My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic SPOILER TALK THREAD

You can PM me if you want. I do have a response.

Does it have to be an either/or? Like, the Friendship School is the exciting new hotness, but I didn't get the impression that the characters were planning on leaving Ponyville forever and building it in the middle of Ghastly Gorge or something.

I kinda figured it'd be in Ponyville or at least relatively nearby.

edited 20th Mar '18 10:56:13 PM by TobiasDrake

Eh, nah.

I'm sure it'll get brough up ad goddamn nauseam and I'll catch it on my own.

The "big thing" of each season doesn't seem to cover more than about a half dozen episodes, whether it was key episodes or friendship missions or old Equestrian legends. The series has always mostly been episodic slice-of-life with an aesop, and I don't expect that to change with the introduction of a friendship academy.

Could be, but all the same, they sure are making a big deal out of it in their promos.

As they should be. It's a breath of fresh air. The cool thing about the Friendship School is that it's perfectly poised to introduce new angles to the slice of life episodes themselves, unlike most of the Big Plot Point developments that have come before.

The Cutie Map tried, but its episodes wound up feeling very strictly like Cutie Map episodes rather than Slice of Life episodes. It invented a new episode formula instead of sliding into the slice of life aspect.

The mystery chest had the opposite problem, where it slid into the slice of life episodes so smoothly that it wound up feeling like an unnecessary tacked-on fantasy element that had nothing to do with the actual plots of said episodes. Like they just took random episodes and added five seconds of shiny eyes to them. And then it resulted in a final payoff that felt poorly developed and completely unexplained, because no time had been spent on the actual plot of the thing.

But this actually creates a completely new dynamic for slice of life plots to even occur in. The Friendship School does for the show what status quo changes are supposed to: it opens up brand new storytelling possibilities that could not have existed before, and thus the universe of writing is expanded.

That said, I don't expect everyone on the writing team to drop what they're doing and just focus on writing Friendship School stories. If they were going to do that, it probably would have been a spinoff. I think we can expect at most half of the season to be spent on the School, two-parter premiere and possibly finale notwithstanding.

edited 21st Mar '18 7:51:38 PM by TobiasDrake

It's really a cool idea and I think being a teacher fits Twilight much more than being a politician. Also, I like the idea of non-ponies getting more involved.

The episode summary information has dropped for the finale.

TIREK'S BACK BRONIES!

EDIT: Fixed. MB.

edited 22nd Mar '18 1:31:35 PM by Rytex

Maybe don't call people "bitches" in a discussion thread surrounding a series focused on female empowerment.

thought it was about selling pony merchandise

Personally, I prefer asshole, as it is very gender neutral.

ALRIGHT, YE ASSHOLES!!!

thats offensive donkeys seriously I'm deeply hurt by your asinine comments

Don't you mean assinine?

Pun dude,shhh

Which of the new characters are you looking forward to? I want to see Yona the Yak, she looks cute. Also thanks to the preview animatics Chancellor Neighsay seems like a good antagonist/ obstacle for the episode.

Called it @Neighsay.

General thoughts on the Season Opener:

• It's interesting how the events of these episodes are directly following the events of the movie. Despite the fact that the school is obviously being introduced to sell a new playset, it's all very believable.

• That said, it does kind of annoy me that you have to have seen the movie to really understand the proper context for this.

• Maurice Lamarche's performance is just as great in this as I expected him to be.

• I'm a bit worried that they're introducing too many new characters at once, but thankfully they all seem to be written in a way that makes their dynamics and interactions feel natural. I just hope they don't take away too much of the spotlight from the established characters.

• I have a sneaking suspicion that someone on the writing staff is a fan of Magic: the Gathering because Neighsayer's motivations, abilities, and personality are almost exactly lifted from the Azorius Senate.

• It's interesting to see how racism is still very much a thing in Equestria, despite the ponies tending to brag about having overcome it in the past. It's almost a bit too close to real life there, I'll admit.

• I really, really like how Twilight finds a way of continuing to do things "by the book" in the most technical sense, but also finds a way of doing it that gives her the freedom to run the school on her own terms. It fits rather nicely into my long-running headcanon that Twilight is Jeskai-colored, but that's beside the point. :P

All in all, a pretty strong opening. I'm a bit nervous for where it's headed, but I'm remaining cautiously optimistic.

Faust has stated on Twitter she is not involved with Gen 5. Whether that means she was asked and declined, or hasn't been asked at all, is up for debate, but either way, it does appear Gen 5 is in development and on the way.

This is not really a spoiler, I think. Also, there is little use in posting this here if you're going to post it in the general thread anyway.

Spoilers!!!

Dr Wolf reveals some post-season 8 news.

First is a holiday special airing after season 8.

Also, there will be another Equestria Girls movie featuring a theme park.

Also, more confirmation that season 9 is the final season, and will have 26 episodes.

There will also be a new villain in season 9 based on the G1 villain Grogar.

And of course a 200th episode in season 9.

edited 30th May '18 4:17:43 PM by Redmess

This news was also reported on Equestria Daily last week.

An EQG movie involving a theme park. Wonder what wacky shenanigans one could get from there.

Maybe they somehow get ownership of a theme park and have to renovate it? Or they save a failing theme park from boring project developers?

Its going to be that, or just a villain who happens to operate from a theme park, I think.

I'd ask how they'd get ownership but then I remembered that in Equestria Girls, pretty much anything happens.

On the one hand, I'm sad the show's ending, but on the other hand, I'm glad it lasted for nine seasons, far outlasting the original predictions.