I figure Celestia and Luna were being obnoxious on purpose to goad Twilight into taking over their Princess duties. This was all part of their plan to take a vacation (and dodge the Royal Swanifying ceremony).

This scene looks nice, but overall I don’t like it (the whole scene from the appearance of the sisters). It shows sisters as aggressive and reckless. I think the main purpose of this is to show how much better Mane 6 is than Celestia and Luna, not to show sisters usefulness. Even the swan segment served that purpose. So I feel confused about this episode. Some parts are great, some parts are awful and the authors really didn’t know how to portray Celestia and Luna.

A few seasons late to be useful….

Giant turtles are one of those universally recognized fantasy cliches.

@northern haste  
I was thinking the lion turtles from ATLA

While I have mixed thoughts on this episode as a whole, this sequence is kinda cool to watch.

@northern haste  
I thought the same thing