My Honest Final Thoughts On MLP: FIM

[YoungJustice12334 53]

When I first started watching the show when It was on Netflix, I thought the seasons have some great episodes scattered throughout. The series even has a whole slew of likable characters with their own unique quirks and personalities But as a whole, it's not the kind of series I wanted it to be.

The series suffers from what I can only describe as an identity crisis. Each new season is introduced as though it is going to be Sailor Moon with ponies. What I mean by this is that at first, It looks like it is going to be the start of ongoing epic battles between magic girls, or rather magic ponies, and the forces of evil. Instead, no sooner are the debut episodes over, all the good versus evil elements are shuffled to the side like they never happened and the rest of the series devolves into slice of life filler episodes.

I like some of the slice of life episodes but in the grand scheme of things, some of them feel pointless. Maybe if Each season of the show had an equal number of The Mane 6 fighting against Evil themed episodes and slice of life themed episodes, MLP: FIM might have stood up better as a whole for me. But as it is it feels like the writers are not sure what they wanted the show to be. Pick one genre and stick with it!

Furthermore, each season keeps introducing something new that should be enough to carry the series, and then they cast it aside or use it as sparingly as possible. Remember Twilight becoming a Princess? They made a heap of hype about Twilight becoming a princess at the end of Season 3 and the beginning of Season 4, then for the rest of much of the series, the characters almost completely ignore it. We Rarely see Twilight carry out princess duties or even get treated like a princess.

All the other characters for the most part just act like she's just a regular pony in her presence. Even in the final season, which the trailer deceptively touted as Twilight succeeding Princess Celestia, barely addresses her princess hood at all sans for a few episodes here and there.

Instead of dedicating Season 4 to Twilight Sparkle taking over as A new ruler of Equestria like the trailer hyped fans for it, we instead have pointless filler episodes showing Twilight running around Equestria trying to return a library book or acting like a lunatic over a game of trivia In Season 9. Some of these episodes are funny and or enjoyable for sure at first, but they are not the episodes we were promised by the trailer. Hell, The Last Problem episode wasn't that good to me, but the episode alone has done more with Twilight's Princesshood than all the past episodes combined.

How about the Elements of Harmony? The Mane 6 use them sparingly only in a handful of episodes at the beginning or end of the earlier seasons, then get rid of them altogether, then bring them back only be destroyed again shortly after. Or how about the Cutie Mark Map? They introduced that as though it would be the driving device throughout the season leading them on grand adventures, but instead it's only used in a few handfuls of episodes.

Or how about Twilight opening a School of Friendship and then only having a sparing number of episodes revolving around said school? Or constantly introducing new characters as though they are going to play a big role throughout the rest of the series and then relegating them to side characters that only pop up occasionally? Like Starlight Glimmer, the Pillars, or Thorax, or the Student Six...

So many and too many of the villains often get made sympathetic and are quick to be shoddily reformed with nary a second thought to give them consequences to their wrongdoings. I'm not saying sympathetic villains aren't good, they can be very good, but you have to know HOW TO MAKE THEM WORK! And Starlight's redemption never really worked for me for those reasons I just stated.

Sure, she may sometimes improve a little more depending on who she's interacting with mostly Trixie, Spike and sometimes Sunburst but still, even that alone can't save her from being a badly-executed "redemptive villain" cliche that really overstayed her welcome in the MLP Show. Anyway, Often reforming the characters completely alters the characters that they were introduced to Starlight Glimmer who went from a manipulative and mean borderline Soviet-Esque dictator to Twilight's annoying underling and not a charming addition to the main cast. Trixie went from a con-artist and at times tyrant to an annoying acquaintance of Twilight and Starlight.

The changelings went from a force to be reckoned with to a peaceful society of bugs whose existence has no bearing on that of the ponies. Hell, the reformation of Ahuizotl completely contradicts every previous episode he's been in. In the last episode, we saw him in he was trying to "unleash eight hundred years of unrelenting, sweltering heat", now we're to believe he's just trying to protect the artifacts from being stolen by Daring Do? Please!

The worst reformation of MLP next to Starlight Glimmer at #2 to me would have to be Discord. Don't get me wrong, Keep Calm and Flutter On was a great episode and I was fine with Discord's reformation at first, However, with the way he was portrayed in later Seasons after his "reformation", it made me question if he was truly reformed. To say nothing of questioning the ponies' judgment and rational thought. His character was downgraded to a troll, but many of his actions have had potentially dire consequences. Remember the episode where he pretended to be ill and made Twilight and Cadance retrieve a plant for him? Or What would have happened had Twilight or Cadance been killed by the giant worm creature? Or how about endangering the lives of many ponies at the Grand Galloping Gala by bringing along a gigantic ooze monster?

Or how about when he betrayed the Mane Six and joined forces with Tirek in Season 4's finale, why is he not reprehended and held accountable for his actions? Or hell, how about the series finale? First, the idea that Grogar was actually Discord the whole time is ridiculous. Second, because of him Tirek, Queen Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow nearly completely destroyed Equestria and divided the Earth, Unicorn and Pegasus ponies. We saw quite a lot of property destruction in this episode. Hell, what if someone got killed? Is Discord held accountable for his actions? Nope, he's allowed to live a happy life with Fluttershy as if nothing happened while the villains he unwittingly rose to power are sealed in stone.

That's not all, over the last few seasons, the show's identity seemed to chip away with the characters only partially resembling who they once were. Even appearing in episodes that completely contradict everything about them that was previously established. For example, the CMCs' running gag was not discovering their special talents despite said talent staring them in the face. They've made several episodes making their talents as obvious as a sore thumb. You'd think they'd eventually realize what's been right under their noses the whole time. But instead, they get their cutie marks in discovering talents and helping others discover them?

Here's Another example, Big Mac establishes a relationship with Cheerilee, then ditches her for Marble Pie, then ditches both of them for Sugar Belle. The viewers are never privy to why it didn't work out with Big Mac and these mares. The only explanation we are given for Big Mac ditching Cheerilee is that "it doesn't really count when you trick a pony into drinking a love potion", but that doesn't explain all their appearances together after the love potion incident in which their love has obviously blossomed into something genuine.

Even worse, in the Best Gift Ever episode we see Marble Pie heartbroken upon seeing the Big Mac and Sugar Belle together as a couple. You'd think after that there would be some kind of follow up to resolve this. But nothing ever comes of it. Cheerilee and Marble Pie don't even appear in the episode of Big Mac and Sugar Belle getting married! And yet another example: we saw a young Rainbow Dash with an older stallion who resembles her in the Games Ponies Play episode and the same pony appears in the present day in the Hearth's Warming Tail.

I've read that the stallion's name is Rainbow Blaze, presumably from those episodes he's her father. But then they released the episode Parental Glidance, which introduced Bow Hothoof as her dad. They offer no reconciliation as to who the other stallion was and how he was related to Rainbow Dash. Not even at the very least retconning his ties with a family photo showing the four of them together to suggest he's her brother or something. As best as viewers of that episode can tell, RD's an only child!

This breaking of character was not only a problem with side and background characters but also the main cast. For example, in season 1 Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash refrain from playing pranks on Fluttershy because they knew it would hurt her feelings, but later seasons have had episodes featuring the two of them traumatizing her. In the season 8 episode Non-Compete Cause, Twilight Sparkle chastises Applejack and Rainbow Dash for being overly competitive, yet in Season 9 we have the aforementioned episode of Twilight acting like a crazed lunatic trying to win at a game of trivia - even going so far as hijack her team, disqualify and penalize other teams, and even get her own partner disqualified.

And then there are all the loose ends that were never addressed. Why haven't we seen Sunset Shimmer's human world counterpart? Will Sunset ever return to Equestria to stay? How did Applejack's parents die? Are Pinkie Pie and Applejack actually related? Does Twilight Sparkle start a relationship with Flash Sentry? Does Spike ever start a relationship with Rarity? What happened to Lightning Dust and the Washouts? These are all questions that the series established and yet never addressed.

Rather than try to answer any of these questions, the series instead just shuffles them further and further to the side. If anything, not addressing these loose ends makes the series finale feel incomplete at best. Here's a thought, maybe instead of all the pointless filler episodes, they could have dedicated some of Season 7, 8, and 9's episodes to actually tying up these loose ends.

I think that would have been better than what we got. Off the top of my head, the only loose end they did tie-up was Scootaloo's parents, but even that felt like a case of 'be careful what you're wishing for'. While I got a laugh out of Scootaloo's parents being Australian, the episode made them so unlikeable and neglectful of Scoots' well being that you actually wish the orphan rumors that preceded this episode were true. And as was the case with most new characters on the show, they are never seen again and their presence doesn't end up amounting to anything on the show.

It is for those reasons explained above that I kind of lost interest in MLP. The series past my expectations for sure, But the series is just far too hit and miss for me to jump back on the bandwagon. There are some great episodes among that hodgepodge, but honestly, for the most part, I'll take some fan videos over the real thing any day. The best advice I can give for MLP Generation 5's writing staff is to stick to the show's strengths and improve upon where Generation 4 failed. Keep The Mane characters fighting evil genre that each season opened with and make it the whole series.

Keep the idea of humans traveling back and forth to dimensions where everyone exists as a pony or dragon, maybe have the main cast reside in the human world and cross dimensions into the pony world where they become ponies and save it from evil. Don't reserve plot devices for the final episodes, build on them throughout the series. And give us an EQUAL amount of Slice-Of-Life related episodes and Main Heroes vs Evil themed episodes.

Edited April 16, 2020 by YoungJustice12334

[nightshroud96 124]

Think there was any loose ends with the Royal Sisters?
I honestly felt like theres a few for Luna in some way..

[Megas 27,960]

It was clear that by the second half of the show, a lot of the people in charge of the show stopped giving a shit. And it's really apparent in S9 the most, with most of the episodes being completely unfulfilling and just leaving a bad taste in mouths. I remember Jim Miller saying a while back that "unfortunately not everything could be tied up" and you look at some of the garbage they wasted their time on and would just think why the fuck did they even bother? They wasted so many episodes on crap no one wanted, ever cared about, and just wasted everyone's time that that comment just looks worse in hindsight.

Barring the finale and premiere, there's only, like, 6 episodes that actually feel like they belong, and that's after you remembered the stupid grogar twist rendering the season's main conflict pointless. And heck even some of the episodes that did make sense they underdelivered. You got Scootaloo's parents, who only come off as horribly neglectful, and just kinda awful and the show expects us to think they're amazing people, made even worse by the fact that it made a lot of Scootaloo's comments and progression kinda moot. I'll give it this, it at least wanted to feel special. You got Dragon Dropped which finally addressed Spike's crush on Rarity....by having him get over it on screen, and spending the rest of the episode having Rarity be jealous of Spike and Gabby's relationship and wanting to ruin it, even more surprising as this was written by Josh Haber who makes it clear he has a hard on for Rarity, but seeing as her last episode was incredibly half assed it sums up his entire tenure on MLP. There was also that Cheese Sandwich episode and if you're able to make Weird Al boring I don't think you should be in charge of those kinds of characters(seriously, why were the Fox Brothers in charge of so many Pinkie Pie episodes?).

That's just talking the episodes that, despite poor execution, made sense. Uprooted somehow feels even more toyetic and soulless than the episodes that actually were, that's really impressive. Most of Twilight's regular episodes were pretty awful, but given the main arc of the season focused on her, looking back it could have been much worse given what the rest of the cast had.You got a CMC episode that felt like as relic of seasons passed and it really shows. On top of making Weird Al boring, Pinkie had to deal with getting undermind by a spazzing Twilight and I've already said my piece about Dragon Dropped. I'm entirely convinced Common Ground was competent because it was written with a celebrity and their family in mind, because the rest of RD's focus episodes was bullshit, between her final episode focused entirely on her being a bad teacher for being forced into a role she never to teach asked for to begin with, all to teach her a lesson behind her back, and needed to be spoonfed the moral by the student six just to show us how much better they are to a completely patronizing lesson delivered because Twilight is an asshole, to ruining RD's other hero by making Daring Do the bad guy raiding treasures all along and Ahuizotl was some misunderstood idiot all to worship Fluttershy's farts and have her be right about everything, this reeks of WWE levels of contempt for the audience, where it was clear they didn't give a shit and wanted to make sure you knew it(and the leaks really show this)

If anything, I think the worst thing S9 did was have my sympathize with /mlp/

Edited April 20, 2020 by Megas

[nightshroud96 124]

6 hours ago, Megas said:

It was clear that by the second half of the show, a lot of the people in charge of the show stopped giving a shit. And it's really apparent in S9 the most, with most of the episodes being completely unfulfilling and just leaving a bad taste in mouths. I remember Jim Miller saying a while back that "unfortunately not everything could be tied up" and you look at some of the garbage they wasted their time on and would just think why the fuck did they even bother? They wasted so many episodes on crap no one wanted, ever cared about, and just wasted everyone's time that that comment just looks worse in hindsight.

Barring the finale and premiere, there's only, like, 6 episodes that actually feel like they belong, and that's after you remembered the stupid grogar twist rendering the season's main conflict pointless. And heck even some of the episodes that did make sense they underdelivered. You got Scootaloo's parents, who only come off as horribly neglectful, and just kinda awful and the show expects us to think they're amazing people, made even worse by the fact that it made a lot of Scootaloo's comments and progression kinda moot. I'll give it this, it at least wanted to feel special. You got Dragon Dropped which finally addressed Spike's crush on Rarity....by having him get over it on screen, and spending the rest of the episode having Rarity be jealous of Spike and Gabby's relationship and wanting to ruin it, even more surprising as this was written by Josh Haber who makes it clear he has a hard on for Rarity, but seeing as her last episode was incredibly half assed it sums up his entire tenure on MLP. There was also that Cheese Sandwich episode and if you're able to make Weird Al boring I don't think you should be in charge of those kinds of characters(seriously, why were the Fox Brothers in charge of so many Pinkie Pie episodes?).

That's just talking the episodes that, despite poor execution, made sense. Uprooted somehow feels even more toyetic and soulless than the episodes that actually were, that's really impressive. Most of Twilight's regular episodes were pretty awful, but given the main arc of the season focused on her, looking back it could have been much worse given what the rest of the cast had.You got a CMC episode that felt like as relic of seasons passed and it really shows. On top of making Weird Al boring, Pinkie had to deal with getting undermind by a spazzing Twilight and I've already said my piece about Dragon Dropped. I'm entirely convinced Common Ground was competent because it was written with a celebrity and their family in mind, because the rest of RD's focus episodes was bullshit, between her final episode focused entirely on her being a bad teacher for being forced into a role she never to teach asked for to begin with, all to teach her a lesson behind her back, and needed to be spoonfed the moral by the student six just to show us how much better they are to a completely patronizing lesson delivered because Twilight is an asshole, to ruining RD's other hero by making Daring Do the bad guy raiding treasures all along and Ahuizotl was some misunderstood idiot all to worship Fluttershy's farts and have her be right about everything, this reeks of WWE levels of contempt for the audience, where it was clear they didn't give a shit and wanted to make sure you knew it(and the leaks really show this)

If anything, I think the worst thing S9 did was have my sympathize with /mlp/

That whole "we could not tie everything up" bit from Jim kind of makes me mad since apparently they couldn't fit in anything for the Royal Sisters' backstories(like where did they exactly come from, what happened to their parents, why are they the only natural alicorns left not counting Flurry Heart, etc) and about the origins of Spike's egg(seriously, eggs of sapient beings do not pop up out of thin air into the hooves of ponies like that).
They clearly had precious time for these things but instead they just wasted that(like what you said).

In fact I feel like the writers gave Luna and Celestia a pretty bad sendoff honestly..
(At least they didn't shaft Spike in the finale though)

[Thrond 3,265]

By the end of the show, I was sick to death of the big adventure episodes. Almost none of them are among my all-time favourites; I find them self-serious and predictable, which keeps them from being that entertaining to me. In the last few seasons I deeply wished they would just go away entirely, which was especially frustrating after "Best Gift Ever" showed what else could be done with those 45 minutes and "The Ending of the End" showed what all those two-parters should have been like. I don't agree at all that the show's strengths lie with the fantasy adventure stuff, and at a certain point I stopped paying attention. 

I find the mundane episodes to be relatable in a way that the epic adventure episodes aren't, and they're often more imaginative and humorous to boot. More importantly, they tend to be far more personal to the characters. But then again, I didn't really like the later seasons of the show either, particularly the last three, which I don't think would be very good even if they made no pretense of continuity. I think what I wanted by the end was a sitcom about the mane six's careers, which of course would never happen in a kids' cartoon - but I tried to take it for what it is, rather than what it sometimes pretends to be, and it still left me wanting.