Make Your Mark Chapter 2 Review – "Izzy Does It" & "Growing Pains" – Episodes 1 & 2 · 12:18pm Oct 1st, 2022
Sunny Starscout: "Um, Izzy? Do you remember that little talk we had about reining in the glitter? I just got not conjuring the stuff when I alicorn it up under control…"
Despite having months to coordinate a plan of attack, when the first eight episodes of Make Your Mark finally arrived on September 26th, I still didn’t know how I was going to tackle them, and not just because of Netflix’s release pattern being binge-friendly at the cost of being discussion-friendly. Would I do individual posts/sections per episode, like in the Friendship Is Magic days? Would I have little enough to add to what I said for the special released back in May (now retroactively titled Chapter 1) that I’d just make one vague thoughts blog? Would I post anything at all? The latter was always a possibility, given my feelings on Generation Five, and all the signs pointing to this being more or less the same as Chapter 1. Despite my preference for having a public take out there for the main Pony content (let’s be honest, people forget individual Tell Your Tale shorts fast after they air, hence me being content to pack those in), I was seriously considering not posting anything. And unless people are just taking their sweet time watching this – which is totally fair – I’m not alone; no one I follow here has posted on Chapter 2 yet, when several did for Chapter 1 within a few days of release (smooth first impression, Hasbro).
And yet, when I sat down and started watching, I found myself compelled to do this. I found I had a fair amount to say. Not as much relative to episode length as with Chapter 1, of course, but enough to justify posting here. Because this is a major first for My Little Pony; as the first series made for streaming, we finally have an honest-to-god serialised, arc-focused series, after many years of FiM being kept away from that, except for in fits and bursts in Season 9, as much for being impractical to coordinate such a thing for 26 episodes a year as for Continuity Lockout reasons for a show still designed for cable network (though the show was legally watched by ten times as many folks on Netflix relative to Discovery Family, it should be noted). And, I’ll admit, I was, if not excited, certainly curious to see how it would go about it.
Pipp: "What you up to, Izzy? Visualising how to make your next craft-tastic – that's totally a thing now, peeps – masterpiece?"
Izzy: "Nah, not quite. Just seeing if the missing layers seen in a few of the trailer shots extends to us unicorns activating our horns."
Truth be told, I’m still a mixed convert on the plot-heavy, serialised approach to much television these days. It can and has made for great shows, but on top of the heavier plot focus often leaving less desire to rewatch them, it often goes too far to the point of not leaving behind episodes that are anything but pieces of a bigger hole, mechanically moving the plot along. And the approach of children’s animation to this since streaming took off has been very interesting; given their target audience’s (perceived) lower ability to process and handle too many ongoing threads at once, these shows still get “filler” episodes, or episodes only feeding the overarching plot on the side alongside their main episode-specific story. Like anything else, it sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn’t (it certainly does often lead to feeling the deeper threat, where it applies, isn’t being taken seriously). Yet I must confess, I like an episode that can be standalone while still feeding into the larger plot. Given Gen 5 is targeting an audience even younger than the kinds of kids’ animation we usually watch on streaming, it’s an approach that’s sure to be bumpy, but it at least provides an avenue for being different from Gen 4.
I’d intended to cover the first four episodes today (what I’ve seen at the time of publishing). But after much deliberation, I’ve gone with just the first two; this feels like the right length already. No unmarked spoilers for the rest, either from me or from you! Each episode’s individual section will mostly tackle how it handles that story, with some wider observations about the series thus far and as a whole. No straight-up plot recaps, I’m assuming you’ve seen the episode or don’t mind being spoiled. Context will make everything clear enough.
One important point to recap: I noted back for Chapter 1 that one of the major crippling points it had as a watching experience was the mixture of scripting that didn’t flow (stiff, inorganic dialogue; poor pacing and story management; character and lore choices) with visual timing that didn’t match the script, plus character animation that, even when adequate in isolation, often wasn’t probably timed and suited to the onscreen action, muddling the energy and diluting the immersion, at least with as often as it happened. And the two together made even the more agreeable story points, characterisation and dialogue largely skate on by. I certainly can’t note this every time going forward, so take it as a given this remains a constant presence.
By this point, I know many things in Gen 5 I feel were drastic mistakes – the de-emphasization on magical fantasy for a modern world as obsessed with social media as our own, the lore choices as regards how magic works, the Gen 4 connection, the rather low respect for even the target audience of kids beyond being consumers (sans the film, of course), the boxed-off approach to characterisation – are here to stay, and so I will only raise them when they are different than the usual standard (be that by being worse or better!). I’m not here to wax lyrical about this generation being a waste of time (something I don’t feel in any case). Just to discuss what’s working and not, make points that generally haven’t been made, and see what can be gotten out of this.
Episode 1 – Izzy Does It
The producers did have the sense to ensure that no bad animation, on the show’s range of how individual shots turn out, came anywhere near the opening theme, and while I don’t care for the song or much of its implication as regards character and tone – devaluing Hitch by saddling him with not-Spike, oh joy! – it’s doing a fine job for the context of the show it’s trying to sell.
This episode’s in a weird position of being kind of like Episode 3 from any season of FiM – the wind-down episode following the more thrilling and exciting opener – yet because it’s the first of this batch, and also the one available publicly on YouTube, it’s obliged to insert an excess of scenes focused on the overarching villains, ones that don’t tie into the episode more than marginally, purely to have more incident and to leave numerous dangling hooks to tempt viewers into “just one more”, repeated six more times. More than that, the amount of it, and the level of spoon-feeding done as regards Opaline, the putridly purple alicorn, and her gaslit minion Misty (the reveal of her being found as a lost filly, lacking a cutie mark and doing this for one is tossed off unimportantly, and we never get the visual build-up and focus on her blank flank that would seem to write and storyboard itself), reads as the writers getting cold feet over their ability to have the main low-key plotline of Izzy trying to rediscover her creative spark and Pipp dealing with artist’s block hold viewers’ interest. Which, yeah, it does play out as a lethargic Tell Your Tale short twice the length and intercut with other characters, but inserting this doesn’t help matters.
Opaline might, if possible, look worse even in motion. I don't know if her rig just works differently, or has too many articulation points to control, but her movement and especially facial animation frequently moves on only one axis. Her design and controls bring out the worst in the visuals all over…
Let’s stick with Opaline and Misty for a moment. Sidestepping how soon this intrudes on proceedings (we first get Misty spying on Sunny & Izzy and reporting to Opaline via a magical compact mirror a minute after the title sequence), it is not a well-handled introduction, being too revealing in Opaline’s ambitions to gain power from implication, and far too clunky in the writing of her dialogue, especially her abysmally-expressed gaslighting of Misty, to build any anticipation or reaction. This show basically doesn’t have filler episodes, which is fine, but this is revealing a lot of cards too soon.
As for the main “action” in Maretime Bay, well, I already mentioned it was lethargic, didn’t I? It’s both compressed and padded, moving from Izzy stumbling onto a mane bracelet gift for Sunny’s birthday by accident, to it going viral around town and Izzy getting “copy what you did before but make it better” advice from Pipp off a token song, to Izzy misinterpreting Sunny’s advice to go back to her roots and legging it for Bridlewood, and finding a rundown cart on the way and refurbishing it as her portable crafts-making business*, having gotten her spark back. Compressed to the point of feeling like a highlight reel, padded because of how little depth said highlight reel has, full of generic “be unique” platitudes about creativity the show doesn’t even bother to commit to.
“There are three things all wise mares fear: the world's magic in disarray, a lack of true friendship, and the suspicion of a silly pony.”
It honestly barely registers how little this flies as either a plot or effective characterisation, for the main takeaway is the absurd amount of cross-cutting between plotlines. Hitch and Zipp spend the episode either mooching about or reluctantly cleaning up Izzy’s crafting mess, while the camera oogles Sparky making a mess and being a nuisance with little bursts of magic only we see transform objects at random. Zipp’s habit of voice-recording every observation about magic is abandoned mid-way through, and only at the end do their scenes inform the rest of the plot (they remark Izzy needs a better way of storing and working from after she presents her cart), and in a manner that makes it transparent how loosely they’re connected. Mostly, though, it’s the wild abandon of the cross-cutting that registers, though the plotlines do intersect better than in Chapter 1, with the lead stories for Izzy and Pipp fitting in bouncing off each other, especially with Izzy’s record remix of Pipp’s song being what she needs at the end (the only moment where the theme, moral or message here shows any life). Otherwise, though, every subplot and scene change has the feeling of an obligatory check-in, and I do wish they’d committed to a balanced roster or totally focused on some of the ponies, rather than trying to split the difference. The structural balance, pacing and weighing of all these is purely mechanical, never building any momentum or energy. And, predictably, the flop sweat to sell Sparky as cute and as a toy at your nearest retailer to the audience is very evident and asphyxiates on the screen anytime the camera focuses on him. With a 3D design like that, not much of a surprise.
* Her crafts cart that’s been around in Tell Your Tale for 15-odd shorts by now. Continuity and schedule timing? Nah, get that outta here!
Cute? Of course, I'm not immune. But it took less than the episode's length for the fallback of Izzy's crafts glasses to lose impact, it dipped into that well too readily.
All that being the case, this is a marginal writing improvement relative to Part 1, and not just for being half the length. Characters do confide in each other; the insertion of the villain scenes is less egregious than the special having a threat brooding that the characters (or, well, Zipp anyway) knew about and was ignored until the last third. And while the baseline characterisation remains shaky, with Izzy delivering cringy one-liners, Hitch being a butt-monkey, Pipp always being “on”, Zipp being isolationist and Sunny being a super bland positive snowflake, there isn’t as much of it. Not by much, probably only by ten-odd percent, but it’s not nothing. Every now and then, a grace note will pop up, like Izzy’s genuine excitement at being able to give a birthday gift for the first time, or seeing Pipp in song-writing mode on her laptop. They’re always cut short and go back to the usual far too quickly, but they are there.
And it’s not just the writing for which that’s true; while the animation quality is broadly the same in this first episode (there is less stiff movement, though much more character animation de-synced to what characters are saying/doing), it has notably improved in one key area; already, the rendering is under more control, dramatically reducing the number of shots with smeary colour saturation or lighting (there’s nothing on the level of the closing scene of Opaline from Chapter 1). There are still plenty of cases of lighting changing between shots and saturation that’s more subtly repulsive. But now that the inconsistency has been reduced somewhat, it’s actually possible to enjoy the rendering and texturing in place, and find the characters occasionally cute. As ponies as supposed to be. Still no excuse for the number of elementary 3D animation mistakes present – you don’t have to hunt hard to find automated motion blur in the wrong direction, among layering artefacts like the darkness on Izzy’s eyes or the yellow on Sunny’s – but it’s something. And at least the fact of most Maretime Bay scenes here taking place around fair tents draws somewhat less focus to the minimal number of extras (basically the more extras an episode requires, the more the character animation, rendering, and layout/shot timing will suffer). Now they’re in proper lighting, Opaline is still a design and model gone wrong (and having a lot of the worst stiff, robotic animation), while Misty breaks the curse from Chapter 1 and produces a character model not from the film that is up to their quality.
Ah yes, texturing as exquisite as it gets in this show sharing space with the cut corners of identical binocular vision. It's like poetry, after a fashion.
Oh, and no real change to the voice acting; Zipp remains the only one with proper, consistent control of her acting and timing, and in general the voice acting suffers from lifeless voice direction, with no proper control over the ideal cadence or appropriate pausing. Misty’s VA is pretty good within these restrictions, doing what Izzy’s replacement failed at and nailing a high-pitched baby-adjacent voice without it irritating or straining in the delivery. Opaline’s is a blatant misfire, mostly for terrible fluctuation in the voice, tone and villain accent between lines, though I suppose even an Oscar winner would have trouble selling a character coming out of that design and model.
This leaves us with an episode that had broadly the same quality and strength/weaknesses as Chapter 1, but faring incrementally better in most areas, enough that I’d rather watch it twice consecutively than Chapter 1 again. And with nothing infuriating or offensive (at least, after filtering out the “have to live with these” aspects mentioned earlier), just a lengthy list of lax and slack ideas and execution (believe me, the plot and character decisions that come ready to be questioned haven’t gone anywhere), it’s mostly just there. A lot of each episode’s quality going forward, relative to the others, will depend on whether the aspects it’s foregrounding are among the better or worse parts of this show. That, and getting the cross-cutting and plot handling under somewhat better control, all while making episodes that function both as individual pieces and as pieces of the season’s main plot.
Sunny Starscout: Wow, a mane bracelet! Thanks so much, Izzy! I'm going to wear and treasure this for the next 18.5 minutes and then discard it silently offscreen between episodes and never mention it again!
Episode 2 – Growing Pains
Search me why they didn't just use the three foals from the film's mid-credits scene as the towns' resident foals/Pippsqueaks in the show, because the perversely-off facial proportions, especially in animation, makes them look worse than they do in Tell Your Tale.
…And, right on cue, Episode 2 is primarily about some of the worst aspects of Generation Five. Infantile plotling and lore for this take on earth pony magic; a core subplot of Sparky pulling a Dil Pickles; Hitch being insufferable to a degree that’d you swear the writing was deliberate sabotage to cripple his very valid point; the G4 connection inserting itself again and muddling up any internal logic further. But I think, even if a viewer didn’t share my view of these being bad aspects of this generation, this episode would still be a massive annoyance.
You know, some reviewers can make ranting fun to read. I don’t think I’m one of them, and I don’t enjoy it in any case. So I will do my best to hold that in and get through the few points worth raising rationally. Whether you think I succeeded at that for Chapter 1 or not is likely to reflect my success here.
I'm no 'Ponies Out of Context' expert, but an image like this just selects itself. Though even context of Dahlia's allergy to certain flowers, with the foreknowledge of the booger-licious Tell Your Tale short Neighfever (No. 16), doesn't make it any less gross.
Hitch was not without valid criticism in A New Generation. The most common points being that he was more of a reactionary character relative to the rest, and didn’t have as core a defined personality that led to fun moments onscreen, as well as still some mild butt monkey/token male aspects. But just about everyone agreed he was so much better than anticipated, especially off his marketing DreamWorks Smile (flashbacks of Oscar from Shark Tale…), being largely competent, having the best actual character arc, and never coming across as the smarmy authority figure he so easily could have. It was already well evident from Chapter 1, plus various TYT shorts, that he got massively downgraded to an incompetent buffoon (can’t even blame his new voice actor for this, even if James Marsden was a big reason for his appeal in the film), and his character agency took a massive hit by giving him Spike V to babysit, with nothing resembling capable writing in the positive reinforcement of a male parent raising a child alone. Yet even given all that, I was not prepared for how insufferable he was written as here.
What’s possibly the worst part is that, way deep at the core bones, there is a solid idea here. Hitch later admits that rules and following them are all he knows, they’re what he’s good at, and with magic basically doing whatever it wants (calling attention to our mechanical plotting is a good idea!), he doesn’t know how to handle it. Pity that’s not evident anywhere outside of those few lines, not enough to inform the episode. For both the target audience and depth of this show, foregrounding that somewhat early on and intermittently throughout would have been a step towards making his behaviour understandable. Only a step, though, because honestly, even worse than how Hitch’s happy-ban policy is done, are his interactions with Sunny.
Every single time they communicate, until Hitch changes his mind because Unity Crystal, is the most inorganic drek imaginable, written purely as the laziest way to facilitate this conflict. Neither character ever phrases their points rationally, with Sunny just having stubborn Blind Faith, while Hitch’s far more valid point of earth magic being unsafe, in order to present him as being in the wrong, writes him as a jerk. I pity him, honestly; it’s not his fault he’s rigged against a fantasy element that does whatever the writers want. Yet even on those grounds, I was stunned when, upon Hitch allowing the earth ponies to use magic again to combat the buildup from inuse, Sunny, apropos nothing, instructs everypony to just guide it, and they instantly can do so, and retract all plant growths. Even on the writing level of solutions from nowhere, folks usually make some effort to have it fit or be set up; this actively contradicts ponies trying to control it earlier. Very repulsive.
I cheated a bit with this freeze-frame, granted, but most frames of Sparky aren't far off these Eyes From Hell. My prior prediction that all new models going forward would look worse and poorly mesh with the film assets has been disproven swiftly, and not just by Misty, but this is just… an abomination.
It’s all enough to make one long for Izzy babysitting Sparky, though that doesn’t last long; this fifth-generation Baby Cakes Abridged clone doesn’t even commit to putting Izzy out of her league, and pretty quickly has her ditching Hitch’s instructions for her own way of minding Sparky. Pretty mindless stuff, frankly, though despite his writing here, I still felt sorry for Hitch when Izzy gloated about her dragonsitting method working much better, and he had to humbly admit so with some grouching. And even aside from me generally not caring for “baby having uncontrollable random powers” as a trope, Sparky’s path to that isn’t earned. Course, he isn’t helped by his model design looking so out of place next to both the ponies and other critters (even a tortoise in the last episode, also made anew for this show, looked much better!), and some pretty wobbly gurgling voice acting for him.
Nute Gunrey is more competent than most characters in this show – considering one winning selling point of the Mane 7 was they were all capable characters who didn't have constant screw-ups the show pretended didn't happen, the regression to that cartoon fallback in Generation Five is a real shame.
It’s also far too early for Twilight to show up, playing their cards way too early, and it doesn’t really inform this episode either, nor the next few episodes, not in ways that couldn’t be rewritten in a few minutes. Then you add her facial proportions being the worst (and the animation dragging down Tara Strong’s line reading that already suffer from requiring generic platitudes that were never the strong point for the character or her portrayal), her line about earth magic being totally new being the worst blatant contradiction imaginable, how poorly the hologram sabotage is done (Opaline, you think you’d have taken out all mentions of yourself, not just the syllables of your name…), and it’s a mess even just in isolation.
There are ways in which this trumps Izzy Does It. Far less obligation to give other ponies things to do cuts down on the mechanical cross-cutting (Pipp is regulated to a few moments, and Zipp is a peripheral player outside of a few lines reminding us of her playing detective). There’s less scenes of the villains and those we do get are more relevant, not full of as atrociously spoon-fed writing and motivations (though that evil laugh vignette asphyxiated worse then some of Sparky’s moments). The heavier plot focus makes the episodes less boring, anyway, even if it still anticipates audience disinterest and plays its cards early with the Twilight Hologram. Not enough to prevent this episode being a massive migraine, alas.
The animation feels maybe 2% better than Ep. 1, though there's slightly more abysmal rendering moments again, like this goop composited so poorly it feels like it's on a different plane of reality.
One last point that I think perfectly encapsulates this episode’s (and show’s) approach to writing. Both TYT and MYM have been pretty abysmal at dropping new elements and status quo aspects into our lap without setup, explanation or more than cursory contest. Something a bit more noticeable again here with the first proper moment (in MYM, at least) for Jazz Hooves, Pipp’s main employee at her mane salon. Somepony we don’t know at all, yet who is presented as a close friend of Pipp’s during the scenes of earth magic leaking out. But that’s a small leak relative to what they do with Sprout. Not enough that he’s just a janitor/groundskeeper/roadsweeper outside Canterlogic now, off of being absent from Chapter 1, last episode and 29 TYT shorts (and having a wanted poster for him outside the office there…?). No, the scene where he’s explaining to Sunny and Hitch what happened with the giant berry plays out like they’re talking to a pony they don’t know. They only face him while asking what happened, Hitch phrases it like they’re interacting with a nameless extra, Sunny legit doesn’t say a word or have any interaction with somepony she’s known since foalhood (and she wouldn’t hold a grudge), and they spend the rest of the scene talking to themselves as if he’s not even there. He might as well be an extra. All written under the Story Editor who co-wrote the film where he was a bigger character than Zipp or Pipp, once including songs. Regardless of the viewer’s feelings on Sprout, this is not the way to use him. It is, alas, a perfect encapsulation of the writing in this episode.
I am literally begging for something proper for Sprout now, because his role and interaction with foalhood friends here is an insult I wouldn't wish on a character I hated, which isn't him in any case. Besides his butt monkey jokes were far preferable not only to Hitch's now, but to almost anything Pipp has ever done.
I’d be prudent to deny Episode 1 isn’t better than Chapter 1, even if Episode 2 isn’t. Though I do acknowledge the latter is a better blueprint for character and plot focus going forward, knowing to not oblige every character with a story, making for less of a cross-cutting melting pot. It’s too early to make wide sweeping comments about all of Chapter 2 from just this pair of episodes, but a few thoughts on the villains.
I’ve already highlighted how they get too much focus too soon, never mind the atypical lack of context. There’s not much to say on Opaline, she is villain hamminess gone wrong, with even her “I’m pure evil” moments undone by being prolonged and over-explained. Misty, whatever it’s transparently obvious she’ll be redeemed sooner or later, at least looks promising enough, and does tap into the design and personality cuteness that makes ponies irresistible. Watching her try to be evil is funny, won’t lie. Still, the villain plotline is otherwise a clunky bit of desperation, whatever I do agree with having an open villain being a good antidote to potentially endless “slice of life misunderstanding” storylines.
And that’s about all I have on these first two episodes. Basically what I expected, with marginal variety for some aspects, indication of the serialisation getting smoother, and animation that has less appallingly inconsistent shots, without curing it often being a liability. Expect Episodes 3 & 4 in a few days.
What a time we live in, when the turtle introduced in this show, little more than a background critter, is indisputably cuter and better visually integrated than the baby dragon existing only to sell toys.
Stray Observations
- They have the gall to insert a joke about Opaline not acknowledging “hooftastic” as a pun. No, writers, you do not get to poke fun at what you consider passes for horse puns.
- You want to bet Pipp’s silent squirming at Sunny thinking the compact mirror Misty planted was a birthday gift is all we’ll get on that? I would.
- A few shots in the trailer from almost three weeks ago had certain body parts/props layer-toggled off in the rendering, one of them being Misty’s horn in a shot from Ep. 2. Well, it was here now! I am legitimately happy and impressed they went and fixed that, even if it doesn’t excuse or explain how it got into the trailer (these episodes would have been delivered gold at least two months ago, with the 30 foreign dubs that were released day-and-date).
- I legit do like moments like seeing Pipp in song-writing mode, and wish we could get more of them, and have them last more than a few seconds. Certainly better then her claim that she’s never had creative block later in that scene followed by an episode trying to posit this as the first time she’s ever had it.
- I had to rewatch the scene of the Mane 5 facing the giant rolling berry to realise the rest didn’t suddenly have plant magic, they were just boosting Hitch’s to conjure the tree. Hey, at least he’s getting some Mane Cast boost, with that and critter communication. We haven’t yet seen Sunny using earth magic, outside of the Maretime Bay Adventure game (which is probably non-canon). I expect that to change, of course.
sounds like my marked indifference to G5, even after the pleasant but ultimately unremarkable movie, was the right move <.<
For whatever it's worth, my kid binged all eight episodes, giggling and cackling the whole time.
Target audience: ✅
I found episodes 1-2 weak and 3... good? Passably adequate? I'll watch the others soon.
I watched all eight episodes in a row late one night with Serketry, and I have to say that from a production-values and writing-as-communication standpoint, the first two were far and away the worst. There's something about the dialogue that reminds me of Tommy Wiseau, but it's delivered way faster than The Room ever was. That made them relatively difficult for me to understand after having just spent five hours grading homework assignments, so I don't have as much to say about the main story. If I'm being charitable, I could say that the first two might be equivalent to inconsequential early-season G4 episodes if they weren't so utterly hamstrung by their limited production values and basic quality-of-writing gaps... but probably not, for the reasons you've outlined above.
I thought it was telling that Twilight's chopped-up glitchy mess of an ancient recording... sounded exactly like every other piece of dialogue in the episode.
Most of how I interact with canon these days is through the Extended Cut stories where I am free to disregard or change things whenever I want, but I am still not a fan of the historical information being dropped in these new episodes either.
Twilight's assertion that earth ponies never had magic before is one thing; the early episodes of G4 also implied a lot of this "unicorn master race" angle and I am disappointed to see that returning (although now, it seems like only the earth ponies have magic, unicorns having forgotten everything but basic telekinesis and pegasi no longer even being able to cloudwalk (actually, have we ever seen a cloud up close in G5 where ponies can interact with it, and not just as set dressing?)). I feel like this whole thing is some kind of political metaphor, but so badly mangled by different writers and with so little care put into it that its original intention cannot be recovered.
The other problem is that G5 keeps indicating that the "cataclysm" that separated the pony tribes and extinguished conventional magic, happened relatively soon after the end of G4 and that Twilight had an active hand (hoof?) in creating the conditions that brought it about. That is making me think there is more and more to the accusations that G5 is disrespectful to Twilight as a character and to the ideals she promoted, and the sad part is that it would've been so easy to not do that. Just establish that Twilight Sparkle ruled over a golden age of howevermany thousand years, then [thing] happened and she had to leave or she disappeared, and she left the Unity Crystals behind to make sure magic could continue if something changed. Society continued on for a long time after that, but eventually it started to fall apart and the cataclysm happened. Conventional magic disappeared, and only then did the crystals cut in and become a replacement source.
What I just wrote is long, dry, and expositional, but the key points could be delivered by that recording in, like, two sentences: "... very soon, I'm going to have to [interference] and won't be able to lead you any longer. [interference] If anything should happen, I've invested the magic of friendship into these three crystals, so that [interference]".
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You mean the target audience of My Little Pony is not thirty-something dudes in the technology sector?
H E R E S Y!
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That certainly would be a change from the May special, where every parental review on IMDb made a point out of their kid watching the film over and over yet being bored by it and showing no desire to watch it again. For what it’s worth, I do think, even just based on these two episodes along, that these are less likely to bore kids.
I’ve watched up to Episode 4 currently, and will certainly agree that Episode 3 is not only better than the previous two, but mostly watchable on its own terms. Still an episode with lots of points tailored to be picked apart, and nothing worth watching again, but many of the series’ worst points are absent or at the margins, it hits a reasonable balance of working on its own terms while not being totally filler, and it has a emotional core with actual merit, at least in on e sequence towards the end. Oh, and the small number of characters means better quality character animation, which actually boosts the script in spots like animation is supposed to.
It’s not remotely a formula that can be relied on for future episodes, alas, something proved by Episode 4. But I shall keep watching and observing.
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Of the two others I’ve watched, Ep. 3 was a hefty uptick for both of these aspects, while 4 dipped back to these first two. Though I did note that the number of artists credited under Lighting & Composition doubled from twenty to forty for Ep. 4, and reportedly stays at that level for the following four. Was Atomic Cartoons’ hiring spree for a bigger CG series than they’d previously done only kicking it to full effect by then? Possibly, though it could have been just insufficient credit early on. I didn’t feel a noticeable difference for 4, but I’ll certainly watch carefully for the next four.
Do you mean that in the sense that it sounded like she was standing next to them in the flesh, as opposed to a badly-preserved recorded message you can barely parse out even for the parts that weren’t sabotaged? Or that the writing quality was the same as the rest of the script? Or that the quality of Tara Strong’s acting was the same? I’m guessing the first, though I’m not fully sure.
And yeah, it is something to consider that, currently, earth ponies have more flexibility in magic that pegasi having just flight and unicorns just telekinesis. I’d almost say the scale is tipped too far now, given they can use their plant magic to broadly replicate the functions of the other two types. And with actual earth pony physical strength nowhere to be seen. Course, I’m sure we may well see more magic types for the router two soon. Probably equally poorly integrated. And I don’t see them ever reconciling the cloud-thing, or anything resembling now G4 handled nature.
And yeah, your point on the implications of Twilight’s solution just from this message seems to slot up perfectly with the absolute mess in #2 of the G5 comic, meaning it may NOT have concocted such a terrible basis for the connection between the two generations, but was just adhering to the provided show scripts. And as for that improvised alternate recording, yup; there are quite a handful of moments in these episodes of bad enough writing that an obvious better way to do it wrote itself in my head as I was watching it.
Truth be told, I mostly skimmed over discussing the Twilight recording both because I’m sure I’ll talk more about the G4 connection in future episodes, when I have more info, and because everyone’s doing so, and I preferred to highlight why it was a character writing trainwreck, which is what matters most, after all, despite my avowed interest in solid, coherent and interesting worldbuilding.
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Yeah, it’s certainly a fair ways off being anything like even the film’s decent if heavily compromised quality, even just on the level of writing, never mind production. Certainly nothing worth checking out for those curious and on the fence.
Still, you’ve got me to inform should that change, eh?
There are a lot of technical sins in these episodes that I can ignore simply because it's such a huge step up from the outright ugly TYT style. (Except for a couple of things like Spike *sigh*) I'm grateful that someone (apparently) gave a lecture on color relativity to the texture and lighting people, though.
The main problem with the overarching plot in this series is... So what? Opaline wants (like nearly every other MLP villain) to steal the pony magic. I repeat: So what? What would it really change? Back in Twilight Era Equestria, a lot of critical things were dependent on magic. In G5 Land, all three tribes have developed a technological civilization that doesn't need magic. If Opaline nabbed it all, they would... What? Yeah, it would suck for some in-flight pegasi, but their lives would go back to what they've been used to, except that they'd still know that the other tribes are not the monsters they had thought they were. What do they use magic for on a daily basis except to create annoyances and lift things? What's the real problem with it going away again? (Yeah, yeah, pegasi—they can take the bus like they used to.)
Zen Sunny Moment: Before apotheosis, lecture about being nice, make smoothies. After apotheosis, lecture about being nice, make smoothies.
And what's Opaline's motivation? To be the most powerful alicorn in the world? Uhmn... she was that, and for a very long time. As far as we know, she was the only alicorn in the world after Twilight, Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and cute little Flurry Heart died. That's got to have been several hundreds of years at least, and what did she do with her sole command of magic in all that time? Now she wants more... Why, exactly? To rule the world? Shaky and shallow motivation, but she could have done that anytime she wanted before this, right? Maybe she needs a certain level of magic to cure pony cancer or something? When she did a line of the old "dragon magic" *wink, wink* it didn't seem like anything but a little "bump" for her. I'm betting we'll never know. Sarcasm aside, she's the villain because she looks like one and she's mean. If major steaming series can't do much better, why should we expect it of kid vid?
Welcome to 21st Century Writing 101.
As for Sprout... he's normal sized now? He was short in the movie; there was a bit with a stool... Oh, never mind. I don't have a problem with him being back without apparent consequences; he's the son of the town's mayor-ish leader figure, so he'd obviously have a get-out-of-jail-free card. A little more worrying is Hitch's ability to make up new laws on a whim being unremarkable to everypony.
Y'know, I don't even hate Small Nuisance Animal Spike. He just made me depressed to realize that there are many, many people who find that sort of thing fun.
Oh bro, that ain't news!
After posting the gif of Izzy making that ooo ooh mouth and the spray of... glitter? No comment? Yeah... Opportunities were missed. 
I would place a sporting wager the other way. The odds seem pretty even. I think we will see more of this Pipp-Zipp contrast: Zipp, who hated living a lie, always out to fact-check every detail. Pipp - just goes with every story, caring more about what the Pippsqueaks will think than whether it is actually true.
Personally I loved all the episodes. We have Sunny out to change the world. Izzy throwing glitter around. Zipp doing high-tech investigator stuff. Pipp doing her thing. And Hitch and his dragon. AND Twilight Sparkle is back (sort of). Twilight! And we have a new super-likeable pony in the form of Misty. I think it's going to be just fine. But I'm that sort of fan.
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Oh no, you misunderstood. I only meant the aspect of Pipp not owning up that she didn’t give it (was that meant to be her squirming at not getting Sunny a birthday gift?). If/when they eventually realize Opaline is spying on them via the mirror, I do suspect Zipp will be at the forefront of that. But the writing will probably conveniently ignore how it got planted with them in the first place (probably expecting their target audience will have forgotten).
And more power to you. I didn’t see the need to repeat my “happy for those who like this and get much legitimate fun and entertainment out of it” spiel from the Chapter 1 review, but it still totally stands. And it would be prudent for me to deny that ponies do automatically make something better.
I begrudge no one their joy gained form this. As is evident from my writing on it. 
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Yeah, I don’t know if it’s just greater familiarity with the show’s visuals (we now have 250% as much of it as that from the film, for a start), but I have found a lot of the minor technical slips easier to forgive. It’s only the de-synced and stiff-on-one-or-two-axis character animation that actively itches me by now, for one thing.
It was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
As I noted to AdmiralSekai earlier, the number of artists credited for Lighting & Comp doubled form twenty to forty at Ep. 4. And while I don’t recall noticing a bump there (my visual attention was dominated by the stiff movement of much of the minor characters), I’ll certainly be keeping by an eye out for that going forward, see what happens.
Can’t add much to your point on them losing nothing if they lost magic; it only shows how unimaginative the staff are, with so few way the return of magic has changed anything beyond key plot-focused things that don’t affect everyday life. Unless Opaline wanted to destroy them too, it’d mean nothing. And geez, even without comparing it to Gen 4, her motivations and context is just an endless pool of contradictions, and even the easy “oh, um, she was sealed away while the magic was gone” excuse, à la Kong Sombra’s banishment taking the Empire with him falls apart on her having found and raised Misty for a decent amount of years.
Yeah, I just didn’t feel this was the place for crushing everything about the writing of Opaline and her plan, it could wait for future episodes where she’s more present, but it just writes itself, doesn’t it?
This is true, and I never expected anything more, frankly. The problem came purely from how the writing pretended Sunny/Hitch didn’t know him and vice versa, like the writers picked Sprout on a whim for that extra role. And in a more general sense, how the incidental characters from the film have been used in TYT and MYM has been… disquieting. We’l see more of this come Ep. 4.
I wouldn’t even say I hate him either. It just provides no reaction at all, whereas other things do, and even something like Pipp’s social media schtick which I can’t stand very occasionally gets a positive reaction out of me from an isolated moment. Make of that what you will, but I don’t think Sparky will trigger anything like that.
What, no giving a tired ghost a little leeway for rushing to assemble these screenshots and gifs in places where they fit? Tut tut, my friend. Besides, least I’m spirit enough to admit what I don’t excel at. That’ll do, I reckon.
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Yeah, that's certainly a thing. It's weird too, because although that used to be a hallmark of junior animators, modern rigging has gotten so sophisticated that the controllers go a long way toward making the "x-axis tango" easy to avoid. There's also the very common inappropriate ease-in when the ponies step, stomp, or push things. I suspect the animators are keying the IK/FK controller without paying any attention to the resulting curves. It may be inexperience, but it could also be heavy time-pressure to crank out the scenes.
It's the old Art vs. Product thing. I don't blame the artists at all really, because it's a hierarchical situation, and if it mattered to the Art Director, Director, or Producer, the animators would be told to spend more time on it and/or helped to understand the craft better. As it is, I am pretty sure the schedule is king (or princess) on this job. Netflix is notoriously harsh with productions that fail to meet their target budgets or schedules. Art comes a distant third, particularly with background.
And with that said, the best thing about MYM is the pleasant settings and cute ponies.
Now that I think of it, Spiky... uh... Spiny, Spunky? Whatever. The dragon baby is obviously a result of executive committee design, so taking that into account, he's not half as bad as he could have been.
That'll do, ghost, that'll do!
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For sure, and neither do I, even if I'm not the best at remembering to say it. Especially as in the last week, I've seen many social media posts from animators/lighting artists/other technical artists stoked to have started working on the series. Some of which, it's their first role on a major production. Even with the various amateur slips happening around the place, it's evident they're trying very hard with what they're given. And the director… well, it's certainly a far better then the Barbie movies he's cut his teeth on!
There's little cute ponies can't improve.
Also true. It is a shame, as give or take an Unearned Castle Playset, everything in FiM had the feeling of being designed first and foremost to look good and fit in onscreen, with only minor concessions made to also be toy-friendly. Sparky is the reverse, alas, feeling like something Hasbro gave Atomic ready-made. Either that, or they made too many concessions to suit their demands during the design process. At least with newer ponies, they had Boulder Media's fantastic character base to work of off, even if it took until Misty to get one as well-designed as the Mane 5.
Incidentally, it's certainly almost never a good thing when artists deliberately try and tailor their designs to be suited for translation to another medium later. The Pokemon designers at Game Freak did that with most Gen 2 Pokémon to be animation-friendly, with minimal extra line detail, and it led to a lot of mons they weren't overtly happy with. With Gen 3, they shunned that consideration, and if that meant Pokémon heavy on line detail like Groudon looked like absolute hell on a tv anime budget… hey, you can't win them all. Though Tyranitar from Gen 2 is also notorious for its proportions and angles being hell to draw, even in the movies. So some got through the designed-muffled gen still!
Freaky that you quote Babe after I nearly wrote "That'll do, iisaw, that'll do" with my last comment.
Or is it…?
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Great minds think alike!
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Not only that, I noticed there were three lead editors. Not associate editors, or the cadre of 'normal' editors. Lead editors. As an editor myself, that's absurd, even for a serialized show, and might explain the wild swings in quality between episodes. No one was making sure the work was performed in parallel. You'll see what I mean in later episodes, where it really feels like the writing staff weren't talking to each other, and no one cared to fix it.
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Yeah, Sparky felt like a series obligation; there's always been a dragon sidekick, so let's just make one up, easy. I'm honestly a little shocked they didn't just name him Spike, again.