Buck Russet in the 25th Century

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Finally got it done!

After months of work, and innumerable delays, here's my ponification of the 1979 Buck Rogers title sequence!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pe__B0gNN8&feature=youtu.be

[Sparklefan1234 161,602]

@Fhaolan

That was SO cool! Awesome work, My Friend! 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,151]

Dude; this freaking amazing! Well done to you and all!

Also, Wintergreen Deering!!!!

[cuteycindyhoney 13,282]

I liked it a lot! It makes me want to watch actual episodes!

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Thanks all!

Okay, now because this *is* a discussion topic, here's my discussion:

I think the radio voices at the beginning are *too* distorted or perhaps too loud. That was from the TV Movie opening. Because of the level of distortion you can't tell that my wife (Tempest Dancer) actually put a lot of effort into trying to keep three distinct voices going. Princess Luna as the Flight Director, Twilight Sparkle as a Ground Control Technician, and Buck Russet herself from the Long Rein 3 (there's a bit of her yelling 'Awesome' when everything was declared go by the other two that I was sad to loose.)

The expanding horseshoe cutouts rather than the original circles from the actual series openings (the two seasons had slightly different openings and I borrowed bits from both) was Tempest Dancer's idea, and amused me no end. Also I wish I could have gotten better resolution clips for G1 and G1.5 to put in the cutouts, but I don't have those on DVD to resample. I tried to find clips that had apocalyptic overtones, but also had vague relevance to the clips used in the original openings. Since the only thing that exists video-wise for G2 is the video game, I was kinda stuck there, but at least I found a clip where the game wasn't glitching out during the time it would be on-screen.  And I counted Equestrian Girls as G4.5 as the Movie wasn't sufficiently different... and wasn't out yet when I started this mess.

I re-arranged the character intro scenes a bit, as there were some things that bothered me in the original. Mainly that Twiki didn't get a character intro scene, but also that some of the backdrop scenes for Buck and for Wilma Deering (I just had to make that pun) were visually almost identical. So I threw in my model of the Searcher (now renamed Trailblazer because it was the best horse-related name I could think of on short notice) and followed a more second season order of intro scenes. One of the hidden easter eggs is that Trailblazer's motto (originally Searcher's 'PER ARDUA AD ASTRA', through adversity to the stars) is now 'PER AMICITIAM AD ASTRA', through friendship to the stars.

I also had wanted to do a rearrangement of the music to make it a touch more MLP-ish, but as I had proved with my older Doctor Whooves Intro, music *really* isn't my thing. I don't play any instruments with any kind of skill, and while I now can somewhat read music thanks to *that* project, I just don't have the ear for composition.

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Okay, continuing my discussion, simply because I put a *stupid* amount of work and thought into this video, and I'm kinda exploding to talk about it. 

The entire idea of Buck Russet actually came from a series of sketches I did awhile ago where I had the various MLP characters cosplaying as classic sci-fi characters. Applejack being 'Applebuck Rogers' and drawn as the 1929 comic strip version. Russet was the only apple variety I could think of that resembled the name 'Rogers'. Applebuck Russet became a pegasis rather than an Earth Pony due to my mental need to conflate any ponification of an Air Force thing to a Wonderbolt variation. This is also the reason why the various uniforms in the animation are variants of the Wonderbolt flight suits.

The Saturn V rocket uses the Equestrian Flag from the Hearth's Warming Eve episode, and uses MLP instead of USA.

Long Rein 3 is modeled after the Dream Chaser by the Sierra Nevada Corp. I decided to use that instead of the classic Buck Rogers shuttle (which despite looking like the actual Space Shuttle, predated it by a couple of years. I think they went off of concept drawings.) because the Dream Chaser was actually designed to be about the right size, and mounted on top of the rocket rather than on it's side.

Long Rein 3 is named such after the horse term long reining which means using exceptionally long reins in order to control a horse while walking behind it as either training for driving or pulling/dragging heavy loads like trees for lumber.

I tried to have the clips in the split screen sequence be as 'on time' as possible, meaning that if I had the option, every bit on the screen at any point in time is actually happening at the same time. So all the movements and the like line up. They didn't do that in the original because of the need of using stock footage and retakes. I had an advantage there.

In the narration: Bonnie Zacherle (the original, original creator of My Pretty Pony which was sold to Hasbro to be turned into My Little Pony) is substituted for John Kennedy, HASBRO is substituted for NASA, and 1982 is the actual 'launch date' for the My Little Pony toy line way back when. I *think* I pronounced Bonnie's name right, but I'm unsure. The only clips I could find with Bonnie being introduced the person doing the introduction is a bit blurry on that last name, and sometimes seem to say Zachery instead. But the spelling is specifically Zacherle, so I resisted saying Zachery.

I also had to resist using my lower tone voice, and use my mid-tone one instead. I often speak using a higher tone than 'normal' because people seem to find my lower voice aggressive, so I trained myself to speak with a much higher tone, brushing up against my falsetto. But if I'm being more casual and not caring as much I speak in a lower tone. And if I'm tired or angry my voice drops down into an even lower register, which is also where I sing (badly) as a Basso Profundo. Again, people tend to react badly to that voice, and when I heard my narration in that tone played back, I agreed it was a bit ridiculous and redid it.

The expanding horseshoe cutouts represent the various generations, as much as possible showing apocalyptish scenes. G2 is the odd one out due G2 not having an actual animation, just a video game. So the best footage of someone playing that game was used there.
The G4 clip of the Golden Oak Library being blown up matches to the Buck Rogers clip at that time in the sequence of a wasteland tree being blown up in the TV movie. 
All the clips in the expanding circles were originally from the TV movie, and they did their best to use those to tell a kind of pseudo-story of the fall of Earth if you didn't realize where those clips were from. I had a lot of trouble finding matching MLP clips, so I gave up and tried to do what they did and do an apocalyptic story of MLP through the generations.

The Equestrian Defense Force uniforms and decals are again based on Wonderbolts, but throwing in a rainbow colorscheme on the lighting bolt as a nod to Rainbow Dash and the fact the Buck Rogers fighters had a section of the engines wrapped in a rainbow decal. The central logo is my own variation of the Twilight Friendship Federation logo that was popular in the Brony fandom awhile back as an answer to the Solar Empire/New Lunar Republic factions. The collars of the EDF uniforms are 'up' in a weird popped collar based on Wilma Deering's collar which seemed to be the male/female variations in the Buck Rogers TV movie. Men had down collars while women had the popped collar. Not exactly sure why.

In the background of the various dance scenes, Doctor Whooves and Derpy are running back and forth on the upper balcony, while Fleur de Lis is playing Princess Ardala. I never did figure out a pony pun name for that character.
Those three background characters also appear in the Wintergreen Deering leaping about scene, in costume as EDF guards. That scene was to match the Wilma Deering stalking through the wasteland scene, and Wintergreen looked *stupid* stalking, so the deer-like pronking about got substituted. That was one of the more painful scenes to animate, as I have no idea what I'm doing and the length of the scene didn't really allow for a complete pronk cycle.
Doctor Whooves and Derpy are also present in the backdrop scene in the EDF control room.

The most painful scene to animate was the Buck flying from an explosion and picking up Spiki. The original scene just has Buck running from an explosion beside Twiki, but I couldn't wrap my head around why pegasis Buck wouldn't fly... and I'd never done a winged flight cycle in Blender before... I had to redo the armature on that model multiple times to get the stupid wings to bend even vaguely correctly. I was trying all sorts of alternative methods with bendy bones and lattices that more often interfered with each other than helped.  

Wilma Deering is now Wintergreen Deering. With that last name, I had to. The gender flip was to match the gender flip done to the three 'mains', male Buck Rogers to mare Buck Russet, female Wilma Deering to buck Wintergreen Deering, and male Dr. Huer to mare Dr. Farrier. Wintergreen had to be buck with antlers, because I wanted to model antlers and to hang a lantern on the fact that Wilma Deering was originally named because of the whole Deer/Buck thing and it amused me no end to have the actual buck *not* be the character named Buck.

I *almost* called the character Dr. Hewer, as in hewing wood, but it was wasn't distinct enough. So I went with Farrier.

The dance Spiki is doing is taken from the Buck Rogers TV movie where Twiki is 'cutting a rug' and annoying the stiffs.
Spiki is of course a blending of Twiki and Spike, as they both seem to occupy the same narrative space in their respective franchises. A sarcastic, yet still innocent assistant to the main character often used as comedy relief.
Spiki is often carrying a version of Dr. Theopolis, which I didn't bother to ponify much as I ran out of creativity and couldn't think of anything.

The ending scene with the starfighters flying into a stargate was added because I felt the need for a more zappy ending to the entire sequence. It didn't appear in any of the opening sequences, but it was used in the Buck Rogers DVD collection as a menu transition scene.

The final music is the Twiki and Dr. Theopolis theme from the TV movie... again, I ran out of creativity at this point and it was the only thing that appealed to me out of the soundtrack that wasn't just a reprise of the theme music. In this animation, it was too soon to do the reprise and I couldn't think of anything to put between them.

...

Okay, I think I'm done.