SeaSpray

Comparing it to previous seasons (particularly the high-quality episodes in the Season 2 premiere), it seems like the Season 9 premiere's script writers Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco treated episodes 1 and 2 like some random kids Saturday cartoon fling. I thought the script didn't show what makes MLP G4 stand out - it seemed like now it's become another forgettable show. Were there really any new emotive insights, did the characters develop or were they stuck in a one-dimension? There were a few very small funny moments, but after watching and re-watching the episodes there was nothing really there. When the antagonists do their manic laughter routine and the story plods along in a seemingly random direction - I was asking myself whether the show really should be ending in Season 9 because the show creators are REALLY struggling to form new ideas. In the music department, it feels like Daniel Ingram has gone Absent Without Leave (AWOL) for a while, certainly there was no song production in the premier.

I really dig the 2017 movie. It's something that my friends and I waited for 3 long years, and it turned out to be a great film. Due to moving for my job to France, I never expected to see the film in French (while in Paris)! The voice acting work was pretty good and for the French release they put " Les liens de l’amitié " (The Bonds of Friendship) in the end credits. This was not in the original English version. Went to the UK to see it in English.

Finally went back to BaBW to dress Pinkie Pie (found a discount coupon to make the cost more sane). Pinkie Pie nice and warm for the Australian Winter in her robe and bunny slippers :

Last Sunday a bunch of us arranged a double birthday party at Build-a-Bear Workshop. Our local shop (Westfield Marion in Adelaide, South Australia) just opened about five weeks ago and I immediately booked our party days after they opened. I told the staff the ages to expect and they were pretty accomodating towards us as adult guests. Our party was only an hour long (usually a party of our size would be 1.5-2 hours). I've witnessed a kids party before at BaBw, and ours was definitely a little different. The staff didn't treat us like kids and a lot of the really cheesy things and games were cut out. All of us were asked to do the Heart ritual though which I thought was pretty cute. There wasn't any time to really dress and parade our ponies around as we had to finish at the one hour mark. Immediately after us was another party. A lot of the kids and parents looked bewildered but didn't really say anything. I did hear that one mother did make some ghastly looks at a couple of us - but I only heard that from a couple of friends after the party. Overall everypony had a good time. Now I'm going back after work to get a dress outfit for Pinkie Pie! Here is a video that I put together for the occasion:

I helped organise the Season 3 finale as a episode screening meetup for about 20 of my friends. We hried a venue, ordered several hundred dollars of food and it was a significant day out for most people. As one of the host for the event I have to make sure that everypony there could chill out, even if this means putting on a stoic face and hiding my true feelings. What went through my head: WTF! Were the writers on drugs writing this episode? I'm actually embarrassed that I put my friends through this. Afterwards, I didn't say anything and nodded when people said it was a great episode. It's been more than a month since that event and my opinions have not changed.

The Brony Documentary extended interviews is a BluRay/DVD set and can be found here: http://bronydoc.com/ From the piracy of the core documentary release, this may be a reason why they haven't offered the interviews as a digital download. Congrats everypony on this thread reaching over 1000 posts - it's obviously struck a lot of interest (and for good reasons).

I see your point, but I want to make sure we're on the same page here. The context of Lauren's Tweet that I linked to is regarding the show after she ceased being a staff member. She wasn't specifically talking about S3E13. Likewise if you saw the 2 hour interview on the Extended Interview DVD/BluRay disc, she talks about her reasons why she left the show (in terms that won't burn bridges). It's a very good interview BTW, the questions that got answered were well crafted.

Well we know one outcome where the girls are heading: An American high school for Equestria Girls! Cheerilee better come for the ride as I'm sure they'll be plenty of teaching opportunities there.

My honest feeling about this show is summed up as: Disappointed. While many in this fandom (likely the younger ones) will continue to watch the show. For us who have seen other shows betray logic and artistic integrity, I know what is likely to come and I'm lowering my expectations. I'm careful to not put words in other people's mouths, but here is a Twitter feed from December 2012 (back when Season 3 was in full swing): @BrowncoatPony @M_A_Larson @Damnation72 I just can't do it. It's too sad for me. And I want to remember it the way I had it in my head. Lauren Faust (@Fyre_flye) https://twitter.com/Fyre_flye/status/280490115279761409 As an actual staff member, she would have a different perspective, but even Lauren doesn't even watch the show now. The Brony Documentary Extended Interviews that got released showed that Hasbro has quite different goals for the show. Lauren left because of several reasons, but it's clear that the direction for the show wasn't in her best interest.

I'm not going to sugar coat this... Removing wings from Twilight (or not) isn't going to convince me that the show is little more than a toy ad that frankly I expect in Season 4 to enjoy viewing less and less. It is not that we don't like change, it is that I believe there was no good reason for it (other than selling merch). Season 1 and the first half of Season 2 had a lot of merit, and it is in fact why I love the show. However, due to the historical events that I've witnessed (particularly the tasteless shoehorning of toy set pieces in the Season 2 and 3 finale); the realisation of this has severely dented the show for me. I cannot forget what I've seen. I suspect the future will be more of the same as the show's past 1 and a half seasons. Sorry if that is my unvarnished opinion, but that's how I honestly feel about the whole thing. It is not simply that "we don't like change".

A Chinese British-born brony living in Australia here! In my city of Adelaide there aren't too many Asian bronies, but I'm practically skin colour blind anyway, so I don't really care if you're white, black, yellow, red or some mixture - if your a brony then that's awesome! Have a nice day.

The RoundStable forum thread has a lot of stuff running on this incident: http://www.roundstable.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2305&start=440 There is a document posted on EqD today with more info (I can't vouch for it's accuracy, it needs to be verfied). https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-G4JfFM-P8UUPj5CgfegwlIwlTIcAzOC-msrcbhHj7o/edit?pli=1 I just hope what happenned wasn't fraud of a big scale. Apparantly more than $100,000 went missing.

This is probably going against the grain of the discussion, but here it is. In terms of story, I don't think there are any good reason for Twilicorn. We're talking about a completely fictional universe that has shown difficulty consistently following its own story logic and canon. I'm not surprised, all of the shows I love over the past 30 years (and particularly kids shows) suffer from this. What did we expect? The only thing that I do know is what's happenning in the real world, I have figures from the company's own report that describes the motivation and business hurdles Hasbro needs to meet to satisfy their shareholders. That's reality - even if we we don't understand or like it. Perhaps more Bronies should buy shares in the company and ask their executives questions at the Annual General Meeting (AGM)? I've been to lots of those meetings and it's quite common for special interest groups to propose things as long as it is done respectfully,

Of course Hasbro is a toy company and they have invested millions of dollars funding this great show and earns millions of dollars profit back (referring to the HAS annual report). I have no problem with this. What I have a problem with are decisions made for short-term gain that possibly damages the brand in the medium/long-term (this is subjective). Artistic integrity and merch sale are intertwined. For example, if I think the show doesn't have redeeming qualities I will go elsewhere and my own personal merch sales with it. I don't wish to be overly cynical about this. Yes it is an animated children's show about princesses and ponies. However a lot of Bronies have taken away a lot of good things from the show. I want to make the point that we ought to avoid belittling other people who honestly care about the show and it's important messages.

I'll take a shot at answering this, which won't be new to anyone who thought through this logically. Based on what is in Hasbro's Annual Report and the sudden rush of Twilight Alicorn toys from Hasbro coinciding with the finale, the reason why Twilight was made into a Princess Alicorn is to sell more colourful plastic. It is as simple as that. http://www.derpyhoovesnews.com/alicorn-twilight-toys-officially-announced/ http://investorrelations.dhxmedia.com/financials-and-mdaa.html http://investor.hasbro.com/annuals.cfm This is not news, but it is a crucial realisation. Ultimately what is the purpose of the show? Does merchanise sales trump artistic integrity? Being intellectually honest after seeing what has happened over the previous season finale brings some insight.

I understand your position. Optimism and being open-minded is a good thing. But never blindly. I think optimism is best preserved with a healthy dose of reality to allow accurate predictions of the future. It is this power of foresight that gives us the enormous power to influence things in our lives and be much happier in the long run. Don't let this all drag you down, all fandoms have their own internal contentious issues. Stay optimistic and if other posters bother you, just respectfully ignore them. Your wellbeing is much more important.

Commander_PonyShep, From my observation over the past few days you're definitely in good company with how the whole Twicorn thing is settling out. Regardless of how the Season 4 premier two-parter will turn out, the horse has already bolted (pun intended). Once the disbelief is broken for me, I don't forget it along with these points: - Throughout Season 3 the writers, Daniel Ingram and show staff have made upbeat comments on the show on Twitter. Based on how things actually turned out, I'm much less willing to trust them in the future. Understanably, they are like anyone else, trying to protect their jobs. - Hasbro's interference with the show has brought up the possibility that equally stupid decisions will be made in Season 4. The "Equestria Girls" IP is one example. - I put my own time and energy into my local brony community. It would be wise of me to re-evaluate things, it's a big world out there. Was ponies good? Yes absolutely, but so are other things. The reality is that the show wasn't really made for us, it is to sell plastic to kids. That's OK the show doesn't owe anything to me. I'm not entiled to anything, if I don't like it time to move on. The fan base from my observation has been fairly polite throughout the whole affair. The show is about positive feelings and get along together, so most of us don't want to spoil that for everyone else. For the sake of continuity, I will probably stick around and watch Season 4. But it will be out of irony rather than sincerity. Personally, I'm playing the game of "guess the playset for the Season 4 finale". I bet it'll be another shoe-horned in character.

The above posters have covered it. A brony is anyone who is a fan of MLP:FIM who isn't the show's original demograhic. I find this interesting because in society a good show is universally appreciated despite the baggage that a show's predecessor brought. Not many shows would inspire the creative output that this fandom has produced. Now I've done some recent travels around the world and this fandom appears to be found in more affluent, modern societies, so I'm not sure how universal the show's appeal is. Not sure how long it'll last, but its here now and I'm enjoying it while its still a friendly and interesting community. Do I keep it a secret? If I truely like something I don't hide it from other people (I don't shove it down their throats either). While my friends might think it's a bit weird, I think they understand it's the genuine me.

"Everything is going to be fine..." means to me as "Yea we know we barfed up some crap. Corporate needed to sell more toys! But please please go easy on us and give us another chance in Season 4."

I watched the S3 finale with a bunch of friends yesterday and frankly noticed a lot of issues. The S3 finale simply is not believeable and has difficulty following it's own internal logic and canon. It is written in a fashion that simply doesn't respect the audience's intelligence. I rewatched the episode and here are a few glaring problems: Pony naming - Twilight at 00:56 says and refers to Rainbow Dash. We then see Rarity acknowledge that. Even if their cutie marks got swapped why did Rarity recognise her name as Rainbow Dash? OK so now their names got switched? - At 02:29 and 08:40 as Twilight walks to Fluttershy's house, she refers to Rainbow Dash as 'Rainbow Dash'. Now if their names got swapped, how come the Dashie recognised her name? - At 08:25 when Twilight talks to Fluttershy about Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy understood which 'Rainbow Dash' was referred to. Now if their names got swapped around, how is this possible? Canon and logical continuity - I thought only Pegasus/Pegasi could control the weather? Rarity is a unicorn! - By the way the Apple family don't seem to care or mind that Pinkie got switched by AJ (you'd think that would raise an eyebrow). The same thing happens at 13:17 with Pinkie with the town people. Oh well.. - At 13:45, Twilight says that she knows how to fix the spell. This is after all her affected friends already go back to normal? Twilight has fixed the spell on her friends already. What do you fix now? Yeah we know, go to pony heaven and become an alicorn - jeezus that doesn't make any sense. Artistic integrity According to an interview with Tara Strong, in Season 4 nothing will really change with Twilight. If that's the case what the point in changing her (other than the merch sales that we all know about)? Obviously corporate mandate just crapped on the show's integrity. http://www.themarysue.com/tara-strong-interview/ In summary the episode was horribly rushed, and simply couldn't suspend my disbelief. The only saving grace was Daniel Ingram's songs which tried to carry us through on sheer emotion. However I know the difference between being emotionally inspired and being emotionally manipulated (which was the case in the episode). Quite frankly, realising that makes it suck even more. I'll leave it here, if you've read this far thanks.