BornAgainBrony

Dark royal blue. Offset by cyan/white hair.

If they don't, they won't be able to have any pudding.

*eyes the signal wire running from the intercom to its source... what appears to be an office on the floor directly above* At first instinct, I would grab Luna,. to enlist the backup of an enraged Alicorn for the can of whoopass that is about to get unleashed. But if all the firepower is locked away in those dreaded corners (when are the toys you want most NOT in the corners of the claw machine?) But alright... I wonder how vague the definition of "most powerful" is here? Getting Applejack alone might be sufficient, for me to see if she can set some kind of long-distance bucking record using the face of this villain as the ball. If building up a sufficient team in three minutes nets nothing, I'm going up those stairs myself. Shut down the arcade... riiiiight. You think I'm just going to voluntarily leave now? Buddy, you just invited the Angel of Death into the middle of your stronghold, and there's going to be a brand new meaning to the phrase, "Trojan Horse."

Sometimes it seems to me that it isn't a question of whether or not the media in question does something progressive, but HOW it delivers that message. For example, two different films from a few years back that were sending a pretty darned obvious political message. A pretty big argument was made that the anti-crowd were what ruined the potential success of the former, but those same people whined about the latter just as much. Yet only one of those films died a horrible searing death in a dumpster fire while the other was a stunning success. Perhaps the problem was that the former provided little of substance beyond the same message they were parading everywhere in marketing? I don't know what I expected exactly, or even what her platform was going to be, but I definitely didn't expect the "activism" to be an Army of One. I partly wonder if we would feel the same if she had been part of an activist group, instead of seeming (from the outside) like the Old Mare Yelling at a Cloud. Having the opposition be a corporation instead of some kind of government entity certainly helped though. It leaves the question open as to how the divide between the Ponies got started, and I can't help but wonder if part of the reason hostilities hadn't lessened naturally is specifically because Canterlogic had enough influence to control the narrative. Sure it's still possible to make the entire film into parallels, but not without some mental gymnastics (that the New York Times employed to rip the film to shreds in a very brief review, which Fox News's "Gutfield" then picked and ran with). I think certain plot elements, such as Sprout's solution to becoming King, is a strategy that has been done so many times by so many different prominent individuals throughout history, that it's probably not worth referring to as politics anymore; it's just common sense worthy of being in a classic parable. Is that really "modern" activism though, or do we just see more of it firsthand because instead of black&white newspaper photos, we get a million camera feeds shooting the scene from a million different directions and then plastered all over Facebook? I don't think anybody on the sidelines at the time thought activism in the 60's was anymore peaceful or civil than it is today. Besides, I can just imagine what the headline would have been the next day after Sunny's antics at Canterlogic. SABOTEUR SNEAK ATTACK! PRO PEGASUS/UNICORN ACTIVIST VANDALIZES TECHNOLOGY EXPO! That seems a bit unfair towards Pinkie. They both have elements of daftness but in different ways. Izzy may have some impressive creative skill, but also was completely unable to "read the room." She thought a panicking populous was just a game of hide & seek. If that doesn't scream Pinkie, what does? Remember, Pinkie had her own surprisingly intellectual quirk: her underground party-planning room. Our ADHD "scatter-brained on the outside" pink Pony had intel on the whole town that would make the FBI envious, coupled with organizational skills that rivaled Twilight's. She didn't get all of her excuses to have parties through spontaneity, but through very meticulous note-taking.

I moved onto 'Every-creature' when the show did. The RP'er in me tried to stay consistent with the era, but in application, to my surprise, it apparently makes Pony events feel less exclusive. A couple of different Furries actually went out of their way to let me know they appreciated it.

Not my favorite, but I don't hate Celestia. I didn't fully trust her early on either though. It took a while before I fully warmed up to her.

Maybe a bit of both. I don't think magic just happened to drain. It didn't happen with the pre-Hearthswarming divide, but it did here. I think the disappearance of magic was intentional, sort of like a "nuclear disarming" before things devolved into Fallout Equestria. The magic gets stored into the crystals and scattered to the three kingdoms, so the only way to restore magic is by the three coming back together. It's like a really clever time capsule that will only open when the users of what's inside have demonstrated that they have the wisdom to use it responsibly. The removal of magic may have also disabled the Wendigos, if what they feed on is somehow linked to Pony magic.

The G4 movie struggled from the same problem. Seems like this is usually the case when there's "world hopping" from one place to the next trying to accomplish a quest in record time. Actually this film might have suffered from that even more than G4 because more time got spent on what was happening "back at the ranch" with Sprout's story, and Hitch (until he catches up with the others).

Directors apparently have confirmed this being the Tree of Harmony was intentional. What happened to the Everfree Forest? This doesn't bode well for Discord still being around, since I think that menagerie was powered by him. It's really sad how much hate the Y6 got, and especially that episode. Seems like nobody understood what DHX was doing with it, in what they knew was the final season of G4. All these younglings with their own ideas of how to honor the fallen Tree of Harmony, finally coming together to build something that would last. And then Harmony's parting message to them. "Because of you. The spirit of the Treehouse would have perished without your selfless deeds and caring. Whenever you seek solace, come here. Your friendship, and the friendship of future generations, will always be safe within these walls." This was a thank you note and a love letter to the fandom, telling us that even though the show would end, we would be the ones who can keep it alive, and the memories and the fun would always be there waiting for us when we need it.

The tree must've used some really shabby crystal if all the structural parts of the "tree house" just disappeared.

I can't help but wonder if this was a change due to a test reaction. Maybe the song wasn't as well-received as hoped? When we got to the makeover scene, I thought for sure that song was going to kick in, and then surprisingly we got something completely different. My preference for 'musicals' is that the big numbers help drive the story. Some musicals, especially the older ones seemed to have a, "Alright, this part needs a song, where can we put one in?" The music isn't written as part of the plot, it's just there to stretch the runtime. The story stops, waits for a song to finish, and then continues. More recently, songs have become more integral to the story. Sometimes they help to explain the setting, or actively help to advance the plot forward. Often they provide deeper insight into characters when they're having an important moment; it's a great way to have an inner monologue without it seeming campy. G4 had a lot of good songs like this, and a some of them were very emotionally powerful. While it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, I was a bit disappointed with the music. Not because the songs were 'bad,' but there wasn't anything that really spoke to me that I would remember in the long-run. Perhaps the most memorable overall is "Danger Danger," which is pretty much the Lion King's, "Be Prepared," but with Ponies, only sticks out because it's fun for similar reasons. It's pretty clear that there was limited communication between the song writers and the screen writers. In some cases they might just have been given a theme to work with, without really knowing anything about the characters or what was going on in a particular scene.

Well, looks like my concerns about the over-use of pop music were proven wrong. Watching the completed work, the music didn't bother me, and I'm very much glad about that.

I got some strong Diamond Tiara vibes, complete with a Spoiled Rich egging him on until it got out of control. I'm still trying to decide who is more competent now. I think Sprout is competing with the Storm King for the very bottom of the "ranked MLP villain" list. And yeah, kind of the opposite of what I want to see in a good villain. It didn't seem like he had any deep motivation at all. I didn't get much passion from him for his political(?) message. It was like he just saw it as a launchpad to become a superstar ruler of sorts. There's also some hints of Cozyglow here, but she did it way better.

Hasbro got hacked multiple times. S9 got hacked, the movie got hacked, and one other time I seem to remember before that. It was kinda pathetic.

Well, at least this time it wasn't a hacker who guessed an MLP file-server password was "rainbow."

"We (Ponies) Got the Beat" felt out-of-place enough with the G4 movie.

Heh, I'm guessing they don't even realize Crystal Ponies are a thing. These do look really good though.

Glowing Up sounds like a meaningless credits song too though. Dunno... this killed my hope even further. They're going generic, and I can't see how this will end well for the impact it has on the overall feel. This really may make it unwatchable for me. This is the kind of pop music that I don't mind listening to in the background when I'm driving around, but it's nothing that makes me want to listen up and take notice. And for those who like these songs, it still may not be such good news either. Going this 'mainstream,' the bigger the names involved, the more likely it is that it'll be impossible to use this music in fan projects, both online and at conventions. G4 was one thing, but this? The copyright hounds will be having a field day. Fandoms have been crushed before they ever got started due to over-regulation before, and this is really starting to look like it could be a repeat of that.

Well, if the translated lyrics from the new song, "Fit Right In," are anything to go on...

I'll be amazed if they go over that at all. And that's assuming that events in FiM were ever "real," or if it's just part of an idealistic "Care Bears" TV show that some foals are a fan of, and the adults are all, "Yeah, it'd be nice if things could be that way, but they can't. You'll understand why when you're older." However, I've wondered for quite a while the fiasco that could erupt if the kingdom ever found out that Discord was 'wagging the dog,' by fabricating who knows how many conflicts for Twilight to get into, in order to aid her ascension. It was implied that he'd been at it for far longer than just the Grogar puppet show. The political fallout from that would be insane. If it was all real though, my best guess is that the movement just faded out. Nobody picked up where Twilight left off, and a whole bunch of small things escalated into bigger things until the quarrels had crossed a rubicon of some kind. There's other weirdness too though, such as the loss of magic, and apparently the Wendigos didn't come to reenact "The Day After Tomorrow."

The show was actually about ponies? I mean, sure, the original had ponies in it, but after watching the show not long ago, I realized that they were seldom the protagonists. It almost felt like they were just this group of mostly helpless creatures who needed a human savior to keep their society from collapsing. The most mature of ponies still needed Megan's help for... pretty much everything. And their personalities weren't all that great either, which was really surprising to me. Squabbles were nearly constant - another thing that Megan usually had to resolve. In fact, a lot of the characters were downright abrasive to one another - far more than what I've seen in other cartoons from that time period. Also, villains with depth. I know the 80's were FILLED with shallow villains with no motivation, but dang: "We have to destroy the Ponies... *bursts into song* because we're Witches from a long line of mean Witches, and that's what us Witches do!"

Pop has a very broad definition. In fact pretty much everything being made now that makes it to mainstream radio is pop music, the big exceptions to that being hip hop and country. And yeah, a lot of MLP was pop music, but I think what separated FiM music though is that it was more like pop as filtered through a Broadway jukebox musical. It wasn't over-processed and auto-tuned and it was at least somewhat believable that the characters could be singing the song right there in the moment. I couldn't get into it. It was just TOO artificial and I can only go so far with that before it turns me off. But since folks are bringing up "Rainbow," I might as well add that while I'm not a big fan of some mainstream pop music, Sia's song in FiM can still make me emotional if I let it, and whenever it comes up at a con, I'm there with a lighter, trying to keep from crying. Also as a side-note: Ponies and this fandom got me into EDM and turned me into a raver, which was something I had never even given a chance before. This song though... just isn't doing anything for me. That could work to the show's disadvantage, if this is what the whole thing is going to be like. There's already enough fashion toy lines with cartoon support that are doing this very thing. Making MLP feel like a "runway" show will reduce it to whitenoise in an over-saturated genre of doll-making. It may be better on-screen if this is just the radio version. It's entirely possible there will be a different version of this song performed during the actual film will feel a bit more like G4. Could be that. Could also be a "montage" song for them to do stuff that might be progressing the story by days or weeks in a matter of minutes.

That... was.... surprisingly kind.

Ever heard of the show, "Toddlers and Tiaras?" There are mothers who are easily as screwed up as Spoiled Rich, and take any form of competition involving their child to an almost "Tanya Harding" level of ridiculous.