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What do you think would've made the show work better?


Plonkett

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This show has done a lot during its nine year run. Still, it's had its flaws throughout its existence. What different things do you think would've made the show better? Me personally, I think the show's world has been a bit too cutesy, and that some of the stories had been a tad bit too childish. Maybe there could've been some better creature designs (the Bugbear was absolutely ridiculous), and many of the songs could've been something other than pop music.

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Well, if I was to be honest, I think seasonal show bibles would have been a boon. Normally a show has a big 'bible' that gives the overarching story beats, character descriptions and the like. Those shows that are trying to do season-long story arcs usually have a season-specific bibles as well to keep them on track and make sure the story beats get appropriately spaced out throughout the season and any re-occurring secondary characters are consistent.

From the broadcast dates, the MLP season-long story arcs don't seem to kick in until after the half-way mark. For example, Season 7, the first episode that has anything to do with the season arc is #16, Campfire Tales. Which is well past the half-way mark of the season. It gives the impression that they got so far in, suddenly remembered that they needed a season arc, and then scrambled to come up with something they could jam in between the last dozen episodes that they had already planned out.

Now, perhaps they shouldn't  have bothered with season arcs at all. That's perfectly fine. But if they're going to do them, broad-stroke plan them from the beginning and I believe it will be a bit more ... organic.

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Pinkie Pie getting lot better episodes than Yakity-Sax, and also, anything at all other than Applejack's Day Off and Honest Apple in place of those two episodes.

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(edited)

They should have fully committed to arcs if they were gonna have them. Most of the show's arcs are hilariously undercooked, you had Twilight's Ascension, which was only hinted in Crystal Empire and dropped on us in MMC. You had Rainbow Power and the keys, which was consisted of half good episodes half bad episodes. Glimmer's eventual redemption spanned 3 seasons, yet was so poorly handled people still have issues with her place on the show, with only S7 really doing much to fix that mess. You got the Pillars which was only brought up halfway through the season, and more or less fucking over 3 of the six pillars by having them share one while the rest got their own(worse when you consider only Rockhoof eventually got to have another episode, so Flash Magnus and Mistmane were especially fucked over). Then they decided to drop them completely and make another arc with the Friendship School and another set of characters for it, which was such a lame concept, and who's most of the students episodes required putting the mane 6 through the wringer to make them look better which everyone hated, and only now in S9 does it actually look like they're getting episodes that makes them grow as individual characters(or at least I hope that's the case). This isn't even getting to the fact that they constantly try to raise the stakes higher and higher, yet more often than not it they fall flat on their face. Funny enough, their best story arc, the Grand Galloping Gala, had absolutely zero stakes, instead of having some world ending threat, just focused on the Mane 6 going to a fun party, it was entirely character focused and just wanted the audience to see them have a good time.

Character arcs tend to fair better, with episodes like Crusaders of the Lost Mark and Canterlot Boutique giving satisfying conclusions while offering room to go beyond for them. Even MMC despite dropping out of nowhere and was rushed to all hell, was mainly hurt because of outside circumstances like time constraints and executive meddling, and even then it still felt like they wanted to turn out something meaningful for her, and still did a lot with it moving forward. RD's Wonderbolt arc is the only one I feel got completely fucked over, and lord knows I've beaten this horse to death over a million times already, between the regularly spotty(at best) depiction of the Wonderbolts to Newbie Dash straight up being a cruel joke of a milestone, post-episodes feel less like extensions and more like the writers are still trying to clean up that episode's mess

Edited by This Whomps
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Nothing.

It's true that these great characters have the potential for more serious stories, but the show itself was conceived as it is still: cutesy, childish, light-hearted and silly. If you take that from the show, it wouldn't have been as good in the first place to get to 9 seasons.

Now, could a new and better show be made out of these great characters we love? That would be a very difficult challenge, but it would be possible because the characters can still be explored and developed under a more serious environment. The thing is it would be feeding on nostalgia just like the whole MCU did for Marvel.

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I really don't think anything should've been changed. Maybe, if I have to be cruel here, they could've changed how many times the Mane 6 would have an episode to themselves and make it all fair how many times they'd appear so everyone could appreciate each one.

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Pacing. 

That is an issue many an episode has had and it has hindered both character growth and story progression. Stories in episodes either go by too fast or are told too slowly and then rushed. So by extension, maybe making episodes three parters if need be. 

Having more cohesion and continuity with the comics would've been nice.

Also, maybe have it air someplace other than an exclusive cable channel. 

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From the perspective of the target audience, the show is darn near unobjectionable. But for adults, the internal rules of the universe of the show unraveled fairly early.

As they've admitted as thing are winding down, they should have implemented a better vision from the start. Season 1 + Discord (which was originally episodes 27 and 28 of season 1) is a well contained arc. 
When they realized it was a hit, the season 3 finale introduced a very soft "reboot." But after that, it's clear that nothing its planned out more than a year in advance. They should have had a better plan of attack. Once they recognized the popularity, they should have gone ahead and planned out the most optimistic scenario (which is basically what happened), and then planned out less optimistic situations.

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(edited)

SoL style show is the least favorite storytelling style for me in any given show. What always seemed to annoy me about MLP is that writers don't seem to care about consistent storytelling.

Tl;Dr Predictable drugged out episodes with characters behaving in certain way that they weren't supposed to be behaving. Completely unnecessary redemption arcs for characters that don't actually need to be redeemed.

Diamond Tiara Garble,yes even Babs Seed were jerks, they almost never showed their good side, so why should the audience care if they got redemption or not? (They probably won't)

Edited by R.D.Dash
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There are a lot of little inconsequential nitpicks I have with things here and there, but by far the biggest one is this line from Campfire Tales: "Then something magical happened. Rockhoof got visibly stronger." If you're gonna give up on continuity and internally consistent logic, I can't think of a better way.

So basically, remove that line, remove Rockhoof, or remove the pillars and pony of shadows as a whole and the show can save face at least a little.

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1 hour ago, R.D.Dash said:

SoL style show is the least favorite storytelling style for me in any given show. What always seemed to annoy me about MLP is that writers don't seem to care about consistent storytelling.

Tl;Dr Predictable drugged out episodes with characters behaving in certain way that they weren't supposed to be behaving. Completely unnecessary redemption arcs for characters that don't actually need to be redeemed.

Diamond Tiara Garble,yes even Babs Seed were jerks, they almost never showed their good side, so why should the audience care if they got redemption or not? (They probably won't)

Does Babs’ count as a redemption arc? It all happened within one episode 

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(edited)
38 minutes ago, Zestanor said:

Does Babs’ count as a redemption arc? It all happened within one episode 

Maybe, a really short one, "Hi. Hello. Well, I am going to act really mean to you for no reason. That's fine screw you too. Oh, I am sorry I never meant to hurt people feelings because people were hurting my own feelings. Well okay then we probably never going to see you again but thanks for making us feel bad even though you didn't meant to."

I just felt that how they portrayed Babs Seed was pointless to the idea that people bully because of the peer pressure and that somehow excuses their own actions.

 

Edited by R.D.Dash
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The only major one I can think of is that I wish Seasons 1-3 had a bit more connective tissue in between major events. For instance, "Lesson Zero" could have maybe tied in Twilight's obsession with not being tardy somewhat affected by her encounter with Discord in "The Return of Harmony".

In "The Crystal Empire" or Season 3 in general, I wish we had seen the show address the aftermath and fallout from "A Canterlot Wedding". Not just the invasion, but also how Twilight may be coping with her friends leaving her and how they're trying to patch things up. I also would have maybe had more lead-in to "Magical Mystery Cure" to boot.

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See, I think the big adventure stuff is maybe the least interesting part of the show, whereas the kid-friendly hijinks are what keeps me watching. I would have liked the show to place less emphasis on its mythology and keep its scale a lot smaller. Not making Twilight a princess would have still left her as Celestia's student who saved the world like four times, but it still would have helped. Had it kept to the adventures of these friends in this small town, I think the show could have developed into something a lot more self-contained and coherent. Though it would also help if the writers focused less on the bigger picture in general; this show is almost always predictable, so the writers really should have spent more time filling their scripts with low-level goofiness. Basically I wish the show was more like a sitcom. 

Aside from that... maybe give Cadance a proper episode or two which allow her to show more of a personality? Every little hint we get is good enough that I would have loved to see way more. 

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  1. I think they should have tried less to make another characters to replace the Mane Six, or make someone as central to the show as them. Starlight, Students, Princesses, Pillars were all good characters in paper, but A : their characterizations were done by half baked stories, B : it was the expense of cutting down the Main Six's role in the show. So in other words, they should have stayed focused on the Mane Six. (except for some occasional episodes that focuses on other characters like CMC's, Spike, Princesses, Discord, etc, and I wouldn't mind putting background ponies in the spotlight if the episode is good.)
  2. I think they should have saved the expenses for EQG and MLP the Movie and put it in the actual TV show. Good shows takes time and effort. And sometimes, time and effort can be saved by money. They could have hired extra smart writers, have more time exchanging ideas, give some of the staff members to be more careful of what they make. I like EQG for what it is, but it still is a mirror image and a shadow of MLP. They could have put the good aspects of EQG and put it in the show. (for example, Sunset Shimmer's character in FiM.)
  3. I think they could have less cared about fan services. Except for episode 100 where they made an episode wholly dedicated to fans, they didn't need to put fan services at all. And if they really had to put some of them, it would have been much cooler if they did some of the things they did at least 2-3 seasons earlier. Some of the fanservices might be the best episodes or best moments in the show for you, but it wasn't necessary. They focused on erasing names off the fan's wish list, but they should have focused on making good episodes first and most.
  4. They should have taken more risks. They didn't challenges themselves enough and it seems they took one of the easiest way. They didn't challenged the characters enough as well. They can only keep up when they put extra effort in. If they just do what they've been doing, it becomes lesser.
  5. They should have focused more on Ponyville's daily episodes instead of world ending scenarios and big events with MacGuffins or selling toys.
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Have villains that actually take effort to defeat, while the Mane Six, Starlight, and Trixie actually train and equip themselves to be able to handle the better villains. To establish the former, I would have a villain block the usual one-hit blast of friendship with one hand/hoof like Hela does with Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok.

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(edited)

I would have liked a bit more or even the ponies from Gen 1 in the show.    Also the witches would have been nice to see a bit and more Sunset Shimmer!

Edited by Tao
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