I'm thinking of starting watching previous Gens

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

as the title suggests, i think i'll give previous generations a try, which one would you suggest i start with?

[strongwilled_pegasus 5,156]

 you could start with gen 1, then work your way to gen 3    

[Ziltoid the Omniscient 286]

Start with the original mlp movie. Then the gen 1 show. And if you can make it through 2-3.5 then you're a braver person than I. 

[Steve Piranha 29,419]

Watched Rescue at Midnight Castle, and a Very Minty Christmas. For what little I've seen, I suggest going for G1 first. The biggest flaw G1 may have is the 80s cartoon weirdness. G3 has more problems than that 

[Chronicplane 58]

Good luck with that, especially with G3.5

 

[MangoFoalix 24,944]

From what I heard, Gen 1 and 2 are pretty fine. Most people don't seem to like 3 or 3.5 when it comes down to things. Admittedly, those ones get a bit weird in some cases. I still recommend you go with Gen 1 first!

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

Allright then. G1 it is

56 minutes ago, Steve Piranha said:

The biggest flaw G1 may have is the 80s cartoon weirdness.

The 80's weirdness is not a flaw. Its a plus in my book

Edited July 26, 2018 by Lord Valtasar

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

26 minutes ago, Lord Valtasar said:

Allright then. G1 it is

The 80's weirdness is not a flaw. Its a plus in my book

The first special Rescue at Midnight Castle is probably the best thing to start with, well duh it's the very first cartoon. Unless you count some of the original commercials that had animation (haha). The TV series is not exactly the same as the special, the animation is a little better in the special, and the TV episodes are a bit different in terms of not being quite as intense.

One of my favorite episodes from the TV series in G1 is Sweet Stuff and the Treasure Hunt. It's very sweet and innocent, so don't expect anything amazing in the episode. I think the reason I like it is because it's sweet and innocent and I just really love the theme of the episode. The song Be Glad you are who you are is probably one of my favorite songs from G1.

The return of Tambelon is probably another of the G1 episodes I liked, I also liked Fugitive Flowers, here you will get to meet Posey the inspiration for Fluttershy, also a little side not, Optimus Prime is in this episode, no not the robot but the voice actor that plays OP is a character in this episode.

The Golden Horseshoes - the inspiration that made the G1 pony Mimic extremely popular among collectors and for whatever reason makes people believe this pony is hard to find, but it's generally just made people pay a LOT more for this pony than the others in the TE set.

Somnambula...yes, the introduction of boy ponies. While this episode isn't super memorable for me, it was more about the introduction of male ponies that was so awesome back then. In the toy line, all the ponies were female till the Big Brother Ponies were introduced...yea, it was a big deal if you were into the toyline back then.

 

Anyway, those are some of my favorite episodes of the TV program. I know some people poopoo on the movie but I loved the movie as well.

 

 

 

 

[Steve Piranha 29,419]

1 hour ago, Lord Valtasar said:

Allright then. G1 it is

The 80's weirdness is not a flaw. Its a plus in my book

Nah, what I meant was the time's weirdness is the worst it has, as the time's things isn't everyone's cup of tea. Is otherwise a decent show, or at least Midnight Castle, which is the only thing G1 related thing I've seen.

For what I've seen from Minty Christmas.... got serious problems, and I think the rest of the general has them. Too much padding, bad dialogue, weird quirky one-note characters, all the ponies look the same save for the color.... Just letting you know what to expect 

[Snow Frostflame 3,568]

The previous gens are actually pretty nice, and as much hate as Gen 3 gets its actually pretty good and would recommend that to anyone who is curious. Though I would not recommend 3.5, unless you're really bored.

[ManaMinori 4,145]

2 hours ago, TheTaZe said:

From what I heard, Gen 1 and 2 are pretty fine. Most people don't seem to like 3 or 3.5 when it comes down to things. Admittedly, those ones get a bit weird in some cases. I still recommend you go with Gen 1 first!

g2 didn't have any animated content

[Fhaolan 4,483]

I watched all the previous gens' animations, and  managed to find versions of some of the live action shows. The animations were fine, though they were definitely products of their time. Meaning you might feel some cultural dissonance in places.

The really hard ones to watch are the live actions.

[MangoFoalix 24,944]

3 hours ago, Nightmare Muffin said:

g2 didn't have any animated content

You sure? I swore it did. You're probably right because I've actually never watched any of it.

[KarentheUnicorn 218]

1 minute ago, TheTaZe said:

You sure? I swore it did. You're probably right because I've actually never watched any of it.

Most new fans/FIM centered fans confuse G2 with the Tales series. It doesn't help that one of the Brony documentaries labeled the series incorrectly. It's very disheartening to have that kind of thing out there, showing the lack of knowledge where MLP History is concerned.

My Little Pony Generation tags are based on the toyline. And you have to actually go back to the time between the switch in the brand to understand why MLP ended up using the Generation Tagline.

If you look at the tales series and the toys, the toys are in the exact same molds as G1 ponies; so at the time when the toys and series came out there was no confusion on who the toys where and characters were. If you both watched and collected the toy you would have no problem identifying ponies/toys.

 

When the toyline changed and the whole line was revamped, that is when the Generation Tag started to be used online. One reason I remember back then we started  using Generation terms is because Hasbro re-used G1 names in the G2 toyline. So to be able to explain which pony was being discussed, we started saying (for example) Generation 1, Sundance or Generation 2, Sundance. If you were a collector back then and were asking for G1 Sundance and you had someone send you G2 Sundance it was annoying. And because back then new people were getting into MLP, they didn't automatically know there were names being reused. You also need to remember that digital cameras were expensive back in the early days of the internet and hardly anyone I remember had a cell phone. So you had to depend on the description instead of photos when searching for ponies, etc.

Now everyone  has a camera and can add photos on the internet so there isn't that big of an issue but the Generation Tag makes it easier to explain what you're talking about, especially considering Hasbro has consistently reused pony names over the Generations. For example I could start talking about a Unicorn named Moondancer and most FIM centered fans are going to assume I mean the character on the G4 cartoon. However, back in 1983/84, Moondancer and Firefly were my first My Little Pony toys that my mom bought me. It's what got me into MLP. So me saying G1 Moondancer removes any confusion on which pony I'd be talking about, etc.

[Fhaolan 4,483]

18 minutes ago, TheTaZe said:

You sure? I swore it did. You're probably right because I've actually never watched any of it.

Nah, there's a bit of confusion because G1 had two independent series. My Little Pony 'n Friends, and My Little Pony Tales. Tales used the same models as the previous G1 series, but had a completely different setting and characters. The G2 toys, with a new art style and model design, didn't come around until after 'Tales' ended. There were supposedly comics for G2 (in Europe only), but not an animated series.

[Steve Piranha 29,419]

52 minutes ago, Fhaolan said:

Nah, there's a bit of confusion because G1 had two independent series. My Little Pony 'n Friends, and My Little Pony Tales. Tales used the same models as the previous G1 series, but had a completely different setting and characters. The G2 toys, with a new art style and model design, didn't come around until after 'Tales' ended. There were supposedly comics for G2 (in Europe only), but not an animated series.

It had a PC game tho. Not surprising the lack of knowledge of G2, it was short lived in the US. I think it was successful enough in Europe to last until 2003 or so when G3 came around 

[sci-fi-pony 41]

When you get to G3, I would recommend Princess Promenade for your first one. It has an almost G4 feel to it in terms of humor and the overall story/lesson. I personally enjoy most of the G3 cartoons, you just have to remember that they were written for little kids and were primarily intended to sell toys. Still, I find the animation really cute and I love the variety in character designs (they were trying to fit in as many toys as possible, lol). I can't offer any recommendations regarding G3.5, though, as I was never able to get past the first episode of that era.  

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

34 minutes ago, sci-fi-pony said:

When you get to G3, I would recommend Princess Promenade for your first one. It has an almost G4 feel to it in terms of humor and the overall story/lessons

Still, I find the animation really cute and I love the variety in character designs

Sounds like my cup of tea.

As an artist. I really pay attention to character designs so it will probably be a blast

[The MegaBrony 219]

Generation 1. It has fan favorites Wind Whistler, Fizzy, and Galaxy, and far better villains than Generation 4.

[Jordan D 149]

On 7/26/2018 at 7:27 PM, Steve Piranha said:

It had a PC game tho. Not surprising the lack of knowledge of G2, it was short lived in the US. I think it was successful enough in Europe to last until 2003 or so when G3 came around 

Early MLP generations were, from what I can tell, extremely popular in Europe. From what I've seen, each country in Europe got there own comic book lines too, some of which lasted into 1993. Europe even had Generation 3 comics, but I've found little to no info on those outside of a few forum post on MLP Arena.

G1 MLP is nice. Haven't watched much of the cartoon (only episode I watched was Baby It's Cold Outside) but I've read some of the comics and story books. As other have said, they revel in "80s weirdness", but I think it's charming. As weird as they tend to be, the stories they tell are pretty versatile. The world isn't as fleshed out as Friendship is Magic but it has its own fun quirks and make it endearing. I especially love how baby seaponies wear floaties, it's cute. I'm planning on watching Tales too. From what i've seen, it's a pretty standard slice of life show but I always liked those anyway.

[Steve Piranha 29,419]

1 hour ago, Jordan D said:

Early MLP generations were, from what I can tell, extremely popular in Europe. From what I've seen, each country in Europe got there own comic book lines too, some of which lasted into 1993. Europe even had Generation 3 comics, but I've found little to no info on those outside of a few forum post on MLP Arena.

G1 MLP is nice. Haven't watched much of the cartoon (only episode I watched was Baby It's Cold Outside) but I've read some of the comics and story books. As other have said, they revel in "80s weirdness", but I think it's charming. As weird as they tend to be, the stories they tell are pretty versatile. The world isn't as fleshed out as Friendship is Magic but it has its own fun quirks and make it endearing. I especially love how baby seaponies wear floaties, it's cute. I'm planning on watching Tales too. From what i've seen, it's a pretty standard slice of life show but I always liked those anyway.

I got enough criteria to tell G3 is not something I'd waste time watching, but I may continue doing so with G1. Tales not so sure, being slice of life makes it inevitable to compare it more with FIM, but I may give it a chance since some FIM pony voices where there (in case you thought G3 was the first time Ocean Dub did poneh )

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

just watched the pilot,the sound was terrible,hopefully this won't be the case for the rest,it seems nice enough, time to dive in

Edited July 31, 2018 by Lord Valtasar

[Khoufu 43]

On 7/30/2018 at 5:56 PM, Lord Valtasar said:

just watched the pilot,the sound was terrible,hopefully this won't be the case for the rest,it seems nice enough, time to dive in

If you watched it on YouTube, it was probably copied from an old VHS, which would explore the sound quality. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a better rip online that has the Little Piece of Rainbow song. My DVD cuts it out and has credits all over the screen for the Sea Pony song. 

Hope you enjoy your watching! My favorite episodes are the pilot (Midnight Castle), Somnambula, and the Golden Horseshoes.

[Lord Valtasar 12,690]

@Khoufu
i still haven't watched many episodes,i'm watching it slowly,but the pilot was my favorite so far