Do you think the show has too many fan serives?

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

Do you think the show put in too much fan services and references recently? And also making it inappropriately complex and takes itself too seriously?

Appealing to elder fans vs Not caring about it and make it 100% self explanatory kids show

What way do you think is to do it right?

(by the way, I’m on the making it for kids 100% side because it was what I liked to begin with at the first place. And also, it should be equally fun for the first time viewers.)

[碇 シンジン 27,433]

I havent seen any notable fan service in MLP if you dont count the 100th episode

[CypherHoof 26,483]

Just now, Hilda Mariendorf said:

I havent seen any notable fan service in MLP if you dont count the 100th episode

I think /once upon a zeppelin/ is very much fan wish-fulfillment, although /fame and misfortune/ isn't so much fan service as fan parody

[Tacodidra 61,282]

46 minutes ago, Hilda Mariendorf said:

I havent seen any notable fan service in MLP if you dont count the 100th episode

I agree, and I think that worked very well as a one-off!

There are of course some scenes that the crew must have realized would appeal to the fandom (usually short gags like Derpy's various appearances), but I think all of those have been good. As long as they don't feel out of place, I'm glad to see them in the show.

[RulesofRarity 493]

I think a show that chooses too aim itself at children should always continue to target children as their target demographic. It’s why episodes like “A Slice of Life” & “Fame and Misfortune” bother me so much, they’re clearly trying to pander to Bronies(who aren’t the target demographic of the show). An entire episode focused around background characters with no personality, who Bronies obsess over for no reason is clearly a fanservice episode and the writers are exploiting the fact that most fans will eat this up. 

 

[TBD 17,256]

Far from it, otherwise we'd be seeing a whole lot of ships.and god who knows what else in these fanfictions.

plus, they ignored our request not to reform the villains. 

[BlackPony 77]

Outside of Slice of Life and maybe Fame & Misfortune, no. And I’d rather keep it that way.

[Black Sabbath 2,486]

Yes, absolutely. Any show that dedicates an entire fucking episode to fan service has too much of it. 

[Ganondox 899]

13 hours ago, Hilda Mariendorf said:

I havent seen any notable fan service in MLP if you dont count the 100th episode

There is plenty of it (kirins, griffin stone, etc.), 100 was just the only one obnoxious about it. 

[Sepul-Coloratura 762]

14 hours ago, Bas said:

Couldn't you argue though that the target audience grown up more by the time they aired the series for five (?) years?

I haven’t thought of it that way before.

But MLP is a tv show that is designed to be consumed by episodes that is self explanatory. By now when it is season 8, the new audience should watch all the previous important episodes to understand what’s goong on now.

And I still think Hasbro didn’t planned to change the target audience in that way.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Sepul-Coloratura

[碇 シンジン 27,433]

10 hours ago, Ganondox said:

There is plenty of it (kirins, griffin stone, etc.), 100 was just the only one obnoxious about it. 

I thought Griffonstone was decent episode didnt notice any fanservice there?

[Ganondox 899]

2 hours ago, Hilda Mariendorf said:

I thought Griffonstone was decent episode didnt notice any fanservice there?

Containing fan service doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means something was done to please the fans. Here fans had been wanting Gilda to come back and to see the homeland of the griffons for a LONG time. 

[Twilight Luna 31,418]

The fan service has been subtle lately. Most recently with Spitfire channeling Chris Farley in The Washouts. Younger kids won’t get it but adults who grew up watching him in the 90s picked up on it right away. But it’s not as in your face as Slice of Life was. 

[CypherHoof 26,483]

19 hours ago, TBD said:

Far from it, otherwise we'd be seeing a whole lot of ships.and god who knows what else in these fanfictions.

plus, they ignored our request not to reform the villains. 

Well, there is Tirek,  cheesebutt, and of course [s8 spoiler removed] showing no sign of remorse...

[CypherHoof 26,483]

12 minutes ago, Bas said:

Cheesebutt means who again?

A certain changeling queen who apparently now has no chance in the buckball world cup

[AlbaTross 1,586]

I don't personally think so.  If it became a show about shipping, in jokes and memes, there might be cause to believe the series has abandoned its target audience, or if it took the path some fans seemed to want for reasons unknown where it became literal Pony Fallout.  Sure, there are times when it's evident that the writing staff are acutely aware that many of its fans are adults, and I see that even more often in the spinoff media, especially the comics.  However, I think it still walks the fine line between appealing to adults and appealing to a younger audience.  There are certain things this show will never do, in spite of it pushing the envelope in terms of what we ever believed was possible for a little girl's show.  At the end of the day, it will remain a cheerful, upbeat, slice of life series with the occasional epic premier or finale, and lately the former have become more slice of lifey too.

[BastementSparkle 20,328]

No, I don't think the show has too much fan service. Sure, there's a few "Meta" episodes like Slice of Life and Fame and Misfortune, but honestly I don't see the problem with that. There's only a couple of them and I think they can be pretty fun, if they took over the whole show and made every episode into a big meta fan-service fest, yeah that'd get annoying fast, but a one or two sprinkled in is fine. What other big fan service even is there outside of these episodes though? Appearances of background ponies like Derpy, or Lyra and Bon-Bon? Whether you like Slice of Life or not, that episode established those ponies as having actual personalities and lives, were you expecting the writer's to just ignore them totally after that? That'd feel more unnatural than anything, they're part of the world now, more than just background props.

 As for the show getting too complex for kids...I don't think so? The show has a good amount of continuity now, character development, ongoing plotlines sprinkled throughout the series, but it's not like kids are incapable of following that stuff, kids are way smarter than people give them credit for, and it's not like this show is aimed at 3 year olds or anything. I'd have loved this show as a kid, I like how things don't just reset after every episode and pretend like the rest of the series just never happened. A bit of complexity is good, and there are still other kids shows that are way more complex than MLP in a lot of ways. Making a kids show that's capable of appealing to adults too isn't a bad thing at all, frankly I think that's the best way to make kids shows, you should want adults to be able to enjoy it too, the show has always been made with the ideal of parents enjoying it with their kids, or adult animation fans being able to watch and have fun too.

[DonMaguz 1,023]

No, the amount of fanservice is somewhat low. As many have stated, SoL has plenty of it but it is just how that episode was designed, a one time nod which didn't change the show.

I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned the Tirek vs Twilight battle, that was the highest level of fanservice the show has ever had. Then again, it apparently was a one time thing so, it's not that big a deal.

[O-78 28,607]

Are you kidding me? There's not actually that much fan service in the show, and when there is, it's AWESOME!

[BastementSparkle 20,328]

1 hour ago, Bas said:

I hope they make it actually being there in the new gen. I feel in FiM the eps aren't connected to each other enough. Especially in the earlier seasons...

But even later seasons don't do in terms of real plot progression.

I think the episodes are connected decently enough, at the end of the day FIM is a mostly slice of life episodic show after all. Most episodes are still meant to be able to stand alone, there's just continuity and character development weaved through them too.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, shyabetes3939 said:

Are you kidding me? There's not actually that much fan service in the show, and when there is, it's AWESOME!

I agree with you mate. Like the 100th episode, the fanservice in that episode made it awesome.