spoiler season 5 finale

[Jeric 46,851]

why does eveyone hate the season 5 finale.

 

https://mlpforums.com/topic/142823-s05e2526-the-cutie-re-mark

 

Good news. Out of hundreds of votes, only a few people recorded that they hated it or didn't like it. It didn't hit the voting highs found in a few of the other episodes, but saying everyone hated it is a bit innacurate.

[Megas 27,656]

I wouldn't say it's outright hated but it definitely seems like one of the more polarizing episodes. It's definitely one of my least favorite episodes of the season, if not the whole show

words

I very much agree with these. The more I think about it, the less I care for the alternate timelines, because in the grand scheme of things they don't really matter to the overall story and just play the typical "this is what happens if the villain wins" schtick. It especially hurts considering all of the interesting ideas you could come up with based around a "what if the Mane 6 never met" timeline

 

The whole "too much Twilight" thing was something I tried to forgive in the past but I felt it reached the apex with her being supposedly the only one who mattered throughout the episode. I'd like to see the remane 5 to actually be able to do in the bigger episodes, and in the past I threw the writers a bone because at the very least they were there, but this time I think I'm finally fed up.

 

Don't even get me started on Starlight. Besides me thinking her redemption was one of the worst things to come out of the show, it ruined the character for me, making her from a promising and genuinely intimidating villain, to a complete laughingstock of a character who actions feel comically overexaggerated(except it isn't supposed to be, which makes it worse) and is in dire need of a straight jacket. I keep people saying that they can truly elaborate on her "redemption" like they did with Discord and Sunset Shimmer, but then that stupid ending montage happened

[Unlikeable Pony 2,698]

Don't even get me started on Starlight. Besides me thinking her redemption was one of the worst things to come out of the show, it ruined the character for me, making her from a promising and genuinely intimidating villain, to a complete laughingstock of a character who actions feel comically overexaggerated

 

Kind of weird how inverted things got; Starlight was a good villain originally due to her personality and motives, NOT her power; This episode tried to play up her power level as a threat while paradoxically dialing down her Motives and personality aspect.

 

 

 

The whole "too much Twilight" thing was something I tried to forgive in the past but I felt it reached the apex with her being supposedly the only one who mattered throughout the episode. I'd like to see the remane 5 to actually be able to do in the bigger episodes, and in the past I threw the writers a bone because at the very least they were there, but this time I think I'm finally fed up.

 

 

I really had been hoping that the episode would have had twilight end up gathering her friends again from the ruined timelines so that they AS A GROUP would save the day, proving that friendship was stronger than anything that could be done by starlight; I feel that would have been a much better way to prove the value of friendship by showing that, despite destroying the timeline, the six were still linked no matter what as friends and could transcend entire timelines themselves to come together to prove friendship's strength.

 

If anything, friendship seemed weaker than ever in this finale.

[Truffles 2,033]

I never did do a formal review of this episode; I only ever responded to other's replies. I guess it's something I should do someday, but.. eh.

 

I actually liked the finale, but only for the visualization of the alternate timelines and comedy during the time spent in the past. Once they got past the "Fallout: Equestria" scene the episode kind of falls apart for all the reasons listed above:

 

Too lame of a reason for her to be a villain

Too quick of a redemption (in fact I would have preferred her never to be redeemed and simply have her out there as an opposing point of view on how happiness can be achieved)

Mane 6 didn't get involved in helping fix her problem.

 

Additionally, she never even used her cutie mark stealing power in the episode, relying instead on the map to power and (somehow) rewrite the time travel spell. I thought she'd at least try to steal Twilight's cutie mark again, leaving her helpless and Spike would have to save the day (again) since he doesn't have a cutie mark to steal.

 

On the plus side, tropical Equestria confirmed for the first time:

[Cleverclover 1,526]

I very much disliked the finale. It's probably my second worst episode of the series, right after Magic Duel, for a variety of reasons.

 

1) The alternative time lines. Now first off I completely ignored the whole "How does this time travel make sense?" thing because in all time travel stories you generally suspend that. For instance in Doctor Who, touching your past self causes bat creatures from the fifth dimension to show up and devour everything. Does that make a lick of sense? Not really so I take the time travel as it goes.  The main issue with the alternative time lines is that they are just padding.  Outside of showing us what stakes Twilight has in adverting Starlight, they serve no other purpose than to be cool visuals, but they do absolutely nothing to further the plot and secondly the degrade the world around them. As Silver Quill pointed out, it makes the entire world completely depended on Twilight and her friends and shows us that they are the only important ones.  Now I will admit that these timelines are fun to watch for the spectial, seeing what would have happened if each villain had won, but they don't advance the story at all, making the two-parter have as much actual plot as a 22 minute episode, and ultimately lessens the world around them.

 

2) Starlight is OP.  Now this is plot armor, or lazy writing at it's finest, take your pick.  Starlight is able to rewrite Starswirls Time spell,  knows more about the Map than Twilight, the crazy smart study Princess that's been living there for the past season, is able to fly, AND can match an Alicorn princess in terms of a magic duel, all to make this plot work. Starlight's was touted as being a NORMAL Unicorn, sure she knew a unique spell but she was not played up as someone who could be a physical threat (well magical anyways). Now she's above Alicorn power levels because the writers can't just ax off Starlight and they need her to carry the episode's time travel plots, so she gets to be massively OP for the sake of moving the plot.

 

3) Focus only on Twilight. Now this is a problem that isn't just confined to this episode but it is far more abused here than in other two-parters.  The Mane 6 only appear in these episodes as acceded extras in the alternative time line to showcase how bad they are and at the very end to just show up and talk to Twilight. Compare this with the season opener, where ALL of the Mane 6 play a role in. Heck even Spike doesn't do much in these episodes outside of just being someone for Twilight to talk to. 

 

4) The Redemption. And this is in my mind the absolute weakest point about these episodes. Starlight's redemption is the worst in the series thus far.  Now I'm not saying Starlight couldn't have been redeemed but they way they handled it was atrocious.  For one thing, the pacing was so bad I think my neck broke from the emotional whiplash.  Starlight Glimmer, for the vast majority of these episodes as well as the entire length of The Cutie Map, was presented to us as a villain with little redeeming about her. Then we are presented with a massively weak explanation as to why Starlight turned evil, one which is too relateable for people to buy and is shown to be the ONLY reason, and suddenly we're expected to do a 180 on how we feel for Starlight and is meant to completely absolve her of ALL of her wrongdoing.  And then after all of that, she is given no punishment for what she has done, no consequences for her actions, AND is all of a sudden super-mega-ultra best friends with the Mane 6 in an over the top sappy montage that would better belong in G3.  No it doesn't work like that, especially after all the work Discord, someone who did things very similar to Starlight, had to do in order for the Mane 6 to respect him.

 

I couldn't possibly nail my thoughts any better than this. 

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I loved it. I think there were a couple missed opportunities when it comes to the alternate universes. I think it would have been a nice touch to include Trixie somewhere.

Also, how amazing would it have been to see demon Sunset Shimmer/Sci-Twi in Equestria? I'd pay money to see that.

The montage at the end was really cute. Made me tear up a bit. I can't complain about the episode at all.

Would it please you to know that Trixie does make a background appearance in the Queen Chrysalis timeline? She's not easy to spot, but an Internet reviewer pointed it out.

[Stasis 39]

Honestly besides what most people said already added in this thread. There's another point alot of people don't consider and are way too lenient on.

 

If you consider the ramifications of the Wasteland scene for a bit. You'd realize that the entirety of Equestria is literally dead without the the Mane 6. That means that all the development of the background ponies and how non useless they were since the Season 4 premiere is now outright useless. Not only that but it's tied to Glimmers redemption and I don't know about any of you but I definitely don't want that on my redemption resume.

 

Speaking of which Twilight's completely umempathetic response to Glimmer is probably the reason most find her change of character completely and utterly unbelievable combine it with how long she actually believed in it and well you got a really bad redemption on your hands.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Stasis