ungrateful for and blasé about the fairies up until the very end, but she’s incredibly boring and her motivations are wishy-washy when you put aside her yawning at literal magic happening before her eyes. Their attempts to make her proactive are weak and don’t make her charming. The idea of a character who doesn’t know what to do with her wishes is not a bad one, but Hilary remains too boring and grouchy for the majority of the movie to garner much sympathy for her.

Aside from Spice, the Star Fairies have surface-level personalities that don’t get highlighted or challenged as much as they could’ve, and Princess Sparkle herself isn't terribly interesting either. While each girl gets their moment to shine throughout the adventure, they’re left with nothing to do after that moment, and many of the obstacles they face are too easily triumphed over. They’re decently charming in small doses and apart, but they really blend into each other as a group. Ironically, the Star Fairies are not interesting together as a group. The villains, next to Hilary, are the worst characters. They want to cause mischief for no other reason aside from being one-demensionally evil and bored. They’re not petty or cruel enough to make that simple motivation effective. If their selfishness caused extreme personal damage to the people around them and more physical damage aside from the earthquake at the end, they could potentially be more detestable. The elves and their realm have no exploration. It’s just a run-down playpark that just exists. It’s disappointing because elves being bored and taking advantage of the fairies’ magic could’ve made a good contrast with Hilary, but the script wasn’t smart enough to highlight how Hilary’s boredom could easily manifest into selfishness like the elves, which could make her learn a lesson in selflessness and gratitude. The elves remain unfunny, unmemorable, and not threatening in the slightest.

The animation could be sloppy at times. The scenes kept changing without the background changing. As in, two different scenes will have the same background back-to-back despite supposedly being from different perspectives. The pacing is super quick at the beginning, only to slow to a snail’s pace in the later half, stuffed with impactful side missions like the troll, the giant, and the ghost forest. The story has a great setup with a magical sky kingdom of wish-granting fairies, but the show only explores uninspired locations with no aesthetic uniqueness.

As for the positives, I appreciate the message of a special about wishes not always relying on magic. I do enjoy the overall theme of how life can be exciting wherever you are and how you don’t need magic to make your wishes come true, and the special does highlight characters using their wits and physical strength rather than their magic to solve some problems. But the theme isn’t as strong as it could be due to how dull the adventure was and how easily the conflicts were solved when they did use magic. But there’s also moments where they use their magic on things that didn’t call for any magic, like granting the troll’s wish or untangling Winthrop from his own beard.

Unfortunately, Star Fairies has positives that can’t be entirely appreciated due to the intense disinterest this special inspires. I felt nothing watching this. I didn’t feel happy, charmed, or even angry: I didn’t feel anything. And isn’t that the worst thing a piece of media can do? It’s obviously just a lame commercial for toys. Neither the heroes or villains are compelling. The characters don’t struggle and aren’t challenged. There were problems to overcome, but the problems got dealt with too easily because of the characters having both flight and magic. There’s just very little to talk about. And because of how boring it is, it’s easy to see why it didn’t capture the magic it so wished to have.

If I had any wishes to be granted… Well, I’m a fairy, and I can grant my own wish. What was I talking about? Right. Anyway, Star Fairies was one of the movies of all time. I give it a Ben out of 10. Hopefully our next adventure can make our wishes for excitement in entertainment come true. Join me next time on Your Clairy Godmother.