S05E25-26: The Cutie Re-Mark

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Re: S05E25-26: The Cutie Re-Mark

Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 5:50 pm

The Doctor wrote:I can't believe it took Twilight that long to even try and tell Starlight about the future.

I can. I mean, if the problem is as simple as Starlight making one single change to the past, then making her not make that change is the simplest solution at first, right? Only after repeated attempts did it become clear that Starlight was far too clever for a simple solution to work.
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Postby Sailor Yue (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 6:32 pm

Also was it just me or was Starlights friendship with sunburst kind of onesided? He seemed REALLY bored as she played jenga with the books, and him saving her was just a good guy move. That would be why they fell out of touch when he was shipped off to Canterlot. ..
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:24 pm

I thought this episode was fun as hell!

I've seen criticism that it's too grimdark. While I can kinda see it, all the "epic pony war in the future" stuff is blunted by the fact that it's alt history/what if. And I'm admittedly a sucker for these stories. My favorite Star Trek episodes are the mirror universe ones. And when G.I. Joe goes to a world where Cobra Commander is on Mount Rushmore and Shipwreck is dead or something, that's just cool to explore for an episode. It's not like I have my knives out for Shipwreck.

This is It's A Wonderful Life with ponies. You wonder what happened to Mr. Gower and then you're like "nooooo he spent 20 years in jail for poisoning a kid" and then you see him happy and well at the end and it's the best. It's serious in its way but it ain't Hostel-style torture porn.

This is as grim as this show's ever gotten, but it's only to illustrate "the stakes have always been high" while giving us more Chrysalis, Sombra, and Nightmare Moon.
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:40 pm

Also I liked how they set up Starlight Glimmer's motivation and resolution. At first I kept thinking "how exactly is an epic pony war going to benefit her" but it turned out that was the point.

She thought Twilight & friends could be erased with very few timeline ripples, and when she realized that they were actually essential to world peace she was like "yeah okay this was a bad idea, sorry."
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Postby JaneCV (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 7:43 pm

PictishBeast wrote:And when G.I. Joe goes to a world where Cobra Commander is on Mount Rushmore and Shipwreck is dead or something, that's just cool to explore for an episode. It's not like I have my knives out for Shipwreck.

I like the grimdark future exploration in this ep because it's the kind of thing that nobody bats an eye at in G.I. Joe, for example. Girls can be battle-damaged badasses too. :rainbert:
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:08 pm

PictishBeast wrote:Also I liked how they set up Starlight Glimmer's motivation and resolution. At first I kept thinking "how exactly is an epic pony war going to benefit her" but it turned out that was the point.

She thought Twilight & friends could be erased with very few timeline ripples, and when she realized that they were actually essential to world peace she was like "yeah okay this was a bad idea, sorry."


She should have also realized that if she went back in time and negated Twilight's friends ever getting together, neither Twilight nor any of the rest of them would have ever known that they were supposed to have had something better. It would have been a pretty hollow piece of revenge.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:09 pm

Sailor Yue wrote:Also was it just me or was Starlights friendship with sunburst kind of onesided? He seemed REALLY bored as she played jenga with the books, and him saving her was just a good guy move. That would be why they fell out of touch when he was shipped off to Canterlot. ..

Absolutely agree until we see more, if we do.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:12 pm

Wayoshi wrote:Absolutely agree until we see more, if we do.

On that note, I'm interested in what might happen with Starlight Glimmer in S6, if anything. It seems like this could be a better parallel for Twilight and Celestia, by having her teaching someone else one-on-one like this.
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Postby PonyHag714 (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:16 pm

Now I'd like to see a version of Mt. Rushmore with Chrissy, Nightmare Moon, Sombra and Tirek. :cooliebelle:

I expect Twilight and the rest of the Mane 6, and Spike, will in fact be teaching Starlight about friendship.
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:26 pm

Oh, I missed that Dash had lost a wing in the Sombra-verse, I thought she'd just armored it up. :v:

Since "Flim & Flam own everything" falls short of the other dystopias (dystopiae?), here's me brainstorming some better, by which I of course mean worse, scenarios:

  • The Tantabus has, indeed, done its worst.
  • Sunset Shimmer-pocalypse!
  • Equestria covered in Discord's thorny vines.
  • Ahuizotl-pocalypse!
  • Greedy Spike the size of a continent.
  • Nobody stopped the bats.
  • Equestrian royalty crushed by ice cloud at Equestria Games; civil war in progress.
  • Parasprite-pocalypse! Although the deserted world we saw could've been this for all we know.
  • Siren-pocalypse!
  • A civilization destroyed by newspaper gossip.
  • Enchanted Rarity made everything! fabulous!
  • Equestria covered in dragon smoke for 100 years, which has also made it a comfortable hangout for migrating dragons ...
  • Trixie-pocalypse! No wheels.
  • All Smooze, all the time.
  • Wait, how did Mane-iac escape to the real world?!
  • Diamond Dogs enslave everypony. Er, somehow.
  • Way too many Pinkie Pies.
  • Perpetually un-wrapped-up winter world, with the Windigoes in full force.
  • Diamond Tiara-pocalypse!
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:36 pm

Headless Horse wrote:
She should have also realized that if she went back in time and negated Twilight's friends ever getting together, neither Twilight nor any of the rest of them would have ever known that they were supposed to have had something better. It would have been a pretty hollow piece of revenge.


Nah, I buy it. Instead of seeing Twilight be successful all the time and seething oh she thinks she's so perfect why I outta, in the new timeline she'll make it a point to check in on boring normal Twilight once in a while and smirk until she can't smirk no more.

It's super petty but I can see her getting some satisfaction out of that.
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Postby JaneCV (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:40 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote:

  • Way too many Pinkie Pies.

I think this was the barren wasteland world we saw. The Pinkies multiplied without end, spreading over all Equestria and consuming all snacks and baked goods they could find. Once fertile land was crushed under a trillion bouncing hoofsies. When at last the Pinkies were exiled back to the Mirror Pond, there was no Equestria left to save.
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Postby PonyHag714 (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:48 pm

-Princess Harshwhinny, who rules over an Equestria where everypony acts professionally at all times. Image
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Postby PictishBeast (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 8:50 pm

Starlight Glimmer had some great villain taunts & reactions & monologues but my fave is maybe how she teaches the bullies not to bully Fluttershy. That's some insidious villainy right there.
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Postby Adelor Lyon (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 9:03 pm

PictishBeast wrote:Starlight Glimmer had some great villain taunts & reactions & monologues but my fave is maybe how she teaches the bullies not to bully Fluttershy. That's some insidious villainy right there.

Oh, most definitely. I mentioned this before: I liked this scene because it showed the viewer there's more than one way to change the future to fit your scheme other than directly changing the single event that causes everything else. I haven't rewatched the episode yet (I'm waiting until I have a bunch of TRS folks over next weekend) but was the Chrysalis future the one where Starlight convinced the bullies not to bully Fluttershy? If it was, Starlight was probably responsible for Fluttershy being so much more assertive and able to be on the "front lines" with Zecora and company when it came to singling out potential Changeling invaders. Although the future turned out dark, she helped Fluttershy's life until the Changeling Nation attacked.
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Postby Marimo (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 9:16 pm

Headless Horse wrote:
She should have also realized that if she went back in time and negated Twilight's friends ever getting together, neither Twilight nor any of the rest of them would have ever known that they were supposed to have had something better. It would have been a pretty hollow piece of revenge.

That was specifically why she waited until Twilight returned, left the spell behind, and adjusted it for if Twilight tried using the spell to make her appear and prevent her from gaining the advantage as well as sending her back when the timeline diverged. She was going to send Twilight prime to a future where her friends never got connected.

Adelor Lyon wrote:Oh, most definitely. I mentioned this before: I liked this scene because it showed the viewer there's more than one way to change the future to fit your scheme other than directly changing the single event that causes everything else. I haven't rewatched the episode yet (I'm waiting until I have a bunch of TRS folks over next weekend) but was the Chrysalis future the one where Starlight convinced the bullies not to bully Fluttershy? If it was, Starlight was probably responsible for Fluttershy being so much more assertive and able to be on the "front lines" with Zecora and company when it came to singling out potential Changeling invaders. Although the future turned out dark, she helped Fluttershy's life until the Changeling Nation attacked.

I noted that the Discord future was the result of Twilight freezing Rainbow Dash by accident. It was probably the funniest way things got changed, in a sense she goofed up, plus Twilight ended up going against her own friend in a way, and that resulted in the goofiest, chaotic bad future.
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Postby PonyHag714 (?) » Sun Nov 29, 2015 11:59 pm

The scene with the ships got me hoping we'll see more expansive travel in Season 6. :party:
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Postby Gnot Syndrome (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:26 am

PonyHag714 wrote:The scene with the ships got me hoping we'll see more expansive travel in Season 6. :party:


And those were some pretty cool ships.

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I like that they have a similar look to the airships we saw in S&E but without all of the colors and artistic flourishes that would probably be too impractical during a time of war.
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Postby Daring Do (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:21 am

Another thing I've been thinking about since the finale - How old Starlight is supposed to be. During the season premiere I think she came across as middle-aged to me, but the finale (at least, the end of it) makes her seem younger to me, maybe closer to the Mane 6's age...
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:24 am

Daring Do wrote:Another thing I've been thinking about since the finale - How old Starlight is supposed to be. During the season premiere I think she came across as middle-aged to me, but the finale (at least, the end of it) makes her seem younger to me, maybe closer to the Mane 6's age...


Never said. I guess we can infer older as Twilight didn't recognize the colt, who she would have gone to school with.

I thought of her as older as well, especially after the comment that the she was partially based on Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter.
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Postby Soft Snow (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:36 am

Starlight's motives were rather weak and her redemption was rather quick but then again she wasn't that strong of a villain. Not that it is a bad thing, she is just an above average pony with a personal grudge, not some world conqueror. She didn't have an evil heart, she was just upset. Her reasons are more along the line of "if she T.P.ed my house, I'm gonna egg her house!" with no intent of going further then that.

So, in a way, it felt more like a retelling of the Trixie revenge story but with a more elaborate and less malicious plan.

Mechanical Ape wrote:

  • A civilization destroyed by newspaper gossip.

:v:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:29 am

PonyHag714 wrote:The scene with the ships got me hoping we'll see more expansive travel in Season 6. :party:

I wonder how much of that came about as a result of the war. A lot of technological and industrial innovations have happened as a result of war necessity, after all.

Fuck, now I think I want to see the comics do a few issues set in this timeline. :twonk:
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Postby BurningBright (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:45 am

This episode ruled and I loved pretty much everything about it. Important Zecora, Sombra's Pony War, the subtle humor gags lightening it up like the sliding-through-the-cloud thing and Starlight's clapping, the strong use of silhouettes (Even if that one scene contained Flutterdie :fluttersmith: )

They really went nuts with the violence this time, even outside of the grimdark fanfic style scenarios. Twilight could have sliced Starlight in half if she didn't dodge on the cloud. And of course, the fucking CGI Timberwolves were still more disturbing than all of the violence in that episode put together.

One thing about this finale is that even though Starlight Glimmer didn't get quite as much time to breathe as a character, this episode still felt noticeably less rushed than a lot of the other finales. That makes it one of the stronger ones, in my opinion.
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Postby JaneCV (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:21 am

BurningBright wrote:(Even if that one scene contained Flutterdie :fluttersmith: )

I'm pretty sure that was just a powerful knockdown blast. You can kind of see Zecora starting to get up again before it cuts away. Pretty sure Fluttershy just had a nasty faceplant.

Everything's fine. :allears:
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Postby Headless Horse (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:22 am

A powerful knockdown blast that involved a spear :nngh:
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Postby JaneCV (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:25 am

If the Crystal Empire war scenes taught us anything, it's that ponies immediately discard their weapons in order to have slap-fights and stand on top of each other.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:35 am

Headless Horse wrote:A powerful knockdown blast that involved a spear :nngh:


It looks like Fluttershy just dropped her spear when she fell? At least, that's what I'm seeing. It's possible a frame by frame analysis could prove me wrong.
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Postby BurningBright (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 5:50 am

To me it looked like she got stabbed in the chest, then fell over at the same time as the spear. That wasn't a frame by frame analysis though, just watched the loop for a while at full speed.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 5:52 am

JaneCV wrote:I'm pretty sure that was just a powerful knockdown blast. You can kind of see Zecora starting to get up again before it cuts away. Pretty sure Fluttershy just had a nasty faceplant.

Everything's fine. :allears:


Yup, I drew attention to this earlier, but looking at it again, it seems like Flutters just gets knocked down by Chrysalis' blast. If you look to the left of frame, you can see another pony go down at the exact same time (and with nothing else around to have caused it).

Fizzbuzz wrote:I wonder how much of that came about as a result of the war. A lot of technological and industrial innovations have happened as a result of war necessity, after all.

Fuck, now I think I want to see the comics do a few issues set in this timeline. :twonk:


Oh god, I'm not even a fan of gritty ponies, but I'd read the shit outta that.
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Postby SlateSlabrock (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 5:52 am

MurdER_weapOn '78 wrote:It'll be interesting exactly what mentor Twilight has in store for her student in S6 (I'm sure they'll adress the issue of Starlight fairly early on, if not the premiere then S603). The question is will she be on the same level as the Mane 6, Spike and the CMC, or will she be more like Discord or Maud.

Yeah, I'm really not sure how they want to approach her. It's strange because they've set her up as already being extremely powerful with everything except friendship. Twilight had talent, but she wasn't able to truly harness it until she learned more about friendship; we've also seen her grow over the course of the series helping her friends and being motivated by them.

But Starlight Glimmer already seems to be super-talented, so can you even have her in the same episodes as the Mane 6? I think we need a solid cutie mark episode to explain what exactly her talent is supposed to be. Then they can start moving her character in that direction. I don't think she works as an eighth-element-of-harmony kind of character without a lot of work on that angle.

Did anyone else think that Nightmare Moon's face had a bit of a feline appearance in some of those shots?

She was very fang-y in this one compared to her first appearance.
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Headless Horse wrote:BTW, does this win dumbest title for a 2-parter yet?

This one is a "pun" that doesn't work on both levels; "The Cutie Map" is probably the most boring title of the bunch (and since it was originally called "Cutie Markless", it was probably meant to match the finale).

Headless Horse wrote:A powerful knockdown blast that involved a spear :nngh:

None of them learned to deal with blue attacks. Image
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Postby Angel Beat (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 8:26 am

Starlight should team up with Gilda to spread friendship everywhere. :lol:
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Postby Applepie (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 8:55 am

I hope next season will have an episode about journey with ships.
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Postby Dexanth (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:44 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:She was very fang-y in this one compared to her first appearance.

Click for Fullsize


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I'd imagine that's a case of 'By S5, they can do more detailed assets' and they would have had S1 NMM look like that if they had had the time.

Also for Fluts, looking at that it looks like the Changeling has the spear, so 'She bit it' seems to be what I'm seeing too :gonkity:
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:20 pm

Even with maybe-she's-dead-or-maybe-she-just-fell-over Fluttershy, this was still the saddest moment in the story for me:

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A beautifully understated moment.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:10 pm

:gotcha: Alternatively, it looks like Applejack is really sad that there isn't a war in the alternate timeline.
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Postby Ransom (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:37 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote:Oh, I missed that Dash had lost a wing in the Sombra-verse, I thought she'd just armored it up. :v:

Since "Flim & Flam own everything" falls short of the other dystopias (dystopiae?), here's me brainstorming some better, by which I of course mean worse, scenarios:

  • The Tantabus has, indeed, done its worst.
  • Sunset Shimmer-pocalypse!
  • Equestria covered in Discord's thorny vines.
  • Ahuizotl-pocalypse!
  • Greedy Spike the size of a continent.
  • Nobody stopped the bats.
  • Equestrian royalty crushed by ice cloud at Equestria Games; civil war in progress.
  • Parasprite-pocalypse! Although the deserted world we saw could've been this for all we know.
  • Siren-pocalypse!
  • A civilization destroyed by newspaper gossip.
  • Enchanted Rarity made everything! fabulous!
  • Equestria covered in dragon smoke for 100 years, which has also made it a comfortable hangout for migrating dragons ...
  • Trixie-pocalypse! No wheels.
  • All Smooze, all the time.
  • Wait, how did Mane-iac escape to the real world?!
  • Diamond Dogs enslave everypony. Er, somehow.
  • Way too many Pinkie Pies.
  • Perpetually un-wrapped-up winter world, with the Windigoes in full force.
  • Diamond Tiara-pocalypse!


The sheer number of potentail apocalyptic threats Equestria faces rivals even G1 Pony :v:

Some respect to Celestia for getting most of them at least, if we believe she had to say, stop Nightmare Moon in the Sombra storyline, etc.

I'm not sure if I should say I like it, say I thought it was just a tad too mature and violent for the intended audience, or if the pace and storytelling was just a bit off. The AUs we saw were fascinating in there own way, as bad as they were, they added so many tidbits that left me wondering, like in the NM timeline, how did Rarity become Nightmare Moon's designer, and why was she suddenly anti dragon? I sort of wanted them fleshed out but...that really wasn't the point of the episode.

The "I could do better!" annoying would be fanfic side of me sort of wishes Twilight spent much of the episode dealing with a single bad timeline, say with Nightmare Moon in a war with Sombra and Chrysalis, with each side about to release Discord and Tirek respectively and end everything in a nuclear war analogy and whoop I just went super dark there :-I Actually, I was strangely attached to the idea of Discord not being affected by the time changes and being the key to fixing it. Just imagine an ending where Celestia returns, Luna frees herself from NM, the Mane 6 actually get together again (complete with AU non-alicorn no friends Twilight) and seems to end with a good 'starting point' for a new timeline before Twilight gets history put right.

Anyways, Starlight's problem being mundane doesn't really bug me. I can see a small incident putting her down the path of developing her philosophy, and from there, you start a town, get really invested in it, and then it is taken away. It's less that one lost friendship equals her justifying destroying the world, more, one lost friendship sending a person down a bad path.
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Postby Lorce (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:40 pm

SlateSlabrock wrote:
She was very fang-y in this one compared to her first appearance.
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Didn't she have fangs originally? I remember Luna using fakes in the NMN episode at least. :-I

Dexanth wrote:Also for Fluts, looking at that it looks like the Changeling has the spear, so 'She bit it' seems to be what I'm seeing too :gonkity:

Pretty sure she was carrying the spear? It makes a lot more sense too since she was armed with it from the beginning and none of the changelings had one. ^^
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 5:44 pm

Then there's the timeline where everyone just loves Smarty Pants all day.

------

I like that Starlight's motivation was simple personal revenge. I didn't even clearly grasp, until the end, that that's all it was: for some reason I'd just assumed she had bigger plans. Because ruling/destroying Equestria, that's just what you do when you're a villain, right? So I'd figured that creating a dystopia was part of her intent somehow -- any dystopia would do -- she'd find a way to rule it afterward. Like how Trixie's motivations got all skewed because of the necklace: humiliate Twilight, but also rule Ponyville because of course villains do that.

And there certainly were hints in "Cutie Map" that Starlight wanted to take her movement Equestria-wide. But that's not what this particular plan was about. And Twilight figured that out before I did, so good on you, writers. I enjoy it when the protagonist figures things out before I do, and I get to experience that moment of "What's your plan here, champ? ...... Ohhhhhhhhhh."

Starlight is just an angry, bitter unicorn (with awesome powers) who hates Twilight to pieces, and who gives up when it's shown that her hatred is futile and will ruin other things she cares about. I like her. I like her as a villain, and I bet I'll like her as a reformed villain. I don't know how much attention she'll get in S6, but I hope at the least we'll discover what the "good" purpose of her special talent is.
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Postby Mechanical Ape (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 6:07 pm

PaulloDEC wrote:Image

The Pony in the High Castle :equestria:


I agree that while the Sombraverse may be objectively better than most of the other timelines, it's somehow the saddest one. And I'm not sure I can articulate why. Surely one is better off fighting in a war, a war which is still winnable, than cocooned by changelings or tormented by a chaos god. But I dunno, something about the way everything is so gray and serious, that life goes on but nobody is living the life they're meant to have -- it's somehow a very powerful anti-war message, knowing how much better and brighter things could have been had there been peace.

Maybe it's the fact that Changeling World and Discord World are so clearly awful, but Sombra World is just functional enough that if you were living in it, you might not expect that life that could have been better. At least until a purple unicorn comes by and breaks the news. :(
Image
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Postby Bremen (?) » Mon Nov 30, 2015 6:15 pm

Mechanical Ape wrote:The Pony in the High Castle :equestria:


I agree that while the Sombraverse may be objectively better than most of the other timelines, it's somehow the saddest one. And I'm not sure I can articulate why. Surely one is better off fighting in a war, a war which is still winnable, than cocooned by changelings or tormented by a chaos god. But I dunno, something about the way everything is so gray and serious, that life goes on but nobody is living the life they're meant to have -- it's somehow a very powerful anti-war message, knowing how much better and brighter things could have been had there been peace.

Maybe it's the fact that Changeling World and Discord World are so clearly awful, but Sombra World is just functional enough that if you were living in it, you might not expect that life that could have been better. At least until a purple unicorn comes by and breaks the news. :(


I think I know what you mean. It may be less dystopian than the other futures, but it's also very un-pony, and I think that gives it a special feeling of loss.
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