G5 Wishlist #2 (G5/G5 Spoilers!) · 6:04pm Jun 19th, 2023
With the recent news that only are Tell Your Tale and Make Your Mark getting more episodes this year (presumably, no concrete release dates yet. Maybe they had a bunch of content they were working on, or maybe the ongoing writers strike doesn't affect them?), but a potential third series entitled "Secrets of Starlight" has been greenlighted, I think now's as good a time as any to do another wishlist for G5. Make Your Mark Chapter 4 suggests they were listening to some of the criticisms people had about earlier content, though not necessarily all of it. So hopefully, they can continue on that trend. These are ten suggestions I have for G5 going forward. As always, it's just my personal opinion. Maybe there are things others feel need to be addressed or want to see that I don't, and maybe there are things I want to see or want to be addressed that others aren't concerned about. And needless to say, if you still haven't seen Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark yet, there will be spoilers.
1. Don't Glance or Skip Over Misty's Redemption Arc
With Misty having officially joined the mane five as the sixth ranger, there's already a lot of parallels to both Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer. The former of which was the G4 gold standard for redemption, the one by which all subsequent redemptions were judged. The latter is widely viewed as having led to an overabundence and overuse of redemption, and a redemption arc that was almost non-existent due to a time skip we weren't allowed to see. There are probably other redemptions to draw on, such as Princess Luna's on again off again guilt about her time as Nightmare Moon, or the absolutely attrocious redemptions of Discord and Trixie where they kept acting like villains, or even the absolutely unnecessary and contradictory redemptions of the likes of Garble and Ahuizolt that no one was asking for. In any case, Misty's redemption and role within the main cast of G5 shouldn't be ignored. We already have the questionable redemption of Sprout that I'm pretty sure they want to be canon even though the game in which it takes place has a lot of unanswered questions about when it's supposed to take place, and many speculated Sprout was going to reform and join the mane five for quite a while. So already there's cause for concern for Misty. Maybe it's too much to hope for another Sunset Shimmer, and Starlight Glimmer ultimately managed to become a good character in the end despite her rocky redemption. But there's a lot about Misty that will need to be addressed that can't just be glossed over. And they better not cheap out and use the comics or Tell Your Tale to cover it, we need to see this in Make Your Mark, maybe for the next Make Your Mark special?
2. Establish Consistency and Communication between all G5 content
If "Secrets of Starlight" is going to become a third show, then G5 will really be overburdened since it will have to maintain three separate shows as well as the comics (which so far aren't looking so hot). If that happens, they need to make sure there are clear channels of communication, that the different mediums don't end up accidentally contradicting one another or end up doing the same story twice or more. Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark had two episodes with plots that were suspiciously similar to Tell Your Tale episodes, but then you have Tell Your Tale episodes that do things like establish where the Brighthouse came from or how the Marestream was built, only to turn around and have episodes about half the cast turning into babies or doing music video parodies of social media trends. Tell Your Tale cannot be all things to all people, it cannot pick and choose when it wants to be canon and when it doesn't, and the same holds true for the comics and any other media beyond Make Your Mark. We already have a questionable tie-in video game that is indirectly eluded to, the last thing we need is for another "All there in the manual" like the FiM movie, where content that should've been part of the movie was instead relegated to things like a mobile app or tie-in chapter books.
3. Do More with Side Characters
Queen Haven, Alphabittle and Thunder and Zoom seem to be doing pretty well for representation so far in G5. And we finally got a major reappearance from Sprout in "Top Remodel". But we've yet to see Phyilis and Argyle in speaking roles outside of Tell Your Tale, and even then they've only been in one episode. Hitch's Grandma Figgy almost feels like a replacement for Argyle in the show, but Phyilis and Argyle don't deserve to be forgotten and tossed aside. They were crucial parts of G5's narrative from the start, and we need to see them again in meaningful ways. Perhaps Hitch's Grandma Figgy could have a talk with Phyilis if Phyilis is still struggling to process the changes. If nothing else, Sunny should be trying to help Zipp by going through Argyle's research.
4. Figure Out What to Do With Sparky
As I said when talking about Sparky for my G5 side characters ranking, adding a baby to your cast is not usually a good idea because babies on their own don't really make for good characters. They can at best compliment or serve as motivation for other characters, unless you're going the route of Rugrats, or Stewie from Family Guy. Dragons probably mature differently from ponies, but even so Sparky has to be getting to the point where he can at least talk and somewhat function on his own. We've gotten vague hints that there's something magical about him, that he might be connected to the Tree of Harmony and the crystals. But they've both been so brief they might as well not exist. Now that Sparky has been drained of most of his magic, what's going to happen to him? Is he going to get his powers back? If so, maybe that could trigger some kind of transformation for him, maybe even let him be aged up a little bit? Sparky needs something to justify his inclusion, besides the obvious desire to sell more toys.
5. Let Other G4 Characters Appear
So far, Twilight Sparkle is the only G4 character who has appeared in any meaningful fashion. We did get a non-speaking cameo from Celestia and Luna in "Sunny Side Up" as part of Opaline's backstory, but not only did their models look ugly but their appearance only raised more questions about where Opaline was during all of G4. "Secrets of Starlight" could potentially be bringing back Starlight Glimmer, and Opaline hunting dragons could potentially mean Spike will appear or at least be acknowledged. But if nothing else we need to know what happened to the rest of the mane six, as well as the student/young six. Are they all dead, or like Twilight is it possible that something else happened to them and they could be resurrected or revived? Everyone loves a good crossover or team up, so if done well it would be nice to see some of the other G4 characters return, even if only for a little while. If you're going to tie G5 to G4, the least you can do is let G4 get some representation instead of just using it as window dressing.
6. Pipp Petals Needs to Be Fleshed Out
More so than any other character in the main cast, Pipp is the one who remains the most one dimensional. We've got some nibbling around the edges here and there, but she remains defined solely by social media. She's a social media popstar, a trend follower instead of a trend setter. There needs to be more to Pipp to make her more engaging, more interesting. Most importantly in my opinion, however, they need to break her reliance on social media. Show us a side of her that doesn't depend on social media at all, not even as a promotional or marketing tool. Let us see that she can put down her phone and do stuff without it, if only so to send a message to today's phone obsessed generation that it's important to unplug from time to time. There are things they could do with social media if they really want to keep that part of Pipp's character, why not have her do a charity livestream or spread awareness about something that happens to one of her Pippsqueaks? Isn't that better than just using her to reference or elude to whatever's popular on social media?
7. Think Carefully about the Crystals
The unity crystals are what are going to make or break G5. They could either prove that connecting to G4 was the right call, or they could pull a The Last Jedi and make everything the previous generation did pointless just so a new generation can magically fix everything again. So assuming they haven't already settled on a plan for the crystals, they should really think about what they want to do with them and how they want to use them going forward. The comics have suggested what Twilight was trying to accomplish, but if that ends up being the story they go with then G5 is doomed to fail. It's got to be related to Opaline somehow, and that brings me to my next point.
8. Continue to Establish Opaline As a Credible Threat
Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark really did a lot to make Opaline seem competent, if only because it proves that having your villains actually do things from time to time is important if you don't want them to be completely irrelevant to the narrative. But they still have a lot of work to do to convince me that Opaline is the threat who accomplished what even the Legion of Doom couldn't. Even her being a supposedly immortal fire alicorn obsessed with proving her superiority can only do so much.Her showdown with Sunny in "Missing the Mark" shows how powerful she is after absorbing most of Sparky's dragon fire magic, so presumably she's going to get much stronger now that she's going after dragons. But is this permanent, or can her powers be takne away? Without Misty, we're going to see just how well Opaline can function on her own. Even if they want her to be a comedic villain instead of a serious villain, they need to make sure we can believe she's a threat even now that our heroes know about her and know what's she capable of.
9. Fix Hitch and Sunny's Characters
Since the end of "A New Generation", Hitch and Sunny haven't been the same. For Sunny at least, the problem can be attributed to the fact that she had no goal beyond unifying the pony tribes and proving her point. But that can't be all to her character, and neither can her smoothie cart and her bouts of self-doubt make up for her not having a motivation. Even her being an activist on the level of a community advocate or a crowd pleaser can only do so much if Sunny has nothing to really strive for. They showed us hints of a possible arc related to her alicorn powers, but if they choose to go down that road we need to see this be fleshed out and expanded. Now that she knows about Opaline, maybe Sunny could be worried about whether she'll truly be a match for Opaline next time, and whether the bond with her friends will be able to stand the test of time. As for Hitch, I'll give credit to Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark for having him actually investigate with Zipp and take her concerns seriously for once. But he's much more passive now, he seems to avoid taking charge and being responsible. It feels almost like they included Sparky to mold Hitch's character to be more what they wanted it to be. But the reason why Hitch was so good in "A New Generation" was because he was competent and cared about doing a good job. He took initative, and he wasn't afraid to confront Sunny or Sprout if he thought they were in the wrong. He was still clumsy and a bit arrogant, but never to a degree where he couldn't do anything without screwing up or being the butt of jokes all the time. We need to see more of that Hitch, and less of the Hitch we've been getting in Make Your Mark. Tell Your Tale is where you can exaggerate Hitch and make him act like an overbearing father or a clumsy oaf, and nothing more.
10. Provide More Insight into the Family Situations of the Main Cast
We know Misty is an orphan and that Sunny's dad is dead, and some material from Tell Your Tale suggests that Alphabittle raised Izzy since she was a child, meaning at least half our cast could very well be orphans. Other than that and a potential insight from Hitch's Grandma Figgy, there's still much about our heroes' families that we don't know. Yes, I know Lauren Faust wanted to have all the mane six's parents in G4 be either dead or traveling, and she was overruled on that. And yes, it took until Season 7 for us to get answers about Rainbow Dash and Applejack's family situations. But that just means G5 has a chance to improve on something that G4 kind of stumbled on. What about Sunny's mother? Was Argyle a single parent from the time Sunny was a child, did he ever tell her about her mother? Did Hitch's parents die when he was a child, leaving Grandma Figgy to raise him? Who was Zipp and Pipp's father? Did Izzy ever have parents? These questions deserve to be answered to an extent. Family can tell us a lot about why characters are the way they are. Even with the rise in single parents and divorced parents, I don't see why we need to have every one of our main characters be completely void of a traditional nuclear family. The mane six weren't hurting for diverse parenting situations: Pinkie's parents were rock farms and had a sort of Amish vibe going for them, Applejack's parents were from feuding families, Twilight's parents helped raise Spike, and of course Rainbow Dash's parents were directly responsible for her inferiority/superiority complex. Who knows what they could come up with for our current cast of main characters?
And there you have it.
Secrets of Starlight is said to be the fourth Make Your Mark special, not a new G5 MLP series.
5734060 Oh.
What I would personally like for what's ahead and to come regarding what's next for G5: Seeing locations from the G4 days and seeing how much has changed in the long time skip since then (Not counting the appearances of Canterlot, Castle of the Two Sisters, and Fluttershy's Cottage in the first arc of the MLP G5 IDW Comics.)
Cause if you ask me.... it is becoming quite tiring having to rotate between Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood so much lately.
And I can agree on that for those.
Know what I mean though? :)
5734119 I kind of agree. But Bridlewood at least remains pretty much unexplored, and we haven't seen much of Zephyr Heights outside of the royal palace.
5734183
Alright that's true: Explore more of Bridlewood and Zephyr Heights, and THEN explore the areas from the G4 days. :P