Official My Little Pony topic

[masterchirox580]

On 9/29/2023 at 8:07 PM, Master Inika said:

Blue is the best.

It's so weird how the brony fandom just kind of ended. I know it still exists (I still check My Little Brony every now and again) but it really was everywhere for awhile. MLP was the thing that got me through the end of BIONICLE. I remember so passionately watching each new episode on YouTube then listening to Digibro and Tommy Oliver's videos on them.

I think it was around S6 was when I stopped watching it. It wasn't intentional, I just ran out of time. I still plan on eventually tracking down and watching them all on DVD, but it really isn't the same anymore.

I have absolutely no interest in G5. I have heard exactly zero good things about it.

I have seen a small amount of G5 and it's just boring. The characters aren't nearly as dynamic and endearing and the world is just uninteresting. Also the animation no longer sticks out so there's nothing to look at. The programme itself simply started getting old by season 5 and other programmes stole the limelight. 

Also another Bluey fan I see?

[Master Inika]

7 hours ago, masterchirox580 said:

I have seen a small amount of G5 and it's just boring. The characters aren't nearly as dynamic and endearing and the world is just uninteresting. Also the animation no longer sticks out so there's nothing to look at. The programme itself simply started getting old by season 5 and other programmes stole the limelight. 

Also another Bluey fan I see?

That makes me sad to hear. MLP still has so much potential. It felt like a perfect storm with so many great people behind it. It's tragic that Hasbro has lost that ability to get the right people in the same room to make it happen again.

[Master Inika]

I just got around to watching Equestria Girls: Forgotten Friendship. If you, like me, fell off the MLP bangwagon sometime around 2015, it is a good special to jump back in with. It was cute, funny, heartwarming and really reminded me why I got into MLP. In the original EG movie, Sunset Shimmer was so underdeveloped, but since then she's really been allowed to shine, especially in this special.

Also, there are two versions, and the longer version is worth seeing.

If I had to pick a favorite dramatic scene in that special, it'd be Sunset's reunion with Celestia. It's done perfectly, with Celestia projecting both royal regality while also being, well, Princess Trollestia.

[Master Inika]

I just revisited two classic season 1 episodes, "A Dog and Pony Show" and "Feeling Pinkie Keen." I have to say, and others might disagree, but the show holds up really well. I forgot how much I liked classic slice-of-life MLP. Huge world-changing adventures are fun, but it's so nice and chill for the ponies to just vibe with each other in fairly low-stakes conflicts.

[masterchirox580]

On 10/20/2023 at 8:16 PM, Master Inika said:

I just revisited two classic season 1 episodes, "A Dog and Pony Show" and "Feeling Pinkie Keen." I have to say, and others might disagree, but the show holds up really well. I forgot how much I liked classic slice-of-life MLP. Huge world-changing adventures are fun, but it's so nice and chill for the ponies to just vibe with each other in fairly low-stakes conflicts.

I personally cannot bring myself to watch it anymore. Not because it's bad but just because of how much the world has changed since then. It just reminds of when the internet revolution was in full swing and we could all finally get away with doing this without normies to harass us. Nowadays my relationship with the internet is mostly negative and I can no longer stomach the fact that I used to be able to just switch off and indulge in this sort of stuff for hours at a time. Now I have to think about my family and long term well-being like never before. It's just too painful. 

[Master Inika]

23 hours ago, masterchirox580 said:

I personally cannot bring myself to watch it anymore. Not because it's bad but just because of how much the world has changed since then. It just reminds of when the internet revolution was in full swing and we could all finally get away with doing this without normies to harass us. Nowadays my relationship with the internet is mostly negative and I can no longer stomach the fact that I used to be able to just switch off and indulge in this sort of stuff for hours at a time. Now I have to think about my family and long term well-being like never before. It's just too painful. 

Well there’s my daily dose of depression for today.

 

I understand what you mean. Sometimes it is something I have to remind myself to do, but once I get started, it comes back naturally to me. Getting to commit hours to my passions like MLP is the peak of life, that is the end goal everything else is for.

[Chronicler06]

I don't know if anyone here would even care, but as someone who continues to actively follow the new MLP series, I figured this is at least worth bringing to everyone's awareness.

Here is where the G5 series of My Little Pony currently stands. Make Your Mark (the Netflix series) now consists of six "Chapters" (a total of 23 half-hour episodes and 4 one-hour specials), but there is currently no word at all on whether or not it will continue in any way. Tell Your Tale (the YouTube series) has just concluded it first season (a total of 70 five-minute episodes), with confirmation that there will be a second season starting relatively soon. And for anyone who follows the comics, the main series just ended after 20 issues, with future releases of comics to be organized as a bunch of separate miniseries rather than a single continuous series.

Put simply, if anyone was interested in seeing a complete story arc in G5 of MLP, now would be the best time to check it out.

[Master Inika]

I've been binging the series again, introducing it to my friend for the first time. He's heavily into anime like Sailor Moon so it feels so natural for him to watch MLP, I was always surprised he didn't get into it when it was on the air. He loves it and agrees he should have gotten into it sooner, it's so weird but also refreshing enjoying the show with someone.

I still have absolutely no idea of anything G5-related except that (apparently) it is now canceled. I still have three full seasons of FiM to catch up on, then perhaps I'll check it out.

[Chronicler06]

1 hour ago, Master Inika said:

I still have absolutely no idea of anything G5-related except that (apparently) it is now canceled. I still have three full seasons of FiM to catch up on, then perhaps I'll check it out.

To give you an idea of what there is to see, G5 starts with the movie "My Little Pony: A New Generation" on Netflix, followed by two series that ran at the same time, "Make Your Mark" (also on Netflix) and "Tell Your Tale" (releasing on YouTube). "Make Your Mark" uses the same 3D CGI animation as the movie and follows a rather interesting story arc, consisting of six "chapters" for a total of 23 episodes and 4 specials (and only recently did I hear confirmation that this series will not be continued). "Tell Your Tale" uses an alternate 2D animation and focuses more on silly slice-of-life moments in five-minute episodes (the first season of 70 episodes ended at around the same time as the other series, but the second season has already begun with new episodes currently coming out every week).

After you're fully caught up on FiM, I would highly recommend that you at least see the movie, as it's arguably the best part in all of G5. After that, if you end up liking the New Generation movie, you might find Make Your Mark to be interesting as well (not quite as high quality as the movie, but with a story arc that I found quite interesting). Tell Your Tale, however, may or my not be worth watching, depending on your tolerance for silly nonsense, because while I found some episodes to be somewhat interesting, there are others I would rather not watch ever again (especially the most recent ones from Season 2).

[Chronicler06]

Earlier today, the final episode of Tell Your Tale was released. The really sad part is that it was never intended to be the final episode, it was just the latest one that got completed before the series was abruptly cancelled sometime in late February for reasons that remain unknown to us at this time. The original plan for Season 2 of Tell Your Tale was to have 100 five-minute episodes along with eight special 22-minute episodes, but with the cancellation, we're now left with just 23 episodes and just one special, with many of the ongoing storylines not receiving any kind of conclusion at all.

In a way, this kind of reminds me of how Bionicle G2 was cancelled after just two of its planned three years (though at least the Netflix series made an effort to conclude that story, however rushed it may have been), or even how the serials written in the aftermath of Bionicle G1's official conclusion were simply left incomplete and we had to learn some big reveals only from some staff comments.

So, yeah, as far as we know at this time, G5 of My Little Pony is essentially over. For anyone who has yet to watch any of it, what I said in my previous post still remains true. The movie that started it all, "A New Generation", is still by far the best part of all of MLP G5. The Netflix series "Make Your Mark" is also worth watching, in my opinion (especially since the main storyline of that series actually got a proper conclusion). The YouTube series of shorter episodes "Tell Your Tale" is more hit or miss, with some episodes definitely worth watching, while other episodes are ones I'd rather forget about. When "Make Your Mark" had finished last year, "Tell Your Tale" Season 2 was supposed to show the next stage of the storyline, but as I've mentioned, the abrupt cancellation now leaves behind a lot of loose threads that in all likelihood will never be properly resolved.

The only hints we currently have of what might be next for My Little Pony is a bunch of "retro" and "nostalgia" for 2025, with a major "revamp" in 2026. Not much to go an at all, but if you ask me, I'd say that the overarching storyline that originally began with the premiere of "Friendship is Magic" fourteen years ago has now been discontinued, possibly for good this time...

[Master Inika]

I only watched one G5-related thing in the past five years, and it was a five-minute YouTube episode where they all turn into babies. I honestly couldn't finish it because it was just to bad and uninteresting. It made me sad to think about when FiM was still new. I'm pretty sure the first clip I watched of it was the Sonic Rainboom into with Fluttershy's cheer, and it's stunning in a way just how much better and more memorable that 30-second scene was. Even though MLP wasn't made for teenage boys, it felt like FiM was made for me, while G5 just existed in an empty vacuum, not made to be watched by anyone in particular.

[Smarty35]

On 10/17/2024 at 10:55 PM, Chronicler06 said:

G5 of My Little Pony is essentially over.

This doesn't really surprise me. I kept glancing back at fan sites to see if G5 was picking up steam, but as far as I could tell they kept chugging on G4 with a few extra characters in the fanart.

On 10/17/2024 at 10:55 PM, Chronicler06 said:

The movie that started it all, "A New Generation", is still by far the best part of all of MLP G5.

The movie remains the only G5 content I actually saw. It was a good movie, but was different from G4 and already seemed to be losing grasp of the creative spark. I think G4 made a stronger effort to be an interesting story on its own, while the G5 movie (and maybe further G5 content?) was less cohesive and just meant to be a montage of music videos that could double as toy commercials. (The makeover song, the pop concert song, etc.) After the sprawling fantasy Equestria of G4, ponies with cell phones just didn't turn out to be a sufficient replacement...

1 hour ago, Master Inika said:

a five-minute YouTube episode where they all turn into babies

And of course the medium of choice wasn't well suited to a sophisticated continuing storyline anyway.

On 10/17/2024 at 10:55 PM, Chronicler06 said:

this kind of reminds me of how Bionicle G2 was cancelled

Interesting that you too would think of that connection. I made a passing reference to the idea in my 2021 post after the movie.