YMMV / My Little Pony Generations

• Evil Is Cool: Grackle and Dyre got a lot of love from fans, having both cute designs, dorky but adorable personalities and being the daughters of G1 villains Reeka and Draggle. Also, unlike their mothers, they manage to turn good in the end.
• Franchise Original Sin: The comics criticized handling of the G1 ponies also applied to the best remembered works of the G1 where the group also never got meaningful individual characterization/focus compared to the villains/other characters/threats (only getting such in smaller-scale individual stories). This was a bigger problem here as by this point MLP regularly had such large-scale stories without compromising characterization and the G1 cast being the selling point mean their weak characterization was much harder to overlook.
• Older Than They Think: This isn't the first time the ponies of G4 encountered the G1 ponies. In My Little Pony: The Manga volume 3, Twilight Sparkle reenacts the events of Rescue at Midnight Castle, taking the place of both her G1 counterpart and Megan Williams. Ironically, despite being a very short story, some fans even think the manga's crossover was a better crossover then all five issues of this one put together.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: It takes until midway through Issue #3 of the five issue series for the heroes to become aware of and proactive in dealing with the villains. And it's only Issue #4 we start to get the G1/G4 characters crossover that's the series selling point.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Unlike the G1 series where Hydia's abuse of her daughters is Played for Laughs, Reeka and Draggle's casual emotional abuse of their daughters is not. Grackle and Dyre are clearly broken up over never having left the volcano or lived up their mothers' expectations. The letter Draggle sends them in Issue #4, where she and Reeka say they're glad Hydia isn't alive to see how pathetic her granddaughters turned out, drives Grackle to tears.
  • Violet Shiver's budding friendship with Pinkie Pie, despite Violet's mission to ruin the ponies' lives. It comes to a head in Issue #5, when Pinkie compliments Violet on her beautiful decorations and surprises her with a gift: a BFF shirt to wear to the festival. Violet is completely torn.
    Violet Shiver: (sobbing) I don't deserve this.
  • Grackle and Dyre's Heel Realization when they visit Ponyville and see the consequences of their actions, the damage done in their quest to complete their family's Cycle of Revenge leading to lots of innocent ponies - who they could've related to or had fun with - getting hurt. It reaches its tipping point when they confront the Smooze at the Bestie Festie, and it calls its own creators "uniquely ungifted," the same petty insult their mothers used on them, leading to the witches realizing it's not the volcano keeping them imprisoned, but their mothers.
    The Smooze: LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE! THIS ISN'T REVENGE, THIS IS DECIMATION! IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?
    Grackle: You really wanna know what I wanted? I wanted some freedom! So I took it away from others. I wanted to make our moms proud! And for what? What was so bad? Their exile gave them a home, gave them us. They wanted revenge for that?
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans who were excited to see both pony generations crossover became disappointed due to how late the G1 ponies were introduced. They only show up at the end of Issue #3 and are the main focus of Issue #4 in a five part storyline, with little attention paid to their roles and personalities when the original series had a rotating Ensemble Cast of unique personalities.
  • Aside from a brief mention Spike doesn't show up in the story even though he also has a counterpart who played a major role in My Little Pony 'n Friends. Many fans were hoping both Spikes would meet each other.
  • Despite being one of the key stars of G1, Megan is reduced to a cameo in Issue #4 and never shows up in person, disappointing those who wanted to see Megan meet the G4 ponies. There’s no sign of Danny or Molly, either.
  • Reeka and Draggle make no appearance by the end of the series other than in the flashback of the 1984 movie, only communicating to their daughters through letters. Many were hoping they would see how the two looked now grown up and even found it to be a mistake to have them away through the crossover as it would've been better to have the two supervising their daughters' "revenge" and how'd they would react to them becoming good, which would've been a nice parallel to how Hydia reacted to her daughters' bumbling.
  • While Grackle and Dyre get equal focus through most of the series, the story suddenly focuses more on Grackle in the final issue with Dyre reduced as a background role. Granted they do say that it's because the Smooze magic is mostly from Grackle and she is the more temperamental of the pair, but you'd think her cousin could aid a bit in the final battle since she's a witch too
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Because the G1 ponies don't get involved with the plot until Issue 4, there's not much time for interaction between the two sets of ponies. The G4 ponies never get to explore Ponyland and see what it's like, nor do we see what became of it in the years since the '84 movie or learn what happened with Megan and if she still keeps in contact with the ponies. Likewise it doesn't allow the G1 ponies to visit more of Equestria outside Ponyville and the festival; they don't get to meet characters like Celestia or Luna and see how different their customs are in their dimension (though they do bring this up in the last page as a Sequel Hook).
  • Having the witches come in so late to the G4 dimension feels very rushed because they don't even interact with the ponies until the festival or get to know them personally, nor do the G1 ponies notice their familiarity to Hydia, Reeka and Draggle where they could've gotten more story on how the Smooze nearly brought ruin to Ponyland, which could've contributed better to the girls' Heel–Face Turn.

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