Landi

Here's a cheerful Fluttershy flying through the clouds!

This chapter was rough in my opinion. I thought things were really improving with the last two chapters, but here things went back to being really messy. I have a lot to say about this chapter, but I might as well start with the positives first. I like how this chapter has some exciting scenes sprinkled throughout. It's not G4's action scenes, but still somewhat fun. Along with that, this chapter does actually move the story forward a decent bit. The dragon characters had some interesting personalities. The new location is a nice addition to this generation's lackluster setting. The auroracorns are neat new pony type (though I'd rather get some of the G4 ones like bat ponies or kirin). Lastly, Allura is a more interesting villain than Opaline was. Now for the negatives. Starting with The Isle of Scaly, this episode was just a big mess. Right off the bat, I noticed how big of a step-down this was for Pipp's character. Just when she was really making some big improvements, she goes back to being an insufferable social media addict. I'm not sure if she contributed a single thing to the group in this episode. The new design for dragons' look more like dragon-pony hybrids than actual dragons. Not only does this look weird, but it's very different from what they looked like in gen 4. That also goes for spike, who doesn't even really seem like his G4 version. All the new lore this episode, along with the other episodes this chapter) introduces is more confusing than anything else. If this is to be believed as a sequel to G4, then Twilight must have been a very incompetent leader to lose to Opaline of all villains. Moving on to The Roots of all Evil, this was a little better, but not by much. The first big thing that stood out to me was just how helpless all the ponies were. I guess they have to continue the MLP tradition of having guards be useless. This was a little better when it became the main characters turn to fight. Hitch finally did something by using his overpowered earth pony magic to go against Opaline. Izzy and the ponies of Bridlewood managed to put up a decent fight against her. Sunny had another alicorn fight like in Missing the Mark, and even Misty was able to trick her in the garden. Pipp and Zipp's plan was pretty bad though. For some reason they thought that singing a song and throwing a curtain over opaline would be enough to stop her. It would have been much better if Zipp got the chance to show off her flying skills in combat, but instead we just get some random song. Speaking of the music, none of the music this chapter really left me impressed. It's pretty much all just generic pop songs without much to set them apart from each other. Also, the way that opaline was defeated just seems like lazy writing. That's not all however, because there is the Secrets of Starlight special after that. I'd probably say this is the best of the chapter, but it still has its share of flaws. First off, it seems a bit early to already be introducing the generation's next big villain. This is especially odd when you consider that there might not even be any more 3D G5. Is she just there for TYT season 2? Next, I have to mention that the characters in this special are constantly making stupid decisions. For instance, Allura somehow falls for the obviously fake portal. Another example is how the main characters don't even think to close off the portal after walking through. Another thing is that this special has a somewhat lazy ending, just like the prior episode. Apparently the magical snow that was everywhere was all the ponies needed to override Allura's magic. When it comes to G5, as soon as there seems like some actually stakes, some random deus ex machina happens. That makes it really difficult to feel any tension this show could've had. One last thing I want to mention is the continuity. At this point, G5 has to be an alternate universe, because nothing makes sense. To be honest, it's kind of a relief. Any chance that this actually took place after G4 has been shot down thanks to poor writing and world-building, so I can just see this as being a totally separate thing. This generation should've been a separate universe to begin with, so I'm fine with that. To conclude this lengthy post, I'll state just how much of a let down G5 has been. The Movie gave the generation a lot of potential, but so much of that was just wasted. What we ended up getting was a mixed bag of a Netflix series with MYM, and a bunch of fast-paced five minute episodes with cheap animation in TYT. To be honest though, I think I'm just tired of G5 at this point. If you still like this generation and what it has to offer, that's fine. I just don't see the point in watching this anymore.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out. Maretime Bay is just a very boring location, and the writers haven't really done anything to make it unique. To make matters worse, most of G5 takes place here. It's too bad that the setting for this generation is so bland.

It this point, why does anyone buy anything from Pipp. Her products are constantly causing problems one way or another. You'd think that a lot of these ponies would lose trust in her ability to make safe products, yet they still keep buying from her for some reason. It's basically a joke at this point. Other than that, I don't have too much to say about this episode. I do like that Windy is back though. She seemingly is becoming one of TYT's most prominent secondary characters.

This was a somewhat interesting episode for Tell Your Tale's standards. It's a bit of a rehash of an already used concept, but at least this time there's a bit of a new spin to things with all the random magical artifacts. The childish slapstick humor of this episode isn't the greatest, but I do think that it's funny to see Alphabittle try to fix the problem. Plus, the moment when he's giving Misty her straw is a pretty heartwarming moment. The only thing that really caught me off guard with this episode was the ending. Things went from your typical silly episode to opaline strolling on in and taking Onyx's cutie mark. That was a bit of a tone change. I was wondering that two. She said it like we were supposed to already know who or what they are, but we don't. You could be right on this being another thing from MYM chapter 6 that's just being spoiled in TYT.

I've heard this statement said before about ponies, and I don't really think that it's a fair assessment. The world in which MLP takes place is a vast fantastical world with a large variety of creatures. Some of these creatures, such as dragons and griffons, have predatory traits like claws or (in the case of dragons) fire breath. It makes sense that smaller and more peaceful creatures, such as ponies, would have some level of fear of these outside creatures. It also doesn't help that some of these creatures have actually been aggressive towards ponies in the past. All this is to say that it makes sense in the context of the show for ponies to be skeptical of outsiders. As for the claim that ponies are in general bad at friendship, I really don't understand this. The show has established that what makes Equestria different from the pony civilizations that came before is that in Equestria ponies live and work together in friendship and harmony. The fact that Equestria has prospered for so long is a testament to how deep friendship between ponies is. Yes there are likely to be outliers, but as a general statement, Equestria is doing well in the friendship department. The previously mentioned line in "Flight to the Finish" is likely a throwaway line that was only put in there to set up the premise of the episode. It's my understanding that most Equestrian cities and towns are composed of some sort of mix of the three pony types, and cities like Cloudsdale and Canterlot are exceptions.

True, however if the company really cares about this franchise (which unfortunately they may not anymore) then they could afford to pay a little more. Though really, this just brings attention to the big issue here, and that's them choosing to make this generation 3D. This worked fine for the movie, but is seemingly a detriment to the make your mark series. Having MYM be a good looking 2D animated series would have given the animators more freedom in what they could have done with a given budget. This mainly just comes down to bad management on Hasbro's part. That was more of an issue with writing and direction than the actual world of Equestria itself. I think that the friendship map sought out to fix this, and it did help a bit, though there was still plenty of untapped potential. However, with the right direction, I think it would have been completely plausible to further explore Equestria's locations while also providing plenty of great character development. As for whether or not G5 has done a good job working with a small world, I don't think it has. Maretime Bay is a really boring location that doesn't have much to offer, and the Bridlewood forest is just used for whatever the writers feel like using it for (similarly to Earth Pony magic). Zephyr Heights is actually a pretty good location, but unfortunately they don't show much of that city outside of the castle. So overall, I think that G5s worldbuilding has been a big miss so far.

Funnily enough, those are my exact thoughts. I find it interesting how much my ranking of the G5 characters has changed in comparison to G4. With FiM, my ranking stayed pretty consistent from start to finish. With G5 however, my rankings have shuffled around plenty since the movie. For instance, Izzy was my favorite main character from the movie, and now she's down at four. Pipp on the other hand was my least favorite main character from the movie, and now she's managed to get the number three spot. One thing that has stayed consistent is my opinion on Queen Haven. She's a great secondary character in my opinion, and in a ranking including all G5 characters, she'd probably be in second place (just behind Misty).

If this really is the case and that little time passed between these two generations, that is really sad. Not only does this upend the accomplishments of the mane six, it makes Twilight out to be an awful leader. Celestia kept Equestria together for over a thousand years, and Twilight supposedly just comes around and ruins all of that. If this really is G5's explanation, than that is poor writing that just disrespects FiM's legacy. All that being said, I'm not sure how reliable this one line is. Firstly, Elderflower is shown to be a bit kooky. I'm not saying that there aren't things she said that could be used for analysis, but I wouldn't take everything she said too seriously. Secondly, G5 as a whole has been very inconsistent with many things, including the elapsed time between the two generations. This incredibly sloppy writing has made it hard to take anything from this generation seriously. This leads me to the third thing I want to bring up, and that is whether or not this generation really is a sequel to G4. I think that Hasbro intends on this being a direct sequel to FiM, however, G5's aforementioned sloppy writing has made it easy to see this as an alternate universe. There are plenty of similarities, sure, but there is also a plethora differences separating the worlds of these generations. Its easy for me to just look at G5 as the future to a slightly altered version of FiM where things didn't pan out well. Not only does this explain the differences between the two generations, but it keeps FiM's legacy from being ruined. I feel like at this point its just up to the individual to decide for themselves whether or not G5 is actually a sequel to G4.

I'm going to go into a little more depth on the episodes of chapter 5. Starting with the first episode, there were some funny moments in there, but I thought there were also some stupid things in there too. Cutie marks really just don't make sense in this generation, and this episode highlights that. They went from being based on talent to being whatever the writers feel like for each character. For instance, Pipp's, Zipp's, and Izzy's cutie marks make sense given each of their special talents, but then Sunny's and Hitch's don't really make sense. It's like they were trying to make them how they were in G4, but then missed a few key details in the process. The other big thing that irritates me about this episode is the random thunderstorm sub-plot. Going into this episode, I thought they were finally going to give pegasi their weather magic from G4. Why else would there be this sub-plot about a big storm in Zephyr Heights? Well, apparently that wasn't the case, and the writers just came up with some random thing to fill up the episode's runtime. Given how awesome pegasus weather magic was in G4, it's disappointing that they haven't brought it back into G5 yet. Next I'm going to lump the two parts of Family Trees together. Overall they were solid episodes that lead to an interesting reveal (that was unfortunately spoiled for me beforehand). I think that the breezies were and interesting thing to bring back from G4, and they did it well for the most part. I just miss their accents from G4. Another thing is that the Island of Scaley looks very different from the Dragonlands of G4. The next episode was nice story that had a lot of development between Misty and Alphabittle. I don't really have much more to say about that part of the episode, but the sub-plot opened up a lot of questions as far as lore is concerned. Was Elderflower actually around before the ponies separated, or does she just have access to the memories of her ancestors? What about her mention of Moon Dancer? I haven't even got into the whole bat story. I wish Make Your Mark had more time to actually answer all these questions. "Mane Smellody" is an episode that exists. I like that Jazz Hooves got a lot of good screen-time in this episode, but other than that it's unnoteworthy. Also, it seems like every time Pipp interacts with the Bridlewood Forest something goes wrong. Last, but definitely not least, is "Nightmare on Mane Street." This episode might be my favorite episode in the chapter for it's overall fun feel. Pipp trying to scare her friends back at the Crystal Brighthouse was funny to see, all the scenes with Jazz and Rocky were great, and Opaline's arrival in Maretime Bay was interesting. This was just a fun way to cap off the fifth chapter of Make Your Mark.

I don't really think that money in itself is an excuse for not expanding upon the world of G5. Hasbro is a very well-off company, and they could definitely afford to allot a little more into their animation budget. I think a lot of this comes down on Hasbro being lazy and just trying to pass off the minimum expectations. Part of what made FiM's world so great was how expansive it was. There were locations of all shapes and sizes sprinkled throughout Equestria, and each one helped bring more life into Equestria as a whole. Reducing that number down to basically just three is a big drop-off from what he had before. Hasbro has been making some improvements with the generation's characters and story, but they still have a lot of work to do in the worldbuilding department.

Smug Witch Pipp from the last episode of MYM chapter 5. I like how even after she mentions that she is going to be a spooky witch, she still manages to be a cute one.

She definitely has a fun and unique design. I'm sitting here wondering whether or not that is real ice cream in her mane and also whether she's an Earth Pony wearing an ice cream cone on her head or if she's a unicorn and that's actually what her horn looks like. I'm not sure whether this is an OC that made it into the show or if she's a staff made background character, but either way this is an example of the creativity being put into the background ponies of G5.

This is something that I have been concerned about as well. It would be pretty unfortunate if Hasbro were to pull the plug on Make Your Mark just when it was starting to get good. Plus, Tell Your Tale's 5 minute episode format is not enough to keep me interested in this generation. I think that there is potential in G5, but unfortunately Hasbro's scattered distribution of the generation is hurting what it can do. I think this generation would've been a lot better if they had kept to the format of twenty-six 22-minute episodes a season (with each season being a mix of what we have gotten for MYM with 3D 22-minute versions of TYT episode concepts). Hopefully chapter 6 won't be end of MYM.

In general I'd say that this chapter was solid. It wasn't as good as chapter 4, but it was still much more enjoyable than the disappointing first three chapters. One thing in particular that I noticed about chapter 5 was how much the animation has improved since chapter 1. Not only do the character models look less plastic and more like they did in the movie, but also the characters' movements are very smooth and well animated. Another aspect that has improved a lot since chapter 1 is the writing. While it's still not the level of G4s writing, there are some genuinely some funny and heartfelt moments in this show now, and the characters themselves actually have some personality. Now, my main complaint with this chapter is its length. While it's still three times the length of chapters 1 and 3, it feels a bit short when compared to the previous chapter. In addition to that, 4 of this season's 6 episodes are heavily focused around Misty. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Misty fan, but I feel like there could've been more variety with these episodes. Still, I'm glad that this chapter is closer in quality to chapter 4 than to the first three chapters.