G5: Make Your Mark chapter 6 and Secrets of Starlight · 8:10pm Nov 23rd, 2023
And here we are, the finale of G5 plus the Secrets of Starlight special.
I wish I could say, like I did with previous chapters, that the writing got better again, but this time I can't. In fact, I have very little good to say about ch6, and especially about SoS, so I'll leave that for the end so that I don't end on a bitter note. This time - full spoilers, because a) tell your tale already spoiled what and how things happen, b) so did the trailers, c) there's nothing to hide, really, because nothing in ch6 makes any sense.
Let's start with SoS, despite it being the final, post-main arc part.
No, despite what I hoped, it's not some legacy of Starlight Glimmer (BEST PONY, FIGHT ME!) that would explain the absolute mess that's G5's history. It's completely unrelated to anything, even in G5. Story-wise, it's nothing, even for a 44m runtime. It tries to set up a future villain/villains and tries to be sinister without ever showing anything to warrant it. It's similar to how Opaline was presented at first, all talk and nothing to support it, but at least Opaline was FUNNY. This, I just have nothing, it's 40 minutes of static in my brain. Even Winter Wishday, which I've considered to be by far the worst part of G5 barring maybe the end of ch1 and the stupidly forced conflict, had some setup and payoff. So yeah, writing-wise, SoS is the worst part of G5, both in story and in dialogue. It feels as if someone took the most basic elements of a general idea of a plot and a one defining trait of each character, and tried to squeeze some money out of it. Must have villain. Must have magic conflict. Must have magic resolution. Must still be light and slice of life. Each character must repeat their one line in varied forms. Characters talk AT each other, not TO one another.
Sunny: "Unity good. If friends, then win."
Zipp: "Me detective. Something wrong."
Hitch: "Me no sure. Me support wat girls say."
Pipp: "Something something song phone."
Izzy: "I tinker." (Plus they almost went full Pinkie caricature with her again.)
Misty: "I'm not alone anymore." (Seriously, even the only character with some depth is just a hollow husk here)
Now that I'm writing this, I think I get it - SoS feels as if it was written by an AI. Use only the most basic characteristics and have zero depth and creative vision.
The good part - animation and visual gags are still good, still fun. New pony designs are cute. And the Auricorn song is actually pretty nice. Definitely a break from the horrible overdose of light pop pieces that all completely blend together. I'm not saying that G5's post-movie songs are bad, they're just all the same.
Make Your Mark Chapter 6
Now we get to the real finale of G5 and, as I started with, it makes no sense. Every event "just happens" without almost any set up, characters say revelations that are complete guesses and, as Hodd Toward would say - it just works. It feels as if there's 80% of required lore missing, and I'd be fine if it was in Tell Your Tale, but no.
With Misty's arc over in the last chapter, she joins the cast of mostly flat characters for this chapter. The thing is that this chapter is very short and mostly action-focused, so the lack of anyone's character doesn't hit that hard. Opaline is the focus and we finally get what we should have gotten in early chapters - a demonstration of power, showing instead of telling. Unfortunately, it's all so so late and so quick that it's pretty much like the first half of season 9 opener - Sombra's instant takeover of the Crystal Empire. I guess it's a good show of what Opaline is capable of when she has power, but it's still not well done because her success relies on there being about 20 ponies in total in Equestria and all of them being braindead. All the dragons involved are a complete afterthought.
As for the dragons, I actually really like the design of ALMOST all of them, with the exception being, of course, Spike. Dragon lord Spike or not, he gets shafted in every generation no matter what the scenario. All the other dragons' proportions are good, but for Spike they kept the old pufferfish head compared to which the dragon neck is just too thin. Regarding dragon characterization and use, it's bad but at least them immediately just breaking down is somewhat explained by the dragon stone, but like with every other magical doodad, there are no rules, no established baseline about what should happen, nothing.
All in all, chapter 6 suffers from zero setup for pretty much every action-consequence, so stuff happens... just because.
Okay, so what did I like about chapter 6?
Spike's reaction to ponies, I guess. While everyone else is suspicious, dragon lord Spike is just: "I've been through this shit before. Shut up and let's help right the hell now." Oh, and the only piece of continuity we actually get, and that's various kinds of dragonfire. Spike has teleportation, now much more powerful than in G4, Sparky has transmutation, other dragons have weird nonsense but that doesn't really matter. It's SOMETHING.
Like always, anything regarding animation and models is good.
Overall, though, G5 has been a hard disappointment from a writing perspective. The original movie sets up so many questions about lore and history while presenting characters whose life situation are vastly interesting. If they didn't want to go the lore route, they had plenty of material to work with for a slice of life-based generation, but they didn't do that either. They pushed lore aside and transformed all characters with the exception of Misty into the most basic caricatures of their traits. On top of that, even if we accept that MYM is Misty's story, then it ends with Ch5.
I don't know. I feel G5 just falls flat on every level that's not gags or animation.
There's another 2 years of G5 to go yet.
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Wait, what? I thought this was it.
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Tell Your Tale will be continuing on as the main series right up into 2025.
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Ah, TYT.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, so maybe there's some hope.
Yeesh, that's a lot of complaints. I stopped reading at the first quarter since I didn't want to risk spoiling even further.
But to hear that things aren't doing that great? Hell, Starlight Glimmer wasn't even linked at all? That's some depressing fact to have when I will eventually watch Chapter 6.
Also, this is the finale? That's even more depressing. I can't believe Tell Your Tale slowly got much better than its 3D counterpart. Like, it became the main series by Chapter 5.
honesty i don't think anyone is willing (mostly Hasbro) to admit that mlp fim or gen 4 was a literal lightning in a bottle for the first 3 (if you're a purist) to 5 seasons and had really really special and unique circumstances that make it blow up and explode and i see gen 5 as a extremely shallow and sloppy "i wanna move away from gen 4 and make something new" combined with them rehashing the same gen 4 stuff cause they don't know what to do but they sure do know that showing a lil gen 4 Easter egg or character will spike the viewership from old fans of fim as a desperate measure.
imo .
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- yeah, I hate to be completely negative, but they just dropped the ball hard and on their foot.
- TLDR: I'd say watch the MYM just for the closure. Visually it's not bad, there's fun, and Opaline at least somewhat works even if no one else does.
- Tbh I don't really think TYT got better, I just think TYT does what it's supposed to and is what it was planned to be - a snappy, short burst of color, a quick fix without much depth. However, if what Sugar Spoon said in a comment below is true and TYT is now supposed to be a main series until 2025 there need to be serious rethinking of what G5 is if they don't want it to slide into forgettable obscurity.
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I love G4 from the start to the end. Obviously, there's so much that you get really low lows but the high points are top notch, so I'm not a fan of purists who say the show got bad after point X (wings, middle finger castle, Glimmy, friendship school, whatever). I don't mind at all them wanting to move away from G4, but then you can't base your entire storytelling that's critical for the current state of the world on it. Making something new, with new characters, maybe an occasional nod to the old audience, is also an absolutely fine concept, but it needs to be executed even remotely well, which it simply isn't, and that's my problem. With depth, even if the series failed to be catchy, it would inspire fandom creativity, and I just don't see that happening much.
While that is true, the original idea of Lauren Faust was that G4 should have a level of maturity and depth to be accessible to both kids and young adults, maybe more. Something like when you see a disney kids' movie that has well done nods to real life only adults will understand. G5 lost this and degraded to... to an old person's idea of what today's kid or a young adult is. Granted, I'm far away from that age group by now, but I refuse to believe that a young people today are the shallow, phone slaves that can't hold a more complex thought that Bill Maher thinks they are.
Misty being flat? The hell are you talking about. This finishes Misty's development.
Her facing off against her abuser, while still clearly being affected by her trauma, while also showing her element clearly when trying to appeal to opaline
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Yep, that's the only scene I actually wanted to mention as being decent but in the end I didn't and it comes back to bite me. Why it isn't great, though, is that it has no action behind it, and it shows when Opaline just treats her as a complaining kid, takes her mark, and leaves. If Misty added any level of fight or effort, that scene would have worked like you said, as a capstone of her arc. The only ones who did that were Izzy and Hitch.
In any other scene with Misty involved, she falls flat like everyone else.
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Yea can't agree there. Her resolution to her arc isn't blasting opaline (not like she can regardless), and there's no violence since opa still sees her as a disobedient child to be punished.
The m6 know they can't defeat her by attacking so they try to stall her or trap her.
Also nah man literally every misty scene has something. Her cowering in fear at first at the presence of opa, then noticing an opportunity and finally standing up for herself. You say alot of the scenes are flat, but if the show didn't have these scenes the arcs wouldn't work.
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That's absolutely fine. It's enough for you, not enough for me.
Obviously. My point is that she doesn't even try to do anything aside from talking. This is a scene that can play out in the mind of someone abused who thinks it's enough. Anyone with real experience with abuse or knowledge of psychology knows how insignificant Misty's stance is without any power. If she tried to resist in any way and failed, it would be fine. Opaline is supposed to be impossible. I want to say that Opaline's reaction perfectly fits an abuser's behaior who knows her victim is bluffing and can't do anything. The scene is very good for Opaline, but not for Misty. It's a version of resistance in a child's imagination.
The entire schtick about Opaline taking everyone's marks is done in such a dumb way. You stall or try to trap someone if you have a plan, otherwise you run (this was done well in S9 finale when Twiggy fled to the Crystal Empire while others stalled so that she could at least work on a solution). And this is what pissed me off about earthponies and Hitch who just stood around even when they had plenty of time to run and hide even after realizing the trees were the problem. Opaline can't track anyone. She's not fast, she's not really tactical, everyone just throws themselves at her. That's why I think Izzy's resistance is the only scene that works - she prepared, she did well, unicorns did hide, she obviously had no chance, but she had a plan and did her best.
As I corrected myself, the Misty-Opaline scene was the only one I considered thought through, but when I dug into it more I realized how much it fails to deliver just because it's an anime fan's idea of resistance, somethign along the lines of "I'm gonna tap into my inner strenght when pushed too hard and it'll work out!", and this gets bitchslapped by very realistic reaction of Opaline. I just don't get the feeling of "I'm ready to die for my resistance because I know how obscenely insane my enemy is, but it's still worth it for my self-respect" from Misty. To me the whole scene is "I'm now a resisting hero and I know it'll all work out because the story won't let Opaline leave me a charred stain on the ground". It's the overly infantilized version of how the scene would play out, which just irks me because up until now, especially in ch5, I praised the show for Misty's realistic and really well done progress from a long-term abuse victim to getting herself together when she finally finds a glimmer of hope.
And yes, every other scene of hers falls flat as well, because it boils down to "Opaline is evil, must do something." I've read better dialogue in Plague War, and that's a Warhammer 40k trilogy where 60% of character lines are "I am Roboute Guilliman, brothers!"
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"but I refuse to believe that a young people today are the shallow, phone slaves that can't hold a more complex thought that Bill Maher thinks they are." not all but knowing what goes down on stuff like tiktok,youtube shorts (diet tiktoks) and twitter.... yea thats what alot of kids are nowadays.
also ive only watched mlp on and off till season 4 or 5 so i never seen anything past except clips but yea what ive seen is great but considering how the internet made kids more diverse and harder to nail down tastes regarding tv shows yea its better to make super safe broad not really good in anyway but not bad just meh type shows to get good returns.
Just finished Chapter 6 and its complimentary (sort of) TYT video.
I don't agree that this is the end of the G5; EqD did mention somewhere that there are a few more chapters after 6.
But... well, going in with the expectation that you've set for me inadvertantly, I would say that some of it I wholly agree. Like characters just talking rather than having a conversation, unnescessary time buffer dialogues, and repeating one note character shticks with no substance.
Mainly, it is a writer issue. The flow of the story seems to be on the rushed end of the spectrum and the visuals feels same-y and bad. Just look at Opaline's body glitter and her not-coke covered muzzle.
The dialogues are all big moving words, but none of them are backed up with "filler" words. As in, there are no real strong bonds to back up Sunny's gang. Tell Your Tale has an alright amount of fillers like Zipp's and Izzy's hearts and hooves day episode. Ones that explores each other's strength and weaknesses and how their friendship can work. G4 does this so well.
Spike's design seems alright, but I feel it could have been more sleeker. Just look at their stumpy claws! It's almost like the designers are trying to make them hooved. Griffons and Hippogriffs are quadrupeds, but they have those sleek claws and paws. Even the G4 dragons doesn't really have stumps for their appendages.
Now Spike... this is more of a personal thing. Nothing odd jumps at me, other than their design, until he spoke. I really don't want to say anything negative about this, so I'll just chalk it up to the extreme end of vocal puberty. But dang, I hope that voice isn't deep for deep's sake. Would have fit Spike better if he was Dragonlord Torch's size.
And for Secrets of Starlight... there are almost absolutely no link to Starlight Glimmer except the village's name.
Now, it's all speculation from here on.
The Auroricorns doesn't seem to be near the Crystal Empire, but they seem to be able to cause the Empire-like's aurora to happen. Which seems to originate from a distance from them. They are likely decendents of Crystal Ponies. But an issue that crops up is what Alura and the Auroricorns has implied: she needs to travel to another world and they don't know what or where is Equestria.
I don't want to speculate further on your rant blog; I have connected some rather big clues to how they got to this point. So, in short, Chapter 6 felt kinda samey and somewhat weaker than chapter 5.
The new villain(s) are annoying. Their design irks me in some way and the villainess's vocals are not very varied at all. She justs speaks at purring volume and intonation even when expressing her displeasure and anger. She's a knock off Siren.
But I will give Chapter 6 something: Sparky seems to have been carrying some of it's weight here. He's not super annoying and seems to have caught my attention, but other than that, well, he's still not really suppose to carry Sunny's gang more than any of them.
I liked his interaction with Hitch and Spike. It's the most cliche thing, but I think they've done the setup right and got me to feel an intense heartwarming moment when Sparky has to choose. Apparently if you've done stuff right, even cheesy moments can hit unexpectedly.
Well, all that is left now is Chapter 7 and onwards, assuming there is one. For now, TYT still carries G5.
I almost forgot, Comet kinda reminds me of Sunburst, which kinda links to Starlight. I'm really curious to see what they do with his character.
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I thought it was the end, but the cliffhanger wouldn't make sense, especially with the TYT where Allura is already in Equestria. So, apparently, TYT is now supposed to be the main series. With the 5-minute format, adding depth both to the forgotten lore and exploring the characters beyond "Sunny is a motivational speaker and makes juices" will be difficult to say the least.
I was entirely commenting on writing. I had no problem with visual both for MYM6 and SoS other than the frankly uninteresting villain. A good example of bad characterization or at least some critical content being cut is Opaline's face-off with Sunny where O says they're both the same, power hungry alicorns because Sunny is always in the library, trying to learn more (which she literally never did during the series. Zipp was the one at least trying to figure something out). Same with Spike quickly comparing Sunny to Twilight when those two characters have almost nothing in common.
G4 has 20m episodes. TYT has 5m. Granted, some G4 episodes were a bit bloated, but if TYT is to be the main series now it needs a bit more space and a lot more thought put into writing.
It's just the HEAD for me. Every other dragon is fine because they have slimmer heads, but Spike is a damn wrecking ball.
AND THE SMILES!
Seriously, though. I was kinda excited to see crystal Empire-esque architecture, because having another locked Together tree in the Crystal Empire would absolutely fit the world separated into pockets of civilization, but then we just got... what we got.
Pretty much. The voice of her brother kinda made me think of Discord, so we'll see if they make something interesting out of that plot thread.
YES. Cliches exist for a reason. We knew how it would play out and we were happy it did. That's fine, not everything needs to be new and exciting. Hell, my drone stuff is basically endlessly recycled hugging and it kinda works.
Sunburst from Wish. Jk, he was fine.