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Could G5 bring back G1–G3 ponies?


FirePuppy

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As long as name trademarks don't get in the way, I'm sure it'll happen. And even then, who's to say G5's creative staff can't just rename or even combine old ponies? That's what Lauren Faust did with Firefly+Rainbow Dash and Surprise+Pinkie Pie, among others. She took an older gen personality, combined it with a slightly newer gen design, drew it in the style of G4, and there you go.

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It may, I would imagine that the staff more than likely would come up with new names for ponies that have been used in previous generations, really to nail in the fact that "this is the new generation that is different from the last one"- kinda like how they're changing the animation style of the show. 

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They did it with generation four--sometimes they brought back characters from older generation while other times they simply reinvented them--so I shouldn't see why they couldn't do it for the next one. Though they shouldn't go overboard as original characters are still needed to sell this new generation.

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16 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

Some, but not likely, either due to irrelevance or due to the name trademarks being taken away. Like how Twilight and Firefly couldn't be used in G4. 

That's weird because Basic Fun / Bridge Direct is going to be making the original set of 6 unicorn and pegasus. That set includes Twilight and Firefly. Basic Fun is the company that has already produced the original 6 collector ponies, those are already being sold. At this years toy fair photos have surfaced that include the first set of rainbow ponies, the pretty parlor and the first set of Uni/Pegs

So I don't know about trademark being taken away considering these originals are going to be remade.

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1 hour ago, KarentheUnicorn said:

That's weird because Basic Fun / Bridge Direct is going to be making the original set of 6 unicorn and pegasus. That set includes Twilight and Firefly. Basic Fun is the company that has already produced the original 6 collector ponies, those are already being sold. At this years toy fair photos have surfaced that include the first set of rainbow ponies, the pretty parlor and the first set of Uni/Pegs

So I don't know about trademark being taken away considering these originals are going to be remade.

That maybe a difference between broadcasting trademarks and toy/ merch trademarks. Hasbro would defend the toy license but not the broadcast one. 

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1 hour ago, Denim&Venom said:

That maybe a difference between broadcasting trademarks and toy/ merch trademarks. Hasbro would defend the toy license but not the broadcast one. 

I'm not sure if it's different but there has been talk for years about them losing the trademark in the 80's among the collecting community, even before FIM existed but it doesn't really seem like that is the case; it's always been heresay or rumor etc. Since they're licensing Basic Fun/Direct to reproduce the exact same ponies/characters/names/info/artwork from 83/84 I don't know how much of the losing trademark is true.

Even the 35th ann. box states that all related characters are trademark of hasbro. So if they're reproducing items that were trademarked back then (Since Twilight and Firefly are the exact same characters as appeared on the TV series as the toy line), not sure if hasbro actually lost they're right to recreate those same characters again.

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46 minutes ago, KarentheUnicorn said:

I'm not sure if it's different but there has been talk for years about them losing the trademark in the 80's among the collecting community, even before FIM existed but it doesn't really seem like that is the case; it's always been heresay or rumor etc. Since they're licensing Basic Fun/Direct to reproduce the exact same ponies/characters/names/info/artwork from 83/84 I don't know how much of the losing trademark is true.

Even the 35th ann. box states that all related characters are trademark of hasbro. So if they're reproducing items that were trademarked back then (Since Twilight and Firefly are the exact same characters as appeared on the TV series as the toy line), not sure if hasbro actually lost they're right to recreate those same characters again.

All I know is that for some reason they couldn't use Twilight, Firefly and Surprise among others, as stand alone names like Faust intended in 2010.  

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2 hours ago, Denim&Venom said:

All I know is that for some reason they couldn't use Twilight, Firefly and Surprise among others, as stand alone names like Faust intended in 2010.  

Twilight to my memory was only in the 1 special, I don't remember her being on the actual series or in any other episodes. She was in the special back in I believe 1985 was when escape from Catrina aired. However, Twilight, the pony was originally released by hasbro in 1983-84, collectors sometimes call it year 2. So a year or two before the cartoon was ever aired. Twilight and Firefly were part of the same set of ponies in year 2. Surprise came later in the second set of ponies which is generally called year 3 but was more like 84-85 that included more uni/peg/earth ponies.

I'm not entirely sure how credible the whole we lost the trademark information is even coming from Faust. But then again maybe there is some weird difference between the toy and cartoon. 

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I think they should just have it be in the future of like 20 to 30 years from FiM. The CMC would be adults, Mayor Mare would be like Granny Smith now, Granny Smith would be dead, and most ponies we know and love would either be just starting to get grey manes and tails, or that and wrinkles. 

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I really loved this video by Jenny Nicholson about her idea for the G5 storyline, and about how awesome it'd be if they brought back some of the older generation pony types, like Flutterponies! It'd be cool to see each of the G4 ponies with a bit more diversity in terms of shape and size, as well as bringing more pony types into the mix. Personally, I love variation like that, and I think it'd really help to push G5 ahead and keep it interesting! 

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I've been told that Hasbro has been re-acquiring the G1 trademarks they lost way back when, thanks to G4 becoming popular. I'm not sure if they've gotten *all* of them back yet, but most of them have been recovered. There was some jiggery-pokery with the trademarks being sold along with the G1 toy molds, but I was recently told that was only a small number of characters and that Hasbro used that as an excuse. Most of the ones that were 'lost' were actually due to Hasbro simply not bothering to renew the trademarks when they sliced G3 down to Core 7, and not feeling the need to go through the effort of re-establishing the trademarks when Faust was spinning up G4. Once G4 proved to be... unexpectedly popular, Hasbro scrambled and started re-trademarking everything. :)

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8 hours ago, Fhaolan said:

I've been told that Hasbro has been re-acquiring the G1 trademarks they lost way back when, thanks to G4 becoming popular. I'm not sure if they've gotten *all* of them back yet, but most of them have been recovered. There was some jiggery-pokery with the trademarks being sold along with the G1 toy molds, but I was recently told that was only a small number of characters and that Hasbro used that as an excuse. Most of the ones that were 'lost' were actually due to Hasbro simply not bothering to renew the trademarks when they sliced G3 down to Core 7, and not feeling the need to go through the effort of re-establishing the trademarks when Faust was spinning up G4. Once G4 proved to be... unexpectedly popular, Hasbro scrambled and started re-trademarking everything. :)

I don't know, a lot of things are always rumored and talked about but I never really get the hard evidence about them actually loosing they're trademark. It's been rumored in the collecting community for years, I'm talking since I got online back in 1997ish the online pony community has suggeted hasbro lost it's rights to make certain ponies, but it's always been a 'rumor'.

Actually to give everyone reference on the collector pony set they're producing for the 35th anniversary, this set of ponies have been produced multiple times over the years (the idea of calling it a collector set started way back in 1985 actually, where us kids from the 80's could buy those ponies again through the mail order program.I have actual physical proof of Hasbro using that term collector set and considering MLP's 'collectable' even back when the brand was hot in the 80's).

The original 6 was produced in 2 sets of 3 again (and the first set of rainbow ponies) back in the 25th anniversary. The 25th Anniversary would have been around 2007 or 8 I think, so that was before FIM even existed. So they clearly did not loose a trademark to produce those ponies/characters. And hasbro tends to list them as characters not just toys.

They clearly already continued to have rights to make 12 of the original MLP back in the early/mid 2000's. There has also been a variety of different things over the years even before FIM came into being back in 20010.

They even did a thing called the pony project (I think it was back in 2005 or 6) where they had giant blank 18" G3 ponies (I have one), and famous people/artist/etc designed they're own and put it on dispay (I think they were sold for charity if memory serves me right).

 

So I dont know, lots of people have discussed the loosing of 'trademark', and it's possible what you're telling me is correct, however I don't know. I do know that they've produced G1s over the years before FIM. G3 ponies reused some G1 names. G2 ponies also reused some G1 names. The MLP brand has continued to me made for a long period of time, add into that G2 lasted longer overseas than it did in the USA. So there hasn't been much of a lul if you look at the brand worldwide, etc.

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