"Well unlike Flash, Timber gets a backstory,"Which was glossed over and forgotten in seconds. And really, him wanting to live in the city is a worthy backstory?"a major personal stake in the plot,"Yeah and?"bonding with Twi over mutual interests."Like what? What did they bond over? What were their mutual interests? All that they did was have him say something corny (usually involving him being full of himself) and then her giggling."All of that is a huge improvement over Flash who got pretty much nothing other than "nice, good looking guy" as a character "And that he was a good guy with a sense of justice and not really fond of girls who are evil like Sunset Shimmer. He was more than good looks remember? And he did get some MINOR extra stuff in the other films and shorts. Was it much? No."Course the initial attraction between Timber and Twi is still purely physical,"Yeah and the initial attraction between Flash and Twilight wasn't really that was it? It came more from her bumping into him then having an awkward moment of hands touching. But then it didn't really take off til after her song and he cleared her name."but nothing wrong with that given they gave it more once they started interacting."Again, do you really consider it much interaction when it's basically just him saying something cheesy or smug and then her giggling about it?Ultimately I didn't see this as really any true improvement. And as you said, time constraints don't afford much focus to romance, but that's all the more reason to not do it at all because it ends up sucking. And consider the following. The actual plot to this film was rather quick and short, and a lot more time was spent on this ship and having them interact. But again, there wasn't much good done with it. It was clearly more like another one of those "It needs a romance so we'll give them one, but they'll bitch if we have it be Flash so let's do a new guy". They could have started as friends and then worked it in slowly. But they didn't. They jumped head long into it and there was no real progression that felt real.I'm not really defending FlashLight so much. I am more complaining about how romance in these films and in the show itself tend to suck really bad. Whether this is because the writers can't do it well or because the studio demands it and it must be their way or what ever. But again, think of all the couples, the ones that show legit romantic interest in the other. They are almost never interesting in the show or these films. The only times they are is when it's by accident like with AJ and Rarity or Bon Bon and Lyra. I am not against them including romance in episodes or movies, I just want them done well. TimberTwi had potential and they screwed it from the word go because it felt more rushed and forced than even FlashLight was, and FlashLight also had potential but in the first one it suffered just as TimberTwi and in the rest it felt more like they were afraid to do it cause of butthurt Twi-lovers.