The MLP Discussion Thread

[Luna]

[Waxman]

Thanks man, I gave in and watched it in a less-than-desirable fashion, but I need to watch it again to get a better opinion of it.

Personally, I liked it overall. It was like watching the first episode over again, in a way. There were several parts that threw me off, but I give it a 7/10 (which, in a real scoring system, is pretty good, despite what most sites do nowadays). Now to rewatch it and see if it holds up.

Glad to hear it.  Yeah, 7/10 seems pretty appropriate.

If the format really does bother you, I believe that the Equestria Girls movie will play on The Hub, in full, pretty soon.


Honestly, while I certainly would have liked to see it in theaters, and believe me, me and my family almost did, I don't mind seeing it in this format, and here's why:

So, I somehow got both my mom and dad, brother in law, sister, and my 3 year old niece and 1 year old nephew into MLP FiM by explaining to them the show, the brony phenomenon [minus my niece and nephew of course] and all of the general popularity of the show.  I show my family the 1 episode I feel is the best episode to show newcomers, "The Last Roundup", which I believe was my first MLP FiM episode.  Well, that and like episodes 1 & 2, but I digress. 
So, my dad decides to take everyone to see the movie at a theater 30 minutes away at around 11:30 am.  We get there and after like $40 of tickets along with $20 of drinks and popcorn [it's my niece and nephews first movie] we are told by the theater staff that the DVD player is not working and they will refund our tickets. 

Fortunately my dad somehow convinced them to not only refund our tickets, but our refreshments as well, and give us free movie passes. 

So basically, while we were going to pay our money to the system, the system in the end did not work and we wasted a good chunk of time while trying to entertain infants.  With that said, the first thing my dad did when we got home was torrent like 3-4 different versions of the film which we watched at home instead of paying like $60 for tickets for a movie that would be released no more than a month later [this was in July].

Let me tell you, seeing this movie in theaters is a pain.  It plays in 1 theater in like a 50 mile radius, at 1 time of the day, and the tickets still cost like $14 for a movie played on DVD. 

Besides, Hasbro doesn't make their money off the show, they make it off the merchandise for the show.  Same with Star Wars for the most part.  It's a legitimate system.  Kids sell.

Anyway, so yeah, I got pretty much my entire family into MLP FiM, with the exception of my younger brother who says "it looks stupid" and my cousin who despite being a girl and enjoys all sorts of things such as singing, cute stuff, fantasy and sci-fi films such as LoTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Last Unicorn/Flight of Dragons, remarked that it "wasn't as good as she thought it would be" which is incredibly ironic as all of my guy friends seem to like it more than most all of my girl friends.  Weird. 

Funny thing is, my niece has her family categorized with the ponies.  My niece is Pinky Pie, my nephew is Spike, my sister [her mother] is Twilight Sparkle / Fluttershy[?] / Rarity[?], my brother in law [her dad] is Applejack, and apparently I'm Princess Celestia because I'm so tall. 

[Luna]

Glad to hear it.  Yeah, 7/10 seems pretty appropriate.

If the format really does bother you, I believe that the Equestria Girls movie will play on The Hub, in full, pretty soon.


Honestly, while I certainly would have liked to see it in theaters, and believe me, me and my family almost did, I don't mind seeing it in this format, and here's why:

So, I somehow got both my mom and dad, brother in law, sister, and my 3 year old niece and 1 year old nephew into MLP FiM by explaining to them the show, the brony phenomenon [minus my niece and nephew of course] and all of the general popularity of the show.  I show my family the 1 episode I feel is the best episode to show newcomers, "The Last Roundup", which I believe was my first MLP FiM episode.  Well, that and like episodes 1 & 2, but I digress. 
So, my dad decides to take everyone to see the movie at a theater 30 minutes away at around 11:30 am.  We get there and after like $40 of tickets along with $20 of drinks and popcorn [it's my niece and nephews first movie] we are told by the theater staff that the DVD player is not working and they will refund our tickets. 

Fortunately my dad somehow convinced them to not only refund our tickets, but our refreshments as well, and give us free movie passes. 

So basically, while we were going to pay our money to the system, the system in the end did not work and we wasted a good chunk of time while trying to entertain infants.  With that said, the first thing my dad did when we got home was torrent like 3-4 different versions of the film which we watched at home instead of paying like $60 for tickets for a movie that would be released no more than a month later [this was in July].

Let me tell you, seeing this movie in theaters is a pain.  It plays in 1 theater in like a 50 mile radius, at 1 time of the day, and the tickets still cost like $14 for a movie played on DVD. 

Besides, Hasbro doesn't make their money off the show, they make it off the merchandise for the show.  Same with Star Wars for the most part.  It's a legitimate system.  Kids sell.

Anyway, so yeah, I got pretty much my entire family into MLP FiM, with the exception of my younger brother who says "it looks stupid" and my cousin who despite being a girl and enjoys all sorts of things such as singing, cute stuff, fantasy and sci-fi films such as LoTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, and The Last Unicorn/Flight of Dragons, remarked that it "wasn't as good as she thought it would be" which is incredibly ironic as all of my guy friends seem to like it more than most all of my girl friends.  Weird. 

Funny thing is, my niece has her family categorized with the ponies.  My niece is Pinky Pie, my nephew is Spike, my sister [her mother] is Twilight Sparkle / Fluttershy[?] / Rarity[?], my brother in law [her dad] is Applejack, and apparently I'm Princess Celestia because I'm so tall. 

When I said "less-than-desirable", I wasn't referring to the format but rather the legality.

I would've loved to have seen it in the theater (I live within walking distance of one), but none of the theaters nearby were showing it.

Also, your family sounds awesome.

[RogueLeader]

Since we're all talking about Equestria Girls, have a PMV:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k703cvYkbvc" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k703cvYkbvc</a>

Comments and constructive criticism appreciated!

[Waxman]

It's kind of weird having Twilight talking about Shining Armor in that way when it's like her brother.

It kind of reminds me of the plotline in one of the episodes of the Friendship is Witchcraft series.

But it's alright.  I imagine it's difficult to synch up the lines to the mouth but especially since Sunset Shimmer really doesn't get that much screen-time.

[Luna]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApDAJJONn9I" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApDAJJONn9I</a>

I can't remember if I posted this before and I don't particularly care. It's worth posting twice.

[rezeb360]

Hello hello hello hello hello hello hello
Any one here here here here here

M.L.P DUNGEON! DUNGEON! DUNGEON! DUNGEON! DUNGEON!

 

[Luna]

I hate to say it, but I'm fed up with the MLP fandom. Not you guys, you're chill - but the boards, Facebook pages, and other MLP-specific groups.

The downfall of the fandom has progressed to the point where people who would have proudly called themselves bronies a year or so ago are now perfectly justified in using the term as an insult.

I'm can't tell when it started. I'm perfectly aware that the weirdies were there all along, but I'm not sure when they became the standard. Sometime around when Nicole Oliver went from being widely praised to being ridiculed, most likely, but that would obviously have been caused by the shift rather than vice versa.

Maybe it is just an issue of the weirdies becoming much more vocal, but I don't think so. Many of my brony friends have gone over the deep end (viewing edgy fanfic as great or even canon, promoting r34, etcetera), and just about every new one I come across is a clopper.

Fanart used to be cool for the most part, but now it's almost all r34, Sanic-tier, kawaii crap, or Mary Sue fan characters... or all of the above.

Maybe it's because the normal fans jumped ship over Twilicorn and the cloppers rose to fill the gaps.

Maybe some other fandom became interested in - and, as a result, infected - the MLP fandom. I don't want to play the blame game, but I would still like to know what fandom it was, if this is the case.

Maybe it's just me being more cynical, which I already know to be the case to some extent, but does not seem all that likely as the sole cause. I would have at least noticed the widespread weirdness before.

On a paranoid note, maybe it's an elaborate scheme a group out to undermine the fandom. If so, they've succeeded. Congratulations. I know of many pages and boards with a vendetta against MLP, but none stand out as being organized enough to do anything on this scale.

Maybe the rage at guy who married Twilight and the other guy with Vinyl put me into a coma and this is all a dream. I hope so.

Opinions are more than welcome. I'd like to know if anyone but me has noticed the change, or if I'm just being NMM.

[Waxman]

I personally don't pay attention to the fandom as much as I'd imagine I would/should.

Honestly, my extent to the fandom is reading/listenting to some "dark and edgy" stories on youtube like about Applejack's parents or Pinkie Pie's apparent death, or Queen of the Night [?], Friendship was Magic; or something along those lines.  Oh yes, and also let's not forget tons and tons of MLP YTP's which I think are hilarious, possibly the funniest of the YTP's, and have almost tempted me to construct my own, but really I take it all with a grain of salt.

I didn't really notice too much of the fandom but I do know that I tend to not like to share space with other brony's, physically that is, you guys are okay.
It's just that, while I like the show and adamantly support and vocalize my admiration of the show, regardless of what people think, I really can't stand other brony's because 1. I think they steal my spotlight [?] and 2. they're just dang weird, but especially the cloppers.  Like really, some people take the show a little too seriously. I don't mind discussing MLP with female brony's but I cannot stand, for the life of me, discussing the show with other male brony's it just goes in the "dark territory" way too quickly.
Clopper's aside, a lot of my guy-friends that I have introduced the show to have said [within the 2nd episode they have watched] that they found many of the ponies rather cute/hot, even going as far as to look up stuff on r34.  Now, don't get me wrong, they have their appeal to me as well in terms of cuteness, but the "hot" factor is interesting, but especially in how quickly some people go in that particular direction.
It's basically like the furry fandom... only with ponies, and I think that's really where the direction is going.  It's almost inevitable in some way, but really, I think it has something to do with how the show is made.  I mean, there's all of these jokes that adults understand like how Applejack and Apple-Teeny [Appletini] [in Bridle Gossip] are both names for an alcoholic drink or how when Rarity goes to Canterlot to make dresses she meets that elite pony with his "super-model" girl-friend...  The point is, it's made with an anime-influence and anime has an almost natural annotation with adult-stuff.

I am unaware of the Nicole Oliver thing, care to elaborate?  Does it have something to do with how Princess Celestia is their apparent demi-god/ruler or the whole molestia thing?  I'm not really sure.  All I know is that her voice as Cheerliee makes me smile.

[Luna]

I am unaware of the Nicole Oliver thing, care to elaborate?  Does it have something to do with how Princess Celestia is their apparent demi-god/ruler or the whole molestia thing?  I'm not really sure.  All I know is that her voice as Cheerliee makes me smile.

She was in a Q&A panel at a con, this guy came up and asked about her opinion on Molestia and the "darker" side of the fandom, and she completely shut him down. Most bronies used to think it was awesome, now they consider her intolerant (completely ignoring the fact that there were children in the room...).

[Waxman]

She was in a Q&A panel at a con, this guy came up and asked about her opinion on Molestia and the "darker" side of the fandom, and she completely shut him down. Most bronies used to think it was awesome, now they consider her intolerant (completely ignoring the fact that there were children in the room...).

That doesn't make any sense.  Did she call him names or something?  Because the guy asked, probably in a microphone, what she thought of Molestia, which means that kids probably heard it as well?  Or are fans oblivious to the fact that little girls watch the show as well?
I mean seriously, I was at shabbat dinner at the Rabbi's house last night and I was helping like his 3 year old daughter putting MLP stickers in her MLP coloring book.  Does she know who the ponies are?  With the exception of Pinkie Pie, heck no, but she knows who Spike is apparently.

I don't know.  The problem with the fandom is they constantly want the show to take some "dark turn" because we all know that "dark, edgy, and gritty" is mature and cool.  So the fandom constantly comes up with these dark themes to explain things like Pinkamena, Applejack's parents, Luna in her Children of the Night stuff, even Friendship was Magic.  It's really weird but I think it says something about how things like shows and games are produced.
Fans seem to constantly want dark things to come out.  I'm fine with it but the main problem I have is having something dark for the sake of being dark.
The best example I can think of where it was very balanced was Mainframe Entertainment [Now Rainmaker] the people who produced Beast Wars and Reboot.
From first glance it seems like a pretty honest kid's show with funny characters, and it is, but there are some dark themes explained/shown like the nullification of sprites or freakin' Hexidecimal or Megatron literally beheading Optimus Prime or the sacrifice of Dinobot only to come back as a zombie.  Really interesting stuff, but then like the next episode will have some weird humor involving some crazy game or Rattrap being incompetent... again.

I guess dark stuff like anger and sadness is just so much more interesting then happy stuff.  Even I admit, the stories with sad endings are that much more gripping then stories where absolutely everything works out.  But then I also think it's a problem because it's the light-sided stuff that makes the darker stuff interesting.
Like the Legend of Zelda series.  It kind of had to have a "lighthearted" tone in the beginning for Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask to really... "shine".  But of course everyone hates Wind Waker because it's too cartoony but Twilight Princess is cool because there's a lot of bloom, brown, and monochrome.  And people are kind of divided on Skyward Sword, so no help there.

I don't really know where I'm going with this at this point.  I guess that there will always be fans that suck?
All I know is that MLP FiM probably won't be ending anytime soon as the Hasbro mentioned that it is a "top-priority" brand.
So that's at least some good news.

[Luna]

That doesn't make any sense.  Did she call him names or something?  Because the guy asked, probably in a microphone, what she thought of Molestia, which means that kids probably heard it as well?  Or are fans oblivious to the fact that little girls watch the show as well?
I mean seriously, I was at shabbat dinner at the Rabbi's house last night and I was helping like his 3 year old daughter putting MLP stickers in her MLP coloring book.  Does she know who the ponies are?  With the exception of Pinkie Pie, heck no, but she knows who Spike is apparently.

I don't know.  The problem with the fandom is they constantly want the show to take some "dark turn" because we all know that "dark, edgy, and gritty" is mature and cool.  So the fandom constantly comes up with these dark themes to explain things like Pinkamena, Applejack's parents, Luna in her Children of the Night stuff, even Friendship was Magic.  It's really weird but I think it says something about how things like shows and games are produced.
Fans seem to constantly want dark things to come out.  I'm fine with it but the main problem I have is having something dark for the sake of being dark.
The best example I can think of where it was very balanced was Mainframe Entertainment [Now Rainmaker] the people who produced Beast Wars and Reboot.
From first glance it seems like a pretty honest kid's show with funny characters, and it is, but there are some dark themes explained/shown like the nullification of sprites or freakin' Hexidecimal or Megatron literally beheading Optimus Prime or the sacrifice of Dinobot only to come back as a zombie.  Really interesting stuff, but then like the next episode will have some weird humor involving some crazy game or Rattrap being incompetent... again.

I guess dark stuff like anger and sadness is just so much more interesting then happy stuff.  Even I admit, the stories with sad endings are that much more gripping then stories where absolutely everything works out.  But then I also think it's a problem because it's the light-sided stuff that makes the darker stuff interesting.
Like the Legend of Zelda series.  It kind of had to have a "lighthearted" tone in the beginning for Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask to really... "shine".  But of course everyone hates Wind Waker because it's too cartoony but Twilight Princess is cool because there's a lot of bloom, brown, and monochrome.  And people are kind of divided on Skyward Sword, so no help there.

I don't really know where I'm going with this at this point.  I guess that there will always be fans that suck?
All I know is that MLP FiM probably won't be ending anytime soon as the Hasbro mentioned that it is a "top-priority" brand.
So that's at least some good news.

Fortunately, the more rabid grimdark supporters were sated by the (dreadful) comics. The Changelings and Sombra are about as dark as I want the show to get, otherwise it would ruin the concept and alienate the intended audience. By "going dark" they would please about 10%-15% (likely inaccurate guess based solely on Internet encounters) of the audience, most of which does not actually provide any money (I've noticed that dark-'n-edgy fans seem to have dark-'n-edgy tendencies themselves, pirating the show and fearing the MLP-related aisles at stores).

[Tasardur]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApDAJJONn9I#ws

I can't remember if I posted this before and I don't particularly care. It's worth posting twice.

MLP meets Cowboy Bebop. Okay then.

[Luna]

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/10/season-4-opening-synopsis-revealed.html

Might be good, as long as they don't pander by making it overly edgy (which I can easily imagine them doing with this sort of plot).

[Waxman]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z7UnO66q9w" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z7UnO66q9w</a>