g3/core 7 Why do so many people hate generation 3?

[Shigaraki 270]

Star Catcher was the name! Ahhh she so beautiful as Rarity 

oops l thought it will merge 

[Clawdeen 12,191]

I loved Gen 3 as a kid so it’s interesting reading why people don’t like it. 

[ManaMinori 4,145]

On 7/20/2019 at 1:25 PM, MeowEQD said:

Well, people hate Generation 3 because, if you look closer into it, it was all for little girls. I absolutely loved G3 as a kid. Minty was my favorite too. But, the only contents were toys and movies, no storyline, no episodes. a 3.5 Christmas special about a pony wishing for Pink snow, a live action tea party special, it was made fun of for being for little girls. Like the way Caillou became a meme because people think it's annoying.

I personally like G3, but some Bronies don't because the haters of the series think that Friendship is Magic follows the same type. Bronies would be afraid that they would have others thinking that they watch a show about technicolor glitter horses and love it. The haters would also think that G1 is also like that, but G3 was just made for little girls.

On the other hoof, it might be only because of just two words: Newborn. Cuties. 

baby scootaloo meeting Scootaloo G4 would be the most amazing crossover just wow. It wouldn't be creepy at all.

What a deplorable abomination, to cater to little girls in a franchise MADE for that audience! The horror!  Bronies aren’t the demographic and neither were they, originally, for FiM, so they shouldn’t even get to have commentary on a previous generation that was NOT intended for their consumption and critique 

[Octavian 5,420]

Silly old skelly thread - it is bringing back memories of reading Ponyville confidential by Sherilyn Connelly. 'People' didn't hate the earlier gens before G4 came along - as an 80s kid whose older sister collected my family thought it was ok, but among the trashier of things for little girls. Of course, like a dutiful younger brother it was my duty to destroy these pastel girly things, which she had already grown out of by the time I was old enough to destroy things :p Anyway 80s MLP very much had its place. A far humbler place than 2010s MLP, but it definitely had its place. The toy basis of the show was (and is) not necessarily bad either. The creators of the early gens of MLP very obviously inspired the creator of the G4 and so did the toys (dun dun duun). Lauren Faust's interview on this in the brony doc remains one of the sweetest moments in my long experience of this fandom :3 

Anyway, the earlier gens obviously lack the black dark-pink magic of G4 and they don't appeal to me or anyone I know, kids or adults, anywhere near as much. G4 has made me a fan, and all my sister's kids, male and female, who watch it also love it, even if they don't go OTT like me. They don't watch it for internetty sauce and cheeky references (yet :p ), but they love it far more than my sister liked MLP at their age and that is against the wishes of the parents who barely provide them with the toys (my sister now finds MLP tacky and tries to remove the ponies I give to her kids  ).

Personally though I am happy that G4 was so good that I gave earlier gens of MLP a chance and really like some of them (Minty!), and Midnight castle.

Edited January 8, 2021 by abrony-mouse

[ProfVenturer 94]

There's a lot more haters of Gen2 than Gen3.

[Megas 27,609]

On 2021-01-08 at 7:36 PM, Califorum said:

I hate the previous generations since the ponies look like actual horses - distasteful for me.

uhhhhh what? A show called My Little Pony where they look like horses? What do you expect them to look like?

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

Look me in the eyes and tell me Minty is a good character......go on, I’m waiting

[JMTV99 1,352]

I think the reason why a lot of people hate Generation 3 back then was because they thought it was too saccharine and so sickly sweet compared to Friendship is Magic. I remember during the time when FiM became hugely popular, there was a lot of hate of the previous generations, especially G3. They were bashing it to death down to point it becomes a hip and cool thing to do. Heck, I used to jumped on the G3 hate bandwagon because I thought it was terrible as people said it was.

Looking back on it now and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think G3 wasn't as bad as people said it was. In fact, I actually do like it a lot more than Generation 1.

Now hear me out! Don't get me wrong, Newborn Cuties is terrible and I'm not going to defend that, but Generation 3 as a whole is not terrible and I actually find it charming than Generation 1. While I do respect Generation 1 for what it's trying to do and it had what Lauren Faust inspired to do with FiM and I do remember liking it at the time, but overtime, the more I do think about it, I just find it forgettable and bland than anything else. With the exception of Midnight Castle, I don't find the G1 show all that entertaining. All I remember it was the characters and that's it. Even then, they almost feel like walking pandering plug-in products than actual characters(with the exception of Megan and Firefly).

G3 on the other hand, at least they had actual characters with different personalities even if just feels one of the same. At least the songs from G3 were pretty catchy despite it being childish. At least you remember G3 for being cringy and you just wanna poke fun at it for how cringy it is, unlike G1 which I'm kinda bored with. Finally, at least with Generation 3 really did laid the foundation on what Friendship is Magic truly blossomed even further. In fact, I would go as far to say that My Little Pony Friendship is Magic really did carried a lot of elements from Generation 3, but only to be build up a millions times better. The characters, Ponyville, the balloons, the voice actors and actresses. Everything! I had to give a lot of credit and respect for G3 for that.

Not to mention, a couple of weeks ago, I watched Applegeek's reaction on G3 Very Minty Christmas special, and I have to say it's pretty charming and cute. Heck, I actually do like it a lot more than any Heart's Warming Tail episodes from Friendship is Magic and that's saying a lot.

Honestly, I'm really glad that the hate for G3 had died down a lot in recent times and people actually do enjoy and appreciate it for what it is.

As much as I adore Friendship is Magic to death, I don't hate G3 that much anymore and I do think it deserved a lot of love and respect.

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

Generation 3 seems to try to appeal to the youngest Viewers, since there were no real villains and it might seemed to innocent and nice, so i guess that is why Bronies didnt liked it.

Its the most innocent and harmless Generation of all the Animations. It still didnt deserved the hate however, since Bronies were never the target demographic of any of the Gens originally anyway, so its kind of laughable that adult people complain that this Animations suck. 

Grown up man criticizing a Cartoon for not meeting their standards that was aimed at young girls...what even? I personally found Gen 3 good, i liked the Animation Style, some of the characters and the humor. But i have to agree, it definitely had the most hard to watch stuff if your an adult, since it is really aimed for the youngest so it can get painfully boring or even uncomfortable to watch sometimes. But most of it is still good in my opinion.

[JMTV99 1,352]

On 2021-06-20 at 2:13 PM, Reason for Cancellation said:

Generation 3 seems to try to appeal to the youngest Viewers, since there were no real villains and it might seemed to innocent and nice, so i guess that is why Bronies didnt liked it.

Its the most innocent and harmless Generation of all the Animations. It still didnt deserved the hate however, since Bronies were never the target demographic of any of the Gens originally anyway, so its kind of laughable that adult people complain that this Animations suck. 

Grown up man criticizing a Cartoon for not meeting their standards that was aimed at young girls...what even? I personally found Gen 3 good, i liked the Animation Style, some of the characters and the humor. But i have to agree, it definitely had the most hard to watch stuff if your an adult, since it is really aimed for the youngest so it can get painfully boring or even uncomfortable to watch sometimes. But most of it is still good in my opinion.

Yeah, I can understand what you mean.

Also, this is something that it has been on my mind lately and I had to let this out. Hasbro celebrated the MLP franchise in it's 35th anniversary by rereleasing G1 ponies by Basic Fun just to capitalized on nostalgia. However, I have to ask one question. How come Hasbro didn't do the same thing to other generations? I get that G1 is the most well known, besides G4, but it would've been nice if Hasbro were to give ALL generations a chance to shine again rather than favoring one or two.

I don't know, it could be just me, but is it feel wrong that Hasbro trying to sweep G3 under the rug just because a lot of people hated it? To me, it kinda is. If that were to be the case, then how come a lot of elements of G3 (Pineville, balloons, characters, and voice actors) were brought over to Friendship is Magic in the first place? I'm just saying.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

Easy: The characters were extremely shallow AND the society was displayed as utopian, which is the ultimate flaw of G3. Long story short, it presented a heavily distorted reality that may impact the way we see the world around us. This is especially present in the premier movie: Princess Promenade:

One of the ponies finds a flower that turns her into a Princess. What does she do? Turns her friends into Princesses. Like..how in the world is that supposed to contribute to the lives of those who watch that? 

[Splashee 28,563]

I never found Generation 3 to be visually appealing. The toys have a cheaper look than Generation 1. Also, for a very long time, the toys for Generation 4, like Baby Pinkie Pie, and super pink Celestia, did that same thing for me, being more of a baby toy, than a precious collectable. Maybe it was just the cheapest marketing trick, but it just didn't do it for me.

I wouldn't collect Disney's Cars, any of the Minions characters, or MLP Gen 3, for the same reasons.

But I accept people that grew up with the toys, and hope it brought them joy and some nostalgia at some point.

[JMTV99 1,352]

5 hours ago, Courageous Thunder Dash said:

Easy: The characters were extremely shallow AND the society was displayed as utopian, which is the ultimate flaw of G3. Long story short, it presented a heavily distorted reality that may impact the way we see the world around us. This is especially present in the premier movie: Princess Promenade:

One of the ponies finds a flower that turns her into a Princess. What does she do? Turns her friends into Princesses. Like..how in the world is that supposed to contribute to the lives of those who watch that? 

Yeah, speaking of Princess Promenade, here's an interesting fun fact about it: Back in 2006-07, when Lauren Faust was pitching Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls to Hasbro, there's one exec that Lauren know, which is Lisa Licht, said that she liked but she handed over the Princess Promenade DVD and said 'what do you think of this? Is there anything you can do with it?' Lauren was surprised since MLP was her favorite toy since she was a kid, but she never expected this. Lauren told Lisa did she watch it, and Lisa responded 'I haven't watched it yet, but I have a feeling that its probably pretty terrible'. Finally, Lauren watched it and come back to Lisa and say ' yeah, let's fix this mess'. (ok, that didn't happen, but you get what I mean)

And now, here we are. In all honesty, I never seen Princess Promenade, but I heard a lot of bad things about it, but I'm gonna check it out eventually just to see how cringy it is (and I'll make fun of it).

54 minutes ago, Splashee said:

I never found Generation 3 to be visually appealing. The toys have a cheaper look than Generation 1. Also, for a very long time, the toys for Generation 4, like Baby Pinkie Pie, and super pink Celestia, did that same thing for me, being more of a baby toy, than a precious collectable. Maybe it was just the cheapest marketing trick, but it just didn't do it for me.

I wouldn't collect Disney's Cars, any of the Minions characters, or MLP Gen 3, for the same reasons.

But I accept people that grew up with the toys, and hope it brought them joy and some nostalgia at some point.

Yeah, I can understand why people didn't like G3 for legitimate reasons. But to be fair, I was just focusing on the animated stuff. I never really liked the toys anyway.

[cupcakery 79]

On 2021-02-27 at 9:29 PM, ExplosionMare said:

Look me in the eyes and tell me Minty is a good character......go on, I’m waiting

wahhhh minty was my childhood fav. oh well 

[cupcakery 79]

I kind of like g3, tbh. I watched a bit of the movies when I was a kid, even though Friendship Is Magic was out at that point. My favorite character was Minty and I would sob when she broke the candy cane that was supposed to go on the tree. I felt bad for her and related to her. The toys at the time weren't that rare for me bc my teacher would let me pick one out of the treasure test everytime I did something well in class.

[Moonriah 12]

13 hours ago, Splashee said:

I never found Generation 3 to be visually appealing. The toys have a cheaper look than Generation 1. Also, for a very long time, the toys for Generation 4, like Baby Pinkie Pie, and super pink Celestia, did that same thing for me, being more of a baby toy, than a precious collectable. Maybe it was just the cheapest marketing trick, but it just didn't do it for me.

I wouldn't collect Disney's Cars, any of the Minions characters, or MLP Gen 3, for the same reasons.

But I accept people that grew up with the toys, and hope it brought them joy and some nostalgia at some point.

Whether G3 toys are way worse than G1 or not,it’s still undoubted that both G1 and G3 toys overshadowed most of the G4 toys because of their diversity as well as some better designs.

[ExplosionMare 18,062]

11 hours ago, cupcakery said:

wahhhh minty was my childhood fav. oh well 

I think when I typed that I was trying to say Minty IS a good character, but I butchered it  Honestly though I have no idea

[JMTV99 1,352]

Remember when I said G3 wasn't as bad as people thought it was? Well, recently, I watched the G3 specials and movies last night, and.....yeah it wasn't that great at all. As much as I would love to make jokes about it, but what is there to joke about it? Rainbow Dash said "darling" 24/7? It's already becoming an annoying joke after 2-3 times.

Something about G3 feels so saccharine and so sickly sweet that just left me feel numbed to it. It just left me a bad taste in my mouth that I don't want to watch it again. 

The characters are obnoxious and shallow, the stories are so paper-thin and generic, the songs are so obnoxiously kiddy, and the animation was just so wired. Especially the way they animate the ponies with their dance moves, holding stuff, and standing on their hind legs. It's like, are they supposed to be horses? G4 did the same thing(in the later seasons), and I didn't like that either.

It's clearly made for the target audience in mind, but there's not enough substance that makes you wanna come back to. While there are some decent things that I do like from G3 like the FiM voice actresses, and there some jokes give me a chuckle, but other than that. it's just pure fluff. Nothing more. Nothing less. While I respect that G3 does have it's fans, but I prefer G4 a lot more, despite it's hang-ups.

With that said, do I think G3 deserves a lot of hate? I don't think so. The only one deserves the hate was Newborn Cuties.

Would I rather watch G3 over Season 6-9 of FiM? Absolutely not. Both of them are bad in the own right, but I don't think that comparison is really fair.

In my opinion, G1, G2, and G3 lack substance and appeal compared to G4 FiM and I understand why a lot of people wouldn't look back on them fondly, besides nostalgia.

On 2021-06-22 at 6:11 PM, Courageous Thunder Dash said:

Easy: The characters were extremely shallow AND the society was displayed as utopian, which is the ultimate flaw of G3. Long story short, it presented a heavily distorted reality that may impact the way we see the world around us. This is especially present in the premier movie: Princess Promenade:

One of the ponies finds a flower that turns her into a Princess. What does she do? Turns her friends into Princesses. Like..how in the world is that supposed to contribute to the lives of those who watch that? 

On 2021-06-23 at 12:31 AM, JMTV99 said:

And now, here we are. In all honesty, I never seen Princess Promenade, but I heard a lot of bad things about it, but I'm gonna check it out eventually just to see how cringy it is (and I'll make fun of it).

Oh yeah, about Princess Promenade? I actually did watch it last night and........uuugh. Thank god Lauren Faust fix the MLP brand from the ground-up because Princess Promenade was just OOF. Pain.

[Stardust 641]

Eh even as a kid the one peek I got of G3 I was like why they make it so girly cuz the G2 toys ya know.. they had a bit more variation and colour were fun for me, the story here seemed simplistic with this show and I was kinda dissapointed. Its more like barbie or something but even barbie has more detail I think even if it shares that colour pallete.

I'm kinda liking it more now when I look back there is some cool stuff in it.

But still I feel they did make it too pink but not just that everything kinda just too much like giggly and a bit shallow in terms of story. The setting is a bit lacking in development too. I mean a bit of pink is nice but it felt forced idk like marketing type thing.

If u look at g1 it has more of an adventure theme and more stuff going on I feel though I wouldn't say I found it that enjoyable either, g3 is easier to follow in someways.

I know ppl who prefer the previous gens of mlp because the ones now don't look like horses anymore x3 or found bronies annoying. 

[Clawdeen 12,191]

On 2021-06-23 at 12:34 PM, Moonriah said:

Whether G3 toys are way worse than G1 or not,it’s still undoubted that both G1 and G3 toys overshadowed most of the G4 toys because of their diversity as well as some better designs.

I agree. I definitely preferred the G1 and G3 toys.

[Steve Piranha 29,421]

On 2021-02-20 at 12:40 PM, ProfVenturer said:

There's a lot more haters of Gen2 than Gen3.

I’m sure people are mostly ignorant for G2 because

1-Didn’t have an animated adaptation 

2-the actual G2 toylike was short lived 

hell, people mistake MLP Tales as the G2 animated show 

[Cash In 22,276]

I can tell you right now, it's probably because of the art style. The last time I watched anything Gen 3 related was in 2008, so I don't remember too much other than the elephant in the room.

[Leave a Whisper 703]

They don't.  Only the loud whiny minority hate it. It is very popular amongst the larger mlp community and was a big seller among kids. They're some of the most beautiful toys in the franchise.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Leave a Whisper

[Envy 6,159]

Bronies have always had a warped view of the franchise. MLP has always been primarily about the toys while the animations (especially from G1 and G3) were there to advertise the toys. They weren't the main dish, they were just little side things, just like the video games.

G3's animated series is not the best thing you will ever watch (but it does have its moments), and so Bronies take one look at that and don't realize that what really shines about G3 are the toys. The toys were high quality and had a lot of variety with really beautiful themes. They put G4 and G5 to shame a hundred times over. The series has been flipped at this point and it's sad to see. G5 toys are so... ugh. =(

[Bumble Sweet 135]

On 2017-01-18 at 8:22 AM, chaosprincess said:

I know generation 3 is not the most amazing generation, but it seems so many people hate it I like the art I think its really pretty and I don't see why a show has to have violence or combat to be considered good I must admit I do find the songs to be catchy now I'm not forcing anybody to like generation 3, but a lot of people consider it ugly and horrible which I feel they are over exaggerating now I'm not starting an argument or anything everybody has a right to their own opinion or things that they like I just thought I would start this topic and see what everybody thinks me personally I like generation 3 and a lot of ponies in generation 4 are from that generation so without generation 3 and older there would not be a generation 4 so do you like generation 3 or hate it and why?

I think there are problems with drawings