My Little Pony - Generation 5

That sounds like "death of the author" to me. Hasbro is effectively the artist who created the film. Why should we divorce them from analysis of their product?

Their film features a heroine whose room is full of MLP merch, who goes on and on about how great the G4 era is, and who is constantly shut down by her friend the sheriff (an ersatz ICE officer responsible for keeping foreigners out) for believing in "foal's bedtime stories". I have no specific emotional attachment to that subtext. When I first watched the film, I recognized it as metacommentary by Hasbro about a fan of their IP and its value system trying not to get jaded during the Trump era.

And if Sunny represents an MLP fan, then her father — who made the merch and told the stories about G4 — must represent Hasbro. Hasbro, like many corporations, are Clintonian neoliberals diametrically opposed to nationalism/protectionism since open borders help them do business in foreign markets.

This is what it says on their website:

Hasbro is a global play and entertainment company committed to making the world a better place for all children, fans, and families. We deliver immersive brand experiences for global audiences through consumer products, including toys and games, entertainment, and gaming.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

This is a very obvious reading of the film, using basic knowledge of how screenwriting works. Not some kind of psychological projection on my part.

If you're referring to my overall cynicism towards the American entertainment industry, I live in an era when Disney marketing smears one white guy as a racist for saying Turning Red felt like it was aimed at the director's friends, and then floods the internet with press releases about how anybody who doesn't watch their $200 million corporate product is a racist too.

My cynicism is completely justified.

Edited by WarriorsGate on May 8th 2022 at 11:48:48 AM

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/5uy5z2/yoh_yoshinari_on_the_inspiration_behind_little/

He's talking about the 2013 short, but it's also in the 2017 anime. Such as Croix's black cubes (called "pixels") and her computerization of Luna Nova representing the fear that digital technology will ruin the "magic" of traditional animation, even though traditional animation is wildly unprofitable.

So yes, the allegory was 100% intended.

Interesting. Of course the post you linked ends with this line

> We wanted to transpose that idea in a wizard story, but it doesn’t really appear in the final product.

I guess that explains why it didn't come across in the show and the idea seemed so outlandish to me.

It probably comes across better if you're Japanese, since Akko was named after the first ever magical girl and she has the same magical talent for transforming. Meanwhile she goes to a western-style academy founded by "Nine Olde Witches" — an obvious reference to Disney's Nine Old Men — and gets no respect whatsoever.

Not understanding the allegory is kind of a detriment, since it's necessary to understand what's actually going on in the ending.

Croix uses fearmongering (art) to amass power for herself and find the source of the ultimate magic, but when she gets her hands on it it just sprouts comically childish rainbows and hearts. Croix was so focused on being a technically perfect artist, she just doesn't understand the childlike joy of "lowbrow" animation that inspired Akko. Hence the series' arc words, "A believing heart is your magic!"

My recollection is that the backhalf involved a villian who used technology to enrage the population and then harvest their emotions for power. I could see that being an allegory for say, TV news, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the putative allegory of a young animator's journey.

Edited by storyyeller on May 6th 2022 at 1:23:09 PM

MLP: Tell Your Tale - Foal Me Once

To put it briefly — since this is kind of off-topic — Chariot represents the Performer, whose late-night lowbrow magical girl animation inspires passion in people. Croix represents the Technician, whose animation is technically flawless but has no heart. Out of jealousy the Shiny Rod chose Chariot, Croix connives a way to acquire its world altering magic — "world altering" being a metaphor for the power to inspire people. But when she gets her hands on it, it just shoots sparkles and rainbows, since the message she's been looking for is "put a little heart into your animation." I wrote more about the allegory in the show's Fridge Brilliance section.

On a more related note, the director Yoh Yoshinari drew FIM fan art, and I noticed a very familiar silver unicorn with a purple mane on Akko's CCG in episode two.

Here's the official trailer for Make Your Mark:

So it's an Equalist plot for season one?

Is that supposed to be a stained glass window on the lighthouse front door? Because it looks very painted-on.

Oh gee, one bad storm and the magic-powering crystal is already nearly destroyed? This is what you get for not building to code.

The earth ponies get stuck by... purple magic goo? What?

So the lighthouse is now powering all the magic in Equestria? Did I get that right? Yeah, that's not going to be trouble at all.

That egg hatching looks terrible. It just explodes with green smoke.

Wait, is that... a green dragon? Spike? Or maybe Spike's kid?

The trailer seems okay enough. Always hard to tell from these what the show will be like.

I noticed that Hitch is likely going to discover a talent for non-pony animal communication, given the part where he comments about being able to suddenly understand the animals. So maybe that means it's not just the unicorns and pegasi who are learning how to deal with newfound magic, but also at least some Earth ponies as well might have been given special powers too? We already knew that he already had a talent for animal friendship, but this reminded me when human Fluttershy got her geode, where before she had a talent for animal care and love but the geode gave her the ability to more directly understand their speech.

Edited by Rainbow on May 12th 2022 at 11:48:39 AM

x2

That's a trailer for this month's special. No clue what the actual show will be like and how many plot points will carry over from the movie and special.

That being said, it seems like Sunny apparently goes back and forth between being an Earth Pony and an Alicorn. Like her horn and wings seem to be coming and going. I wonder if that'll carry over to the show or if she'll become an Alicorn permanently by the end of the special.

Earth ponies have the magic to make food grow. I think that's why the trailer shows them literally getting rooted to the ground when the magic goes awry.

Seemed like a missed opportunity the film didn't show Maretime Bay suffering famine and crop failure, to signify their magic is also failing. It's like they just forgot about that.

According to the toyline, the dragon is named Sparky Sparkaroni. I suspect this is the first and last time they let Izzy be in charge of naming something.

Lol, really?

Yes, really.

Also Sunny's new home is called "the Brighthouse".

You may commence groaning now.

The lighthouse name is probably symbolic.

But yeah, Izzy, don't name anything else please XD Sparky's not a bad name in and of itself, but still.

I'm getting "trying too hard" vibes from those names, tbh. I hope that's not symptomatic of the show itself.

Edited by Redmess on May 12th 2022 at 8:17:23 PM

But "light" and "bright" mean the exact same thing, so it has the exact same symbolism as "lighthouse".

Oh, wait, I think I know what it symbolizes: Hasbro's ability to file a trademark on a made-up word.

It sounds in character for Sunny, anyway.

Considering that the earth ponies have been subsisting without magic for however long, I doubt that their food production system has already been radically altered to depend on it.

In the external logic of the screenplay, crop failures would've been effective symbolism on why they need to reunify. As it stands, the earth ponies don't really gain anything from reunification since they seem to be doing fine on their own.

Well, so did the pegasi, to be honest. They arguably did better than the earth ponies technologically. The only ones who seemed to be genuinely and objectively worse off without their magic were the unicorns.

It's true pegasus technology improved by leaps and bounds over earth pony technology, but that was never their magic.

Well, aside from Pipp's magical ability to get a cell signal in Maretime Bay.

Symbolically all three tribes should've explicitly lost their unique magic — the ability to fly, the ability to use their horns, the ability to (easily) grow crops. Only by coming together can they fix it.

Zephyr Heights isn't introduced until the second act, but ideally you should establish your stakes in the first. Failing crops, failing environment, symbolic of the fractured polity, providing a stronger psychological motivation for Sunny and/or the audience to see the problem fixed. It doesn't need to be explicit.

Farmer: "Oh, hiya, sheriff! Have an apple, on the house!"

Hitch: "Thanks. Pleugh! It's a little rotten."

Farmer: "Shucks, sorry 'bout that! Harvest hasn't been too good this year."

Hitch: "Hrm. Seems like that's been happening a lot lately."

Farmer: "Well, next year'll be better."

Hitch: "You sure about that?"

Farmer: (sigh, Beat) "It will, mark my words. Here, this one should be fresher."

One simple conversation like that, and the audience immediately understands the world is symbolically coming undone. Add a few more like that, maybe a scene of Sunny juxtaposed with ill-looking crop fields to show her environment is psychologically affecting her, even if she doesn't realize it. Then you bring the farmer pony and his bountiful harvest back at the very end, signifying the problem has been solved.

Edited by WarriorsGate on May 12th 2022 at 1:13:52 AM

Oh, I agree, that would be much better.

Sounds cool. Somehow I thought you were talking about the new special/trailer instead of the original movie.

Sunny being a partial alicorn, being able to generate a sort of temporary alicorn form while not having fully ascended is an interesting concept. If Hasbro creatives had come up with this idea sooner, it could have saved Friendship is Magic a lot of grief.

Yeah, something that's done when she wants but otherwise she's just a normal earth pony.

Equestria Daily posted a synopsis of the May special. Without spoiling anything, it's basically about keeping the foreigners out of "our" holidays, so the obvious allegory for current sociopolitical issues continues. If the pattern holds, I assume the winter special will be about how the three tribes' Hearth's Warming Eve traditions have drifted apart, and it'll basically be a redo of that one Applejack/Pinkie Pie episode where they need to learn to accept how other people celebrate.

Also, it looks like Zipp is our focus character this time. Which is good, because she was a giant nothing in the film, although that might've been due to her voice actress having no presence whatsoever.