Reordering Season 1 Of MLP: FIM

[YoungJustice12334 53]

So I've been looking back at Season 1 of MLP And to be honest, I didn't like it as much as I did the first time. I don't hate it, but I feel like It doesn't stand out a lot from the seasons that come after it. Here are 2 things I did & didn't quite like: The first Criticism and thing I like for Season 1 is I loved Twilight more than I did in the pilot episode and she became my #1 favorite character, In Part 1 I didn't like her because she was too Arrogant and serious to me.

I was also disappointed with how quickly things got resolved with Nightmare Moon, I would have wished the plot with her lasted a while longer, you know. Nightmare Moon should have been a terrifying force, but instead, she's canonically defeated by the power of friendship... of six ponies who literally had just met.

I've actually been think about doing my very own re-ordering of most of the series, precisely because I think many of the villains are so weak. Most of that weakness comes from a lack of time for buildup and development, especially in the early seasons.

So this would be my condensed version of the first MLP season, I hope you all like it, and let me know if you want me to reorder the next MLP Seasons In The Future:

Season One Pilot Episodes: The Canterlot Wedding Part 1&2

So The entire premise of the show is "Friendship is Magic", but one issue I had in Season 1 is that we never really see the Mane Six develop more as friends in the Pilot episode. Haven't you noticed that They are shoehorned into it through plot contrivances over the span of what is literally less than 48 in-universe hours? This is sort of how I would play the pilot episode out:

The episode opens with Twilight and Spike arriving at Tealove's Tea Room Cafe in Canterlot after studying for Princess Celestia, and we're introduced to Twilight's Mom & Dad along with Shining Armor and Cadence. I'm not sure about the exact dialogue, but what we will see in this scene is learning about Twilight's family history, The time when Cadence was Twilight's Foalsitter, and how Her and Spike are making great progress for Princess Celestia.

After Twilight has A good dinner conversation with her family, Her parents Velvet Sparkle and Night Light, That's what I'm naming them, announce that Her brother Shining and Cadence are getting married, which excites Twilight A lot and then her & Spike congratulate Shining. When The Sparkle Family and Spike are riding on A Train To Canterlot for the Weddig, Maybe Shining Armor can open up about the Lost Crystal Empire and King Sombra before they appear in the show, which builds up a bit of hype for them appearing. When They arrive in Canterlot, We learn that A mysterious threat has been made against Manehatten, meaning Princess Celestia and most of her royal guards go there to protect the city.

Chrysalis/Cadence In Disguise makes her way into Canterlot as Shining Armour begins his spell and Princess Celestia leaves. Chrysalis is secretly mind-controlling Shining Armour to block everyone in the city IN, instead of out. It shows Princess Celestia doesn't make perfect decisions from the beginning since banishing her Sister. Princess Luna isn't in the episode at all since she's Nightmare Moon at that point but We do get a scene of Celestia looking at the moon and starts Crying a bit because she misses Luna.

In the grand structure of the pilot episodes and the show itself, this would still give Twilight & Spike the chance to meet the rest of the Mane Five who will eventually discover the Elements of Harmony and still lay the groundwork for her spending more time with them Later in Season 1. 

Twilight and Spike meet Applejack and her family members Big Mac & AppleBloom who provide catering for the reception, Rarity who's fitting wedding dresses with Sweetie Belle's help, Fluttershy who conducts her bird choir and is in charge of the Wedding Music with the help Of Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, but Vinyl and Octavia Only have small appearances, Nothing Major, Rainbow Dash who brings her aero technical display and will pull off the Sonic Rainboom, and Pinkie Pie who makes the wedding cake and we see her knack for making fun.

Twilight does get suspicious of Cadence's changes in behavior, and after spending a bit of time with The Mane 5, she convinces the Mane 5 to help them investigate Cadence's new attitude instead of making accusations of her being evil head-on. I thought maybe at one point in Part 2 of the story, Twilight ends up spotting Cadence/Chrysalis brainwashing Shining Armor and Twilight decides to confront Cadence head-on about her attitude after seeing what she did to him.

This leads to Chrysalis being revealed as Cadence in disguise and she traps Twilight in the caves beneath Canterlot where she finds the Real Cadence. Part 2 of the story mostly plays out similar to the way the original episode did, but As for the Mane 7 battling against the Changelings, They may not have discovered The Elements of Harmony yet since Chrysalis is the first Villain of the show in my version, but we would a glimpse of what elements they would represent.

Applejack can tell which ponies are her friends and who are Changelings, due to her experience with Honesty, and AJ fights using her rope and bucking skills against Changelings. Rainbow Dash would be flying around, confusing changelings and fighting them off. Rarity would be struggling to fight until she stumbles into a room full of gems and uses her magic to shoot gems at the changelings. Pinkie Pie would do the exact same battle stuff she did in the original episode.

Fluttershy, however, would mostly run around, trying to not be seen. As Rainbow Dash is fighting awesomely, she'd hear "Fluttershy" cry for help, and fly towards her due to a bit of experience with Loyalty. Applejack with her honesty would start to recognize the trap, shouting at Rainbow Dash to stop, but Rainbow carries on, only noticing Changeling Fluttershy change back at the last moment, and she'd be trapped in the green goo.

Suddenly, the Real Fluttershy appears and finds her courage to use The Stare on the Changelings, making 20-50 of them freeze in place, allowing Twilight to blast them with her magic. Applejack would try to help Rainbow Dash until Fluttershy tells her to help Twilight Sparkle. Applejack says No, and Fluttershy turns to Applejack, still using the Stare, and Applejack would go to help Twilight.

However, even though the Mane 7 had been successful so far, the Changelings had slowly started to separate them. Rarity would have soon run out of gems, and Pinkie would be running out of tricks. Fluttershy would be straining herself to keep the Stare, and Rainbow would be struggling in the goo. Twilight still has some fight left in her, but she's starting to run low on magic. Applejack would be trying her best to keep the Changelings from overwhelming Twilight, but she's currently straining to gather any magic she has left, and would start to think of A way to get Princess Celestia's attention for assistance, which gives Twilight the idea of using their magic to pull off A magic-bomb kind of thing, which gets the attention of Chrysalis and Princess Celestia.

Twilight engages In A fight against Chrysalis when she arrives, which would be similar to how Celestia and Chrysalis fought in the original episode except Twilight doesn't go down so easily, No Offense to Celestia. Twilight manages to overpower Chrysalis and even knocks her into the palace garden. The Mane 6 would surround Chrysalis and prepare to kick her ass, but sadly More Changelings surround them before they can get the chance too So Unfortunately, The Changelings capture them and escort the Mane 7 like in the original episode.

Chrysalis would be reveling in her glory as her Changelings terrorize Canterlot, feeding off the fear. That is until A Few Changelings that are guarding the door gets slammed into the wall with magic by Princess Celestia, who arrives in time after noticing the magical-bomb made by Twilight.

The final battle we see in Part 2 would be between Princess Celestia and Chrysalis, which draws Chrysalis's attention away from The Mane 6. Twilight asks The girls to bring her over to Cadence and Shining Armour while Chrysalis is occupied by Celestia and then manages to free them, and the episode's climax plays out as it did before with Cadence and Shining using their love spell to defeat Chrysalis and her Army.

This is followed by Season One's main Story Arcs which will be The Prophecy and The Keys of Harmony.

After the defeat of Chrysalis, Princess Celestia begins worrying about the impending appearance of Nightmare Moon who was her exiled sister set to possibly return at the Summer Sun Celebration. She implores Twilight to go out and make friends which Twilight is against at first, But Spike persuades her that it could be a good thing.

Twilight does agree with Spike on this, And she would be tasked with heading into Ponyville to help the 5 she met at The Canterlot Wedding deal with The Parasprite infestation. The episodes throughout Season 1 shows Twilight progressively being more caring and friendly toward the Mane 5. This means that by the end of the season, with A few more episodes growing close to the season Finale, maybe 22 or 16, 26 or 20 would be the number of episodes each season would have but IDK Yet, group are definitively growing as friends.

Season 1 Finale Part 1&2: Nightmare Moon's Arrival

With actual friendships truly established in the show, This will play out drastically different, with Twilight and The Mane 6 confronting Nightmare Moon, hoping that the five elements, supported by Twilight's considerable magic, will be sufficient. Nightmare Moon destroys the physical manifestations of the elements and goes off to terrorize Equestria, leaving Twilight and friends behind on the Moon. You read the Nightmare Rarity story?, I would sort of take a bit of inspiration from that for Nightmare Moon's appearance.

Not losing hope, Twilight remembers that the elements manifested for her friends because of their actions. They go around Equestria repairing the damage that Nightmare Moon has caused, causing each of the Elements to re-manifest. Upon confronting Nightmare Moon again, Nightmare Moon is caught off guard by the reappearance of the Elements she had just destroyed but ultimately starts to win against them a second time.

Twilight comes to the realization that her bond with her friends is a more powerful tool for good than using her magic against Nightmare Moon directly, and stops relying on her magic and instead starts helping her friends. In doing so, the final Element of Harmony manifests, and Twilight and Co are finally able to unite their powers to banish Nightmare Moon. One of the biggest advantages of putting Nightmare Moon in The First Season's Finale instead of the Pilot episodes would be that she could have build-up being revealed as the terrifying force we all hoped for her to be.

What do you think of those changes of mine? I might do season 2 and future seasons soon if you all like.

[Latecomer 441]

And here I thought this would just be another debate over chronological order...

I did actuallu consider whether the season would be better served bi NMM only coming in at the end. I eventuallu concluded that while the season would be served, the series would not be - the show needed to kick off with a bang to attract viewers.

Now in uour case, you've handled this bi moving up a different "bang" from later in the series. However, looking at it from a show perspective, I can't say it fits that well - since the premiere focuses more on chracters we won't see much of later than our leads-to-be. 

[YoungJustice12334 53]

On 4/11/2020 at 2:16 PM, Latecomer said:

And here I thought this would just be another debate over chronological order...

I did actuallu consider whether the season would be better served bi NMM only coming in at the end. I eventuallu concluded that while the season would be served, the series would not be - the show needed to kick off with a bang to attract viewers.

Now in uour case, you've handled this bi moving up a different "bang" from later in the series. However, looking at it from a show perspective, I can't say it fits that well - since the premiere focuses more on chracters we won't see much of later than our leads-to-be. 

I respect your Opinion, but How The Canterlot Wedding works as the opening Two-Parter of the show Is The Mane 5 end up getting progressively pulled into Twilight's investigation on Cadence due to her changes in behavior, So instead of Twilight confronting Cadence head-on about her rude behavior, which was kind of stupid of Twilight, Twilight and The Mane 5 eventually realize they're dealing with Changelings, which causes issues of them trusting one another, and that conflict can test their friendship with each other.

Meanwhile, Twilight would be dealing with her deep feelings of her personal life being invaded make her even more closed off and enhance the personal conflict. So During the Canterlot Invasion by the Changelings, it would be the right time for the Mane 6 to come together and start working as Friends to take them down.

Does that work for you?

[Latecomer 441]

really, I'd think that discovering a set of shapeshifting infiltrators would make for a poor time to trust strangers... 

[YoungJustice12334 53]

On 4/23/2020 at 1:27 PM, Latecomer said:

really, I'd think that discovering a set of shapeshifting infiltrators would make for a poor time to trust strangers... 

I respect your Opinion, but How I would have The Canterlot Wedding work as the opening Two-Parter of the show Is The Mane 5 end up getting progressively pulled into Twilight's investigation on Cadence due to her changes in behavior, So instead of Twilight confronting Cadence head-on about her rude behavior, which was kind of stupid of Twilight, Twilight and The Mane 5 eventually realize they're dealing with Changelings, which causes issues of them trusting one another, and that conflict can test their friendship with each other.

Meanwhile, Twilight would be dealing with her deep feelings of her personal life being invaded make her even more closed off and enhance the personal conflict. So During the Canterlot Invasion by the Changelings, it would be the right time for the Mane 6 to come together and start working as Friends to take them down.

Does that work for you?

[Latecomer 441]

9 hours ago, YoungJustice12334 said:

I respect your Opinion, but How I would have The Canterlot Wedding work as the opening Two-Parter of the show Is The Mane 5 end up getting progressively pulled into Twilight's investigation on Cadence due to her changes in behavior, So instead of Twilight confronting Cadence head-on about her rude behavior, which was kind of stupid of Twilight, Twilight and The Mane 5 eventually realize they're dealing with Changelings, which causes issues of them trusting one another, and that conflict can test their friendship with each other.

Meanwhile, Twilight would be dealing with her deep feelings of her personal life being invaded make her even more closed off and enhance the personal conflict. So During the Canterlot Invasion by the Changelings, it would be the right time for the Mane 6 to come together and start working as Friends to take them down.

Does that work for you?

You literallu just reposted the same post without the bolding.

And no, I still vhink the wdding has to be part of an established show - but the quesvion of what stories could serve as openers might make an interesting thread.