My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure (Review)/Misconceptions About G3.5

And now for the final review of a special I’ve already seen. Despite posting this one first, I recommend reading this after I review The Princess Promenade and The Runaway Rainbow since this special was made after those two, and that’s very important to know. I actually had to do some research to get information about this one, and while I didn’t dig too far deep, it wasn’t easy to find what I was looking for. Due to this, I won’t just be reviewing the special, I’ll also be clearing up some misconceptions about G3.5, at least based on the information I found. I wasn’t interested enough to do full extensive research, as that’s not the main point of this, so feel free to look into this yourself. Like I said earlier though, this information wasn’t that easy to find.

First of all, when you hear “MLP G3.5” you might think of these monstrosities. Most likely due to TheMysteriousMrEnter, G3.5 has become even more hated than the rest of Generation 3, for obvious reasons that you’d know if you dared to click those links. ...Crap, those are on YouTube, so now I have to review them, too! But back on topic, the people who think that’s the case probably haven’t actually watched G3 or done the research themselves (not that I blame them), as there seem to be plenty of people who DO know these things. So here’s the deal: those “things” ARE G3.5, but aren’t the ONLY parts of it. Around 2008-2009, the cast of characters were cut down to seven, and in 2009, the characters and locations were all redesigned. The redesign era is G3.5 (which is just a nickname, it’s technically still Generation 3), and Twinkle Wish Adventure is the only main special from that time. There are a few subsections of G3.5, though, one of them being called “Once Upon a My Little Pony Time”, which is the one I linked, but I think it’s the only one with that little effort put into it (or at least I hope). Either way, what I’m reviewing here is what SHOULD think of when you hear “G3.5”, so let’s tear it apart!

My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure (Review)

Due to the changes, this is the first special that actually gives me some new things to talk about. First off: the character designs. I’m still not a huge fan of them, but they’re definite improvements over regular G3. Their eyes are actually expressive, and they now have variation in their designs, making it easier to tell them apart. The actual body shapes look a little odd, though. As for the animation, it’s smoother, a little faster, actually looks clean (though maybe a little too clean), and the colors are more vibrant. I’m still not sure if I’d call it good, but it’s much better than before. We also have an opening now! Well, actually, regular G3 had one too, but none of the specials I saw contained it. The theme song isn’t good, but it isn’t bad either. It even gives us small “characteristics” for each of the characters.

So, with the improved production values, does that mean that this special might actually be good, or at the very least tolerable? Unfortunately, no. It suffers from a lot of the same problems as the previous specials, the main one still being the characters. The redesigns don’t change the fact that they’re boring and one-dimensional. One of them likes to paint, and that’s all I remember in terms of “character traits”. The only characters I remember are Cheerilee, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, and an annoying mayor who’s colored similarly to Fluttershy and sounds like she belongs in Friendship is Witchcraft. One good thing I can say about them, though, is that the special uses all of them at once. Due to this, it actually feels like there’s a bigger cast, despite the opposite being the case. Then again, maybe the other specials did use all of the characters too, and I just didn’t know because the main characters and background ponies were indistinguishable in terms of design and personality.

Another issue with the special is the narration. It’s pointless, and only tells us what we already know or should be able to figure out ourselves. It isn’t even consistent. It showed up several times in the beginning, but barely said anything later into the story. Considering how much it talks down to the audience, that’s probably a good thing. As for the story, there’s way too much filler yet again. The ponies are preparing for some sort of star festival, and the stuff in the beginning might’ve been important, but it took too long and (as far as I remember) only chooses which pony guards the little star guy I don’t remember the name of until it wakes up (I don’t even remember it’s gender) the next morning in time for the festival. I don’t even remember who was chosen to do it. Either way, some moron (I think it was Scootaloo) wakes it up early, and out of nowhere, it’s stolen by a dragon and taken to a mountain with a dumb name that it got for a less dumb reason. Most of the main cast head off to find it, while the remaining two (I don’t remember which ones they were) stay behind to cover for them. The annoying mayor checks up on them INCREDIBLY often, and for no reason each time other than to add the pointless tension of “I hope she doesn’t find out what happened!”.

As for the journey, stuff actually happens in it this time, but I don’t care about those things, so it doesn’t make much of a difference to me. There’s a song that I don’t remember, though I think it was average, and there’s attempted character building that fails so hard I don’t even remember what it was. I think someone was afraid of the dark, though. When they reach the dragon’s home in the mountain, they found out she had some overcomplicated plan of luring them there with the star so that they would be friends with her. She seems to constantly switch between acting bad with good intentions to just bad, and a song is sung that’s so forgettable I don’t even remember its quality. As for how the story ends, it was way too convoluted and overdosed with Deus Ex Machina. So yeah, the story is still terrible. As for other things, the dialogue seems to be a bit of an improvement, though still not that good.

Overall, this was an odd one. From an objective viewpoint, it’s an improvement, though it may still be terrible. Despite that, this one actually took the most out of me to finish watching. I couldn’t even watch the whole thing in one sitting! I don’t know why it is, but I hate this special even more than the other ones I’ve seen so far. Maybe it’s BECAUSE of the improvements, and I expected something better as a result. Either way, Twinkle Wish Adventure was simultaneously better and worse than the previous specials, whether or not that actually makes any sense.