Special review: Make Your Mark

The lighting inside the Bright House is really rather appealing

So, here we go with My Little Pony's real return to "non-cinematic" content: the 44-minute special that is Make Your Mark, preceding the full series in September. It's fair to say it's had a mixed response from fans, and although you can't treat IMDb scores as more than a vague indication its current score of 6.3* isn't especially great. That's similar to a lower-middle tier episode of Friendship is Magic. Still, I went in with an openish mind, having enjoyed A New Generation last year, so what did I think?
* At review publication time. It may well have changed since

Right, I'm putting a page break in here. If you go any further, expect spoilers by the tonne. You have been warned!

On the whole, I liked Make Your Mark a bit more than the IMDb people did. With the odd exception, it wasn't exactly unpredictable or shocking. Gosh, magic that only works properly if everypony works together? Even for this franchise, that's hardly staggeringly original. Still, as always we have to remember that we are not the primary target audience for this stuff. Doesn't mean it's okay to throw quality out the window, but does mean that expecting really complex adult themes is just silly.

Let's talk about the visuals first. Yes, they were obviously a step down from what we saw in the film. For example, Queen Haven's mouth can look slightly weird when she's on the phone to Pipp, and some of the manes look a little flat, almost matted, occasionally. But overall, it's pretty good, even when ponies are moving. Despite the odd "Play-Doh effect" where characters seemed plonked onto backgrounds rather than in them, the animation really didn't bother me as a whole. That's enough for me, frankly.

As far as the Mane Five go, Make Your Mark surprised me by being Zipp's big moment. She was a little meh in the movie but she does much better here, and her investigatory role will surely return. At the other extreme, I am a little disappointed with Hitch's characterisation. In A New Generation he's portrayed as an extremely competent, if slightly overzealous, sheriff. Yet here he basically can't cope with trying to resolve a kids' fight on the beach? Nah. Not buying it.

As Pipp takes off here, she nudges the mic with her forelegs. A nice little detail

Sunny is okay. She was my favourite character in the film, so I was a bit nervous about how she'd do in the special, but she's fine for the most part, if occasionally a tad on the bland side. Izzy is definitely not as great here as she was in the movie, but to be fair that is a pretty high bar to clear. That leaves Pipp, who is much the same mare she is in the film. Okay in small doses, though her constant emphasis of a sentence's last soun-duh will drive me crazy if it happens all through G5.

I was not expecting Posey to have such a big supporting part, though that's a mixed blessing as she's quite annoying. That's leavened a little by the fact that she does have something of a point under all the whinging: the unicorns and pegasi are suddenly changing Maretime Bay Day greatly. Pegasi do have an unfair advantage in the sandcastle contest. Even if the change is necessary, they could maybe work together in a less aggravating way – as I think they will. The Unity Crystals will demand it.

We have a baby dragon, though if the end credits are to be believed he's not called Spike, but Sparky. It's interesting that Hitch can't understand him even after he can understand more normal critters. I wonder whether we'll find out a reason for that differentiation? It'll also be interesting to see whether Sparky ends up playing a bigger part, as G1 and especially G4 Spike did, or whether he'll just be in a "cute comic relief" role most of the time.

Her colourscheme is very unusual. Lighting, dark magic or something else?

And then there's Mysterious Purple Alicorn, who intriguingly does not get a separate nod in the closing credits. She may be in "Additional Voices", but it seems certain she'll be much more important than that. She's apparently much more of a full-on villain than Sprout ever was, given that void she conjured up, and I am very, very interested to see where that goes. Will Make Your Mark give us rather more FiM-style adventures versus true danger than many of us were expecting?

Music... meh, really. The little songs we got were okay, but just okay. And very short, even for a kids' show. Sorry, Pipp, you'll need to do better than that to become a musical legend. Equestria Girls (even the shorts) demonstrated that Pony and pop music can go together very nicely, but so far there's nothing here I've wanted to play again or hear in a high-quality soundtrack version. Certainly, there's nothing that comes even close to the standard of the songs in the movie.

Also on the audio front, voice acting was generally okay, if anything slightly better than I'd been expecting. I'm now moderately optimistic about that, especially after we're used to the new voices a few episodes further on. There was the occasional moment where perhaps there wasn't quite enough depth of emotion in a dramatic line, but at least we don't get a bunch of real "dial it in" performances here. Kimiko Glenn and James Marsden it ain't, but realistically it wasn't likely to be.

Posey, there are a whole bunch of trams waiting for you to get out of the way

Other bits and bobs? The special was noticeably light on horse puns, which will please some people more than others. Using "hoofness" as a ponified version of "goodness" is clunky and unimpressive: they could surely have done better than that. The aforementioned Sprout is nowhere to be seen – where has he gone? I'd hope for at least a passing mention at some point in the series. And is there a canonical link to G4? Interestingly, and unlike in the film, beyond Sunny's badges we got nothing, not even in legend form.

Yes, the film was better than Make Your Mark – but frankly, with its significantly greater resources, it darn well should have been better than this. Even so, this special is a very long way from being a failure. It establishes the new core voice cast with reasonable success, it provides hints of new developments in magic and community, it surprises us with what seems to be an honest-to-goodness MLP villain, and it's bright and colourful. That, to me, is a solid three-star special. I'm looking forward to September.

Choice quote: Zipp: "We can't just sing a song and ignore everything!"

Yays

• Much better character development for Zipp
• Visuals better than they might have been
• The new villain, though only glimpsed briefly, is intriguing
• A suggestion that new magic forms are yet to come
  

Neighs

• Nothing to write home about musically
• Hitch didn't get a particularly good deal, character-wise
• "We need to work together", if perfectly kid-appropriate, is very, very obvious
• Posey was a bit of a pain, despite occasionally having good points
  

★★★