Lauren Faust leaving is the best thing that could have happened to the show

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

To be completely fair, Lauren Faust created an amazing, immersive world for this show, and the show attained most of her original goals throughout the first two seasons. She nailed down an audience that is normally unheardof for what is considered a "girls' show" and helped to change the perception in many people's minds that girls' shows are automatically assumed to be "bad". She also created iconic characters and set them on their way to goals that they've pretty much attained by now. As far as she's concerned, she did her job, and she did it in two seasons. She is a great concept artist (with the lone exception being that translating her designs to three-dimensional toys is a hard task), and it's hard to judge her writing quality on this show because she only wrote the first two-parter and the first regular episode, which are hard tasks in an all-new show with all-new characters.

 

Lauren also picked a lot of this show's central staff. Tara Strong and many of the original writers worked with her in her Cartoon Network days and she personally recommended the studio then known as Studio B Productions based on their abilities in animating four-legged characters in works such as Martha Speaks.

 

One of my only criticisms on her is her seeming lack of commitment to projects, as evidenced by her recent job-hopping, which touched on. Most recently, she got kicked from Sony's Medusa, which raised concerns about her commitments, although Sony is notoriously a bad environment for animators. Although Genndy Tartakovsky committed himself to Hotel Transylvania, he did state that Adam Sandler was difficult to work with, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller turned down an offer to become the creative heads of the studio, opting to take a similar post at Warner Bros. instead. From interviews, it seems that Lauren desires a level of creative freedom in some of her projects that is unrealistic when dealing in works for hire rather than working independently.

 

The only other thing I have to say is that she often minces words and doesn't speak with 100% clarity on certain issues. She has often diced up her opinions on Equestria Girls to single-sentence, linked Twitter posts, and never gave a clear, understandable reason for leaving MLP. Was it because Warner Bros. had wooed her with DC Nation? Was it because she didn't approve of where the show was going? The clearest statement we have on that is from this Craig McCracken interview, and it's still relatively vague.

 

I don't want to throw Lauren under the bus for anything, though. Lauren did what she could and moved on. She made the right choice for herself at the time, she accomplished all that she had set out to do in her two years working on it, and the show moved on well without her. It's unfair to judge Lauren by a small set of her talents, neither is it to say that everything she did was good then and bad now. This fandom can be polarizing on her sometimes and the best thing we can do is look at it from all sides.

[Quinch 1,120]

Looking back to the fandom back in season one, I think a lot of the polarization regarding Lauren stems from a fairly classic case of creator worship on one side, and backlash to that worship on the other.

 

Personally? I both agree that it's egregiously unfair to Lauren Faust to dismiss the fact that, while she by no means created MLP:FIM all by her own, she was the brains behind the entire operation, and without her direction, My Little Pony would have remained just another girly show, but.

 

It also bears remembering that Friendship Is Magic, as she conceived and directed it, was also not the show she would have made had she had the chance. Her original pitch to Hasbro was Galaxy Girls. Her original take on My Little Pony was a magical girl show with recurring antagonists. A slice-of-life show with a moral at the end of each episode was, frankly, an absolutely magnificent display of making do, but it doesn't change the fact that Faust's vision was not, in fact, FIM as we know it in the first place. Hell, given the few of her comments on social media I've read, I've sensed a bit of envy that what she created outlasted her stay.

 

So, to summarize - Lauren Faust accomplished an incredible and staggeringly impactful work of craft, but I am convinced that, had she kept the helm, it would have quickly stagnated and declined. Regardless, the fact that her work was surpassed does not, in any way, shape or form diminish her accomplishment.

 

Just don't take what she says as canon.

 

 

Standard mammalian reproduction.

 

[Megas 27,567]

On 2016-05-26 at 7:13 AM, Megas said:

Admittedly sometimes I wonder what it would've been like if Lauren Faust had stayed. There may have been some good ideas or some developments that they might have been able to address like she originally intended(AJ's Parents) and they may have been neat, but at the same time, had she not have left, a lot of the things I love(Scootalove) might not have happened

 

I mean the current writers aren't perfect. Hell, they thought the best way to celebrate what was supposed to be Rainbow Dash's crowning achievement was to have her make an ass of herself and humiliate her and more or less take a dump on her entire arc, and to her credit, I feel that if Lauren would've wanted avoid this if she was still at the helm. But otherwise, I think the show's in better hands because while she often has good ideas, her writing execution, if her episodes were anything to go by, left things to be desired, and I feel with her, there would be a lot of things, episodes, characters, and the likes, that people love that may not have happened if she was still head of the show

well this turned out to be a crock of shit. 3 seasons after S6, once the end of the show came I was pretty much wishing for her to come back lol

[JMTV99 1,352]

3 hours ago, Megas said:

well this turned out to be a crock of shit. 3 seasons after S6, once the end of the show came I was pretty much wishing for her to come back lol

You and me both.

[bigbertha 414]

Imagine saying Lauren Faust sucks at writing when she wrote one of the best episodes of Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends (Crime After Crime). Also I think the show with her input felt a lot more focused. If she stayed, I think the show could've continued to refine itself naturally and could've ended up in a better place than what we actually got. We already got a taste of that natural progression from season 2. 

[JMTV99 1,352]

4 hours ago, bigbertha said:

Imagine saying Lauren Faust sucks at writing when she wrote one of the best episodes of Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends (Crime After Crime). Also I think the show with her input felt a lot more focused. If she stayed, I think the show could've continued to refine itself naturally and could've ended up in a better place than what we actually got. We already got a taste of that natural progression from season 2. 

Yeah, honestly I find that mentality to be incredibly unfair (and kind of biased), in my opinion. Yeah, she wrote bad episodes like Bendy, but she also wrote really good ones. My personal favorite episode of Foster's was Who's Let The Dogs In?, which I consider the best episode of the entire series, and that was written by Lauren. Just because her writing 'sucks', doesn't mean that she can't be creative and unique with her ideas. Hell, she even apologized for writing the Bendy episode(and people still hate her about that for some reason).

Take a similar example, George Lucas. He created the original Star Wars trilogy and people loved it. However, when the prequels came out, people hated it and hating on George Lucas because of it. Just because he wrote the prequels, doesn't mean he can't be creative and ambitious with his plans for the franchise. I'm not a Star Wars fan at all, but even I can somewhat understand on what he's trying to do with the prequels. Doesn't mean I like it though? No, but at least he's doing a better job with the Star Wars franchise then Disney does for the past decade.

Same thing with Lauren. Was her ideas perfect? No, but at least they were creative, ambitious and so refreshing for MLP. As much as I do intrigued her concept of dark adventurous stories for MLP, I think the show works better as a story-driven, fantasy, lighthearted slice-of-life comedy because it does retain a good balance between the tones without going in one direction to another. Plus, the show just wanna have fun and I love that. 

Plus, if she were to stayed, at least she'll ended the series on a higher note than what we got. Sorry if I keep hung up on this, but that kind of bias really irks me(and kinda disrespectful).

Edited June 3, 2021 by JMTV99

[Landi 600]

I definitely disagree with this. Seasons one and two are my favorite seasons, for they are fun, heartfelt, and very well written. So much of these seasons defined what MLP was, and I find myself rewatching episodes from these two seasons more than any other. Faust and her team weren't perfect of course, but they sure did a great job at creating this series. But not only did they create the show, they also truly understood the characters and the setting. This is apparent when comparing these two seasons to the last two season, which were pretty poorly written.

 

[JMTV99 1,352]

2 hours ago, Landi said:

I definitely disagree with this. Seasons one and two are my favorite seasons, for they are fun, heartfelt, and very well written. So much of these seasons defined what MLP was, and I find myself rewatching episodes from these two seasons more than any other. Faust and her team weren't perfect of course, but they sure did a great job at creating this series. But not only did they create the show, they also truly understood the characters and the setting. This is apparent when comparing these two seasons to the last two season, which were pretty poorly written.

 

Preach, brother! Preach!

[Astralshy 26,435]

I completely disagree with this. Season 1 and 2 are really great ones. On my list they are not on top, but they managed to lock me into this show and made so much right. They build the show world, defined the characters, they created the show. Nothing is perfect and one could easily spend vast amount of time to analysis the seasons to the ground, but this wouldn't change the fact that Lauren Faust is awesome in creating and writing. She did an outstanding job, but it's impossible to hit everyone taste and expectation.

Let me put this in short: I'm and always will be grateful to Lauren Faust for creating this show.

This comes from someone like me, who liked the direction the show (with some exceptions) after her departure and all the seasons. Only because something is different it doesn't mean it's better or worse.

 

Edit:

Corrected one typo

Edited June 5, 2021 by Astral Soul

[JMTV99 1,352]

1 hour ago, Astral Soul said:

I completely disagree with this. Season 1 and 2 are really great ones. On my list they are not on top, but they managed to lock me into this show and made so much right. They build the show, defined the characters, they created the show. Nothing is perfect and one could easily spend vast amount of times to analysis the seasons to the ground, but this wouldn't change the fact that Lauren Faust is awesome in creating and writing. She did an outstanding job, but it's impossible to hit everyone taste and expectation.

Let me put this in short: I'm and always will be grateful to Lauren Faust for creating this show.

This comes from someone like me, who liked the direction the show (with some exceptions) after her departure and all the seasons. Only because something is different it doesn't mean it's better or worse.

 

 

 

Agreed 100%! 

[Northern Star 1,024]

All I will say is it seemed to change and to me, in my opinion, I liked it better.

Not perfect either way, but perfection is impossible. 

Also I never understood the "(creator) would have (never) done (x)" thing when, you know, they left. They may say things after but would they have thought of it while working there or only after stepping away and looking at it from another view.

I personally am not a fan of her though. Her shows? Yes some. Herself? No.

Edited June 9, 2021 by TheGleaner

[Misty Shadow 7,845]

Don't exactly agree with this, but I do not believe Faust staying would've made that much of a difference. Her leaving the show was inevitable with her never being that sentimental for MLP and always wanting to do her own thing. It's easy to dream of what should've and could've happened with the show and blame the writers for everything when you forget that Faust or no Faust, Hasbro was still going to be the ultimate arbiter of how whatever "grand plan" for the series anyone came up with would be incorporated. 

[Splashee 28,563]

Knowing that when the Bronies were the biggest thing on the internet, Fighting is Magic was the thing, when asked random people what they looked forward from the community. That alone, together with the fact that Faust helped that project create new characters, to live on when Hasbro said NO, tells me that we as Bronies, and the culture that was super huge and popular, might have stayed that way (still being big and popular today) if Faust still had had control over FIM.

Oh, but the show did become slightly better 

[JMTV99 1,352]

On 2021-06-05 at 4:08 PM, Starforce Glimmer said:

I don't entirely have that much of an opinion on this. I do think it would have been interesting for Faust to have never left, but hire some real good writers that have written some really good novels or movie writers, and have them all collaborate on a better story. Sometimes, the show has done utterly atrocious things such as the pillars, school of friendship, and most especially the season 8 and 9 finales. Grogar being Discord was the stupidest moment of the entire series, and even then, I didn't quite like how Grogar looked. 

Either that, or just bring the old writers back.

3 hours ago, CloudMistDragon said:

Don't exactly agree with this, but I do not believe Faust staying would've made that much of a difference. Her leaving the show was inevitable with her never being that sentimental for MLP and always wanting to do her own thing. It's easy to dream of what should've and could've happened with the show and blame the writers for everything when you forget that Faust or no Faust, Hasbro was still going to be the ultimate arbiter of how whatever "grand plan" for the series anyone came up with would be incorporated. 

Okay, that's a fair point. While it's true Hasbro is the main driving force for MLP because they do own the franchise after all, it's just that I wish Faust would've stayed in the show as long as she could and have the ending a lot more satisfying than what we got, you know? 

[North Star 5,226]

Faust is great at set up and ideas and therefore is a great writer IMO. I don't think you can separate Faust's characters and lore and vision from where the team took them.

As for whether the show would be better/worse if Faust had stayed it is tricky to say. OP says first eps were poor and I do think that their pace was off, but their heart was in the right place. Magical Mystery Tour is similar in that respect. Initially I hated that ep. Now it is my fave. Overall, I think that the reason that the writers that took the mantle after Faust did so well was because Faust is a very good writer :3

She therefore does not suck flank OP. If she did none of us would even be here. 

[LonelyYugi 59]

I kind of think that Faust gets too much credit in someways. The show lasted for nine seasons which is very rare for a kids cartoon, and she was really only involved with the first two seasons. I personally think that the show got better after the first two seasons. The show clearly didn't need her to survive.

[JMTV99 1,352]

1 hour ago, abrony-mouse said:

Faust is great at set up and ideas and therefore is a great writer IMO. I don't think you can separate Faust's characters and lore and vision from where the team took them.

As for whether the show would be better/worse if Faust had stayed it is tricky to say. OP says first eps were poor and I do think that their pace was off, but their heart was in the right place. Magical Mystery Tour is similar in that respect. Initially I hated that ep. Now it is my fave. Overall, I think that the reason that the writers that took the mantle after Faust did so well was because Faust is a very good writer :3

She therefore does not suck flank OP. If she did none of us would even be here. 

Well said.

 

48 minutes ago, LonelyYugi said:

I kind of think that Faust gets too much credit in someways. The show lasted for nine seasons which is very rare for a kids cartoon, and she was really only involved with the first two seasons. I personally think that the show got better after the first two seasons. The show clearly didn't need her to survive.

Okay, fair enough.