My Episode Review on My Little Pony: Make Your Mark-Portrait of a Princess · 4:57am March 30th
Greetings and salutations, my friends.
This is your top-of-the-line film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, I'm gonna give you guys my take on My Little Pony: Make Your Mark's "Portrait of a Princess".
Here's the rundown of it:
It's a beautiful day, and nothing could be more exciting than the Zephyr Heights Pegasus Royals' Annual Portrait Day. The only problem is, whereas Pipp and Queen Haven are excited for Portrait Day, Zipp is far from thrilled and would rather do detective work. Particularly to focus on deciphering the warning left by Twilight Sparkle via Unity Crystal hologram.
However, when Zipp gets an email telling her that a rare flower called an Ocean Lily is in bloom, she sees this as the perfect avenue for getting out of Portrait Day. She also drags Pipp along in the hopes of spending quality time with her, promising that finding the Ocean Lily is just what they need for their newest annual portrait.
Unbeknownst to either of them, though, the Ocean Lily is really part of a trap set by Misty, having been tasked by Opaline to get the two Pegasus sisters "out of the way" for good?
In all honesty, despite having watched "Portrait of a Princess" around last year, I had relatively low expectations for it. After rewatching and reviewing three Make Your Mark episodes, and reacting with primarily negative sentiment, I was starting to think that my overall experience with this one wouldn't be any different. But, that's why I decided to watch every episode two more times, so that I wouldn't immediately jump to conclusions. And to ensure I go in with a clear & reasonable head, of course.
Coming from a guy who reacquainted himself with "Portrait of a Princess" a couple more times recently, I'm now very certain that the episode was mediocre at the most.
As a whole, the story by Janae Hall was relatively underwhelming.
In terms of the flaws, the biggest ones revolved around how Misty trapped Pipp and Zipp. It was a clever plan, but Janae Hall never took the time to help it be logically worked or enacted.
For starters, Misty managed to get the two Pegasus sisters out of the salon by sending a picture of an Ocean Lily to Zipp through an email. Then she lured Pipp & Zipp onto the beach by sending another picture of the flower through email, emphasizing where to look for it. Afterwards, she baited the two sisters into a cave by leaving a trail of the lily's petals, and somehow...they get trapped by a cave-in.
I don't know about you guys, but as I thought about it more, the whole thing seemed to open up a boatload of plot holes.
How did Misty cause the cave-in to begin with? Did she use some kind of spell despite her lack of magic capabilities? And how was simply trapping Pipp & Zipp somewhere supposed to get them out of the way for good if they'd either just find a way to escape or be found by a rescue party?
Another thing I couldn't help but question was how Misty was able to send pictures of the Ocean Lily to Pipp & Zipp through email "anonymously". The main reason for why I'm questioning this is because, based on my own experiences using email, you can't send anyone a message without using your name and an email address. Even if it was possible, your identity and location could still be uncovered; and whenever people try to use a fake name or anonymous email, they'd either get a message saying "invalid name & email" or be reported out of suspicion.
As for how Misty was able to get Zipp & Pipp's emails, the only logical conclusion is that they were likely made public. Pipp probably made her email public for if any of her fans wanted to privately contact her; and Zipp most likely made hers public for whenever somepony wanted to privately contact her for solving a case. Queen Haven likely would've done the same thing for royal business reasons, that's for sure.
Outside of this, Misty using a trail of the Ocean Lily's petals to entice Pipp and Zipp into the cave was more silly than logical. And dumb, because I'm pretty sure that even a literal Stooge would be suspicious by how carefully planted the trail was; especially in reality. The worst part is that, because of the lure-method working, it gave the impression that Pipp & Zipp were more gullible and idiotic than either of them seemed.
Zipp is supposed to be an excellent detective, yet she wasn't the least bit suspicious about how conspicuous and specific the trail was? Why? And how could Pipp not be wary about that? Why would the two sisters follow-up on an email sent by an unidentified sender?
I may not be the biggest fan of Pipp and Zipp, but to my point-of-view, it seemed like Janae Hall subjected the two sisters to character-assassination just to make Misty's methods for trapping them work. When you think about it more, Misty and Opaline's plan for trapping them is so heavily flawed that even the ghost traps of Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo made more sense.
One thing's for sure, I've also started to wonder what Opaline was hoping to accomplish by simply trapping Pipp & Zipp rather than doing something besides that. If she really wanted them gone for good, she'd obviously need a professional assassin to do that. After all, killing them would be the most logical course to take for such a thing.
Before I get down to the core of this episode, there are a couple things I'd like to talk about: The inclusions of Sunny Starscout and Queen Haven.
Queen Haven hardly contributed anything important for the overall story, and there were times where it seemed like she was there for comic-relief purposes. But, at least her appearance in this episode wasn't 100% meaningless. Portrait Day is an event that'd particularly involve her, so it was only natural that the episode would feature her in a supporting status.
Sunny, meanwhile, was just passable. She played the part of being Zipp & Pipp's voice of support quite well, and she was obviously the right pony to use for keeping Queen Haven distracted and providing her company. Plus, her fascination with different cultures does make her a logical pony to include. But, there were moments involving Sunny that seemed really cringeworthy, and it almost made me wonder whether she was also intended to be there as a comic-relief of sorts. The biggest examples that came to my mind were the parts where Sunny tried to impersonate Zipp, and when she was eating cucumber slices despite their purpose being for putting over one's eyes. Each of those scenes also caused Sunny to seem like a less-than-bright and naive individual, and this sadly isn't the first time I began to question her overall intelligence.
Now, let's talk about the "broken family bond and dynamic" aspect of the story, shall we?
To be honest, I found myself having mixed feelings towards it.
The one positive I noted was that Zipp and Pipp's reconciliation moment was undeniably strong & soul-tugging. Regardless of how predictable it was, the pay off of the scene was surprisingly well-done. Each sister wholeheartedly admitted to the mistakes they made, their reconciling was sweet to see, and I actually enjoyed watching them work together to get out of the cave. Plus, the "Portrait Day" song was an unexpectedly heartwarming musical number. I didn't find myself wanting to include the song in my Music app, but I still enjoyed the song and the visual-emphasis that came with it.
Unfortunately, there were more negatives than positives regarding Pipp and Zipp's "family problem" story.
Despite their reconciliation scene being a noteworthy highlight, the episode devoted so much time exemplifying Pipp and Zipp's negative attributes that I gradually became fatigued by their focus more than engaged. Zipp spent nearly the entire episode either in detective-mode or grumbling about things like Pipp frequently taking selfies, and Pipp was glued to her social media for so long that she likely wouldn't notice if she was standing on a rock in the middle of the ocean. I can see that this was intended for further displaying the strain between them and explaining why they haven't been getting along, but still...I think Janae Hall and the production team were going a little too overboard doing so. Especially to where it started to get annoying. The more it happened, the less interested I became in seeing how their relationship could be repaired. I can't even remember what this episode was ultimately trying to teach regarding this subplot.
Call me crazy, but something about the "familial strain" plot between Zipp and Pipp also reminded me of the one between Mirabel and Isabela in Disney's "Encanto". In this case, Pipp was the pretty-faced sister who was obsessed with perfection and being a good influence, Zipp was the complete opposite and constantly wanted to investigate things, both got on each other's nerves before putting aside their differences and reconciling, and both sang a musical number together that brought them closer in bond. Just like Mirabel and Isabela! The only difference is that, unlike the two Disney sisters, Pipp and Zipp didn't have much of an impactful growth despite their character developments.
In conclusion, "Portrait of a Princess" definitely wasn't as bad as "Growing Pains", and it had some commendable elements. But, it's still another poorly-written, bland, and forgettable member of MLP's 5th Generation.
So, I rate "Portrait of a Princess" two out of five stars.
G4 established that Blank Flanks can cast spells. Alternatively she might have used explosives.
For the email element, Misty probably used a burner email to avoid getting traced. Remember that Zipp at that point is so desparate to get out of portrait day she's willing to jump on anything. This is consistent with her character-she throws caution to the wind in the film, for instance.
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The only problems are these:
"Make Your Mark" frequently established that Misty wasn't able to cast spells of her own due to not getting her cutie mark yet, and if I recall correctly, the same applied for any G5 pony without a cutie mark. Also, if she used explosives, ponies would've noticed the commotion and rushed right to the cave afterwards.
Wouldn't that also require creating an account specifically for doing that, though? And considering the fact that Pipp and Zipp are members of a government, wouldn't they have the right to contact the "Burner Email" service for knowing who sent the email?
Unfortunately, this is largely another reason for why I felt Janae Hall was resorting to character assassination specifically to make Misty's trap work. Regardless of her habit for throwing caution to the wind, it's no excuse for her lack of suspicion on the matter.
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The fact that we need to speculate where it's unnecessary shows how the writers disrespect their audience. Is it so hard to show how Opaline gives Misty a magical bomb or something? How Misty actually pretends to be one of the Pippsqueaks instead of just sending a picture? They clearly did not care about how such plot could have happened and what it would say about the involved characters, they just needed the princesses ending up trapped in a cave and Opaline doing evil stuff.
So upon seeing the petal trail she realizes that the whole thing is an obvious trap and launches an urgent and lengthy investigation about who in the world might have set it up.
5774229
1. Sweetie Belle is depicted casting spells before she got her Cutie Mark, and Misty casts a spell (accidentally) in Sunny Side Up.
2. That's not how burner emails work. They're designed to be hard to trace-besides, the security services have got more important things to do than trace ponies sending photographs about.
3. She actually does show suspicion:
However, she later lets her emotions get the better of her. To quote the episode again:
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To be honest, all of those things largely seem more like examples of how inconsistent the writing quality of G5 often was.
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1. It's setting up an element later where Misty accidentally casts a spell to get herself out of trouble-they're drawing directly on what was historically established. It's not their fault some people can't draw basic connections.
2. Zipp actually does speculate about who sent the trail, as dialogue later in the episode shows, but her attention is then switched over to stopping Pipp exposing them. Zipp is, however, being selfish-she willingly misleads Pipp to get what she wants. This is a fact she acknowledges after the cave-in:
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Or, they’re basically implying that Misty is a particularly special case in the scenario. If other G5 unicorns without cutie marks can’t use magic while Misty could, that must mean she’s in the “Chosen One” spectrum, just like the Main 5.
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What does this answer to? The cave-in itself does not set up or establish anything because it's unknown how it happened. You came up with different possible explanations yourself.
If you're talking about this
then her "suspicion" makes no sense. What do the flowers have to do with Twilight's hologram?
5774256
A unicorn colt is seen using magic at the end of the film.
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Did he have a cutie mark?
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No.
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Then how is it possible for G5 unicorns to use magic without gaining a cutie mark first?
And yes, I know you’ve been saying that Sweetie Belle has been using magic before gaining her cutie mark, but she is a G4 unicorn. G4 had a different set of rules and style involved when it came to its overall world and characters.
5774607
G4 and G5 take place in the same world, so the same rules apply. And opinions don't apply here; it's been confirmed numerous times that they occur in the same world.
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And that’s where the problem lies regarding the proposition of G4 and G5 being part of the same universe. G5 has too many illogical and questionable differences from G4 to be classified as part of the same universe, no matter how many times Hasbro tries to establish that the two series are connected.
In short, they’re too different to be the same.
5774630
You use this argument a lot. Could you back it up with some concrete examples?
5774607
Uhm, it's awkward to trace the conversation back for you, but EM2 seems to be saying that the magic-using colt at the end of ANG didn't have a cutie mark, so Misty using magic doesn't break any rules unless a reliable source within G5 states otherwise (sadly, Opaline and her teachings don't count). Why does it matter that much, by the way?
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Okay then. Why is Twilight's message worded like earth pony magic from G4 doesn't count as one? Since when baby dragons are born with wings and can turn stuff into random other stuff with their fire breath? When did dragons get cutie marks and random magical powers in their fire breath? Since when unicorn magic like shields doesn't need any learning and works just on being yourself?
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You’re right. I misunderstood the answer.
However, he likely didn’t see the cutie mark on the colt. G5 ponies are established to have their cutie marks only on the left side of their flanks, whereas G4 ponies had their cutie marks on both sides. If the colt was seen from the right side, then the cutie mark was hidden from view.
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There are many reasons for why I think this.
For instance, G5 ponies only have cutie marks on the left side of their flanks, whereas the cutie marks of G4 ponies are on both sides. Only a select few male ponies have hair tufts above their hooves, whereas ponies of all genders have them. Also, female G4 ponies have eyelashes while males have eyebrows, whereas all ponies of every gender have eyebrows.
And don’t say that evolution or the different animation style has something to do with these physical differences, because neither of those explanations make sense within in-universe context.
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The colt is approaching the camera with his left hoof side visible.
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The fact the characters don't comment on it means it is the art style. You're reading an awful lot into minor things that don't matter.
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That's an interesting notion. The more interesting one, however, is that "no cutie mark - no magic" rule is very difficult to prove (while easy to disprove): if no blank-flank uses magic onscreen this could be quite easily explained by none of them needing it at the time they're seen. I think that we need a reliable narrator for it, and arguing doesn't worth it unless you'll find where the rule is declared openly.
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Well, for me, minor details do matter. I wouldn’t be making a big deal out of it unless there were issues, and sadly there are.
5774653
I think that's more a you problem than anything else.
5775293
Noting visual inconsistencies is never a personal problem, I’ll tell you that.
5775292
As far as I know, "gish gallop" means throwing assorted arguments, while I just listed examples of where G5 clearly breaks the rules of G4. Anyway, are you going to answer with anything beyond accusation of trickery? Can we still reasonably believe that the rules of G4 apply to G5 after seeing Sparky and hearing Twilight's message?
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Apologies, I had three different tabs open and that was meant to go somewhere else.
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1. Twilight Sparkle is clearly talking about magic being used to grow things. That's what constitutes Earth Pony magic, seeing as the only real ability they seemed to have in G4 was being quite strong (which can be sorted with enough cardio).
2. Magic has always been able to turn things into other things. This was how Spike was able to send the letters to Celestia, as seen in the intro to every single FiM episode. Dragon marks are consistent with G4; dragons have unique scale patterns which serve the same function. Wings is an easy one too; evolution (baby).
3.
I presume you're referring to Sunny Starscout here. Sunny is a type of alicorn that has never been seen before; unlike other alicorns seen before this point, Sunny's wimgs and horn can be switched on and off, compared to Twilight where the changes were permanent additions to her body. As we've never seen this type of pony before, it makes sense that the magic works differently-after all, G4 never laid any ground rules for this sort of thing.
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Sunny is a Nascent/Novice Alicorn instead of a fully-realized Alicorn like all the others are... with the exception of that Weakling Abomination that deludes itself as a "Fire Alicorn". Here's a Lore accurate "fight" of what would really happen should "Opium Adderall" attempt to fight against a Magic Goddess like Twilight Sparkle.
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The real question we should be asking here is where's the population census along with missing persons reports dating back several years to launch an investigation into Unicorns matching Mistys' description. As far as we can tell: Ponykind is a Dying Race with only a small population of three settlements all living just a daily commute from each-other. Twilight Sparkle really screwed things up when she decided to let that Weakling Abomination walk all over her: a Magic Goddess who had an entire Continent-Spanning Empire worth of resources, vast combat prowess and immense arcane knowledge backing her up.
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5777002
Oh, for crying out loud... Opaline attacked when Twilight was distracted by the war and used her own tactics against her. This has been explained to you many, many times, so I can only assume you're not prepared to listen or you have exceptionally poor reading comprehension.
5777008
FFS, if Opium was as skilled of a tactician as you claim her to be: she should have done everything in her power to try and maintain the loyalties of Misty: her only ONLY Field Agent that could both come and leave her castles' barrier whenever and her ONLY means of interacting with the outside world; but since she spends most of her time berating and verbally abusing Misty she is clearly no tactical mastermind. Also if Opaline was any bit the Arcanosmith that you have been stating her to be; she could have simply requested for Misty to bring her the necessary materials needed to regain access to her forge or train her enough to help out in recreating stopgaps for her supposed magitek soldier units as a backup plan instead of constantly making/abandoning plans to get the Shards of the Scepter of The Shifting Sands and later straight-up using her Magic to mind-control Dragons to fight her battles with.
You so desperately want to see Opaline as someone that's competent and exudes authority like Tanya Von Degurechaff in-order to try and paint this as a series capable of measuring up as a direct sequel to G4, when in-reality "Opium Adderall" is just a Mother Gothel; and the narrative is just trash made by a guy who would later go to work on a Chick Fil A Miniseries.
5777005
You know what... I've had enough. Just stay here and continue to yell into your collective echo chamber built on falsehoods (spreading such false info, which we had explained why it was false, is why you got kicked from both the G5 groups).
Just know that you're defending somebody who is actively lying about G5. Last I checked 'thou shalt not lie' is one of the 10 Commandments.
5777012
He does have a point, you know. You keep trying to paint Opaline as an openly competent and intelligent threat, yet both “Make Your Mark” and “Tell Your Tale” showed that Opaline isn’t any of those things. All they’ve done is paint her as a gullible idiot who can’t be taken seriously no matter what, which really begs the question of how she of all ponies could possibly intimidate Twilight Sparkle enough to create the Unity Crystals.
Frankly, I’m growing tired of your claims that I’m “spreading misinformation and lies”, when all I’m really doing is just expressing my opinions and perceptions on the various G5 products. These claims are making you come across as a childish hypocrite who also doesn’t tolerate people that dislike G5.
5775293
It's a Narrative Problem: which G5 has consistently shown itself to be ever since they decided to make it a direct sequel to G4 and is meant to share the same continuity, Magic Systems and Power Scaling that were built into it, which if we're being totally honest here (which we all are): G5 is 100% weaker than G4 in every category possible that it's widely known that G5 would have been its own separate continuity until Hasbro had G4 tacked on at the last minute as Nostalgia Baiting in the Movie; and because the dumbass director of the film refused to try and make up any sort of Roadmap or Show Bible for what is ostensibly a Self-Contained Movie that the shows would have inevitably followed up on; NetFlix and Hasbro are basically scrambling like a chicken without its' head trying to throw whatever shit they pull out of their ass at the wall and hope that it doesn't just slide off.
Example: Winter Wishday wasn't initially meant to be a Christmas Special; it was supposed to originally be a Roadtrip Special meant to showcase the new features and technology of The Marestream in a shakedown cruise sort of way, only for Hasbro to demand NetFlix to make it into a Christmas Special at the last minute: hence why the three Holidays that the Ponies celebrate that were meant to replace Hearthswarming Eve all feel like generic pseudo Christmas Holidays with no substance or explanation to why they now even celebrate these holidays or what they are meant to celebrate in the first place.
I know I've said this many times before and I will say it many times in the future, but fuck it: it is the undeniable truth here!
"We all know more about both the culture and customs of Yeshmiyek from Ed, Edd, n' Eddy and how different it is from Christmas in less than two minutes: than we do about the sum total of the three holidays that show up in Winter Wishday."
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Case-in-Point: how Opalines' backstory kept shifting around from having her be all-powerful Fire Alicorn when she was a Filly around the same time as Celestia and Luna; only for Spike to later say that she only became a Fire Alicorn after taking the fire from Dragons: which was itself after Twilight was made the new ruler of Equestria when the Sisters stepped down.
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Either that, or he's a Scientologist struggling to justify their religion after Matt and Trey had managed to expose them as money-grubbing Cultists that use a convoluted Pyramid Scheme to get more recruits and more money while keeping the truth about their beliefs locked behind a $200,000.00 Paywall.
My favorite episode of Make Your Mark so far. I really love Zipp and Pipp’s dynamic relationship as sisters. They’re probably my favorites out of the Mane Five.