Rewriting Past Episodes

[Odd Ball 230]

Are they're any episodes that you wish you could change? Either the whole story or just one or two scenes?

 

If I could rewrite The Cutie Map, it would take place a few mouths after Sunburst left to the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns. Starlight becomes angry and unleashes a powerful spell that nearly destroys her village. The frighten ponies bag her to stop and say they will do anything she wants them to do. She demands everypony to give up their cutie marks, lock them inside a cave and that only she can use them if she desires to. She also wants everypony to always think happy thoughts, or she send them to a far off desert. When the mane six arrive, Starlight learns that the princess of friendship, Twilight Sparkle, represents the element of magic. She comes with a plan to steal her cutie mark, allowing her to use the time traveling spell, so she can stop Sunburst from getting his cutie mark. In the end, Starlight learns that forcing others to be her friend isn’t true friendship and she becomes Twilight’s student, after she is done being grounded.

 

What episodes would you like to rewrite?

[Megas 27,086]

Cutie Remark - This one kind requires more input throughout S5 1) Make Starlight's backstory and motives not shit 2) Reveal her background throughout S5 and 3) Don't have the mane 6 or the Equal town accept her yet, that way they can make for great future episodes

 

Only other episode is Newbie Dash - Actually have the episode be about her finally becoming a Wonderbolt in the most satisfying way possible, drop the name shit and actually make the episode centered around finally achieving her goal. Like, holy fuck this was built up since the beginning of the show, you guys should've given it your all. I can't accept that the writers were ok with the episode as is, It's almost as if you guys wanted it to suck

 

EDIT: There's MMDW, though I'd actually just remove the scene where the remane 5 are praising MMDW's accomplishments(i.e. their own), episode would probably suck still, but it'd get rid of one of my biggest problems with the episode just by removing it

Edited July 11, 2016 by Jefferson Steelflex

[PoisonClaw 8,153]

Swarm of The Century. One minor change I've held that would make the episode far better is if Pinkie Pie actually tried to tell her friends about how dangerous the Parasprites were, only to have no one believe her rather than being unhelpful and cryptic. She claims at the end that she tried, but despite three instances where she could have, what she actually did was ask them to drop everything during a crisis and help her with a seemingly ransom task without telling them why. The moral would still be the same too, since they wouldn't believe her at first and learn that they should have in the end.  

[Jeric 46,835]

If I really wanted to, I could probably go to town on 60% of the episodes. Most of those would be minor tweaks to earlier episodes creating more hidden depth ... small touches most wouldn't notice. The biggest ones that need a rewrite are Rainbow Falls, Newbie Dash, Princess Spike, Owl's Well, and Apple Family Reunion, Twilights Kingdom, and One Bad Apple. Each of those had insane missed opportunities.

[Burke22 11]

Newbie Dash. I would go ham on this episode, because first of all, it doesn't really emphasize the 6 season long arc, and instead they made a meh episode that won't be remembered except for being bad. I would make it kind of like Crusaders of the Lost Mark, and end the arc in style and awesomeness.

[FlareGun45 2,221]

Spike at Your Service - I like the episode, but just making him less of a clumsy idiot during the chores is all I'd change.

 

Sweet and Elite - After Rarity gets caught lying, everyone gets mad that she lied, but after Rarity apologizes, they forgive her but not completely. It's just she lied and got away with it in that episode. Also have Spike attend Twilight's Birthday party.

 

Party Pooped - Have the Mane Six stop being bootlickers those annoying yaks, and they get actually get mad at them, which causes the yaks to want to declare war.

 

Castle Mane-ia - Have the episode be more original and not just a cliche episode.

 

Princess Spike - Take out Spike abusing Twilight's princess title, and have the delegates be the ones to learn the lesson. Spike realizing that being a princess is hard work, but actually him making smart decisions. It's bad enough the delegates don't listen to Spike's opinions, but it wasn't completely his fault of what happened. Those delegates were annoying, and Cadance was obviously available, why couldn't she help him out?

 

There might be more but that's all I got for now.

[Thrond 3,257]

A good majority of episodes could use a little more tweaking, but these are the shortlist

 

"Look Before You Sleep" -- complete retool; take out most of the personality clash and replace it with something a little less hostile.

"Green Isn't Your Colour" -- complete retool; centre the episode around Twilight eventually needing to reveal the secret. Fewer situations that could be solved if someone just said something.

 

"Hearth's Warming Eve" -- make these historical figures actually distinctive and not just clones of the ponies we know.

"The Super Squeezy Cider Squeezy 6000" -- have the Apples consider using Flim & Flam's device, and argue over it. Would provide a way deeper conflict.

"Putting Your Hoof Down" -- fix the darn pacing, make Fluttershy's character arc halfway coherent, allow more sympathy for Iron Will.

 

"The Crystal Empire" -- cut all of the stuff about Twilight's test. That really drags the episode down.

"Spike At Your Service" -- Better characterization all around.

 

"Princess Twilight Sparkle" -- complete retool. Change everything. Yes, everything. Remove the flashbacks, remove Discord being an ass, remove the stupid tree of harmony. Make it about Twilight dealing with her new role, and that alone.

"Bats!" -- make the episode actually about the things it pretends to be about instead of some asinine, unbalanced environmental message. Also, get rid of the stinger.

"Rainbow Falls" -- complete retool. Make the conflict about Rainbow choosing between her friends and her dream. Remove Twilight's nagging. Make the Wonderbolts not jerks. Make Rainbow's team not crap. This episode is kind of a bad idea in general but I swear there's good in there somewhere.

"Simple Ways" -- Tone down the cringe. Emphasize AJ and Rarity's similarities (whatever those are) as well as their differences.

"Somepony to Watch Over Me" -- tone down AJ's concern a lot, and don't have it justified by the chimera scene.

 

"Tanks For the Memories" -- have Tank be terminally ill rather than just hibernating. I don't like Dash being juvenile!

"Slice of Life" -- explicitly state that Lyra and Bon Bon are a couple.

"Amending Fences" -- complete retool (please don't kill me); have Moondancer just be uninterested in social interaction and not all bitter and self-destructive. Have some sort of coherent theme. Have Twilight not stalk Moondancer. Maybe just double the running time.

"Canterlot Boutique" -- also might benefit from double the length. Acknowledge Sassy's good points and Rarity's own mistakes; make the plot less one-sided. There's nuance there that just needs a little more time to soar!

"Hearthbreakers" -- just take out the conflict entirely.

 

"No Second Prances" -- double the running time and actually explore the characters' nuances. Also give the story a halfway interesting plot.

"Newbie Dash" -- complete retool. Have Dash demonstrate maturity; perhaps address hazing; at least confront what the nickname means to RD rather than drag out the cringe comedy. There's a really great episode in here, I swear!

[cmarston1 5,952]

The Cutie Re-Mark

Have Twilight team up with many different versions of the mane 6 from the alternate timelines in order to defeat Starlight Glimmer.

If Starlight Glimmer is to be redeemed have her sacrifice herself in order to let Twilight fix the timestream and get back safely.

Or have Starlight end up being sent to prison or something.

[Swifty 249]

"Three's a Crowd"

Just replace Cadance with Celestia. *Bang* - so we easily had a Twilight/Celestia episode. But OF COURSE, this was unfeasible.

 

 

 

 

 

"The Cutie-Remark"

Just think of something else to make GlimGlim fly. Her doing magic while flying like a pegasus without breaking sweat....sure, sure. I couldn't take it seriously anymore and in fanfictions she would be branded as a lazy chosen one-OC.

Edited July 12, 2016 by Swifty