S5-18 Crusaders of the Lost Mark - Reactions · 4:08am Oct 11th, 2015
I haven’t watched any of the new episodes in a while, but I heard some spoilery things about this one that got me interested. So here I am.
Opening - Jumping into a song right at the beginning? Has this ever been done before? It’s a decent little diddly, and I like that it’s one of those that fits into the plot of the episode instead of being a random pop song thrown in the middle of an episode.
- ‘I was hoping you would be my campaign managers!’
- Well, that sounds like an a perfect opportunity for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to get into lots of kid-related mischief. So, pretty meh. My usual problem with CMC episodes is that a lot of them fall into a generic sort of ‘kids being kids’ trope, which is something that half of every other kids cartoon ever does too, and doesn’t interest me. Because kids aren’t very interesting and they’re not very funny. But, hey, maybe this episode will buck the trend. Other episodes have.
- Also, does Pip even go to their school? And has he always been rocking that rockstar pompadour?
- ‘Which is why when Diamond Tiara is voted student pony president, the school will be putting a statue of her in the center of our schoolyard!’
- There’s something really cute about Silver Spoon’s obsession with Diamond Tiara here. I like this version of her much better than the boring tagalong bully.
- Second song
- I like this one a lot better. It has a great rhythm to it, and Diamond Tiara’s parts have a cool Disney villain vibe to them.
- I am a little disappointed that the CMC are just singing together instead of individually. Diamond Tiara’s parts are awesome because they’re infused with so much of her personality, but the CMC’s parts are lacking that, which is representative of the episode's biggest problem.
- ‘But you’re my best friend!’
- I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m guessing a lot of fans will like this, because they want to see Diamond Tiara get a comeuppance, and they like Silver Spoon more than her, and people have wanted Silver Spoon to ditch her for a long time. But the thing is, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have always been a duo act. Diamond Tiara was obviously the leader, but Silver Spoon was a very willing accomplice, clearly enjoyed picking on the CMC, and they enjoyed being together. Diamond Tiara never acted this harshly towards her before. It feels out of character.
- Sad Diamond Tiara
- This looks like every Diamond Tiara fan fiction ever. Diamond Tiara is actually just sad and lonely, and her parents are mean, and she loses her only friend and then the CMC help her remake herself.
-The problem isn’t that it’s a bad story, the problem is that it’s too expected, generic, predictable, and it cheapens her role as a villain. Good villains stay evil while being sympathetic and understandable. But MLP has a way of reforming villains into good guys, essentially making them entirely new characters, instead of exploring/developing their roles as antagonists. It’s boring.
- ‘You two are really lucky.’
- Meh. And then they turn her character around entirely.
- Third song
- Now this is actually pretty interesting. It’s breaking the expectation. Of course, Diamond Tiara is going to be reformed at the end, but at least she’s fighting against it, not following the standard route.
- Also, the CMC are still lacking all of their individuality.
- Diamond Tiara gives a big speech renouncing all her former beliefs and character traits
- Oh, well, that didn’t last long. It doesn’t work because it’s happening too fast. In the course of a single day, Diamond Tiara decides she’s going to become an entirely new person? And just because the CMC sang at her for a little while? Lame. Really lame.
- CMC get their cutie marks
- I… don’t know about this. Their talent is cutie marks? It’s cute, and I like it, and it’s kind of a nice resolution to the CMC’s plot line, and meshes well with the show and the direction it’s gone, and it leaves them open to new stories.
- But it doesn’t fit their personalities, which have been totally absent for this whole episode, an episode in which they aren’t even the focus.
- And worse, they aren't growing up. Cutie marks are a mark of growing up, of moving on from being a kid and finding your place in the world. The CMC aren't doing that. They aren't moving on. They aren't developing. They're just getting a free pass to be kids and keep doing the same old things forever. I always looked forward to seeing the CMC get their cutie marks because I thought it would be a cool story about growing up. This is exactly the opposite.
- Conclusion
- This episode suffers from the same problem most episodes of this show suffer from. It doesn’t have enough time. The producers and writers are more ambitious than the format allows. Diamond Tiara’s reformation happens far too quickly to be convincing or satisfying.
- And an episode about the CMC getting their cutie marks in which almost none of them have any individual lines doesn’t work. Up until now, cutie marks were a mark of individuality and a mark of growing up. But in this episode, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo stopped being Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, and officially became just the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Their marks have nothing to do with them as individuals, but only them as a group. The ideal would have been for each of them individually to get an episode about finding their own special talent. But now they’ve just become some weird tri-character instead of three separate characters. They’ve been given a free pass to never have to grow up, they never have to move on to something new, they never have to separate. It’s like they’ve been transported to Neverland, and now we as an audience are never going to get to see them grow up into individual adults, to fulfill their own destinies, to grow into their own selves and their own talents. They’ll be stuck in kid-time cutie mark shenanigans for the rest of their lives. It’s just more of the status quo instead of actual character development. Very disappointing.
- The songs were really good though.
It's like trying to stuff a short fic into a minific format.
I liked it, but I can't disagree with anything you said here. I think I like it mostly because it opens up so much more that the CMC can do and how much more their characters can accomplish now that they can get past the big thing that was holding them back, that they were always obsessed about.
I like it when episodes do that. Open doors instead of close them... 'course, some doors were closed, still, with the DT and Silver Spoon business, but, meh... I'll take the good and hold onto it.
I agree. For a show that emphasizes individualism so much (see The Cutie Map), it was a bit disappointing for the CMC to get cutie marks that were so generic and explicitly not individual. (Also disappointed at no chemistry or engineering bent to Apple Bloom's cutie mark but that's probably just me).
While I do tend to agree with this, it's been pointed out to me by more optimistic people that they each have an individual element to their cutie marks that has yet to be explored. So, that's something to see if the writers use?
3460587
I was disappointed too. What was the point of all that potion brewing stuff?
3460626
Good point. I noticed that too. Musical note, apple, and lightning bolt. There's potential there.
3460688
And Scoots lightning bolt is in a wing, so... as someone on the Scootaloo group aptly put it, either Scoots is going to fly, or the cutie mark gods hate her.
You got your head on right. It's a big episode, that doesn't mean it's a good one. But the songs sounded nice.
3460626 And I can't fathom the idea of the show not going into it. They've been going on and on about Cutie Marks lately. Don't see that changing.
Oddly I have liked the other musical based episodes but I found myself annoyed by the amount of music in this episode. I just wanted to keep the story moving but then we get another musical number. Not sure why but I was just getting annoyed by it.
Incidentally, I liked both Rarity Investigates and Brotherhooves Social a fair bit. I suspect you'd like Rarity Investigates at least; Rarity pretending to be a noir detective and trying to clear Rainbow Dash's name is quite fun. Brotherhooves Social amused me because of everyone's reactions to Big Mac, as well as actually, you know, giving Big Mac some character, even if he spent the whole episode in drag.
3460626
The really sad thing about these marks is that I'm nearly certain that they basically took the marks they were going to get and added a shield to them, which is why they're so ugly. They really needed to use different colors; as-is, they're very busy, indistinct, and it is hard to make out the central symbols. They have very ugly designs and are way too busy.
I'm half-tempted to do a color edit on them and send them to the animators on Reddit with a FTFY :V
Though really, they shouldn't have been so busy; they all have tri-color shields overlaid with a symbol overlaid with a secondary symbol. At the very least, making the shield three colors was a mistake, but the color contrast on the central symbols is meh.
3460815
Yeah, I was saying to bats on skype we'll probably get it next season. I suspect this was a MMC type deal, where they wanted/needed to do it this season, but also knew they had the cutie map plot, had to deal with the library, the 100th episode, they needed an episode to set up the reinterpreting cutie marks aspect, (upcoming episode stuff) they wanted to do a Halloween episode and a Christmas episode, they have that singer guest star to use, Cadance and Shining Armor having a baby carriage shaped thing, and they needed to give other characters some episodes, so... they'll deal with that part next time around.