STARSTRUCK



- Star has magic. She has money. She can conjure magic money. Why on Earth is she waiting for stale garbage donuts.



- Marco’s level of “I’m so done” reached new heights with this episode, and yet he waited with Star for hours, and it’s something that they’ve apparently done many other times.

Precious.



- What’s with season 2 and homeless people.





- Hard to tell characters’ ages in cartoons, but Mina is referred as “a lady” multiple times, so I guess she’s supposed to be an adult. After all she was Star’s hero while growing up.





- It’s no mystery that Daron, the show’s creator, was (is?) a Sailor Moon fangirl. Mina is as close a homage can get to the lunar warrior withouth waking up lawyers. Her name likely is a reference to Sailor Venus, Minako Aino (also, the Ai in the surname means Love, as in Loveberry). Also Sailor Venus was actually the star in a manga preceding Sailor Moon, making even more sense for Mina to be Star’s role model.

Brian (the composer) post with the henshin audio bit.





- Mina doesn’t know how to eat donuts. That’s canon. She’s completely do-nuts.





- A better warrior than your father, the King, the guy who falls up waterfalls? Mewni is a scary place. Why did the settlers need magic to defeat the monsters?



- Looks like Star really looked up to Mina, even being uncharacteristically bashful and hesitating to talk to her.

Meanwhile Marco, being already so done, is like “The sooner you talk to her and realize that she’s crazy, the sooner we can go home”.





- Mina mentions being on Earth on doctor’s orders: maybe she got a little crazy because of stress, and she need to relax? Then again we’ve seen how “psychology” works on Mewni…





- So is Earth another planet, seen from Mewni’s perspective? Or a dimension?Heinous’ book about talks about a “Earth dimension” and a “multiverse”, and so did Star’s parents.

But after all “another dimension” and “extremely far away planet” work in the same way for the show’s needs, so I’m just wasting everyone’s time here.





- Marco looks so sad about Star not listening to him and being “replaced” by Mina.

I love him so much.





- Maybe she’s just happy to help her hero, but Star has the face of someone proud of their park, wanting to show it off. Do you like Earth so much, Star? Do you feel at home while in Echo Creek, Star? Do you want to stay, like, forever, Star?



- Cameo for tourists from Gravity Falls. Not the grandpa, though. He’s dead.



- Marco keeps being so done with everything, and yet he follows Star. Half being worried about her, half being worried about what she could do to others, I guess.

Precious x2





- A man died, and no one did anything. Star looked a bit concerned, but that’s it. After all Mina told her not to think.





- Even Star, sometimes, through the episode, looks a bit unsure about what Mina is doing. According to the composer even the music, in the weapon scene, wanted to convey a “Star goes with the flow, but she’s not that sure” feeling.





- The mother from Banagic Incident has no chill. Marco always more done, and yet still patient.





- Same pen and notepad used while stalking Gustav. So Star takes notes only when she’s at the doors of insanity. Good to know.







- This episode is basically a big reminder that Star loves Earth (and that, occasionally, she makes horrible life choices). She looks like someone excited to show her foreign friend around, and even proud about Earth’s democracy.

Ahaha it’s going to be so excruciatingly painful when she’s going to have to go back to Mewni.





- There are many complaints about Star being written as dumber than usual this season (I still think that it’s debatable), but I think that it’s just a case of everyone except Marco having lost their marbles.





- While not completely managing to persuade her Marco once again snaps Star out of her… rash decisions.





- Maybe it’s true that in some episodes Star acts weirder than average, even more given the character development she went through in season 1. But plots would be boring, otherwise, and almost every bad choice so far has resulted in learning something new and changing a little:



• Mr. Candle Cares - she wasn’t actually going to cut the mermaid’s tail anyway, and she (partially) came to terms about her future.

• Red Belt - Ok, she half destroyed the house to look for a hammer, but at least she tried to do something Eart-style

• Star on Wheels - her stubborness in not listening to Marco was excessive, but it helped both besties in seeing things in another perspective: Marco had to “believe in magic”, and Star had to accept that she’s not on Mewni anymore.

• Star Vs Echo Creeks - first bout of weirdness was sugar fueled, the escape was “I still have nightmares about St. Olga and Marco told me that I was going to jail and I don’t want to lose my freedom”.

• Wand to Wand - uses magic once again to avoid menial tasks, Marco almost dies (not completely her fault, the wand was acting weird). Maybe this time she learned for good a lesson about not abusing magic.



and in Starstruck Star clearly has some doubts about Mina, but she feels like she has to follow it, to take advantage of the fortuitous meeting.





- Praise the heavens, they once again avoided the “You’re just jealous” trope.

Marco still has to be sassy, though. That’s in his contract.





- RACIAL PROFILING.





- The wooly mammooth became a chick running with its little wings behind its back in the long shot.





- Looks like Star can’t wait to meet a gargoyle.





- This shot reminds the viewers that the school, and Star and Marco classmates, still exist. A rare sighting of a Ferguson less Alfonzo, last time was in Brittney’s Party.







- Why is the hairy werewolf hipster laughing. Why is the dad of Gustav’s new host family smiling. The tourists are not the only cross over element from Gravity Falls, in this episode Echo Creek citizens are as weird as Gravity Falls ones.



- Have they ever mentioned that Star likes Earth a lot, and that it being endangered is enough to snap her back to reality?



- “If I have to kneel before my doom might as well practice yoga while I’m at it”

or just a reused animation.





- Is this something akin to dipping down, or something that she can do as the “strongest warrior”? The official synopsis for the episode says “Mina Loveberry, a rogue magic-wielder from Mewni”, but the episode never mentioned it directly.





- Besides Star apparent appreciation for voting, and her already reknown love for freedom, there is also this “being a warrior” scene. Lots of possible foreshadowing for a future where Star is going to distance herself from her home dimension’s customs and ideas?





- Star is so young, and yet she already had to go through so many losses.





- 18 episodes, 33 segments, and this is the first person questioning magic being on Earth.





- No “I told you”, no nothing. Just adorableness.

And Star should leave that old food to the many real Echo Creek’s homeless people.



- While crazy, Mina really wanted to have Star as her disciple and companion. After all she was just doing what’s probably the only thing she’s good for: fighting and conquering.

Mewni is a horrible place, folks!





- This doesn’t look like the usual style for Mewni’s backgrounds, but it might just be a never seen before region.









CAMPING TRIP

Fittingly, after a whole first segment where Star didn’t listen to her friend, and yet Marco still followed her around all day, not pointing out the princess’ mistake, Camping Trip features an all-time kind and considerate Star. Listening to Marco, trying to protect his plans, while still being happy about the King being there, trying to make her dad get along with Earth and Marco.

This Star is also aware of how different Earth is from Mewni. In part to make the contrast with the King funnier, sure. But she’s also getting more and more attached and accustomed to her new temporary (?) home.







- To set the mood, the episode begins with Star being super excited about doing a somewhat normal Earth activity.





- This is the first magic used after Wand to Wand, and it seems to follow the “color coding” seen in the episode: the wand at first has both pink and green energy, then the two seems to “fuse” and the crystal glows with its usual yellow light. Maybe that means that any normal magic has a balance of “bad” and “good” energy?





- Took a while, but Star learned this lesson.

One could argue that even Starstruck had Star being “Mina this is not Mewni, you can’t take things for yourself just ‘cause you’re strong!”





- Despite initially expecting a treasure hunt Star is not disappointed by Marco’s real plans (the picture alone is not that telling, but Star saying “Today?” sounds intrigued, or at least interested, not let down for sure)





- Reminder that Raphael Diaz is a professional artist. And a good one at that, painting almost in real time.





- Disclaimer: as usual I still believe that there is nothing more than platonicness between Star and Marco (yet). But this scene clearly plays hard on the “date interrupted by her father” trope.

And (would need the audio again. When are you going to add webm support, tumblr?) Star’s “It’s just the two of us then” is, at the same time, strange and almost expectant. “Strange” ‘cause they’ve been together, alone, a lot of times before. And so is Marco’s answers, we’ve never seen him asking her “Hey do you feel comfortable being alone with me?”



tl;dr: This is not a date episode, but the writers clearly wanted for it to feel like one, showing never-seen-before dynamic between Star and Marco.





- A portal? Magic? Just a funny and explosive way to introduce in the episode a funny and explosive character?





- Did the King know about the camping trip just ‘cause, well, the episode needed it, or is he keeping tabs on what her daughter does, after the incident in Storm the Castle?





- At first Star is happy to see her dad. Not so much in the next scene. Maybe she was not expecting him to stay with them as a “third weel”, more likely she’s just weirded out by his behaviour.

Meanwhile Marco remembers what the King did in his last visit (Royal Pain). Or he didn’t want a third weel as well.





- They pushed really hard on the “Father wants to prove himself better than his daughter’s boyfriend” trope.

Also Marco as Star’s guide on Earth, Star getting more and more used to Earth, Star loving learning about Earth…





- Possible small plot hole here: the King brought little Star along on gruesome fight with the nature, but in Diaz Family Vacation she was all like “Whaaaat you like fighting, dad?! I’d never have guessed it!”.

I welcome this retcon, thiugh. It means that Star spent some time with at least one parent while growing…





- Second picture featuring Marco “I’m deadly scared by the King but I’d do anything for Star” Diaz.



And Star really wants to share her experience with the King, showing her dad why she likes Earth so much and what it has to offer.





- King’s eyes are smiley faces.



- Even Star is weirded out.





- Star actually finding historical trivia interesting. C’mon I might see the show through Starco tinted glasses, but this episode clearly showed a Star closer to Marco than ever. To counterbalance the King being “in competition” with the Safe Kid, sure, but that’s just the “out of universe” explanation, the reasoning of storyboarders. In universe these are 11 minutes of “HEY DAD HAVE YOU MET MARCO HE’S AWESOME HE TAUGHT ME SO MUCH ABOUT EARTH I LOVE EARTH IT’S AN AWESOME PLACE C’MON LET ME SHOW YOU!”.

Competitiiiiveeee





- Yellow-lighted crystal again





- This + “I’d want to be queen” + all the exchange students = Marco really loves company and contact with others



Well, he met Star, so he’s good for life.





- “We landed a while ago, but let’s keep holding Marco’s arm for the whole shot, for good measure.”







- I’m not even going to comment on these.





- “Crazed monologue” is a great way to do character’s exposition.





- Does this mean that Star’s parents, or at least the King, don’t know about Star dating Tom? Or is River just being delusional here? He says “Keep lying to yourself”, but I think he’s talking about Marco being her boyfriend, not about Star having never dated before.





- The coins have the Queen’s face on one side, comfirming once again that Mewni’s kingom is matriarchal (she might be the “first queen” seen in Star’s book about Mewnipendence Day, but the diamond on the cheeks suggest it being Moon), and the moon with a star on the other side, just as the King’s scepter. And the floor in St. Olga. And the symbols during the Blood Moon ball. And in the hair lady in Star Vs Echo Creek. And the name of the current queen and her daughter.





- Smokey the Be…aver?





- Star is not the only one being extremely considerate in this episode, Marco as well does his best to bear the King for Star’s sake, while still trying to show her the geyser.

Meanwhile the King did his best to bear as well.

AH! I’m hilarious.





- [THIS SPACE HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]







- Despite all the mortal dangers Marco likes going around the multiverse with Star, and appreciates how she changed his life.

At the same time in this episode Star appreciates Marco’s guidance on Earth, “praising” him in front of her dad, wanting the King to try Earth things as well.





- Just as Marco feels proud about Earth having Old Youthful and wants to share it with Star, Star looked “proud” about Earth’s freedom with Mina (makes sense for someone who values freedom above almost anything else)





- This might obviously be a coincidence, but given the Gravity Falls cameo in the previous segment and the same clothes design…





- What are Mewmans made of.

Also Marco’s math is off, it should be 120mph, but they didn’t leave the ranger’s office immediatly, so 150 might be correct.





- OH COME THE FUCK ON.

Also the King already basically agreed to have Marco as son in law





- Both in this episode and in Mr. Candle Cares Marco and Star are quick to deny any romantic involvement, with no blushing or embarrassment. I don’t know if I should be happy about the maturity they show regarding their relationship or sad…





- Kid has no respect for elders. Royal elders. Shameful.





- Let me become complete trash for a moment at the end of this post: Star looks at Marco a lot during the whole segment. And not just “I’m talking with you, I look at your face”. She often glances at him while he’s turned, or while she’s talking with her dad.





In this scene in particular she randomly glances towards Marco, for no reason, while talking the the King about his newfound young appearance.





- Star loves the Diazes so much. And it looks like the king is enjoying it as well. Marco’s family is magic.





BONUS:





Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 6

