My Little Pony - Generation 5

I don't really get why they had to have so many celebrity voices, anyway. Did people really go see the movie just because Emily Blunt or whomever else was in it? Not to mention Sia.

Eh, I think it's top brass/executive producer logic that states the more celebs an animated movie has, the better chance it has of being profitable.

Is it ridiculous? Of course it is! But I guess some executives like Sony's would much rather stick their fingers up their ears and go "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Considering that Hasbro will be going back to the drawing board for Generation Five, there's nothing to lose casting celebrities as the leads. Plus Paramount is backing the film this time instead of Lionsgate.

Hmm, I don't know, I'd rather they cast the regular voice actors in the movie from the start. Having celebrity voices in the movie will make for a major dissonance once the show starts, even when they are soundalikes (which seems like a terrible way to cast voice talent to start with - who cares whether or not a character sounds vaguely like a celebrity who was in the pilot movie?).

Hearing about this movie is giving mental images of horrifying CG ponies.

The CGI in the first movie was pretty decent, although the eyes always struck me as a little off, and the smooth animation on characters can be slightly uncanny at times.

Does this mean the end for characters like Discord (he was a fan favorite for me), Spike the dragon and the Flim Flam brothers?

I'm assuming this is a full Continuity Reboot, not a Soft Reboot in an Art Shift as a Jumping-On Point for people unfamiliar with My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Continuity Lockout.

I'm by no means a brony, but have seen a few episodes now and then.

If they're going to cast celebrities, how about Badass Baritone James Spader who'd be good on this? (it'd be Money, Dear Boy for him!)

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 18th 2019 at 11:01:50 AM

Well, Hasbro's other property, Transformers, runs on popularity power, with fanfavourites getting reimagined constantly.

So a new version of Discord is not an unreasonable thing to expect.

And Spike is actually the reimagining of a G1 character, so a new iteration of him is not out of the question either.

Not that big names should be necessary, but James Spader as nu!Discord or something along that line would be perfect.

It does seem to be more of a soft reboot, retaining a lot of characters, so it is entirely possible we will see a new version of Spike or Discord.

There could also be major changes, though. They could retool dragon culture yet again, or maybe we will finally see an actual Zebra kingdom.

Do we know who the creative team will be? Is it the same people working on FIM, or are they running with new writers, directors, producers, etc.?

The more I hear about this, the more it sounds like they're taking a mulligan on the series, basically. "What if we threw out all of the continuity and just started FIM over from scratch with all the things I, the decision-maker here, am interested in and none of the stuff I don't care about?"

Which could be a good thing. Could be a bad thing. Celestia knows there's a ton of stuff I'd change if I could. But I'd really appreciate if the person saying ^ is not current showrunner Josh Haber.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 19th 2019 at 8:17:33 AM

D On't worry, I am not Josh Haber.

Have they explicitly said it's a reboot? Because if it were me I'd just have it set in the same universe but decades later and far away. And it seems a little odd to do a reboot instead of a sequel when FIM is still fresh in everyone's minds. I mean, I understand going out on a reasonably high note, you don't want to run the brand into the ground and then just move on, but it seems like you'd want to wait more than a year after one generation ends to reboot it completely.

But I guess it does make more sense if it's a soft reboot. It would basically be FIM season 10, except (hopefully) without all the baggage of FIM.

I still haven't seen the She-Ra reboot (gonna watch it after I finish FIM), but what influences would it have on a new series? Because going by the internet, She-Ra is mostly about a lesbian catgirl, and there may or may not be other characters.

Hasbro never keeps gens going on indefinitely.

Transformers and MLP have shifted gears with every new series launched.

There's not much reason to expect any different now.

"Mostly about a lesbian catgirl?"

Perhaps in the same way that this show is mostly about neurotic horses.

Edited by Redmess on Feb 22nd 2019 at 11:19:16 AM

Yep. That was intentionally facetious, because looking at what the fandom is most passionate about is hardly the best way of understanding a show. Like, if you told the catgirl wasn't actually a lesbian, I wouldn't be particularly surprised. Pretty sure she is, though.

You can't really tell either way from the first season, really. There is a lot of teasing that she is a lesbian, but it is either really vague, or it is the sort of thing that could just as well be explained by her being a catgirl (like sleeping on the footend of Adora's bed, for example).

They are basically teasing the gay fanbase without actually admitting that these characters are lesbians IN THE SHOW. As far as what you can see in the show, it's just Heterosexual Life-Partners.

Which is typically as far as many cartoons are willing to take it. See also: Rarijack.

It's what made Legend of Korra so groundbreaking, even though they never went any further than gazing into one another's eyes and holding hands; that's still more than most cartoons are willing to do.

Which She-Ra might pull something similar. In the last episode, just like Korra did. The same way Gravity Falls confirmed that its two male sheriffs are totes gay for one another in their last episode.

You can get away with a lot of things in the last episode because what's the network going to f*cking do? Cancel you?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:09:36 AM

Yeah, but unlike with Rarijack, She-Ra is actively pandering to the LGBT community in their marketing. That's also not something the writers of Korra were doing (until after that last episode). Waiting until the last minute to go "Dumbledore's gay!" or "two girls are dating!" is not particularly brave or progressive. Establishing that from the start, in the work itself, without muffling it in ambiguity, now that would be brave and progressive.

And it's not just a problem of the network. Part of it is fans being way too easy to please, cheering about the merest representational scraps. It validates the writers and the networks in wanting to play it safe and keep it nice and vague, so they can score points with the LGBT crowd while also maintaining plausible deniability with the crowd who wants nothing to do with said representation.

Stop praising scraps. Raise the bar. Demand the full menu. Accept nothing less.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Due to the culture of today, the choice isn't "Incremental progress or full LGBT+ representation in media forever". The choice is "Scraps or no scraps". That's just how it is when you have a majority demographic in power that isn't overly concerned with your cause.

Better is Good. Representation like Korra's is better than what we were getting before. If we take that, normalize it, and make it the new standard, then we can build on it and do something better than that. Because Better is Good. That's how you get to progress: by changing the culture through a steady campaign that changes the definition of "normal".

She-Ra can exist because it's standing on the shoulders of what came before it. It can be daring and provocative in comparison to what was daring and provocative yesterday but has become mundane. And so long as that window keeps getting pushed, in a few years' time, people will look back and go "She-Ra was garbage representation compared to what we have now."

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:27:09 AM

IS it daring, though? I'm seeing a lot of the usual Les Jay, which seems hardly daring to me.

Well two of the characters, Spinerella and Netossa were heavily implied to be a couple in the first season and have already been confirmed to be canon, which is more than other shows have done. Plus given that Noelle Stevenson, the showrunner is a lesbian, and has said that the first season was the most censored, gives me confidence that there will be more explicit rep in the future. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if G5 were to do something similar.

Edited by cmarston1 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 1:59:29 PM

If possible, I'd like to get an M/M gay couple in G5. G4 has one in the background that comes up on occasion in the later seasons, but if we're going for an explicit LGBT relationship with, like, voiced lines and shit, I'd like an M/M couple.

It can be an M/M couple in addition to F/F or instead of, but I want an M/M couple. I feel like F/F couples have become a crutch for LGBT representation. A way for studios to have their cake and eat it. "They're gay, but they're also fanservice for straight dudes!"

This is especially noticeable in video games, where female protagonists like Lara Croft will either have no love interest or a female love interest, out of fear of alienating the sacred "Boys age 13-25" demographic by letting the player character hook up with a dude. F/F couples have become a way for content creators to hedge their bets, featuring character relationships that are gay while still dropping in a "No homo" about the work itself.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 22nd 2019 at 12:08:25 PM

Oh, definitely. Remember Me had problems with its straight female PC having a male love interest. Of course it also had problems because it just wasn't a good game, but still.

I also would be down for G5 containing an MLM couple, because there really haven't been a lot in animation. The only show that comes to mind would be Voltron Legendary Defender, but that was a gigantic mess, and I would like to see MLM rep that is actually good.

Edited by cmarston1 on Feb 22nd 2019 at 2:44:08 PM