My Little Pony - Generation 5

Misty's upcoming arc is when it gets at it's best, so hang in there.

Also, does talking about why you dislike them make hate them less/more inclined to solider through?

Well, the episodes before and after that one were notably better. Still a bit draggy on the Misty/Opaline story, but better. The quality is very bumpy at this point in the season.

It's more disappointment and frustration than hate, mind you. I expected more from this after G4, but clearly some of the writing magic has gone.

The trick I use to enjoy G5 is keeping in mind that G4's "magic" was the ability to get fans to project that level of quality onto it (its rise in popularity is when embraced/pandered to that starting S2, and decline is when that wore out), thus the actual difference in quality while there isn't as severe as we'd want to believe.

I don't think G4 was ever some kind of masterpiece like bronies think it was. I don't think G4 was ever anything other than above average. It's not the best show ever. It's not even the best cartoon ever. I wouldn't even call it the best cartoon of the 2010s.

I think I liked being part of the brony community more than the actual show.

I disagree, I rewatched season one of Fi M a while back, and it has a very notable energy and comedic sharpness that this show lacks (as far as I have seen it, at least). That first season was full of very memorable episodes. Hell, it was full of memorable songs, something I cannot say for this show.

Gen 4 was still super impactful for how much interest it brought to the MLP brand, showing it could be well written and more than just a glorified toy commercial like Gens 1-3 were.

And it, Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls did kickstart the new era of story driven 2010s shows so it is one of the most impactful 2010s cartoons for that too.

G4 also came out during a time when there weren't many other good cartoons. You had MLP: Fi M, Adventure Time, Gumball, and Regular Show, and that was about it.

The mid to late 2000s were...not a good time for animation.

You should really go and see My Little Pony (G3) for a comparison of what this franchise used to be like. Fi M was a massive improvement.

G3 is one of my favorites, but G1 will always have my heart. (And so will the G2 PC game where you can make your own pony.) I like all of them for different reasons, and remember being happy G4 and G5 had villains alongside fun slice-of-life.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 3rd 2024 at 3:29:38 PM

I thought G3 was the low quality one? I may be misremembering, though. Good to hear you enjoyed it.

G3 is slice-of-life adventures sorta like Tales that can often get pretty funny as well as heartwarming, and Princess Promenade had a pretty good deconstruction of Everythings Better With Princesses that was reconstructed in The Runaway Rainbow.

Wysteria learned about the stuffy, restricted lifestyle princesses had the hard way (to the point of having friends but no equals since they were now her subjects) and wasn't even allowed to sniff flowers. Also, Wysteria doesn't earn the title of princess; all she did was happen to touch the magic flower. Any one of her friends could've become princess, and it's implied that if she did something to properly earn the title things wouldn't have gone so sour. Contrast with G3 Rarity, who had actual responsibilities, power, and was selected from other young pink unicorns for the honor of making the first rainbow—but shirked her duties in favor of having fun and had to learn when to have fun and when to put in work.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 3rd 2024 at 3:35:28 PM

That does sound pretty good. Maybe we should do a run of the old show some day.

That's not the show with Tirek, is it?

Nah, that was G1's TV specials. G1 was initially a fantasy world with an Ensemble Cast that was usually under attack by villains, though not always. The later G1 series, My Little Pony Tales, was a slice-of-life series similar to G3 and had a core cast of characters, while G2 didn't get an animated adaptation but did get a PC video game where you raised your own pony. I still have that game!

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 3rd 2024 at 4:18:24 AM

Damn, now I have "Winter Wrap-Up" in my head.

I feel like Gen 5's adventure series and slice-of-life series division wasn't a bad idea but it seemed unevenly split in terms of cost, storytelling, and writing. Gen 4 at least had 1 show for both in the majority of its lifespan.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 3rd 2024 at 8:15:00 AM

Yeah, they should just have made one show and put all their energy and creativity into that. And not start the series out with a movie that basically went through a season's worth of material in 90 minutes. That movie was good, but it really hurt the show that came after it.

So would G5 be better if the movie didn't give a Tough Act to Follow but the other works quality was the same?

Is G5 the most divisive gen? You have people who like it, and people who think it's the worst thing ever.

Possibly.. although G3 also had a notable split. Can't speak for myself though because I'm just starting to finally watch the older generations.

Speaking of which, does G1-G3 My Little Pony have their own thread?

Edited by Shoobedobah on Mar 3rd 2024 at 4:53:02 AM

Personally I think G5 would've been better if it went all in on focusing on the plot. I don't think starting with a movie was the problem so much as that the slice of life stuff is phoned in and given too much focus to the detriment of the actual plot. Like the show has a plot that it's clearly interested in but by focusing on the slice of life stuff, which just isn't all that good, the show ended up suffering for it. The only reason the movie ended up as a tough act to follow is because the show didn't know what it wanted to do.

The movie is part of the problem because it basically solved the premise of the new show in one go, and robbed Sunny from any characterization by finishing any plot points her character was based on. It's a bit like trying to tell stories in a setting where the actual Big Epic Plot has already been completed, and all the characters feel a bit unmoored because most of what drove them during the Big Epic Plot has already been resolved.

@1669 It does!

So assuming the movie was replaced by season/story arc, likely meaning quality downgrades, how would that fix the problems with later installmemts (MYM and TYT)?

We could have had a single, strong season with lots of interesting story opportunities, which would have solidified the credentials of the show.

And "lower quality" isn't necessarily bad here. One problem with MYM is that the animation process is so involved and expensive that it is actually a limiting factor. You can't just go to a new location like in Fi M because everything needs to be created from scratch all the time. That's the big advantage of 2D animation, you can just draw what you want, you don't need to create models that then need to be properly lighted and textured.

How would those solidified credentials mitigate the problems with Season 2 (Opaline being underwhelming, lack of meaningful G4 continuity/explanation what happened)?

But agree the CG didn't do anything that couldn't have been done by regular animation. So that might have hurt it.