PacificGreen

Yay, more Startrix bonding time! They're not my favorite ponies, but they go pretty well together.

Unpopular opinion here, but I would actually kinda like this. Thing is, by the end of Season 9, we'll have spent WAY too little time with the Student 6. I think they at least deserve more fleshing out and more of their own adventures. The only problem is that it wouldn't really be "My Little Pony" anymore if five of the six students are not even ponies.

Eight words: FANART, FANART, AND MORE FANART. AND MAYBE CROSSOVERS. In all seriousness, aside from art, I'll honestly probably look for a new show to watch. I've already gotten into Stranger Things, and who knows how much longer that show will go on. But hey, if conventions still go on, maybe I'll attend more of those.

I'd think that would work, but there's just one problem: Twilight comes up with the idea of the friendship school right at the beginning moments of season 8, which we know takes place after the movie. While I don't know if it's absolutely canonically true, I've heard that the movie takes place between seasons 7 and 8. I don't know, maybe it's wrong (considering we don't see any of the pillars or other important characters from Season 7 like the changelings) and the movie actually takes place slightly before the season 7 finale. My best theory is that there really was a time skip between Twilight approaching the EEA and the school officially opening, but it wasn't very clearly marked as such in the show.

Kinda a minor thing that bugged me, but was anyone else wondering how the heck the school got built so fast? I mean I would have preferred to see maybe a small construction montage but we didn't even get a time skip. Kinda makes me think Twilight just magically poofed it into existence.

I thought the movie was decent, but it basically felt like an extended episode. Honestly it didn't really do anything the show hasn't done before - exploring new lands, a main character gets betrayed, antagonist is reformed.

Not really the show itself, but the fanworks.

Just took a listen. Loving the song and looking forward to the ep already!

True. This actually makes me think of the EEA less of a bunch of evil racists, and more as an institution that actually does have the best interests of Equestrian students at heart, but has some trouble acknowledging the idea that their rules may not always work well in all instances (like the friendship school). Still I think they could have placed more emphasis on the "why" of why they should be allowed to teach differently (namely because it just works better that way for something that's not a formal field of study like magic or flight). I think Twilight touched on it briefly in the final confrontation with Neighsay, but it just felt like it paled in comparison to "defying the EEA because they're wrong".

I read on an insightful (read: agrees with me :P) thread on Reddit that, although racism is nothing new in the pony world, one major criticism about Neighsay was that he lacked a believable motive for his ideology. Contrast that to Starlight in Season 5, who had a well-meaning but ultimately misguided view of friendship that still provided some visible "good" (note the quote marks) in the form of a "happy" village where no one worried about the cons of having a special talent. On the other hand, we don't really know why Neighsay is a racist, so at the moment he just kinda feels like a villain for the sake of being a villain/obstacle to the main characters. Who knows, maybe we'll learn his reasons soon enough, but I think I'd like it if he actually was some super powerful entity on par with Tirek or Sombra, which it actually kinda seems it could be based on what we see in the trailer. It might give some twist in the form of "he's not just a racist, he also doesn't want the friendship school to open because something something evil power harmony something magic something something" (yeah, i know I'm rambling here). It may make him a cheesy stereotypical cartoon villain, but at least he'd be a more believable threat.

This I will agree with, but I think the episode should have placed more emphasis on the idea that "what works for a traditional school may not work for this idea" (which would honestly be accurate, considering EEA is likely actually a legit institution if even Celestia allows her schools to be held under their standards). Unfortunately I think the episode felt more like "screw the rules, I'm doing what I think is right". Additionally I think he had valid concerns about Twilight and Co. going off on adventures and having to miss school (which she didn't even try to answer), about them being unqualified teachers, about the safety of the students and so on. Yet the episode steamrolled past these in favor of just making him a one-dimensional racist.

I think the official synopsis says that he's just a dragon claiming to be Spike's father, so he may very well be a fake.

I know Neighsay is that guy everyone loves to hate, but I'm gonna play devil's advocate and say that, all his racism notwithstanding, he actually has some valid points about Twilight's school, even if he is an overbearing bureaucrat. I wish the premiere acknowledged that there was at least some truth to what he said and had Twilight and him respectfully debate it out, rather than painting him as a strawman completely in the wrong who needed to be called out. That said, he is kinda a moron for not catching on to what Twilight was proposing. I mean, she is the Princess of Friendship, what business would she have building up a self-defense (read: practically military) school? I feel like making him an outright evil (cheesy cartoon?) villain may be kinda the best path for his character arc at the moment, rather than have him be the strawman proven wrong again. At least that would make for an exciting season finale. Ideally I'd like the show to address his valid points (as I mention above), but realistically I don't see it happening. In any case, if he is a Tirek-level villain, then yeah, maybe he should get sent to the moon.

Dunno if this has been posted yet, but apparently a trailer was released at San Diego Comic Con for the second half of the current season (videotaped quality, but it's the best so far I can find) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-tYqzS-m4w Looks pretty exciting with the return of the villains (including Storm King, my favorite Rafiki-Yeti dude XD) The Mane Cast also seems to be headed to Tartarus to check on Tirek, and we even get to say Chancellor Neighsay return. And it looks like he's an outright villain at this point, locking up the students (and declaring "The Reign of Twilight Sparkle is Over")? My thoughts? To be honest, I feel like the season premiere wasn't too well done and Neighsay's motivations and actions were simultaneously kinda understandable and confusing. So I don't know, I think it'd be better to make him an outright villain, since it may actually provide a decent ulterior motive to not wanting to open the friendship school. My guess is he's actually a disguise for some long-time villain of the Princesses and/or ponies? In a hurry now so sorry if I sound a little incoherent with that last paragraph; I may update when I have time. Thoughts?

This. My biggest beef with the season premiere was that, despite Neighsay being a racist, Twilight still wasn't able to answer some of the EEA's concerns about running off on adventures, teachers being unqualified, etc., and basically lied to Neighsay about the students running off to skip class. So when the School Six seriously endanger the lives of ponies in that crash at the end of the first part, can you really blame Neighsay for shutting down the school? I usually like when the episode is willing to acknowledge both sides of the conflict, but this felt a little too strawman-y and one-sided, and unintentionally seemed to come off as "bureaucracies and government regulations are bad" when I feel it's a lot more nuanced than that. So yeah, you can see I'm honestly not a big fan of this series premiere, contrary to popular opinion. This I will agree with, with some qualification. The point of the episode was basically that friendship can't be taught with books and traditional methods, etc. (which kinda begs the question...what is the point of the friendship school anyway if it's not really a school?) so I think the episode was right in saying that strict rules will only hinder a school like this. And in this sense it is "Neighsay's fault". However, I felt it could have been addressed a lot better in the episode by portraying Neighsay as someone who's maybe misguided in trying to apply the rules, rather than an outright villain. I think what Neighsay was doing was in the best interests of maintaining high standards for schools across Equestria (even though he was wrong in this instance), and the episode could have more respectfully shown him how he was wrong.

If you look closely at the film version of the closing credits, you can see SK's eyes are blue and moving (well, obviously not in this still pic). Does that imply he's still alive? I like to think so, but I guess you can be the judge of that.

I don't have any particular season I would call "bad" as I feel they're all pretty much a mix of great, decent, meh, and bleh. It also doesn't help that I tend to hold the later seasons to a higher standard, which I suppose could be construed as unfair. For me, what I generally think of a season generally has less to do with the season holistically and more about the points that stick out to me, i.e., "When I first think of this season, what do I tend to first think about?" For instance, I think the reason I don't feel S6 is as bad as other say, is because the stronger points generally left a bigger impact on me- Saffron & Coriander & their restaurant in SUYL, the amusing climactic prank in 28 Pranks, the CMC finding their purpose in a post-cutie-mark-search life, the somewhat annoying but also somewhat endearing Quibble Pants, Starlight's leadership in the finale and the transformation of the changelings- than some of their lower points did (The Cart Before the Ponies, the low stakes in AJ's Day Off) By contrast, season 7 has been more of a mixed bag, as the low points - the forgettable, too straightforward plot of Fluttershy Leans In, how annoying RD's parents are, Honest Apple, Fame and Misfortune, the dragged-out plot of Secrets and Pies- coexist alongside some pretty high points as well (Mane Thing about You, the introduction of the Pillars, Marks and Rec, A Royal Problem, and Perfect Pear). Then there's Season 8. To be totally fair to S8, only half of the season has aired so it's a bit early to say, but so far the season isn't making that great of an impression on me- from the overall confused plot and glaring plot holes of the premiere to meh episodes like Fake It, to Non-Compete Clause. Average episodes like Surf and/or Turf or even better ones like Grannies Gone Wild and Horse Play haven't honestly been enough to redeem most of the season in my mind. Of course, things definitely have the potential to get even better, so we'll see. As for the earlier seasons? As I read about people's thoughts both positive and negative, of the earlier seasons the more they start to make sense to me. But the thing is, back then, I didn't heavily scrutinize the episodes the way I do now. Maybe it's due to the fact that I was still a new fan and the experience of the show was still a novelty to me. Maybe I've just come to expect more from the show and its characters as time goes on. Or it could be the fact that I was just happier and more carefree in life overall when I watched those episodes. In any case, while I do concede others' points about earlier episodes, my opinion of them has remained pretty positive, likely due to those factors. So even if objectively they weren't as good, I can't really call them bad because I just don't think of them as bad. TL;DR: Seasons 7 and 8 were probably more mixed to me than Season 6, due to the parts of each season that stood out to me, while I'm kinda biased/less critical towards the earlier seasons because I had lower expectations for those episodes.

I kinda feel like both seasons have had a fair mix of good, decent, and meh episodes, with most of the weaker episodes happening at the start of the season (For Season 7, Fluttershy Leans In, Honest Apple, and, I know I might get hate for this, Parental Glideance; for Season 8, the premiere, Fake It, and Non-Compete Clause). So it's kinda hard to mention anything that's a step up since they seem to be on fairly equal footing. If this season follows the pattern of the last, though, hopefully the season will significantly improve in the second half. If I do have anything to say, it's probably that there's no episode like "Fluttershy Leans In" in this season.

To be honest, I feel like the Mane 6 have already had enough development- to try to create conflicts with them kinda leads to "forced" episodes like Fake It 'til You Make It and Non-Compete Clause, which, while not terrible in my books, weren't really entertaining and/or felt incoherent. Instead, I'd rather they focus on the School Six and how they're able to grow their own relationships- maybe even outside of the instruction of the Mane Six. Because, as much as I like the idea of a "new mane six", I'm still very on-the-fence on the idea of a friendship school- it just felt like a convenient way to get people to buy more toys create this new story arc, even though one of the main points of the premiere was in fact the idea that friendship isn't something that can be taught in a classroom (so, what's kinda even the point of the school? Is it more like a day camp?). So I feel like if they focused on more natural episode ideas arising out of the School Six - and maybe other students in the school - that have more to do with everyday life than with the school itself, the season might improve. But then again, I might be totally wrong about all this. I'm not really a writer.

Licensing expo? Don't think I've heard of that...what's that about?