Present Perfect vs. G3.5 · 6:57pm Dec 18th, 2014
So, after the debacle of G3 (and some not nearly enough time taken out to catch up on Adventure Time and Gravity Falls again), I’m expecting G3.5 to be “more of the same”. Of course, the same what is the real question. A lot of the same characters seem to have transitioned over. Will this be more Year Six garbage? Will it somehow end up being watchable despite this?
There… There’s only one way to find out… :(
Twinkle Wish Adventure
TWA is more or less the only thing going on in 3.5. Yeah, there’s three other episodes, but they’re shorty short webisodes and likely not worth mention. So what do we have in this grand reboot of the previous generation?
Well, the opening is technically the same as the year six one. I mean, I didn’t pay too much attention to it, but I recognize the scene with the bridge. So the first change you really notice is the character models: larger heads, smaller bodies, lots of huge, poofy hair. Honestly? Not an issue for me. They’re a little bizarre, yes, but they’re also obviously the transition from G3 to G4, hooves especially. (You could say they're a little more "anime" than G4, but there's a definite line to be drawn from G1 to G4, with G3 and G3.5 sitting squarely on it. MLPT of course is off crapping itself in the corner.) The characters are otherwise recognizable, though from the (poorly-animated) intro, it seems that Toola Roola has less mane to blow out of her face (spoiler: she only does this in the intro, for shame), Sweetie and Scootaloo look like they’re smaller than the rest, and Starsong is a Flutterpony? Okay. Everything’s nominal, I’m good, I’m okay, let’s do this.
We start off with snow. And then a significantly changed landscape; I’m pretty sure the castle’s gone. We get a voiceover from I’m not really sure who, talking about the Winter Wishes Festival. Yes, if it seemed like this was just a continuation from G3, think again: it’s a full retcon. We’ve done away with Christmas, yet ape Minty’s episode with a tree and star atop it (the star, fyi, is Twinkle Wish). The core seven surprisingly seem to have more personality than before, Scoot and Sweetie especially. (It’s very weird hearing Kimi Pinkle’s voice coming out of that face, though.)
That said, the animation is pretty horrendous. Not Rainbow Brite horrendous, but a definite nosedive from a generation that was hardly a triumph of animation itself. Yeesh.
Hold the phone! Scootaloo is Cheerilee’s little sister! So it’s confirmed that the two of them are younger than Rainbow, Pinkie and Toola (Starsong also seems to be smaller, now that I look at her, but I don't think the same thing is going on). Interesting. Pretty sure I’ve seen someone carry that relation over into a fanfic. Oh, and when I said they have clearer personalities? Does not mean they’re smarter.
Anyway, we get a plot! Everyone makes ornaments for a contest and hangs them on the tree. The Mayor picks a winner, who gets to put Twinkle Wish atop the tree, and then everyone gets a holiday wish, oooh. (Sidenote: I’ve seen one clip of this, which involved the Mayor, and she’s kind of amazing. I’m looking forward to her.) So everyone pairs up… except there’s only seven of them, and Cheerilee gets left out.
More side babble: oh my god Sweetie is so dumb! It’s charming as hell! (Also slightly inane, but that’s more a byproduct of the while milieu.) Both her and Scoot are perfect counterparts to their G4 incarnations! We owe a whole lot more to the overarching third gen ponies than I think I really want to admit! (Note: this movie came out in 2009, not even two years before MLP:FiM started!)
Cheerilee lives in a watering can. She also fails at pine cones.
Everyone works on their ornaments and then, gasp! They forgot an entire pony, holy shit! They go over to the watering can and all work together beautifying Cheerilee’s pathetic fucking pine cone. Scootaloo does so only under protest, which only makes me like her more. I mean, I’m getting “holy shit, this is bad” vibes already, but the characters being slightly more characters than they were previously really goes a long way, even if the plot is mostly rehashing old ground. (Starsong, for the record, has taken the place of Sparkleworks, being obsessed with glitter.)
OKAY SO. Mayor Flitter Flutter is the reason Mayor Mare has pink mane. Like, if you saw Ponyville Confidential and had watched this already, you would have screamed when that revealed, because they’re dead ringers for each other. This Mayor’s Thing, however, is talking like a thesaurus, in that “adults are stuffy and lame” way that writers of children’s shows tend to use. I find it endearing. Anyway, Cheerilee wins and takes all the credit for her friends’ work. Scoot gets mad cuz she wanted to win. The Mayor presents Cheerilee with the box containing Twinkle Wish and dire instructions not to open it early because said wishing star is asleep (I believe she said “cutie sleep”, wtf) and needs all her strength to grant that wish.
But seriously, I can’t express in words how goddamned amazing the Mayor is. Her voice actress is Tracey Moore, who was — get this — Cheerilee in G3 proper, Warbeak the sparrow in the Redwall animation, and Princess fucking Toadstool in the 80’s and 90’s Mario Bros. cartoons! She was even in the original and rebooted Care Bears! Hot damn. Oh yeah, and she’s also the narrator.
Speaking of whom, that just so happens to be what’s really pissing me off about this. The voiceover just keeps going. It keeps telling me what’s going on. For a setup, it was fine, but this is telling, not showing. Way to have no confidence in your target demographic, writers.
Anyway, absofuckinglutely no one is surprised when Scoot grabs the box and lets Twinkle Wish out. Seriously, that was telegraphed a mile away. Twinkle Wish is annoying as fuck, for the record. (Sorry, Tabitha.) Then a thunderstorm comes up out of nowhere (isn’t it supposed to be winter?) and a dragon (female, so not Spike) swoops in and grabs her.
What in the fuck?
So Pinkie mares up and tells everyone they have to find out where the dragon’s taking Twinkle Wish. The answer? Willy-Nilly Mountain. I can’t. The way it’s spoken, it sounds like the scariest place on earth, yet it doesn’t look all that scary, and it’s just another in an already long list of ridiculous names. (There’s a reason I didn’t mention the tree’s name. Yes, the tree has a name.) Anyway, no one’s ever been there, which is why they’re all scared, and it’s called what it is because the weather apparently changes at random around it. Kinda like a certain forest, huh? We find all of this out because Cheerilee is Twilight Sparkle.
There’s a scene where they all lie to the Mayor that everything is okay, and Pinkie once again takes charge. Seriously, Pinkie Pie as leader, even G3 Pinkie Pie, is just weird. She even smooths over hurt feelings because Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle can’t come, giving them the important task of maintaining the illusion of normalcy around the Mayor. And then, you guessed it, time for a song! Honestly, not too bad, if not chock full of interesting lyrics. Or animation.
And of course, since we’re in a balloon, we get fucking mitten hooves. Just pointing that out. Of course, the winds pick up and blow the balloon off course, so they have to land early, and are helped out by Rainbow Dash’s literal miles of hair ribbon, which they use to tie the basket down. (Rainbow Dash always packs like Rarity.) Then they all succumb to hypothermia. :V No, seriously, they take off their boots and scarves and throw them in the basket. Paradoxical undressing is a symptom of late-stage hypothermia. I told you guys I researched this! V:
Toola Roola has a conniption because night is falling and she’s afraid of the dark. Despite the Festival being tomorrow, Pinkie conjures fireflies somehow (actually, she wishes for them and they appear; I suspect this will be important) and they all bed down. Big-head ponies: not as cute when asleep. So yeah, they wake up the next morning and have until sundown to get to the mountain, find the dragon’s cave, and convince the dragon to give them back the star. Great plan, girls. (It occurs to me that nothing much is going on. They're in a forest that's just there, no personality, nothing notable about it. So the world's a definite letdown too, even compared to G3.)
Stuff happens back at Ponyville, Sweetie Belle is funny, the kids do their best to stall the Mayor, and we finally meet the dragon. And she’s amazing. Her name is Whimsey Weatherby and she’s voiced by Keegan Connor Tracy, who’s had such roles as Jeanne in Battlestar Galactica, Miss Watson in Bates Motel, and the Blue Fairy in Once Upon a Time. (Not much voice acting!) Whimsey is hyperactive, oblivious and generally really earnest and friendly. She’s excited to have visitors for the first time ever, for example. And if you think I’m going to write her into G4 anytime I need Spike to have a girlfriend, you are goddamned right I am. She demonstrates her ability to breathe both heat and cold, which I suspect has something to do with that weird weather, and I’m totally right of course.
Turns out, she grabbed the star because she thought it would bring her some friends. Can you say no to that? Can you? Of course, she thinks it’s a toy in need of batteries (yeah, the world-building isn’t great; see also “got your hands full”). Time for a song about friendship! Pinkie sings well, but oh god when they bob their heads, it’s just the worst animation ever. I remember seeing this scene (I think) in a clip show of some brony talking about how bad old gens were. Well chosen, sir.
Surprisingly, their plan fails! Despite their exhortations to can come with them to the festival if she returns the star, Whimsey senses a trick and kicks them out of her cave. Cue another casual wish, and Cheerilee decides it’s truth time, oh boy, that moral wasn’t shoehorned in there or anything. (I feel it should be noted she has a really excellent “I’ve seen some shit” expression.)
So they balloon back the fuck to town and spill their guts about what happened. Then Whimsey comes back with Twinkle Wish and everything’s saved, yay! (I really want to point out that the star is more flat than wide, and could easily have escaped from that stupid fucking cage at any point. The star is obviously an evil mastermind.) Except wait, she falls asleep on top of the tree, oh no! But oh, then Pinkie points out that they don’t need a fucking star to make wishes come true, because all their wishes up to that point came true. (Told you it was important!) Whimsey also comes through and grants everyone’s wish for snow.
Twinkle Wish then wakes up and decides to grant Sweetie Belle’s wish of pink snow, thus proving that she was playing them all for suckers. Soon, little ponies, she will be free, and then she will never have to grant another of your stupid wishes ever again. Tremble, mere mortals, before the might of the all-powerful Twinkle Wish! The end.
So, in case you didn’t notice, this wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (which probably means this journal won’t be very funny, sorry), even if it was kind of pointless. It's all about the characters. Rainbow Dash was tolerable, minus the occasional “dashing”. Cheerilee, Toola and Starsong don’t really give a good impression (sad, since Cheers is the main character and all). Pinkie was Pinkie. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were great. Sweetie in particular was consistently funny throughout the whole thing. Really, I’m shocked by just how funny this was. I mean, yes, the writing overall was severely dumbed-down, and I wouldn’t recommend watching this unless you’re planning to go through G3 for some reason (it’s considerably better than any of the year six stuff and should be watched in place of it), but neither was it mind-shattering, even if it was a tad dull in places. And yeah, the animation has devolved, but this is simultaneously a step down and a step up from G3, and especially, again, the late-gen stuff. Will the webisodes be any good? I’m guessing no. But through some combination of low expectations, comparison to worse things, and (possibly) actually being good, I enjoyed this.
Waiting for the Winter Wishes Festival
Waaaait, didn’t we just do this? Don’t tell me this is gonna be a six-minute clip show.
Okay, no, it’s potentially worse. Welcome to “The Thingamadoo Song”. Sweet fuck. It’s vaguely clever, as they rattle off various holiday things to do and continue to build onto the song. Scootaloo hilariously cannot keep up with the dancing, and Sweetie Belle keeps interrupting with, “Cookies, right? Cookies, guys. Coooookies.” But yeah, this is basically a ridiculous music video that’s vaguely amusing. Also, the meaning of Pony Christmas is apparently not Pony Jesus. What a waste of time. I miss Minty. :(
Sweetie Belle’s Gumball House Surprise
Having to find stuff on Youtube again. D’you know how hard that is?
Sweetie Belle leaves a bunch of rhyming clues so her friends can find her. God, this is dumb. It’s just four minutes of ponies being stupid and really expository. Scootaloo says “cool beans” and plays with a spinning elevator (true to the title, Sweetie lives in a gumball machine), and literally nothing else of note happens. This is bad and they should feel bad. I don’t expect the next one to be any better.
Pinkie Pie’s Ferris Wheel Adventure
Pinkie Pie blindfolds everyone and leads them to their deaths her new Ferris Wheel Fun Park. Actually, this is better than the previous one, and you can watch it here (don’t make the mistake of looking at the comments, you’ll puke). Granted, there’s still not much to it. I mean, you’ll learn how to count to seven and that five is less than both seven and six, that's the most that happens. Still, it’s interesting and somewhat surreal to see G3 Pinkie acting more like G4 Pinkie. That's about the only reason you'd want to click that link, though I take no responsibility if you're unprepared and your eyes explode.
Ugh, well that was a thing. Not as mind-bendingly bizarre as G1 or G3, G3.5 just kind of happened. No surprise it was almost over before it began. There are the underpinnings of something that could have worked here, but really, we needed Lauren Faust to come along and kick Hasbro in the tailpipe to get them to produce even a decent show for little girls. (I want them to bring the person who wrote Twinkle Wish Adventure onto G4 for an episode; I think she could do something really funny given the right direction.)
Of course, that wasn’t what happened next. No, G3 still has one more leaf to unfold, but you’ll have to wait until next time for that...
I can't wait for that last leaf!
Dun dun dun!
After watching Bronies React, I can guess what is that 'one more leaf to unfold'.
Ah yes, the jewel in the crown of the My Little Pony franchise.
What?
Oh god...not those...
*looks around at everyone else apparently knowing what the last leaf is*
I am so confused. :D
And Tabitha was Wendy/Kootie Koopa!
...
I had completely forgotten about these. What my brain remembered as G3.5 is actually the two mini-episodes you have left - Over Two Rainbows and So Many Ways To Play. The latter in particular is soul-rending. Good luck! 
On another note, you know someone is a die-hard shipper when they can find something in this (though considering that I too find the idea of Spike/Whimsey strangely appealing, I can't really point any
fingershooves). Also, Scootaloo saying "Cool beans!" was so ridiculous that I actually burst out laughing, so I got something out of watching these at least. And yes, I have been watching (all the ones I could find) after reading your reviews. It has been, ah, interesting.I find it interesting that from what you've said so far, it seems more like the very last years of G1 (MLP Tales) were worse than (most of) G3 and 3.5, especially considering how reviled the latter is in the FiM fandom.
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holy shit :D
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Overall, I'd say G3 is still worse than MLPT. At the very least, they're on equal footing of "bad, but I found a few things to like".
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I recommend Spike/Wendy as a backup ship for the 'dragon should not poni pony' crowd
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I am in that crowd, yes. :B
I nominate this for the stinger line they show after the credits of your MiSTing.
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This is where I point out that "Cheerilee lives in a watering can" has about the same cadence as "Rainbow Dash always dresses in style".
So I watched Pinkie Pie's Ferris Wheel Adventure because I'll apparently watch any fucking thing with her name attached to it. It's surreal to hear Pinkie's voice coming out of Sweetie Belle when she's standing their talking to Pinkie Pie. All of this is viewed through the funhouse mirror of G3.5 character models. And compared to Pinkie Pie's Ladybug Jamboree, it was downright watchable.
I think I need a drink.
Oh, and I did look at the YouTube comments, and they were atrocious. However, there was one that made me chuckle:
Possibly stolen from Strong Bad, but still amusing.
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It's weird, because I feel like I wrote that comment, but I know I didn't comment on the video because why bother? wtf
Glad it didn't make you want to tear your eyes out of your head. :D