Mand'alor Dash

Gen 3 lasted 10 years with lukewarm sales. Why in blue blazes are we already talking about Gen 5 when Gen 4 is only 2.5 years old and selling like hotcakes? I reckon half the folks in this thread would have died of old age before we see a new gen. As for the dark thing, I like dark ponies as much as the next guy, but there's a time and a place for that. I'd much rather just keep reading Project Horizons to get my fix than see it bleed into the actual show. FiM is the single lightest, most innocent show I watch, and I'd like it to remain that way.

I would love it if Hasbro would put episodes up on Netflix as quickly as they do iTunes. Until then, I'm sadly restricted to YouTube and a bottle of rum.

Considering the lukewarm performance of previous gens, I would call it natural for Hasbro to re-invent MLP the way they did in G4. G4 was a complete restructuring of MLP's marketing strategy. As Fhaolan pointed out, they had decided to make the animated series the basis of the toy line, as opposed to the other way around. This is very similar to the way most licensed toys are marketed, and it was a very good strategy. For instance, Star Wars would always sell toys based on their movies, because kids wanted action figures of their favorite characters from their films. Kids couldn't care less about characters pulled out of a marketing executive's behind, which is why Han Solo always outsold Jar Jar Binks around the holiday season, and why there were a trillion and one different varients of the Luke Skywalker figure. Hasbro only needed to realize this. I would also like to credit the Michael Bay Transformers movies with the transition, as their success gave Hasbro the idea that they could turn their toy commercials into profitable ventures on their own. And in the case of the first film, the commercials could even be enjoyable. In that regard, we really do owe the success of G4 to Michael Bay's over-budgeted explosion porn. Now, Hasbro's using this market strategy on pretty much every franchise they own. Care Bears, GI Joe, Pound Puppies, Littlest Pet Shop, alot of them are getting modern animated treatments in much the same fashion that MLP did. G5 will probably continue with this trend, but I doubt it will be as good. I think I've rambled on enough. TL;DR, Hasbro needed to shake things up if they wanted to stay competitive, and the answer had been right in front of their faces the whole time.

I think it has to do with whatever they think little girls want at the time. In the 80s, they thought girls wanted something akin to the boys' transformers stuff. A typical 80s cartoon with typical 80s production values and typical 80s themes. In the 90s, they were still trying to appeal to the same girls that watched G1. As such, they made the characters grow up and deal with more teenage problems than they would before. Namely, boys, boys, prom, and more boys. In the 2000s, Hasbro decided that they would just stop trying altogether. If it has a pink pony on it, some little girl is going to buy it and love it. Kids have low standards. Then, in 2010, they had their big epiphany. Girls like good stuff, too. Boys aren't the only ones who can tell when something is shit, so why not treat the audience with a bit of respect?

You had my curiosity piqued, but after I found out it had humanized characters and adult stuff, I lost interest. The best of luck, though. Way too many FiM projects seem to be going belly-up these days.

Not joking. It probably won't be 26 episodes a year, but if Double Rainboom happened, then it's very likely that fans will continue the show in some form or another.

I try not to think about the show ending, though I have a wriggling feeling that bronies are going to found an animation company to continue the show after it does. Lord knows, we have more than enough animators, writers, and VAs to do so.

I'm going to go with the blue pill. If G4 is just a dream, I don't ever wanna wake up. And G5 will probably suck anyway, so there's that.

Well, she has a blue mane and plays electronic music. Therefore, it stands to reason that she must be the biggest junkie/whore in Equestria. It's only logical.

I think the only reason Spike couldn't talk was because he "grew up too fast", as it were. A baby one day, and an adult the next. That can't be good for a developing mind. Or, it was just a plothole that that the writers unfortunately overlooked. Headcanon to the rescue!

The problem with the episode was that it tried to squeeze two plotlines into one 20 minute timeslot. And that drops down to just 10 minutes when you factor in all the songs. IMO, the entire episode should have just been about the cutie mark mix-up. They can keep the songs, if they want, but give us one solid plotline instead of trying to squeeze in another one. That would definitely alleviate the atrocious pacing issues, and free up some more space for character development and storytelling.

It's a bit early to call it jumping the shark, or anything like that, but it's still a very strange move for them to make. Personally, I thought Twilight was dangerously close to Mary Sue territory before she grew wings. Now, it's just getting ridiculous.

Even if Twilight Sparkle stays in Ponyville, I'm still not comfortable with the idea of bringing in a new character at this point in the show.

The amulet isn't really something that would compliment Sombra. Think about it, the amulet's purpose is to make you evil and powerful. King Sombra is already both of those things. Though, it would probably go well with Twilight...

The problem with lesbian pairings is that all of these characters are either confirmed straight (Rarity, Spike, Big Mac, Cheerilee, the Cakes, etc), or their sexuality hasn't been explored yet, which leaves a huge possibility for the pairing to get Jossed. On top of that, homosexual characters are very rarely done well. When a writer is more concerned with making a gay character than they are with making a good character, then it just comes off as a forced attempt to be "edgy" or "relevant". Take, for instance, Cortez from Mass Effect 3. BioWare really only wrote him in with the intent to have him say the word "husband" as soon as possible. His personality was not well developed, and his backstory was highly unoriginal. And that's not even getting into how they took Kaiden (a previously straight character), and suddenly turned him bi for little to no reason. Obviously, there are exceptions (the sweet filly in my sig being a very notable one), but it's still far more common for a gay character to be written simply for the sake of having one, rather than out of actual artistic vision. If you're a shipping writer, and you feel you can avoid both of these taboos, then I say go for it. But please remember that you need to stay true to the characters you are portraying, and that you should always make character traits feel natural.

I'm not exactly sure what a procrastination cutie mark would look like. Barring that, it would probably be a keyboard, or something else that indicates a fascination with storytelling.

Magic Duel wasn't rushed. I personally thought it was paced almost perfectly for the story it wanted to tell. KCAFO may have been a bit rushed, though it probably wouldn't have helped to make it a two-parter. Magical Mystery Cure was most certainly rushed. It tried to tell two stories in only eleven minutes, and dedicated the rest of the runtime to having one musical number after another. They should have split that episode into two parts, and done away with a majority of the songs. If they were up against the wall with the 13 episode limit, then maybe they could have just cut out Games Ponies Play to make room. No one actually liked that episode anyway.

My friends are pretty much all over the place with their favorites, but I seem to be the only Dashite Rainbow Dash fan in my circle of friends. The plurality would probably to go to Rarity, though...

IMO, it isn't really much of a contest. Discord is a villain perfectly tailored for the show, loaded with originality, and given a legendary voice actor to boot. Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis are more typical and cliche'd, and Sombra was poor even by Meghan McCarthy's own admission. Discord pretty much wins hands down.

Rainbow Dash is best pony. And I mean that in the sense that her character is the most interesting. She's self-centered, lazy, and crude, but also loyal, courageous, and determined. She has the most realistic flaws of any character, and the most interesting strengths. I believe the episode that best exemplified her character is Wonderbolt Academy. In that episode, she pushed herself to her natural limits to become a wonderbolt, rolled with the punches when things weren't going her way, and tried to solve the situation with Lightning Dust amicably. Then, when her friends were put in danger, she dropped everything to help them, stood up to her superiors, and almost threw away her dream in a show of defiance. Oh, how I love that episode.