Trivia / My Little Pony: A New Generation

For trivia pertaining to G5 generally, see My Little Pony (Generation 5).

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• Banned in China: Because the film is a Netflix exclusive, it is currently banned in Russia along with all other Netflix exclusives as of March 2022 due to the invasion of Ukraine.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: The film has recognizable names for almost all its major characters like Sofia Carson and James Marsden, and are all based out in the US.
• Channel Hop: The movie was going to be released theatrically by Paramount before the COVID-19 Pandemic hit. Instead, it became a Netflix-exclusive web release. This marks a double channel hop for the film franchise, as the 2017 movie was released by Lionsgate.
• Content Leak:
  • Pages from a 2022 annual that showed a few plot points from the movie were leaked on the Internet some time before release.
  • On August 12, 2021, pages from the picture book adaptation of the movie were leaked to the internet a few days before it was even released, revealing much of the movie's plot.
• Creator's Favorite: Director Robert Cullen stated in an interview with Equestria Daily that his favorite pony is Hitch.
• Descended Creator:
  • Writer Gillian Berrow voices one of the pegasus guards, Zoom Zephyrwing.
  • Director Robert Cullen voices Sparkle Chaser, Rob the Pony, and Wings.
• Deleted Scene:
  • In this animation reel, several shots were deleted or altered with new lines:
    • Originally, during the lowest point of the five ponies, Izzy started to cry when saying goodbye to Sunny, and Sunny apologized Izzy for letting her friend down.
    • When Sunny gets Izzy inside of her house, Izzy asks her why is Sunny staring at her, and she immediately stares at Sunny back.
    • When Sunny gets back to Maretime Bay, she galops around and looks at the mess it became after Hitch's absence.
  • A deleted scene from an early version of the movie had Sunny and Argyle try to warn everypony about the Earth Pony Crystal losing its magic only for both of them to be dismissed as being weird.
  • A deleted scene from an alternate version of the movie called Storm Heist would have Sunny and her friends discover the Pony Crystals are losing power and seek to restore magic to them. A power surge would occur at Zephyr Heights while they try to steal the Pegasus Crystal. Here the crystal would have been part of Pipp's stage instead of Queen Haven's crown. This version also shows that pegasi are still able to fly despite magic being gone.
• Died During Production: Brian Goldner, the film's executive producer, barely avoided this happening, as he died three weeks after the film was released to Netflix.
• Invisible Advertising: Sure, the cast got an introduction trailer in June 30, 2021, but that actual trailer didn't release till August 12. This is actually pretty common practice for films that are Netflix exclusive though, as almost all of their films' trailers release only a month before the full release.
• Meaningful Release Date: The film was released on Sept. 24, 2021, exactly ten years after the release of the second part of the season 2 premiere of Friendship is Magic.
• The Merch: Long before the cast trailer was even made, this movie got lots of merchandise.
• Non-Singing Voice: Sprout's spoken lines are voiced by Ken Jeong, while songwriter Alan Schmuckler performs his singing parts.
• Novelization First: A picture book based on the movie titled My Little Pony: A New Adventure was released on August 17, 2021, over a month before the movie's Netflix release.
• Production Posse: This is the second movie that Elizabeth Perkins and James Marsden star in, the first one being Hop.
• Promoted Fanboy: Léa "Imalou" Dabssi, one of the character designers for the film, is better known for creating fan art within the Brony fandom during the days of Generation 4.
• Recycled Script: Ponies are segregated by breed, with each tribe believing harmful stereotypes about the other two (such as pegasi being brutes or Earth ponies being stupid). The division becomes so bad that it has an effect the nature of magic itself. Eventually, one hopeful pony casts a spell powered by the Magic of Friendship that cures both the magic and division in Equestria. In other words, the movie is basically the backstory in "Hearth's Warming Eve" with a modern day setting.
• Spoiled by the Merchandise: Sunny's "Sing N' Skate" toy released by Hasbro completely spoils her alicorn form.
• What Could Have Been: In addition to a number of scrapped setting concepts for G5 as a whole, the movie's story underwent its own evolutions:
  • An early opening of the film would've featured Argyle telling the story of the Mane 6 to Sunny as opposed to the Mane Six showing up as part of a playdate sequence.
  • An alternative sequence of the ponies entering to Izzy's House (or "La Villa Izzy") would've included a drawing Sunny made when she was a filly, which Izzy collected and described as being by a great artist.
  • An alternative version of the ending was storyboarded: After Sunny became an alicorn by the power of the three crystals, Sprout would've tried to escape, but be stopped by Izzy using her magic. His mother would have confronted him and forced him to apologize for his actions and promise to never ever do it again. After he's free, he would have asked his mom if he was a good sheriff, which she'd respond that he wasn't. The scene can be found here.
  • Unlike the final cut of the film in where Sunny and the cast can go in and out of Maretime Bay any time they want, originally there would've been a wall around Maretime Bay which Sunny would've had to go through in order to visit the film's other locations.
  • In early designs, Sunny's alicorn form would have her wings and horn be physical instead of ethereal, her braid would act as a Power Limiter and her stature would become bigger to resemble the older alicorns like Celestia.
  • Early detailed models of Pipp and Zipp had feathers around their hooves, which were removed as they didn't animate properly when performing more human articulations. Early artwork also has them as various shades of solid purple in color, while other sketches have Zipp be entirely red.
  • Alphabittle was originally going to be a blind sage, living in a cave on the outskirts of Bridlewood, and would have given the Mane Five shelter at one point.
  • The giant robot Sprout drives in the climax was originally going to be designed after his mother.
  • One of the mountains at the end of "Looking Out for You" was to be Canterlot-esque, but this was decided against it to avoid an exact time skip.
  • Early versions of the script had bullies for Izzy "but Izzy being lovely Izzy would just react with kindness and still offer friendship."
  • Hitch's original design was all blue.
  • Toots and Sweets were originally Dudley and Cindy respectively, with the latter having Hitch's color scheme.
  • A floated idea was Maretime Bay being destroyed by black rainbows.
  • Concept art◊ for artifacts in Argyle's position included the Crystal Mirror.
• Word of God:
  • According to one of the character designers, the pink tree seen in the background when Hitch found out that he lost his badge is the Tree of Harmony.
  • This movie cuts down the cast size, such as five core characters instead of six, to better fit them in the movie's limited runtime.
  • Spanish director Jose Luis Ucha did an interview with fans answering several questions about the movie that reveals certain details as seen here.
    • Sunny isn't a traditional alicorn like the ones in Friendship is Magic as her wings and horn are more of a magical effect.
    • It has only five main characters as opposed to six like Friendship is Magic to better fit limited runtime of a movie.
    • Ponies only have one cutie mark on their flanks as opposed to having two cutie marks is because it doesn't look good in 3D.
    • The movie is a Distant Sequel so far in G4's future it effectively served as a Continuity Reboot. They did not have an idea for what happened to the cast/setting of Friendship is Magic or why the pony tribes became separate and distrustful of each other.
    • Argyle is confirmed to be deceased.
    • The reason ponies use hooves instead of their mouths to operate objects is because it looks gross.
    • Regular animals seen in the movie were used to represent magic being gone.
    • The story took about two years to create.
  • A press PDF revealed details about the design/Worldbuilding of the setting.
    • It was hundreds of years after G4.
    • Maretime Bay was Ponyville that have gradually moved to the cost, keeping elements of its architecture.
    • Bridlewood was Everfee Forest.
    • Zephyr Heights was Cloudsdale, which after losing magic moved to the mountains to replicate flying above the clouds.
    • The ponies were designed so Pegasi would be the smallest, Unicorns the tallest, with Earth ponies in the middle. Mark Fattibene stated "The Earth Ponies are pastel, the Pegasi are in jewel tones and the Unicorns are earth-toned, (...) We wanted to have the full diversification of light and dark."

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