What's left for Equestria Girls as of late 2018

[FirePuppy 731]

After Rollercoaster of Friendship finishes uploading by the end of this month, only these remain for Equestria Girls: "New shorts, CYOA, songs, and possibly another movie planned."

That "possibly another movie" -- I think it's the one where they all turn into ponies -- might very likely be the last one ever, since G4 is coming to an end after all. 

Edited September 18, 2018 by FirePuppy

[heavens-champion 1,905]

Honestly, who knows? All I know is that it will apparently outlive Friendship is Magic.

[Ganondorf8 11,259]

We do know of that one special that was shown at SDCC--or whichever convention it was--via a brief trailer but that is likely going to be pushed back to next year depending on how far along in production it is. As for anything else Equestria Girls for this current year, I couldn't really say other than Hasbro working on some additional projects behind the scenes that they want kept secret until they're ready to show them off.

[heavens-champion 1,905]

16 hours ago, Ganondorf8 said:

We do know of that one special that was shown at SDCC--or whichever convention it was--via a brief trailer but that is likely going to be pushed back to next year depending on how far along in production it is. As for anything else Equestria Girls for this current year, I couldn't really say other than Hasbro working on some additional projects behind the scenes that they want kept secret until they're ready to show them off.

I heard somewhere that Equestria Girls is gonna keep going even when Friendship is Magic ends.

[ShadowSJG 62]

New special before the end of the year;

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn7LIK_FP5X/?hl=en&taken-by=equestriagirlsnews2018

 

[Blue_Phoenix 34]

The special won't give us soul mates. Trust me. 

[Thrond 3,263]

It's a shame, I think; with this recent short series, Equestria Girls has shown that it has a lot of potential to keep growing for a good while. I'd say I like it more than Friendship is Magic at this point. 

 

[Steve Piranha 29,413]

On 10/7/2018 at 11:48 PM, AlexanderThrond said:

It's a shame, I think; with this recent short series, Equestria Girls has shown that it has a lot of potential to keep growing for a good while. I'd say I like it more than Friendship is Magic at this point. 

 

Trust us, the purpose of this tread was to ask if there was anything else EG had to offer what remains of this year, and the only thing we knew about is an upcoming special. This new short came out of nowhere, or at least I didn’t know any foresight that the second season was beginning so soon

[Thrond 3,263]

26 minutes ago, Steve Piranha said:

Trust us, the purpose of this tread was to ask if there was anything else EG had to offer what remains of this year, and the only thing we knew about is an upcoming special. This new short came out of nowhere, or at least I didn’t know any foresight that the second season was beginning so soon

Well, I was mostly reacting to this in the original post:

On 9/18/2018 at 11:39 AM, FirePuppy said:

That "possibly another movie" -- I think it's the one where they all turn into ponies -- might very likely be the last one ever, since G4 is coming to an end after all. 

I'm really excited for the second season. 

[ShootingStar159 2,155]

On 9/20/2018 at 6:42 AM, heavens-champion said:

I heard somewhere that Equestria Girls is gonna keep going even when Friendship is Magic ends.

That was a part of the big 2017 leaks. Not only has nothing in there been confirmed by Hasbro, it’s all still subject to change. We’ll  just have to wait and see.

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

Scrapping EG would be another mistake by them. But they need a happy medium. A normal running cartoon series. Not random specials once per year, and not one-shot short films.

[Skytower 71]

One problem is how do you do an Equestria Girls' series without copying a lot of the stuff that's already been done in MLP?  The characters are basically the same, albeit in different bodies.  There are of course differences between Equestria and Earth and the characters ages and circumstances, but how do you take that and make it original?  The human Twilight can not be put into the same situations as the pony Twilight, (I don't think King Sombra, T-reck or any of the villains could show up at CHS without someone in the government noticing),  They could move everyone into college but again it wouldn't be quite the same.  If it is going to succeed Equestria Girls has to be it's own show.

[DonMaguz 1,023]

13 hours ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

But they need a happy medium. A normal running cartoon series. Not random specials once per year, and not one-shot short films.

I think the Youtube short series is a great medium to explore and expand the EQG franchise.

Here are some virtues (IMO) of the shorts format:

- It helps to switch the spotlight towards the rest of characters (beyond Sunset and SciTwi).

- It is perfect to introduce EQG songs without the need of context inside an episode.

- CYOE gives the viewer a limited interactive experience and helps to explore different outcomes, usually with great comedy on them.

- Without 20 minute plots, it takes away the need to reenact FiM's scenarios and focus on the humor.

- It gives the user an immediate (and I would even say necessary) way to pause, rewind and look for all the details and references they put in the shorts. The viewer doesn't lose anything by doing this, since there isn't a complex plot to be following.

- Whenever they want to show a full story, they can do it all the same and break it down in smaller pieces to show, just like FF and RoF.

S1 of the EQG short series left us with some great songs, a pair of non-serious (almost background) arcs with the spotlight on the funny moments, two amazing specials and a bunch of random moments that show us, little by little, the differences between these characters and their pony counterparts.

[Thrond 3,263]

8 hours ago, Skytower said:

One problem is how do you do an Equestria Girls' series without copying a lot of the stuff that's already been done in MLP?  The characters are basically the same, albeit in different bodies.  There are of course differences between Equestria and Earth and the characters ages and circumstances, but how do you take that and make it original?  The human Twilight can not be put into the same situations as the pony Twilight, (I don't think King Sombra, T-reck or any of the villains could show up at CHS without someone in the government noticing),  They could move everyone into college but again it wouldn't be quite the same.  If it is going to succeed Equestria Girls has to be it's own show.

They've done pretty well so far. I think the girls' relative immaturity gives them wiggle room to reconstruct those characters in ways which are familiar but subtly different, and the different context of their lives can provide room for morals which don't fit the mane six's lives anymore. Though I'd prefer just a handful of one-off 22-minute specials to a full series; the current short format is working just fine for me. 

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

3 hours ago, DonMaguz said:

- It helps to switch the spotlight towards the rest of characters (beyond Sunset and SciTwi).

- It is perfect to introduce EQG songs without the need of context inside an episode.

- CYOE gives the viewer a limited interactive experience and helps to explore different outcomes, usually with great comedy on them.

- Without 20 minute plots, it takes away the need to reenact FiM's scenarios and focus on the humor.

- It gives the user an immediate (and I would even say necessary) way to pause, rewind and look for all the details and references they put in the shorts. The viewer doesn't lose anything by doing this, since there isn't a complex plot to be following.

- Whenever they want to show a full story, they can do it all the same and break it down in smaller pieces to show, just like FF and RoF.

S1 of the EQG short series left us with some great songs, a pair of non-serious (almost background) arcs with the spotlight on the funny moments, two amazing specials and a bunch of random moments that show us, little by little, the differences between these characters and their pony counterparts.

I just don't see a reason the other characters need to be ignored in a conventional show format. FiM has given us episodes that follow characters who aren't usually the main focus. Why this isn't done more often is actually a bit of a shock, since there's clearly plenty of love for those other than the Mane 6 (or 7).

Also, as @AlexanderThrond said, there's a lot more that could be done without rehashing FiM. E.G. is more grounded in reality, giving opportunities to explore more human problems that the Ponies have never had to face (such as cyber-bullying in the pilot), though with the introduction of the School of Friendship, that may be more complicated than before. On the more mystical side, I wish the connection between Equestria and the E.G. world hadn't been spent so quickly. There could've been a lot more to explore there and get into some very interesting sci-fi-ish scenarios.

Gosh, part of me wishes there could be a Sci-Twi-centered version of the show (where we don't know what's going on already, which is unfortunately impossible) where she's constantly doing these X-files sort of investigations with an overarching plot that eventually leads her to discover Equestria. It could have been a LOT of fun to watch her SLOWLY unravel the mystery of all the strange happenings while dealing with being an outcast and maybe picking up a few other oddballs in her school who take interest in what she's doing, kinda like the Scoobies in the Buffy T.V. series.

[Skytower 71]

2 hours ago, AlexanderThrond said:

They've done pretty well so far. I think the girls' relative immaturity gives them wiggle room to reconstruct those characters in ways which are familiar but subtly different, and the different context of their lives can provide room for morals which don't fit the mane six's lives anymore. Though I'd prefer just a handful of one-off 22-minute specials to a full series; the current short format is working just fine for me. 

  In a way they are faced with the Star Trek problem.  DS9 could not be Next Generation, Voyager could not be DS9 or Next Generation.

[Toon4Thought 274]

5 hours ago, DonMaguz said:

I think the Youtube short series is a great medium to explore and expand the EQG franchise.

Here are some virtues (IMO) of the shorts format:

- It helps to switch the spotlight towards the rest of characters (beyond Sunset and SciTwi).

- It is perfect to introduce EQG songs without the need of context inside an episode.

- CYOE gives the viewer a limited interactive experience and helps to explore different outcomes, usually with great comedy on them.

- Without 20 minute plots, it takes away the need to reenact FiM's scenarios and focus on the humor.

- It gives the user an immediate (and I would even say necessary) way to pause, rewind and look for all the details and references they put in the shorts. The viewer doesn't lose anything by doing this, since there isn't a complex plot to be following.

- Whenever they want to show a full story, they can do it all the same and break it down in smaller pieces to show, just like FF and RoF.

S1 of the EQG short series left us with some great songs, a pair of non-serious (almost background) arcs with the spotlight on the funny moments, two amazing specials and a bunch of random moments that show us, little by little, the differences between these characters and their pony counterparts.

That's a pretty good way of looking at it, actually. Personally, I would prefer they more regularly have 11 or 22-minute stories, since the majority of the season 1 shorts felt like they weren't able to be fleshed out enough to be anything substantial (Overpowered and Last Day of School are two good examples). Yeah, there are specials, but it feels like going from one extreme to another. Forgotten Friendship used the run-time near perfectly, but Rollercoaster of Friendship was basically a 22-minute plot with random shorts thrown in, which really showed in that special's pacing.

However, the way you praise the short format does make me look at them more positively. Maybe they should have just as many 11-minute stories as shorts, with them essentially alternating between the two, along with the occasional special?

1 hour ago, bornAgainEquestrian said:

There's a lot more that could be done without rehashing FiM. E.G. is more grounded in reality, giving opportunities to explore more human problems that the Ponies have never had to face (such as cyber-bullying in the pilot), though with the introduction of the School of Friendship, that may be more complicated than before. On the more mystical side, I wish the connection between Equestria and the E.G. world hadn't been spent so quickly. There could've been a lot more to explore there and get into some very interesting sci-fi-ish scenarios.

The slice of life stuff tends to be what drags me into EqG as well, since it allows them to really show how different the Mane Six's lives would be as humans. Though I do want Sunset's ties to Equestria to be explored more in the future; I still argue it's not too late to do a story with her possibly becoming homesick. Surely she ends up like that at some point with how vastly different her new life is compared to her old one.

[Skytower 71]

On 10/11/2018 at 8:44 PM, Toon4Thought said:

That's a pretty good way of looking at it, actually. Personally, I would prefer they more regularly have 11 or 22-minute stories, since the majority of the season 1 shorts felt like they weren't able to be fleshed out enough to be anything substantial (Overpowered and Last Day of School are two good examples). Yeah, there are specials, but it feels like going from one extreme to another. Forgotten Friendship used the run-time near perfectly, but Rollercoaster of Friendship was basically a 22-minute plot with random shorts thrown in, which really showed in that special's pacing.

However, the way you praise the short format does make me look at them more positively. Maybe they should have just as many 11-minute stories as shorts, with them essentially alternating between the two, along with the occasional special?

The slice of life stuff tends to be what drags me into EqG as well, since it allows them to really show how different the Mane Six's lives would be as humans. Though I do want Sunset's ties to Equestria to be explored more in the future; I still argue it's not too late to do a story with her possibly becoming homesick. Surely she ends up like that at some point with how vastly different her new life is compared to her old one.

  I'd like to see some focus on her early days and how she adjusted to life as a human.  Flashbacks would be good.

[BornAgainBrony 2,397]

On 10/11/2018 at 8:44 PM, Toon4Thought said:

The slice of life stuff tends to be what drags me into EqG as well, since it allows them to really show how different the Mane Six's lives would be as humans. Though I do want Sunset's ties to Equestria to be explored more in the future; I still argue it's not too late to do a story with her possibly becoming homesick. Surely she ends up like that at some point with how vastly different her new life is compared to her old one.

Sometimes I feel like there was an even bigger missed opportunity there. I was really into Disney's "Once Upon a Time" at least early on, because I was so in love with the premise: What would these legendary figures who lived life in a literal fairytale, do if they were forced to live in our mundane reality?

I hadn't thought about it like this before, but maybe that's why I feel drawn to Sunset in E.G. possibly more than Dash, while in FiM there's NO contest. I always kind of felt misplaced in reality, or lost in the wrong dimension, for as long as I can remember. Sunset's early days there must have really been something. Even more lonely than Twilight. At least she had Spike with her, and she ran into her E.G. counterparts quickly enough. What did Sunset have? Pretty much nothing. And she was coming from a place where she felt she also didn't belong, only to wind up in highschool hell. More I think about it, the more it sounds like it would be too dark and depressing to do as a show pointing towards the target demographic. Probably best left as a fanfic.

Did she care about Equestria though? Such a story would also have to go into her relationship with Celestia. I kind of imagine somepony who was very sheltered and controlled (based on what Celestia described), and pushed way too hard. A actually wonder if in haste (Celestia knowing what her star pupil would someday have to face) she was actually taken from home, "Jedi Council"-style. Does anything exist for Sunset to be homesick for? Could go really grimdark with it and actually let her graduate, and THEN start feeling homesick. The clashing of the fantasies of highschool meeting with the darker nature of the normal world. All of the friends start moving off to college, the Mane 6 drifting apart. Yeeeah... fanfic for sure. I would actually love to do something like that as a film of some sort, either animated or live. Nobody would probably agree with it though, since it would carry a sense of "choosing fantasy over reality;" my version would probably let Sunset go back home after trying her hardest to keep everyone united.

Edited October 13, 2018 by bornAgainEquestrian