Hmm, good point. Can you see why that feels a little inconsistent, though? One episode, she invents some amazing super high tech gadget, and another, she clearly doesn't know what she's doing and needs some Deus ex Machina helping her out.
I get they want to appeal to children, but you can do that without dumbing the characters down. Rarity was also meant to appeal to the little ones, and she didn't need any dumbing down.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesRarity's art of the dress is actually the first bit of gen 4 I ever saw. I liked that she refers to actual parts of horses during her song. If a kid saw that they might learn somethings.
see my completed Tangled (Varian) fanfic collection! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467056/chapters/59049532![]()
![]()
Not to mention that in the movie, we see that Zipp had been studying aerodynamics in hopes of finding a solution to help the pegasi get back in the air. Even with her limited experience, she should logically have known that what she and Izzy were doing was not going to produce a working aircraft (without unexplained magical assistance, anyhow). Plus Zipp has her drone, implying that somepony somewhere actually understands the basic principles of aeronautical engineering.
I think Zipp's idea was simply using those big fans. It was cool, but it didn't really get a chance to go anywhere. Might have been interesting in a season instead of a movie, though.
Ugh, and Zipp is so much more interesting in the movie, too. She invents stuff, she clearly has an interest in archaeology, she likes exploring mysteries... That last bit is in the show too, but it seems like that is pretty much all they ever do with her now. Even that flight school idea from early on seems to have been totally abandoned (yet another early season idea that didn't seem to stick around).
Like, Zipp was one of the easier characters to keep interesting after the movie, since that character didn't lean so heavily on the movie's plot. But they didn't really capitalize on that.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesYou've mentioned magic acting by itself to move the plot instead of being wielded by ponies to solve problems. The last Tell Your Tale episode essentially lampshades that with Sunny giving thanks to the Crystal Brighthouse:
Though it was nice to see Posey as something more than a Butt-Monkey.
Wow, that short has such different energy than MYM. The sound design and animation are so lively, it does half the work for the short. Just goes to show how much those things can do for an episode.
Is it me, or does Posy have a lot of mom energy about her? The whole thing feels like inviting your mom over for a sleepover, which I'm not sure was the intention. Wearing rollers in her hair probably doesn't help either.
Who are you talking to, Sunny? Everyone is asleep.
Yeah, the Brighthouse just providing all the fun party stuff feels odd. It's a bit like your parents organizing a party for you without actually being present. It is a rather artificial way to turn the characters into children when they logically shouldn't be (and don't have to be).
Pinkie never needed supernatural assistance to organize her parties. Just sayin'.
The story is admittedly rather shallow, but that's what you get with shorts, I guess. It makes for a fun little clip, though. Makes me wish MYM could replicate this energy.
Edited by Redmess on Aug 9th 2024 at 10:33:26 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesTelevision-budget CGI can't really do fast-paced visual gags without it looking stilted and awkward.
Also, is anyone else reading My Little Pony: Set Your Sail?
Edited by NitroIndigo on Aug 9th 2024 at 11:14:01 AM
That short is quite a contrast with the sleepover episode from FiM. In that one, the episode clearly acknowledges that Twilight and the others are a bit too old to have a sleepover party (at least the kind children like to have), while this short plays it entirely straight. Well, except for Posey, but her thing is being the precocious stick-in-the-mud, I think.
The Mane Six were adults who occasionally indulged in childhood activities for the sake of nostalgia or a desire to recreate a childhood they never had (I think Pinkie's relatively childish parties could be seen as such recreation of childhood). These ponies are children who sometimes do very adult things, like being the sheriff (if the show ever remembers, that is), but are usually content to stick to childhood activities.
Maybe this show would have worked better if the characters had been young teens instead. Some of the Deus ex Machina magic could then have been replaced by parents helping them out, and it would have given them a valid excuse to be a bit less responsible in general.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
That is a very cute skeleton. Funny how no one does that for human skeletons in kid shows. I guess real horse skulls just look a lot creepier to us.
Well, considering they look like this in real life, perhaps they're right.
Edited by Redmess on Aug 10th 2024 at 10:49:27 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesThr Nightmare Nigh episode turns out to be pretty entertaining. Is it me, or did the animation have a little boost lately? The animators were getting better at this point, it seems.
Not sure why anyone still calls it Nightmare Night, since people don't even remember Luna, let alone the Mare in the Moon or Nightmare Moon.
The Friendship Trees are also teleportation portals, because of course they are.
The plot is the ponies planning a festive haunted house at the lighthouse, but it flops, much to Sunny's consternation. Part of it is that things are going wrong, but the biggest part is... that all the townsponies have turned into complete jerks. They seem to enjoy Nightmare Night just fine... except when Hitch tries to hype some entertainment for them, or the other ponies do things for them. Everyone is just rude and dismissive. It's a real Ponyville Moment, that.
They're trying an aesop that you shouldn't try too hard, and that not every holiday needs to be perfect or like your childhood memories, but that falls rather flat in the face of townsponies who seem to go out of their way to not enjoy their efforts. Their absolutely atrocious behaviour around Sunny's food court really takes the cake. That had nothing to do with Sunny at all.
Oh, and Opaline steals Posey's cutie mark. She can do that now, apparently. Powers As The Plot Demands, indeed. Well, at least she is doing things now, things that are actually threatening.
Oh, and there's a side plot where Misty isn't scared of anything, but then gets jumpscared anyway. I thought they were going for something like her spending her childhood in enough fear on a daily basis that childish pranks don't faze her at all or something, but I guess not.
And Sparky sneezes on the mystery map, and lo and behold, it's a map to the dragon lands.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesWell, we're finally introduced to the dragons. I don't think anyone is surprised Spike is the dragon lord. Makes you wonder what happened to all the other younger dragons, though.
The dragons may as well be a different species for how different they are. Spike isn't nearly as huge as some of the biggest dragons of the last show, the dragons have shimmering scales now and have very different magical abilities connected to a Dragon Stone. They are also very laid back, except for the designated suspicious one who is basically only there so that the dragons don't immediately trust them on sight.
Hearing Spike with a new voice is weird. What's even weirder is hearing Spike talk like he used to with his new voice. And his laugh is... annoying. I can't really describe it any other way.
Meanwhile Opaline has effortlessly kidnapped two big-ass dragons off-screen. They are her brainwashed slaves now, apparently. Getting some Midnight Castle vibes here. She also has a villain song which is... honestly kinda lame? It's just her singing about how she is a villain... I guess it's just filler for what already feels like a rather lightweight episode.
There is also a little backstory about Twilight apparently putting Spike and the other dragons into a magical hibernation on this new dragon island. It's basically a clunky explanation for why the setting is the way it is, and another example of why making FiM a prequel series to this wasn't such a great idea. It would be one thing if we saw some original character do something like this, but it feels weird for Twilight to do such an extreme thing like putting an entire species in hibernation forever and taking away all pony magic.
I mean, it's basically the story of how Twilight ended both pony and dragon civilization to stave off a threat. It doesn't exactly paint Twi in a positive light.
Oh, and there is an alicorn land now, because of course there is. And Opaline was apparently banished from it, which of course doesn't explain why we've never heard of it before or why Celestia and Luna were in Equestria then. Or are we suggesting Celestia, Luna, and Cadence were banished too for some reason?
Also, the Deus Ex Lantern is breaking down. The episode never really explains why, but I assume it's because of Opaline somehow. Though with all the different kinds and sources of magic we have now, it's all getting rather overcomplicated.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesIt's time for the two-parter, Roots of all Evil. Weirdly, this is not the end of the season.
Opaline attacks the town and steals everyone's cutie marks. And she stole the dragon magic, and the dragon stone, and she is a fire alicorn now, whatever that is.
All the ponies panick over losing their cutie marks, but Misty reassures them, because obviously she has been doing just fine without one for so many years. Apparently taking away their cutie marks doesn't have much of an effect this time around.
"Even you, Sprout." How does Misty even know who he is?
"... and nopony can take away what makes you special on the inside." Actually, that's exactly what taking away your cutie mark has been shown to do on multiple occasions in the previous show. Not to mention stealing pony magic used to leave them drained and powerless. So while this is a nice sentiment, I'm not counting on it actually being true in this universe. Chances are, someone can take away what makes you special with the right magic.
Sparky is The One, now. We should call him Neosparky now.
I'm not sure why the dragons are going to Opaline on their own. This seems like a convenient way to get all the dragons defeated without involving the ponies just yet.
Spike insists on calling Sunny princess, which feels a bit like the show forcing an old idea on a character who doesn't really fit it.
"Everypony to the Together Tree." Yes, let's gather everyone at the magical portal tree that is obviously under Opaline's control. Brilliant!
Wait, Misty's tree in Zeyphyr Heights is a Together Tree? I thought those were supposed to have been planted by Twilight? I'm not entirely following. And of course Opaline has one too.
"But it's not beautiful like the Together Tree, it's dark, and twisty." Really? Your own tree grows in a literal spiral. And the one in Bridlewood looks pretty dark and twisty and ominous too. I mean, it featured in your nightmare, and it was plenty ominous there...
So the cutie marks feed the Together Trees, meaning Opaline can steal them using her own tree. Apparently Opaline needs unity magic to power her tree, but doesn't have any because she's a villain, so presumably she uses dragon magic instead. Oh, and they're also portals.
"Hey, where did Hitch say he was gathering all the ponies again?" I don't know how they did not see this coming. The townponies literally pointed out Opaline came from that tree, as did the vines stealing the cutie marks. This is some serious Idiot Ball material here.
One of the dragons has been chained up in a dungeon before. I have so many questions...
Aand the dragons are captured instantly without so much as a fight. Yeah, that was anticlimactic.
Wait, so Sparky activated the Unity Tree? How is that supposed to work?
I'm not sure why Opaline doesn't seem to notice Sparky, or enslave him like the other dragons. It feels like a weird oversight, probably set up so that Sparky can save the day or something.
Not sure why Sunny is despairing over going to the Isle of Scaly. It's not like she could help anything that happened there. It doesn't make sense for her to blame herself over anything, and she can't know the other dragons have been captured as well.
Misty can sense Opaline's presence from a distance now. Yeah, that's... a thing that just happens. What, is she a telepath now? A seer, maybe? I have no idea what's going on with this. This show just... throws random stuff at the wall sometimes and sees what sticks.
Damn, Hitch's animals give Opaline a surprising amount of trouble...
I don't know why Opaline suddenly needs to search out ponies in person, when she had no problem stealing cutie marks from a distance without even being present. This feels like a really artificial way to raise tension.
So the prisbeam magic is obviously weakening because everyone is splitting up. That seems... stupid. Just because they split up to do different tasks doesn't mean they aren't working like a team, or that they are not united. That seems like a stupidly literal reading of "unity".
Also, beating one of the mane five and taking their cutie mark removes their colour from the rainbow. There's seven colours though, so not sure who the last two would belong to. Also, I don't quite remember that being a thing. Was that a thing? There's so many different magic stuff going on, I'm losing track. I bet the average Dn D setting doesn't have a magic system this complicated.
The other ponies see orange lighting in the sky, and somehow know Hitch has been defeated. I guess they are all telepathic too now?
Also, the dude goes down first. Why am I not surprised?
"Not quite, four little ponies to go." Geeze, she made a special necklace for their cutie marks and everything.
Pipp tries to distract Opaline with a song. This works surprisingly long. It's weird that Opaline has the patience for this, and it is clearly just a way to shoehorn a rather generic song about "the magic within" into the episode. It is all incredibly forced. They at least use it as a distraction to capture Opaline, which works for half a second before she frees herself and captures them anyway. It's honestly rather anticlimactic.
"Not so confident or courageous now, are we?" I dont know? Losing their cutie marks doesn't really seem to do all that much.
"You'll never get away with this!" Hey now, didn't you hear Opaline? You're supposed to be all non-courageous now... right? Or was it confident?
Opaline travels back to the town tree... for some reason. I'm not sure why she can't just travel to Bridlewood directly. Perhaps the Unity Tree is the central hub, but that still doesn't explain why she would have to return to the town anyway.
Also, Misty confronts Opaline when she returns to the town, even though she followed her through to Zephyr Heights. Great continuity there! Clearly someone's been cutting in the material at some point.
Uhh... Opaline thought she and Misty were friends? Really? I find that rather hard to believe. She treated her like a servant, and never made any pretenses of being friends. Nor would she, since she clearly despises the very concept. This feels like a forced way to have someone lecture Opaline about the Power of Friendship.
It's kinda weird. The early season had this whole "abusive mom" thing going on with Opaline, but now we are suddenly supposed to believe she wanted to be friends? That was clearly not the relationship they were having before, not even in an abusive way. It was always an abusive parent-child relationship, not an abusive friendship. This just doesn't track.
Opaline steals Misty's cutie mark. Huh, I was sure that was going to be some big plot twist. It also goes on the necklace, which is weird, since Opaline didn't even know Misty had a cutie mark, or that she was part of the ponies creating the prisbeam magic (which, by the by, she isn't, as far as I can tell).
Waaait a minute... that necklace only had five slots just a few minutes ago, and now it has six! They changed the thing between shots. That's really cheap... and it strengthens my belief that the original script didn't involve Misty's cutie mark being stolen. They must have changed that when they realized leaving Misty out like that would just set her apart from her friends.
Huh, Izzy and the unicorns put up an actual fight. That's... surprising. Well, I guess Hitch did, too.
Izzy fakes a cutie mark. Somehow. How is that even possible?
"Cutie marks aren't the only things that make us special." "And nopony can take away what makes us special on the inside." I don't know how they can be so sure about that, especially since they don't really understand magic all that well, and magic can clearly do things to your personality. At this point, I wouldn't be sure of anything.
"The ponies' unity powers the trees!" Isn't it their friendship that does that? Or is that the same thing? And I thought unity powered the Prisbeam magic, whcih I think is something different than the Friendship Trees? See, this is what happens when you throw around so many concepts willy-nilly. It gets confusing.
All the ponies have to gather at their trees because of Plot Reasons, and of course Sunny goes to confront Opaline alone, because that's what heroes like her always do, and it goes just about as well as you'd expect. As in, she gets captured immediately. Like, even Hitch put up more of a fight than this.
"You don't have to do this, and you don't have to be alone." ... Why? Why are you suddenly telling her this? What about this situation says "Hey, I should offer this evil person the hand of friendship."? I'm not even sure how Sunny was aware of this, or reached this conclusion. It feels like some narrative steps were skipped here. I feel like a revelatory Twilight Sparkle scene is missing here, especially considering her message started all this off to begin with.
Opaline has a spiel about how Sunny is just like her, collecting powerful magical artifacts and locking them away for safekeeping, which rings just true enough to hurt, and now she can suddenly break free and fight Opaline. Not for long, though.
Hey, Opaline really loves that hogtie spell, doesn't she? The weird thing is that she doesn't really even have to aim it, it seems. It just sort of happens whenever she wants it to... or whenever the plot wants it, in any case.
Opaline takes Sunny's cutie mark and breaks all the protective spells over Equestria (and her own lair, apparently), leaving the unity crystals unprotected (not sure why she needs those at this point, to be honest).
And then we get another song, and this is a really good one. It's... a real contrast to that first one. It's all a bit complicated, but basically, the ponies sing to the Trees, which powers Sunny's... heart necklace thingy (I forgot what that thing was, really), Sparky frees the dragons with the dragon stone (with Opaline complaining that he was under her control, but I'm not even sure she noticed him) and the mane six' cutie marks, which restores the Prisbeam thingy and protects the Unity Crystals (which didn't really factor into anything after all), and the dragon stone powers the Unity Tree and frees all the cutie marks (I thought the Unity Tree would be powered by, I dunno, unity, but what do I know? I'm just a simple linguist here...).
"And what is friendship, Opaline?" ... Yes? The other shoe never drops on this line. Don't leave us hanging in this great song, Sunny!
Oh, and Sunny wraps Opaline in a rainbow.
Aaand then Opaline's castle starts collapsing. For... reasons. Of course it does.
"And Opaline? We are not friends!" You... never said you were? Neither did she? There was never any sort of claim of friendship, so I'm not really sure where this rejection is coming from. This is a weird line. I'm also not sure why the dragon is saying this.
Wait, is this the other shoe to something that was said in the other series? Ugh...
Uhhh... and then the Unity Tree just takes Opaline's cutie mark and traps her inside itself. Okay then... That just happened.
Eaten alive by a huorn. What a way to go. Beats being banished to the moon for a thousand years, I guess. Not by much, though.
"It was Sparky here who broke the spell and saved me. Seemed like he transformed her spell into one of his own." He did... what now? Sparky can... transform hostile spells and use them for himself.
Oh my gods, Sparky really is Neo. He has broken the Matrix, guys. Sparky has Tamed magic.
"I just wish my friends were here to see it." And Spike blows some of his green fire, and the other ponies just teleport over. That's... not how Spike's teleportation magic works. That's never been how that works! What an Ass Pull. And the tree portals were right there too!
And then we get a "Sparky must choose between the ponies and his kind" moment, and I'm not really sure why this is here. They already went over this in the episode where they met the dragons. Spike already said Sparky belongs with Hitch then, so I don't get why this needs to happen again. And obviously Sparky is going to stay. I never got the impression he ever considered leaving in any case.
"We always have a lot to learn from each other." "I guess that means we will be seeing you soon?" Aaand they just leave. Okay then. I guess Spike has no further questions about the frigging new alicorn who just showed up. Or anything to say about Opaline or Twilight. Nope. Just fly off without so much as a goodbye.
Or, I don't know, celebrating your victory. What, did Spike leave the oven on or something? He sure is in a hurry to go home all of a sudden.
"With true unity magic, everything looks beautiful!" Unity magic? Don't tell me that's a new kind of magic? We already had so many...
Also, unity magic can disappear the cliffside the castle was on, apparently. And the ocean... Actually, come to think of it, this looks a lot like that big ass tree from the movie. It's all... very confusing. Again.
That was a pretty good season finale. That final song did a lot of heavy lifting in that regard.
There are definitely stitches on the plot. It seems that Misty was going to do the final confrontation with Opaline, but this was changed to Sunny at some point. Kind of a shame, I was hoping for such a confrontation, since this is very much Misty's personal conflict here. I'm also not sure where this whole "Sparky is The One" stuff came from. I guess the writers wanted to give him something to do.
All the different magical elements make the plot overly convoluted, and the resolution of all those elements is equally convoluted as a result. The Unity Crystals didn't even come into play, even as that was the whole point of Opaline's plans in the first place. What's the point of her stealing those, or the ponies protecting them, when they clearly don't really matter at all to either side? Opaline didn't need them to be all powerful, and the ponies didn't need them to defeat her. They stacked so many different magical systems and objects on top of each other that they effectively rendered the crystals central to the movie entirely obsolete. That just seems like sloppy writing.
The theme is also muddy. The episode can't decide whether this whole thing is about the power of friendship or pony unity or hope, so it just sort of throws them all together in one big mashup. It does sort of work, but it is not nearly as clean and tidy as Twilight using the power of Friendship to defeat her enemies. The movie's theme of unity seems like the obvious choice here, and I'm not sure why they didn't just go for that, since that is a theme big and important enough to stand on its own without sticking "hope" or "friendship" on the sides of it like training wheels. At least the song seems to understand this core message, even if the ponies are not quite up to expressing it themselves.
So again, a very decent finale, but one that suffers from the same problems this whole season has had: a lack of focus and sense of direction resulting in too many ideas getting in each other's way, never quite managing to make a clear thesis for the show's themes in the way that Return of Harmony did.
"Auroricorns are a special kind of unicorn living in Starlight Ridge. Their coats are glittery and mostly come in blue and purple. Their horns are made of crystal. Their unique magic allows them to make Aurora Flares whenever they are happy."
So kinda like Lily Lightly from G3, whose horn glowed when she was happy.
Edited by lalalei2001 on Aug 12th 2024 at 6:07:51 AM
The Protomen enhanced my life.Oh, this is more like a movie. That explains why it was after the finale, then. Though... it's basically a two-parter without the pretence in length, so I don't see why they make that distinction anyway. Isn't this a Netflix series anyway?
Oh, I guess that big ass tree from the movie is yet another Together Tree. And the ponies are just... waiting there. Because Izzy knows something is going to happen, or... something. I think she just read the script, to be honet. They needed a reason to go to this new place, but couldn't come up with one, so they just... blunder into it for no particular reason.
"Look at all those stars!" ... Yes? You have stars in Equestria too, right?
"Where are we?" "Better question, what are we?" "Who cares?" Yeah, that about sums up this whole opening sequence, doesn't it?
I guess this is from the "if we point it out, maybe the audience won't notice we were just being lazy" school of thought. Bad writing disguised as irony! Wonderful...
"But the new Together Tree wouldn't have brought us here for no reason, right?" What, are you saying... oh no. It's the Map all over again. But with even less of a pretext this time.
"If we're here, then it must be for something special." Based on... what? So far, these portals have been pretty passive things, just functioning as, well, portals to other places. I think this is the episode trying to emulate Cutie Map missions, but it couldn't be bothered laying the groundwork for it in any way. It's just dropped on us unceremoniously without any rhyme or reason.
Oh, and they are all crystal ponies now. Because of course. Because toys. At least the Crystal Empire two-parter saved that for its big finale.
Oh, and the portal is shrinking, for no reason, just to put some pressure on the clock or whatever. The Together Tree is now the manager, impatiently tapping his watch to tell you to get on with it, apparently. Except for the part where it doesn't bother telling you what "it" is.
Apparently this is set on the same day as defeating Opaline, too. No rest for the wicked. Get on with your adventuring, so says the Together Tree, no time for rest or anything. Not a very friendly entitiy so far, that tree.
The snow is extra slippery for the five seconds it takes for Izzy to pratfall on it. Then it's just normal snow again, and no one so much as slips a hoof. Great continuity there...
They aimlessly wander around until they run into a domed ice town.
"Looks like this place has been deserted." "But it can't be because of Opaline this time." How could you possibly know that, Misty? Opaline has been around for a thousand years. You have known her for, what, ten years?
They hear some drum sounds, and it turns out to be... a kid friendly nightclub. The ponies here are really skittish though, because of the trance, which apparently makes them hallucinate things that aren't real. Hey, I guess this really is a nightclub.
The leader of the town is Violet Frost, and her friend is Comet, who seems to be the only other pony to remember that the snow is supposed to be extra slippery. They are also acting really sus about something secretive.
Even so, the ponies get invited to some event, but Hitch warns them that they are on a deadline. A totally artificial one that exists for no reason at all except to artificially raise stakes. Yeah, no, it really is just as lazy as it sounds. Sorry.
"I guess we got some time to hang." How could you possibly know that? There was no indication of how fast that thing was closing, or how long it would take. Again, this thing is totally arbitrary, and no amount of handwaving can hide that.
"Sunny is probably right, if we're here in Starlight Ridge, it must be for a reason." Why??? Based on what?? You just got sucked through some random ass portal for no other reason than you just so happened to be there. Why do you assume this is some sort of mission?
And then they... go ice skating. Izzy can't skate, and that's going to be her Thing this episode. This all feels very slice of life and contradictory with the supposed time pressure the episode just tried to establish.
And then an "auroraflare" happens, which Violet of course tries to play down. They go sledding,and another auroraflare happens when they enjoy themselves.
By the way, Violet is... plus-sizeed, I think? I don't think I've seen that body shape before on this show.
Apparently the auroricorns have never heard of Equestria. The ponies are shocked, though I don't know why, considering they have been magically isolated for a thousand years. Comet also reveals he has never been allowed to leave Starlight Ridge.
... Yeah, this is just another Our Town, isn't it? Is Violet the Starlight Glimmer here? She does have some of the same vibes. Leader of the town, nervous about keeping the outsiders out of their secrets... The episode is even called "Secrets of Starlight". Though Violet also sounds like she is a prisoner of the place as well.
There's another auroraflare after more fun, and then some town bells start ringing and the auroricorns head to bed all of a sudden, this clearly being a curfew for them.
The ponies decide to return to the portal, which has apparently gotten smaller (looks about the same to me, to be honest), but Sunny says they were clearly sent here for a reason... which doesn't explain why the portal is setting a deadline, then. If they are meant to be on a mission, then why not just keep the portal open until they are done? I mean, why would the Toegther Tree want to strand them there?
They return, and all the auroricorns are out and being very creepy.
"Then why do they all look so happy?" Oh Sunny, you sweet summer child. If you think that's what happy looks like, I'm very concerned about you. I mean, the clenched-jaw grins and thousand yard stares sure don't look happy to me. I guess Sunny doesn't know what a fake smile looks like.
Oh, hey, remember when Pinkie said "I know smiles, and those aren't smiles"? Yeah, that's also from that episode.
And then a winged snow leopard shows up and starts hypnotizing auroracorns. She also has a sidekick, a rabbit. One that actually looks like a rabbit, for a change.
Allura stole some sparkly MacGuffin, which apparently makes her the ruler of Starlight Ridge by town law. Sounds like the scepter of Ottokar all over again.
So Allura is using the auroracorn to find a special star that opens a portal for her. And they are stealing all the stars from the sky in the process.
Well... that's it, isn't it? That's the obvious thing you needed to set up this adventure: stars disappearing from the sky. It was right there, so why not just use that as a setup?
... Do these writers really not know how to set up a story? This is like writing 101.
The ponies sneak into the nightclub- I mean the... banquet hall? That's what the wiki calls it. Violet is all too happy to explain the plot to the ponies, which makes me wonder why she was being so cagey earlier.
And then we get a random Happy Song that's so loud I can barely hear the lyrics, but I get the feeling it doesn't matter because it doesn't really tie into anything and is clearly just there to have a song, and nothing else.
"How is Violet resisting the trance?" "Oh, I made her some special crystal snowball earplugs." ... Well, that sure is convenient. It also doesn't make any sense, since the trance doesn't seem to make any sound anyway, and seems to be either visual or mental.
And then Violet just pulls a star out of... Hammerspace. Literally out of nowhere. Like, not even trying. What, too much effort to give her a bag or something?
The star is fake, made by Izzy, and Allura somehow falls for this. I have no idea how that is supposed to work. Doesn't Allura know what she's looking for? If she does, then how could Izzy possibly fake it? And if she doesn't, then how is she supposed to know when she's found the star? She doesn't seem to test stars or anything, the auroracorns just collect them. And then they also fake a portal, which looks really fake and not at all like other portals, but again Allura falls for it, despite presumably knowing what a portal looks like.
"Now I can use this star to open any portal, and go to any realm I desire." Oh, so now it's any portal all of a sudden? And again, how do you know that and at the same time not know what the thing you are looking for looks like?
They run across Twitch, the rabbit, and Pipp... sings a lullaby... which makes Twitch fall asleep. This works, somehow. But, why does this even work? What, she hums like three seconds of a generic lullaby, and he just falls asleep on the spot? What sort of witchcraft is this?
The ponies steal the macguffin, and confront Allura.
"Lost? You think I need that pathetic charm?" Uh, yeah, I'm not sure why she needed that either. She seemed to have them perfectly well under control either way with her trance, so this whole macguffin was... rather pointless.
"I don't need the charm to do anything." Then why do you have it in the first place?
The ponies are hypnotized, but Sunny frees everyone with... magical snow that can cure ponies. Um... sure... That seems trivially convenient. Why not have the macguffin break the spell? It was right there, and it would give Allura a reason to want to hide it.
The ponies chase Allura away with snowballs, she goes "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET!" and flies off, and Twitch... mumbletaunts something. Okay then.
Violet tells the ponies that they now should lead Starlight Ridge, but Sunny turns her down and says Violet should lead them, who doesn't really seem to grasp the concept.
... Why do they have this stupid law about whoever holds the whatever is the leader if they don't even seem to care at all about being the leader?
"Being a leader isn't about posessing a charm, Violet." That's exactly the law they made, though. A law they seem to care very little about, so I'm not even sure why it is there at all.
The portal has closed by now, though, so the ponies can't get back. But Izzy breaks the macguffin, and whaddayaknow, it has the portal star.
"Sometimes you just have to be creative." "What are you talking about, Izzy?" Yeah, what are you talking about? She just... floats up the star, and it just... opens a portal. How is that creative? And how darn convenient.
Comet decides to travel to Equestria with the ponies, and Izzy gets the portal star, because of course she does.
So why do ponies turn into crystal when travelling to the auroracorns, but auroracorns stay exactly the same? Who knows.
Meanwhile, Allura finds the still open portal, and travels through it.
... Are you kidding me? The stupid Tree closed the portal on the ponies for no reason, but then left it wide open for the villain? Whose side is this Together Tree on, anyway?
"You fool! You had the star the whole time!" Uh, okay. I guess this is the sequel hook. Well, that sure came out of nowhere.
Well, I guess it doesn't matter, since that sequel will never come to pass.
This was a decent episode at its core, but the writing was sloppy. It felt like it needed a revision or two to get the most out of it. That may well be an apt description of a lot of the writing of this show. "Needs more work".
And man, that title sure is some brony bait! "Secrets of Starlight"... yeah right.
Allura is okay, but she suffers a bit from following on the much more threatening and effective Opaline. I guess this was a setup for a new season arc, but I didn't find it that compelling. There doesn't seem to be that much to her that makes her return seem interesting, at least at this point. Needs work.
Tell Your Tale Season 2 is that sequel. But it is moving at glacial pace multiplied by how few episodes actually advance that or the other interesting plotlines to the point it will be a surprise if they address them.
Now that we're caught up on MYM, what is there to do/review/talk about G5?
Also Twilight only created the Unity Crystals, it's never explained how/when the Together Trees came to be.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Aug 16th 2024 at 8:46:29 AM

Plus "Take Flight in the Marestream" opens with Izzy using a makeshift hang glider plus levitation magic to fly alongside Zipp, and it appears to work well enough until the glider falls apart. If she had just gotten a little more practice working with grade 2024 aluminum, she could have achieved her dream of flight without some Deus ex Machina letting her skip over the actual engineering.