Jordan D

Knowing the ending is coming in 2020 feels so weird, especially with how they're still producing new spin-off material for MLP. Just a few days ago, they announced a new manga series that is, presumably, set to produce yearly volumes of work, but with the end being in 2020, that means at most they'll produce two volumes (unless all of this is also gonna tie in G5 and/or they're not quite abandoning G4). I was never to big into the toy scene for MLP so I can't say much i'd care to much for cameos from past toylines, but the Takara Ponies are pretty cute (I also have a soft spot for DreamBeauties) but I'm always down with cameos or even straight crossovers with other Hasbro series. There's so much teasing that MLP takes place in the "Hasbro Universe" multiverse but nothing concrete, so I would love to see some sort of final confirmation. As for the actual movie/series, I'm personally hoping for something more akin to the original cartoon but done with the grace of Friendship is Magic. You know, lots of creative adventures in new locations but also with a more consistent narrative and world.

Yeah, the movie itself pretty solidly fits in between the time after Season 7 and before Season 8, similarly to how the first Equestria Girls film takes place after Season 3 but before Season 4 (at least, I think it was).

This series as a whole is so full of plotholes, inconsistencies, retcons, inconsistent characterization, etc, that picking on the movie is a bit unfair. I mean, this is the series that rewrote Luna's backstory 8 times and continues to screw with the timeline of the series to the point where trying to devise any reasonable timeline is virtually impossible. Almost everything featured in Season 1 has been retconned by this point. Luna's backstory, Equestrian language, the magic nature of the Everfree Forest, the way a few holidays worked, Lyra's age, Derpy not having weird eyes, Bon Bon being much older than she is now (she was originally portrayed as being around Cup Cake's age given her voice and mannerisms). Does that make Season 1 no longer canon? Of course not. Same goes for the movie.Not only did it play into the events of season 8, but also a few comic storylines ("Convocations of the Creatures", "The Return of Tempest Shadow", "Ponyville Mysteries" and "Nightmare Knights"). Point is, if you dig hard enough into anything, you'll find more-or-less the same results that point to anything being non-canon in this series.

Generation 4 is filled with repurposed characters from older generations. For example, Bon Bon in Tales was a chef who wanted to be a model while in Friendship is Magic she's a secret agent who hunts monsters (or something like that). They probably just took the base design of an older pony model and remade her to fit in the context of the Friendship is Magic universe.

Still better than My Little Pony Tales which had nightmarish expressions. But yeah, I've noticed the shift in facial expressions as well. I always assumed they have more budget to work with creating new assets, while a lot of the older expressions were manipulating pre-existing assets but that's just speculation on my part.

From the very few glimpses into Spike's early life we've had, it doesn't appear so. In Friendship is Magic #40, we don't really see any reactions to the fact that a dragon is living in Canterlot (other than how annoying he could be as a baby but that's all babies), and "Amending Fences" showed us that he had good friends even before moving to Ponyville. I think his problems started around "Dragon Quest", I can't really recall him ever getting frustrated or annoyed at his dragon lineage until then.

Actually, they've made very brief mentions to possible religious aspects of Equestria in some spin-off materials. Micro-Series #1, Twilight mentions Notre-Dame, a real-life church, that's apparently also in Equestria (and yes, she said it in the context of the church, not the sports team), and Tails of Equestria briefly mentions that Celestia is seen more of a mythological figure to some. While mythology and religion isn't one of the same, they often go hand-in-hand. In "The Return of Queen Chrysalis - Part IV", Applejack met a evil priest (granted, he was based off Mola Ram from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Another possible sign of religion is from Friendship is Magic #24, which had Fluttershy, Discord and the CMC travel to the ancient kingdom of "Anugypt", where Sweetie Belle came across seemingly religious depictions of the Elements of Harmony defeating Nightmare Moon.Lastly, the Legends of Magic storyline introduced a species of shadow monsters that seemed to worship Luna and Celestia as "The Destroyers", beings meant to bring about the destruction of all worlds (seriously). Not quite the same, but fictional gods and deities have been shown from time to time, such as "Lovecarts Horror", which would imply some sort of religious background. Otherwise, yeah, Equestria doesn't seem like a religious place. Spiritual seems like a better term, since some degree of nature worship seems to be afoot (with ponies acting as if the Everfree Forest has magical properties, and the citizens of the Forest having a great deal of respect for all nature) but that's just my speculation. Heck, most of this post is just speculation but I think it's interesting to piece this stuff together. I'm doing a project of trying to piece together the language of Equestria and trust me, that's a nightmare in of itself!

The game does exist in some way, but I think they call it "Hoofball". Rabbits and bears are overpowered, apparently. I don't know anything about the actual sport but I thought that was worth sharing. Issue is Friends Forever #2.

It's not that I hide the fact I like the show, but I just don't really talk about it much IRL. My mom found a few months ago when I ordered some merchandise off of Amazon and my sister's known for awhile. My niece just found out a few days ago when she saw my Netflix history and wouldn't stop making fun of me for it but hey, she also makes fun of me for liking Ghostbusters and He-Man so I think she just hates everything I like. The only other time it ever really came up IRL was in middle-school when a friend of mine noticed I posted a mlp meme on Facebook and started talking about it with me.

Transformers and Digimon have this model that I think works wonderfully. Everything is canon, just not to one single universe. In Digimon Tamers, Digimon Adventure is just an anime series, but Tai and Takato both exist as individuals who have even interacted on a handful of occasions. Since it's been said that My Little Pony takes place in an infinite timeline on a few different occasions, I like to think every series is canon somewhere, but not everything can be canon at once. For example, the Manga story "Leave the Dresses to Rarity" is a retelling of "The Best Night Ever" but it changed the ending to make it more of a slapstick gag than the official episode. This means the manga continuity can't really take place in the cartoon continuity (thankfully retcons the weird Twilight x Spike, Twilight x Rarity and Twilight x Shining Armor thing they were building). The IDW comic series is a lot more complicated, however. Since there are several writers for the comics, some try to make the stories fit the shows canon, while others do their own thing. It's why you have some stuff like Cannibal ponies, Lyra being practically ageless, Moondancer suddenly changing designs and Princess Celestia being the "breaker of worlds", things that don't really make much sense or would never really be touched on in the show. Simply saying the IDW comics exist in their own single timeline might not be accurate either since the series retcons itself all the freaking time. Geography changing, mechanics changing, continuity going like the wind and Nightmare Moons origins being changed like 8 times now. However, what complicates matters even deeper is Tails of Equestria is most likely canon to the comics since it references a good deal of comic exclusive stuff but also contradicts other aspects of lore. In Legends of Magic, the reason why Griffons and Pegasi were on good-terms was because Flash Magnus and his team saved a village of Griffons from a storm, but in Tails of Equestria, it's because the hyper-advanced Hippogriff civilization negotiated peace treaties between the two civilizations, allowing them to grow closer. TL;DR, infinite multiverse yo, everything is probably canon somewhere, just not everything is canon all at once.

Fascinating write up! Although i've been in the fandom since late 2010, I was only a kid then so I barely remember most of this, but reading this was oddly nostalgic. Not sure if it's as notable, but several early episodes of Season 4 were hated by a lot of people. Me and my friend both quit the show for a bit after "Power Ponies" aired, since we both thought it was a waste of potential (I still do, but it's not as bad as I remember). To me, a lot of the stuff was just...yeah. I don't really know how to explain it, but even though I know Alicorn Twilight and Equestria Girls just started to sell toys, it doesn't really bother me. It's a toyetic series, so big changes to the universe exist for marketing purposes first and storytelling purposes second. Maybe I'm just jaded to this stuff by now but I never try to let behind-the-scenes politics get in the way of how I like stuff. I like Alicorn Twilight, but I prefer Unicorn Twilight and I've noticed that my favorite episodes with Alicorn Twilight tend to be ones where it could work just fine if she was still a unicorn. Beyond marketing however, it does help the show get involved with storylines that involve the political nature of Equestria easier, I guess, but few storylines ever really take advantage of it. What was the Canterlot Wedding controversy over, by the way? When it first aired, most of the people I talked to really liked the episode in-spite of a few fumbles, like Shining having no personality and coming out of nowhere.

When I saw BTS, I was thinking of Beyond The Sword Well that Taiwanese singer Jolin has an official Ponysona now, with Hasbro merchandise, so it's possible. I never really got into celebrity cameos unless it's really over the top, like the Jack Black appearance in iCarly (which still makes me laugh).

`1. Spike 2. Stygian 3. Twilight 4. Rarity 5. Scootaloo 6. Sweetie Bellie 7. Trixie 8. Apple Bloom I've always had a thing for unicorns, even before I watched MLP. They're just so cool. Plus, I always loved the CMC.

This is fun! I forgot how unfitting the OST was in the early few episodes and how the voice actors didn't quite nail the voice for certain characters yet. It was nice to see all the running gags/memes in their earliest forms again, before the show became super self-referential (for better or worse <.<), and the bits of early-installment-weirdness with Spike being kind of stupid, the Guards making horse noises instead of talking, Fluttershy barely being able to talk in public (though that's more like pre-character development stuff) were fun to see. And I forgot how much of a jerk Twilight was. She really has come a long way. Overall I loved the premiere but I felt like the adventure aspect in the second half fell a bit flat. I never really liked MLP when it tried to be a big action series, so I preferred the adventurous episodes to be more about exploring new lands and cultures, like "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone" or "Somepony to Watch Over Me". The action moments weren't bad but the limited animation of the series made it a little cheesy, which is a problem i've always had with the series, even to this day. Especially to this day. All in all, great start.