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

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

Wow. Absolutely disrespectful, since this is the g4 creator. Yeah, let's just say the show would be better off had she never worked on it. Fine.

Guess you would've all been better off with reboots of Newborn buckin' Cooties, since you're shunning Faust. Surely we're MUCH better off with that.

 

Criticism = Disrespectful

 

We don't disrespect her, for creating this world. But she is not immune to criticism and from my point of view, she is not a good writer and she never has been.

 

We are not mindless sheep you know?

[Guest]

Wow. Absolutely disrespectful, since this is the g4 creator. Yeah, let's just say the show would be better off had she never worked on it. Fine.

Guess you would've all been better off with reboots of Newborn buckin' Cooties, since you're shunning Faust. Surely we're MUCH better off with that.

 

It's as Mesme Rize put it. Criticism does not equate to disrespect.

 

That being said, I have kind of slowly started detesting Faust as a creator as time has gone on. I think it's fairly common knowledge that she left the show on somewhat bad terms, we don't know the exact details, but it's made pretty clear that she didn't leave on wonderful terms. Now that the show is more successful than ever though, Faust kind of indirectly realizes she passed up on a huge payday. So along comes Fighting is Magic and Faust sees a chance to cash in and helps people who were given a cease and desist from her former employers and decides to help them get around the cease and desist in the laziest way possible.

 

I'm sorry, but Them's Fighting Herds is so obviously Faust giving the middle finger to Hasbro and it's super unprofessional. Her "changes" to get the game around the copyright problem are hardly even changes, they're more or less loopholes, look at the characters:

 

Arizona, an honest farm girl... So Applejack?

 

Pom a shy sheep who raises animals... So... Fluttershy?

 

Virtually every character is a carbon copy of an MLP character. It's a blatant loophole work around with little effort put into it. That is why I don't like Faust, she's uncreative and furthermore, she's unprofessional.

[Slashy 101]

It's as Mesme Rize put it. Criticism does not equate to disrespect.

 

That being said, I have kind of slowly started detesting Faust as a creator as time has gone on. I think it's fairly common knowledge that she left the show on somewhat bad terms, we don't know the exact details, but it's made pretty clear that she didn't leave on wonderful terms. Now that the show is more successful than ever though, Faust kind of indirectly realizes she passed up on a huge payday. So along comes Fighting is Magic and Faust sees a chance to cash in and helps people who were given a cease and desist from her former employers and decides to help them get around the cease and desist in the laziest way possible.

 

I'm sorry, but Them's Fighting Herds is so obviously Faust giving the middle finger to Hasbro and it's super unprofessional. Her "changes" to get the game around the copyright problem are hardly even changes, they're more or less loopholes, look at the characters:

 

Arizona, an honest farm girl... So Applejack?

 

Pom a shy sheep who raises animals... So... Fluttershy?

 

Virtually every character is a carbon copy of an MLP character. It's a blatant loophole work around with little effort put into it. That is why I don't like Faust, she's uncreative and furthermore, she's unprofessional.

I love the brilliant writing, let's name all the towns "BAAAAAH", let's have fart jokes, let's make the characters far less relatable to humans, let's have some grimdark plot about the characters constantly fearing being eaten.

 

The lore is so uneven between being a serious fantasy world and a goofy fantasy world.

[Guest]

I love the brilliant writing, let's name all the towns "BAAAAAH", let's have fart jokes, let's make the characters far less relatable to humans, let's have some grimdark plot about the characters constantly fearing being eaten.

 

The lore is so uneven between being a serious fantasy world and a goofy fantasy world.

The fact that Faust wrote the characters for the game so similar to MLP characters says one of two things:

 

1. It's just a cheap attempt to get around copyright.
2. That's all she knows how to do.

Both of which don't speak well for her. As a write, Faust isn't that good. As a professional, she's even worse.

[Moved to Elsewhere 11,329]

I'm the group that believes the show got better after Faust left. People will throw praise onto seasons 1 and 2 because nostalgia, Faust and, "ZOMG THE SHOW TURNED TO GARBAGE AFTER SEASON 2!" People will give Faust pretty much all the credit for making the show. Really? How about the other writers? How about the animators? How about the voice actors? Faust was just the showrunner, she barely did much of the writing as I can tell. She just approved ideas.

 

I respect Faust as a creator. but as a writer on this show she's pretty meh. She's much better on writing for other people's shows like Fosters. The only episodes she wrote were an over-exposition pilot, and a corny dialogue ridden episode that is The Ticket Master (apologizes if you like these episodes).

 

Meanwhile without her, the show has treaded way more grounds than it did back then. Characters have grown, new worlds have been explored, interesting villains have been introduced. I'm not saying the later seasons are perfect and the early seasons are bad, but they do more and take more risks which I respect.

[Gernia 690]

i agree with Faust not being very good at writing (wouldn't be as forthright as you, though). Things can get rather awkward and forced in the first season, especially. I think the first season was pretty good, but it has not aged all that well. When her influence was less in season 2, things definitely improved. Season 3 was better in writing, although there were some choices and ideas that may not have panned out well (unrelated to writing). Faust is very good at certain things, but writing isn't one of them. The writing, and the show, definitely improved after she left.

[Slashy 101]

The fact that Faust wrote the characters for the game so similar to MLP characters says one of two things:

 

1. It's just a cheap attempt to get around copyright.
2. That's all she knows how to do.

Both of which don't speak well for her. As a write, Faust isn't that good. As a professional, she's even worse.

Faust is AMAZING when it comes to character and world design, for the basic groundwork she is fantastic.

 

Let me make an analogy that might explain what I think of Faust's talents. She can do some amazing blueprints when it comes to construction, but when it comes to actually constructing a building she insists on using materials that don't make a lot of sense.

 

We have evidence that many of Faust's ideas were restricted or changed while she was developing the show, and honestly? Had Faust gotten nearly everything she wanted, I wouldn't have been a fan of the series. I really hope that the staff don't try to uphold Faust's vision where it clearly has issues, namely with Spike gosh I hate how little she cared about him.

[ManaMinori 4,144]

It's as Mesme Rize put it. Criticism does not equate to disrespect.

 

That being said, I have kind of slowly started detesting Faust as a creator as time has gone on. I think it's fairly common knowledge that she left the show on somewhat bad terms, we don't know the exact details, but it's made pretty clear that she didn't leave on wonderful terms. Now that the show is more successful than ever though, Faust kind of indirectly realizes she passed up on a huge payday. So along comes Fighting is Magic and Faust sees a chance to cash in and helps people who were given a cease and desist from her former employers and decides to help them get around the cease and desist in the laziest way possible.

 

I'm sorry, but Them's Fighting Herds is so obviously Faust giving the middle finger to Hasbro and it's super unprofessional. Her "changes" to get the game around the copyright problem are hardly even changes, they're more or less loopholes, look at the characters:

 

Arizona, an honest farm girl... So Applejack?

 

Pom a shy sheep who raises animals... So... Fluttershy?

 

Virtually every character is a carbon copy of an MLP character. It's a blatant loophole work around with little effort put into it. That is why I don't like Faust, she's uncreative and furthermore, she's unprofessional.

uncreative?

But that so called lack of creativity drew you into FiM during its start, didn't it?

Contradictory much?

 

I'm not a LF fangirl, but pissing on her, calling her uncreative or whatever, when you're enjoying a reboot that she took and made better than its older incarnations, is bs

Edited May 24, 2016 by Nightmare Muffin

[Guest]

uncreative?

But that so called lack of creativity drew you into FiM during its start, didn't it?

Contradictory much?

You do not know me or my reasoning for watching the show, so it'd be wise not to assume.

 

No there is no contradiction. I was attracted to the show for other things than Faust's writing. I always felt her writing sucked. I enjoyed the music and the voice acting, both of which things that Faust had no control over.

 

Dude you need to stop taking people criticizing Faust as a personal attack.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

My first bad impression when i first watched mlp is the ss1 premiere... 

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

uncreative?

But that so called lack of creativity drew you into FiM during its start, didn't it?

Contradictory much?

 

You make it seem like, everything that the show stands for, is because of Lauren Faust.

 

Trust me, if everything would've gone Fausts way, like turning this into a magical girls show, i would've probably never had watched it.

[Swifty 249]

There are still people who still like season one and two more than the rest, because they like them more. Why is it always about nostalgia, no matter what? From season three on it started to become freaky like a very mild form of Spongebob or now even Family Guy. Now i could watch stuff like adventure zone as well, because its the same uninteresting cartoon style.

The charme fim once had, left the show with Faust. Slowly but steady, and now you cant ignore it anymore.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Swifty

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

There are still people who still like season one and two more than the rest, because they like them more. Why is it always about nostalgia, no matter what? From season three on it started to become freaky like a very mild form of Spongebob or now even Family Guy. Now i could watch stuff like adventure zone as well, because its the same uninteresting cartoon style.

The charme fim once had, left with Faust. Slowly but steady, and now you cant ignore it anymore.

 

I never saw anybody here, really saying that.

 

It's okay if you liked the old seasons, as long as you respect the guys, that like the new ones better. Also, Season 2 was awesome.

[Gestum 2,493]

Yeah, I have always find her to be the worst writer in the show. All except one of my least favourite episodes were written by her.

[Phill 1,285]

My first bad impression when i first watched mlp is the ss1 premiere... 

 

I enjoyed it at the time, but looking back it really pails in comparison to future episodes. And I can see why people would be put off by the show after watching the S1 premiere. It's not a very good first impression

[Cirrus. 1,088]

LOL shouldn't this be in debate pit?

 

Anyways, I don't think Faust leaving is "The Best Thing Ever"...  I think of it more along the lines of how things might have been had she stuck it out.

 

I've always been one for production/behind the scenes stuff. Especially in animation.

 

It kind of makes me sad to see that A lot of people seem to forget or not KNOW what she was actually doing for the show during season 1.

 

 

 

Before production, she made and pitched the "show Bible" and had a blast doing it.

 

Then came actually "Producing" it...

 

 

Back during season 1's production everything was very hectic and everyone (except Lauren) didn't even know exactly how all the characters even were yet.  She had to iron things out and keep everyone on the same page. The writers were also freelance vs. in house- which she wasn't used to. She also had to deal with making sure everything was looking right by corresponding with Vancouver only by phone and Email. On top of that, the production schedule for getting all this done was twice the speed of a typical production of MLP's scope. Basically- after making the show "bible" she was doing "repairs/cleaning/refining" more than actually being "CREATIVE." Most of this being done ALONE...In her home office...

 

 

 

If she didn't put in the effort that she did, we wouldn't have the rock solid, deeper than average characters that we all love that have survived and are still "themselves" even to this point 5 years later.

 

 

 

She's mentioned more than once that she would have loved to do more writing, but just couldn't because she was too busy with "being the captain".

 

After season 1 was all buttoned up, everyone working on the show could now see exactly who/how the characters were and had something concrete to work from.

 

Since she left though, to me the show seems on less of a defined/structured path. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. It sounds to me like Hasbro kind of led her on in the beginning and then started "losing interest" (A good example was giving her a closet for writing meetings basically because they didn't want to pay the writers extra to come in and meet in person.)

 

Since then Hasbro has seemed to REALLY change their tune in regards to the show as the fandom exploded. THEY wanted the 100th episode even though M.A Larson advised against it.

 

I just think it's weird that she just ditched the whole thing instead of just resigning from producing and just occasionally writing. Unfortunately, due to nondisclosure agreements that I'm guessing exist, it may be a long time before we know exactly what made her quit.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Cirrus.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,152]

Guys, I just hid a few posts for being rude, or downright insulting. If you don't agree with someone's viewpoint there is no excuse to down them or their opinion as such.

 

Please, let's stay civil and not let this topic be locked due to people not playing nice.

 

Thank you.

[SilverStarApple 849]

Faust wasn't solely to blame for all the show's problems, or success. Still, she certainly would have stopped the direction the show is taking as of this season, desperately pandering to the waifu fans while trying to introduce new wacky characters by shoving them in our faces, hoping to make each one become a new popular character.

[Batbrony 15,994]

You make a far more reasonable argument than I would expect a thread OP like this to have, but that said, I hesitate to get onboard with it.  Quite simply, we just don't know where the writing would have gone if Lauren had stayed.  She wasn't pushed out, she made the choice to leave, and to this day I commend her for having the courage to do so after two phenomenal seasons.  Just because those first two seasons didn't do what the show does now doesn't make them lesser for it.  She did more than lay a foundation in the characters and the setting, she laid a foundation for those new seasons as well; we simply couldn't have the current storylines without such a strong foundation as the first two seasons gave the show, and it's been a delight seeing how the show continually evolves as the narrative evolves, and it did so even between Seasons 1 and 2, even if the changes weren't as drastic as they are now.  So while I think MLP has been perfectly fine out of Lauren's hands, I hesitate to say her leaving was the best thing that could have happened to the show; we don't know what direction it would have taken had she stayed, and the show couldn't be where it is now if it hadn't been for what she did in creating and developing the show.

LOL shouldn't this be in debate pit?

 

Anyways, I don't think Faust leaving is "The Best Thing Ever"...  I think of it more along the lines of how things might have been had she stuck it out.

 

I've always been one for production/behind the scenes stuff. Especially in animation.

 

It kind of makes me sad to see that A lot of people seem to forget or not KNOW what she was actually doing for the show during season 1.

 

Some excellent points made on your part concerning the road Faust had to take just to get the show off the ground.  That in and of itself, combined with the smaller amount of resources she had from Hasbro, automatically makes it so hard to even compare her show-making process in Seasons 1 and 2 to the process that's gone into making later seasons considering the circumstances are so different.  So yeah, folks should feel free to compare seasons or say they like later ones more, but to compare what went into making each season is far trickier considering that's very circumstantial depending on how old the show is itself.

[Cleverclover 1,525]

Never will I understand this fandom's vilification of Faust. 

 

The truth is that we will never know how the show would have turned out had she remained with it. So what if she had a few ideas that we only perceive to be bad ones? That kind of thing actually tends to happen during the development of a show. When a show is being made, no one knows for sure how it's going to turn out. So creators tend to experiment with ideas, and many of them don't end up going through in the end (although many of them do). 

 

Perhaps the show would have been better off with her gone. We don't know that for sure. However, what I do know for sure is that with Faust gone, we have likely missed out on Applejack, Pinkie Pie, or Fluttershy ever getting goals in the show. Supposedly, Faust's original plan was that Magical Mystery Cure would have finally wrapped Twilight up to conclude a season that would wrapped up ALL the mane six. She would have introduced goals for the three goalless members of the mane six, and then season 3 would have been spent having the mane six achieve those goals, as well as having the CMC get their cutie marks. 

 

Yet Faust left, and Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie have instead remained just as goalless as they were from episode one. Even after all this time has passed, no one has ever bothered giving them something to strive for. I can't help but find that annoying because I really don't want them to come away from this show completely empty-handed (figuratively speaking), but it sadly seems that they will. 

 

In any case, saying that Faust leaving is "the best thing that could have happened to the show" is both flawed and ignorant. Because you DON'T know that, and you CAN'T know that. So it really irks me to see people in the fandom giving her so much unwarranted hate. 

[Mesme Rize 15,681]

Never will I understand this fandom's vilification of Faust. 

 

Sorry Clever. I am not villifying her, i just talk her like i see her. That's all there is to it. Even Faust is not invincible from any criticism.

 

 

Perhaps the show would have been better off with her gone. We don't know that for sure. However, what I do know for sure is that with Faust gone, we have likely missed out on Applejack, Pinkie Pie, or Fluttershy ever getting goals in the show.

 

Sorry Clever, but you contradict yourself here. You also don't know that.

 

For all we know, maybe Faust didn't had any plans for Pinkie, AJ and Flutters and she only had plans for Twilight, Rarity and RD. You can't just say that we don't know what she planned and at the same time say that.

[Cleverclover 1,525]

Sorry Clever, but you contradict yourself here. You also don't know that.   For all we know, maybe Faust didn't had any plans for Pinkie, AJ and Flutters and she only had plans for Twilight, Rarity and RD. You can't just say that we don't know what she planned and at the same time say that.

 

I've read before that Faust was planning to give goals to Pinkie, AJ, and Flutters, which would have been wrapped up by Magical Mystery Cure. She didn't specify what those goals would have been, though, and she probably didn't know herself before she eventually left. 

 

It's entirely possible she wouldn't have gone through with it in the end, but even still, what that tells me is that there was at least one person who was interested in doing something with those three. Each of them could have easily developed goals by now, but none of the writers have apparently cared enough to do so, which is particularly frustrating when you consider that Twilight apparently still isn't finished receiving one reward after another. 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Cleverclover

[King Sejong 858]

   I think fans of animation give Lauren Faust too much credit, yes she creates good set ups, but she does not complete her work, someone else does. It's those other people that should get credit, like her husband Craig McCraken, who was the real creator of Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, in addition there is Genndy Tartakovsky, Chris Savino and M.A. Larson, all have worked with Lauren Faust for decades, and stay with their projects until they were completed. Most of her fans, only see Lauren, through Lauren goggles, so they do not see the ones who brought her dreams to life, and probably did better, I call it the popular culture paradox, they praise good things and ignore that bad, although Lauren Faust pitched My Little Pony to the network, it was Megan McCarthy who took the reigns, and made some great episodes, but for a while zealous fans, would tease and harass Megan, because she was not the Lauren goddess, yes, Lauren was instrumental in giving us great programs, the fact remains, she has not finish what she started, acknowledge this, and give credit to other animators for a change, they deserve it most.

Edited May 26, 2016 by King Edouard

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,383]

This might sound harsh, but actually don't like Faust all that much, I feel like she gets far too much praise. Like you said, Faust mostly wanted to stay in a sort of 'comfort zone', which mostly resulted in no advancement whatsoever. She wanted to take an extremely cliched 'kids show' route and basically didn't treat the show like anything else but that. This could also explain why she was going to end this show at a measly 3 seasons, typical for a random kid's show, but we all know that FiM isn't one of those, but Faust wasn't going to treat this show any different. So I am happy that she left, she clearly didn't have any kind of long term vision for FiM. If she was still in charge, she would have killed off this show far too early and then she would have mostly likely forgot about it and moved on to something else.

[Megas 27,101]

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

Edited May 27, 2016 by Optimus Prime