Why do a lot of bronies seem to dislike the earlier generations?

[Megas 27,699]

I feel like lot of them bandwagon and say it's because they're uber girly, though there's a lot of fans genuinely dislike the past gens

 

I think G1 is the only one that doesn't get so much hate compared to the others, both because it started it all and because quite a bit of G4 is loosely based on G1

Edited March 9, 2014 by Megas75

[Concord 1,982]

Hello!

 

Most of the bronies never watched the earlier gens. I think some of us remember those times when little girls or sisters used to harass us with their G1 ponies (Mostly directed towards the male audience). Most of us would tend to run and hide from those pinkish Frankenhorses. Personally, I too only like the new generation.

Edited March 9, 2014 by Concord

[PinkiPalParti 2]

To Megas75: Thanks for your response! I agree that generations 2 and 3 definitely weren't as well written and kind of dumbed down to an extent, and I'm really happy that generation 4 started treating its audience better through more intelligent writing. If anything, I feel like disliking earlier generations for the writing and such is a good thing, as it didn't treat girls as if they were able to think of things outside of stereotypical 'girly' things. 

 

What kind of upsets me is that bandwagon that you mentioned, where bronies say it's bad because of its girly-ness. I understand not liking something that isn't aimed at your gender of course, but condemning it because of that seems a little unnecessary. 

Edited March 9, 2014 by PinkiPalParti

[Fhaolan 4,484]

I find that usually the earlier generations get hated on because the viewer simply doesn't have the cultural context to understand what they are seeing. My Little Pony 'n Friends (the first G1 cartoon) especially. It was a rather typical 80's cartoon. Especially since the two other big cartoons of the time were also Hasbro properties done by the same animation studio (Transformers and G.I. Joe). The art style, animation quality, stories and characters were all products of the time it was done. Many bronies don't seem to be the kind to be able to make that cultural connection to the time it was made.

 

My Little Pony Tales (the second G1 cartoon, which some people mistake for G2), is considerably different. The late 80's 'modern' slice-of-life topics for a bunch of tween-equivalent ponies doesn't swing many bronies. It would be as if the CMC were the main characters of MLP:FiM instead of the Mane 6.

 

The G3 cartoons was an odd blending of the two G1 cartoons, with an art style that was often distracting and inconsistent.

 

G3.5 was straight out bizarre as Hasbro decided to go all experimental, with early flash animation, and a very targeted marketing towards toddlers instead of children.

 

But all-in-all, many bronies seem to dislike earlier generations as those generations were geared towards the toys first. I believe the term being used now is 'toyetic', meaning that new releases for the toy line was often very intrusive into the shows. Notice how whenever the G4 cartoon has a toyetic moment (Cadence, Princess Twilight, Breezies, etc.) bronies tend to go ballistic. Early generations had a lot more toyetic moments in them, with G3.x being entirely toyetic given that each 'episode' was part of the packaging of a specific toy set.

[Shanks 10,816]

I think alot of it is because some bronies are very very defensive because there are people that have a misconception that pretty much every generation is the same which w e know is not the case but it seems like a way for them or at least that go out of the their way to hate on the previous generation to say "but G4 is different." That is not to say that there aren't legitimate reasons to not like previous generations but a lot of them do so without even watching them. For me personally I like G1 though not nearly as much as G4 and could understand why someone wouldn't like it because there are several diabetes inducing moments in it and the ponies are far far more child like in their personalities but it also has kickass villains like Tirek and Grogar and can at times be surprisingly dark. My Little Pony Tales which is still part of G1 (G2 had no cartoon) was a huge step down as all the characters were bland Mary Sues which coupled with teen drama cliches up the yin yang and no thank you. G3 I think deserves the scorn it gets more than any other, but I suppose even before I gave G1 a try I respected it because without it there would be no G4.

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

To put it in a couple of sentences. 

The art style is off putting compared to the more human looking g4 ponies,generation 4 is more focused on the show for the most part, and selling toys via the show, rather than relying on the toys to keep the show going. And since most of the older generations were a toy driven industry, having the show always be secondary to the toy line, it can be very off putting for most modern bronys. 

[Jobless Bear 13]

these pics explain it all nuf said

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[FluffyGoat13 375]

i dislike G3, i watched two episodes and the lack of character development made me stop. It was pretty cringey too.

basically i watched G4 first and G3 is so bad in comparison it is just not worth looking back on. But i do agree lots of bronies do just lunge onto the bandwagon.

 

In fact, when i used to be a brony hater  i based all of my hate-comments on images of G3 .

[Jobless Bear 13]

i dislike G3, i watched two episodes and the lack of character development made me stop. It was pretty cringey too.

basically i watched G4 first and G3 is so bad in comparison it is just not worth looking back on. But i do agree lots of bronies do just lunge onto the bandwagon.

 

In fact, when i used to be a brony hater  i based all of my hate-comments on images of G3 .

I agree. i used to be a parasprite, and i did the same . I do admit at first a was with the bandwagon, but i really watched it and HATED it

[FluffyGoat13 375]

Many bronies also dislike the earlier gen's because of when they were made. G1: 80's, G2: 80's(i think), G3: 90's(?), G4: 2010. There is about 20 years between G4 and G3 and  a lot of things changed in that time; society, western culture, the way people spoke, hairstyle's, trends, etc. So there is also an essence of culture shock there too.

[White Lie 67]

Generally speaking, they are too different than G4 I would say.  G1-G3.5 were made mostly for selling toys, while G4 has a lot more thought put into the show.  It looks better and the characters are way more developed.  Where in G1-G3, most of the characters are just girly stereotypes, the ponies in G4 have personality and have actual ambitions, clear likes and dislikes, etc.

 

Seriously go to youtube and try watching anything from previous generations.  Most of the only people that seem to like it grew up with it, from what I've seen.

lol I was too much of a tomboy for ponies growing up..

[Visual Spectrum 1,932]

I hope this wasn't already discussed. 

 

I am not saying all bronies are like this. Some of them did give previous generations a chance and didn't like them. I am talking about those who never watched anything and automatically assume they are all girly and nothing awesome. 

 

G1 is not what I would call girly. There may be scenes with tea parties and stuff, but for the most part, it is actually darker than G4, G1 has concept of death. G4 ponies don't face situations where their lives are on the line. G1 does that often, though. Falling into a pit, being burned, being froze to death, G1 definitely had life or death moments. There was even an episode where a ram tried to take a lot of ponies to hell. If you think G1 was extremely girly, then you clearly never watched it. 

 

G1.5 and G3 are girly. I will admit it. I won't give g1.5 another chance, but that is because I don't really like the genre it shows to be. It seems to be a teen drama show. There's no magic at all. All the ponies are earth ponies. It may be good to others, but it just wasn't for me. 

 

I will give g3 another chance. The pilot episode was stupid, but it was to introduce the characters. I shouldn't use that as a reason to think the generation sucks. 

 

I will not give g3.5 a chance because it was meant to be horrible. (I heard the G3.5 designs were intentionally terrible so the g4 designs wouldn't be rejected.)

 

Parts of the episode "The Runaway Rainbow" is similar to "Testing 123" or whatever the title is. 

A princess, I don't remember her name, was trying to teach Rarity to bring out the rainbow. That part wasn't that much like the G4 episode, but there is still teaching, and Rarity would get distracted. I lost internet when trying to watch the rest of that episode, and I haven't remembered to go back to it and finish it. 

 

If you don't know, Rainbow Dash and Rarity have swapped personalities going from G3 to G4. No, Rainbow Dash is not best G3 pony. I actually like Pinkie Pie from G3. 

 

I will not give g3.5 a chance because it was meant to be horrible. (I heard the G3.5 designs were intentionally terrible so the g4 designs wouldn't be rejected.) Though the theme song is good. 

 

My favorite of the past generations is g1. 

 

What does g1 have? 

 

A lot of the episodes have plot, there is conflict, a lot of the episodes have morals, some of the songs are catchy, the villains are awesome, I don't see how it is just a commercial to sell toys to be honest. I mean I think Wind Whistler is my favorite G1 pony, but I don't want to buy toys. It doesn't seem to be trying to sell anything.

 

What does g4 lack?

 

Good quality animation, good voice actors (Spike and most of the henchmen voices are annoying, but I love Wind Whistler, North Star, and Heart Throb's voices.) series plot*.

 

*When I say G1 has plot, I mean for the episodes. Episodes will not have events leading up to the season finale like G4 does. It doesn't mean the plot does not exist.  

 

If you never gave previous generations a chance, either don't talk bad about them or at least give them a chance past the pilot. Except G1. The pilot is great for G1. I said I will not give G3.5 a chance. I will not talk bad about it either. I don't know anything about it past the theme song. The only bad thing I can say about it from experience right now is that the animation and designs are horrible. 

 

People who say G1 especially is overly girly clearly never gave it a chance. Why do a lot of bronies judge the previous generations without ever watching them? I just don't understand. 

 

[Freewave 1,145]

The brief vids I've seen on youtube seem to cater to what I've come to expect from the earlier generations. FIM is in the now and written from the get go to be something different from what traditional young girl-focused tv show like Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. It aims quite a bit higher, flash animation, not so girly, and not specifically with young ages in mind (ie something there parents or teens would like too). I just don't get that same vibe from any of the earlier series I've seen. There's a seed of something there that that FIM did sprout out of but its nothing I would watch over the 4 seasons of FIM we have. And that's why for the most part ppl don't want to backtrack to earlier generations and vhs rips of the show.....It's just NOT the same.

[SasQ 1,379]

I'm one of those Bronies who watched previous generations of MLP as a kid, just because my parents were just borrowing whatever was there in the VHS shop, and there wasn't much choice. I watched them, but I didn't feel any extra affection for it. So I forgot about it for the next several years.

 

Then I stumbled upon FiM, and I love it. This is whole another quality, something which I can enjoy on many levels.

 

After watching all possible episodes of FiM, when there wasn't much more to watch for a while, I decided to refresh my memories and give a shot the previous generations. I wasn't expecting much more than "girly" stuff, from what I remembered from my childhood. But still I wanted to check it out and see if there is anything worthy.

 

And well, unfortunately, in my opinion, there isn't much. Sorry

 

There was maybe a bunch of little ideas stuffed here and there, such as the Sunstone, the Rainbow of Light, Lord Tirek, sea ponies etc. which had a little bit of potential in them, but it was never really exploited in a way I could enjoy. (That's why I'm happy to see that these ideas start to rejuvenate in G4 in a way more interesting way.) But it was a real pain to sit through all those episodes to find those tidbits of useful ideas, beauce my overall impression about previous generations is that they were not girlish, but simply RETARDED. The characters were shallow and they talked as if they had a serious brain damage, and I simply couldn't listen to it without getting brain cancer :/ I couldn't find anything inspiring, useful, enriching, or educative. (On the contrary, there's a lot of it in G4.)

 

G1 is not what I would call girly. There may be scenes with tea parties and stuff, but for the most part, it is actually darker than G4, G1 has concept of death. G4 ponies don't face situations where their lives are on the line. G1 does that often, though. Falling into a pit, being burned, being froze to death, G1 definitely had life or death moments. There was even an episode where a ram tried to take a lot of ponies to hell. If you think G1 was extremely girly, then you clearly never watched it.

 

Exactly. I agree that the previous generations weren't so much girly and colorful all the way. They really were more dark in mood sometimes. There were real dangerous monsters and villains who did evil for the pure sake of it, sometimes with sadistic pleasure, not having any explainable reasons for it. In FiM, on the other hand, all the villains have some backstory and reasons, which I really enjoy from the psychological point of view. This makes them more real and sometimes even relatable, because it shows that everyone can do evil sometimes when getting lost, and there's always some way out and a potential for a change. And this is very uplifting. I learned much from FiM, but nothing from G1..G3.

Edited November 10, 2014 by SasQ

[Alex Z 848]

I've watched one episode of G3 and I couldn't finish it because of how bad it was and I've seen one G3.5 episode that I'm suprised I finished even though it was worse.

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,331]

Well don't assume that everyone who bashes the past generations doesn't watch it just like how you can't assume that anyone who bashes G4 doesn't watch it. I have seen a bit of every past generation. And out of all those past gens, G1 was the best because it had a sense of adventure and some actual conflict. G2 was either extremely cliched or extremely stereotypical. And G3? Good luck staying awake during that. At least G2 had some conflict, albeit cliched conflict. But G3 had absolutely no conflict whatsoever. 

[Shanks 10,816]

It is the same reason why a lot of people won't give G4 a chance and that is assumptions, unlike the previous generations there was no "brony" movement to create buzz, hype and curiosity and there was no hatedom that ironically got more people to watch it by creating more of what I just described. Because there was none a lot of bronies seem to assume that previous generations had no merit to them. G1 is the best generation aside from G4, a lot of of darker moments/villains and adventure/action themed episodes, when I used to think of G1 I used to think of the toy line but with it being much more successful than the show itself can you really blame me? G 1.5 was a lot like the live action sitcoms on Disney and Nickelodeon these days but while it was a step backward it wasn't nearly as bad as those shows. After watching G3 though I can understand why it gets so much hate, no offense to fans of that but it is not my cup of tea.

[Zejgar 25]

 

 

I will not give g3.5 a chance because it was meant to be horrible. (I heard the G3.5 designs were intentionally terrible so the g4 designs wouldn't be rejected.)

Well then, if this was their intention, then they've failed, because I find G3.5 designs cute.

[Countess Noodle 607]

Well then, if this was their intention, then they've failed, because I find G3.5 designs cute.

 

 

I'll be honest I didn't think there were people out there that could actually say G3.5 were actually cute. Congrats.

Edited November 10, 2014 by NoodleBrony

[Visual Spectrum 1,932]

Well don't assume that everyone who bashes the past generations doesn't watch it just like how you can't assume that anyone who bashes G4 doesn't watch it. I have seen a bit of every past generation. And out of all those past gens, G1 was the best because it had a sense of adventure and some actual conflict. G2 was either extremely cliched or extremely stereotypical. And G3? Good luck staying awake during that. At least G2 had some conflict, albeit cliched conflict. But G3 had absolutely no conflict whatsoever. 

 

Did you even read what I said? I said "I am not saying all bronies are like this. Some of them did give previous generations a chance and didn't like them." 

 

The very first episode of G3 seemed to have conflict with trying to figure out what how to surprise that one pony that apparently hasn't been surprised previously. It was more internal, but it was still there. 

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,331]

Did you even read what I said? I said "I am not saying all bronies are like this. Some of them did give previous generations a chance and didn't like them." 

 

The very first episode of G3 seemed to have conflict with trying to figure out what how to surprise that one pony that apparently hasn't been surprised previously. It was more internal, but it was still there. 

Hmm must've missed that part. And with G3, even when there is conflict, it's pretty minimal and not that engaging.

[Dark Qiviut 22,433]

I've watched the previous generations, too. O-G1 (Original G1, not Tales) is easily the best of the pre-FIM series. Although it's extremely dated, it's the only one to genuinely respect its audience rather than use sexist stereotypes in order to pander to girls. I don't like it, but there's genuine heart. If you want to look past the concept of nostalgia and take a look at FIM's pro-feminist roots, head over to it. O-G1 respects me as a person, so I respect it back.

 

Tales, though, was where MLP hit the skids. It was overly cynical to the point of glorifying cruelty. The animation was hideous. The plots are even worse because they're based on stereotypes to go along with their stereotypical characters. Both the mares and stallions are one-dimensional notes, and their actions can be quite evil. This is classic case of exploitation of young girls.

 

Tommy Oliver on YT dissected this problem in one of his videos in the past. Sure, he may've watched about five episodes or so, but when the problems are exactly the same every single time, then there's no point in watching more because it's a constant pattern that never gets better. Five episodes out of twenty-six is a very good chunk of the season.

 

G3 and G3.5, however… You don't have to watch these pieces of shit to know they're bad. There's no conflict. Rather than being cynical jocks, their cutesy bases pander to young girls, and their "personalities" are based on antifeminist stereotypes.

 

Associating color with sex? Check.

 

Little to no conflict? Check.

 

Stereotypical personalities? Check.

 

Terrible animation (in G3.5)? Check.

 

Pander to young girls? Check.

 

To quote from another thread:

Even without G3.5, G3'll still be reviled because it panders to and objectifies young girls, the audience Hasbro claims it speaks for.

 

To repeat, you don't need to watch Tales, G3, and G.5 to criticize them, bash them, and know how bad they are. Researching them via Wikipedia and several reviews that keep the episodes and specials intact is more than enough info to reach a solid conclusion. "Why don't you give them a chance" or "Why do you hate G3 or G3.5 when you never watched them?" are gigantic fallacies today because the information is out there in one or two clicks of the mouse.

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I actually went and watched previous gens. Well, to be honest I'm still not through G3, though I'm not far off and G3.5 looks to be mercifully short. I'm not really the kind of person to judge something without knowing more about it(says the guy who made fun of Bronies prior to joining the fanbase). Anyways, I made a point of actually watching past series, mostly out of curiousity and also because I felt out of the loop whenever they were brought up.

 

Objectively, none of the past series are that good, especially not in comparison to FiM, yet for some reason I kind of like each and every MLP series I've seen. I know that sounds crazy, and that's not to say I want any of it on DVD or anything, but there has been at least a shred of something enjoyable for me, even in Pony Tales and G3 which suffer from a lack of villains. It's crazy to think that within 9 months I went from not having anything to do with MLP to enjoying series that even most Bronies dislike. Life is odd sometimes.

[smitty121325 64]

I'm right there with you. This is something that I have never understood about this fandom. Again, not all bronies are like this. The previous generations were crapped on even in the documentary about bronies. Seriously, John?!

 

I saw the entire series of "My Little Pony" on DVD. I'd like to watch episodes online before I go out and buy it.

 

I don't think very many bronies realize how the previous generations helped shape "Friendship is Magic." For example, many of the characters are either from or based on characters from previous generations, such as Scootaloo, Pinkie Pie, etc.

 

I would be interested in seeing the previous generations, especially G1 since it's darker in tone. One can't help but wonder what G4 would be like if it was darker. The season four finale was pretty dark, so this may be a sign that the show is headed in a new direction. If G1 could get away with it, G4 probably could. The concept of death would be a great episode for Twilight and Spike or Applejack and Apple Bloom.

 

It seems that the only thing that bronies and long-time Pony fans can agree on is that G3/G3.5 sucked! But, again, it did help contribute to G4.

Edited November 11, 2014 by smitty121325

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I don't think very many bronies realize how the previous generations helped shape "Friendship is Magic." For example, many of the characters are either from or based on characters from previous generations, such as Scootaloo, Pinkie Pie, etc.

 

This was another reason why I wanted to check out past gen. I was curious where certain characters and concepts originated. G1 and G3 seem to have contributed a lot more to FiM than Pony Tales did, but then again, Pony Tales was the first to do a slice of life type pony series, which is one of many facets of FiM. Still, I think G1 contributed far more to the general pony mythos than any other series, some of which was used in G3 as well. Be wary of other series, but I honestly think they each have their own charm to them, even though at least 2/3 of them fall short in many ways.