What do you think is the biggest differnce between earlier seasons and later seasons?

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

What do you think is the biggest difference between the earlier srasons and the later seasons?

Edited May 4, 2020 by Sepul-Coloratura

[Cagey 4,214]

I’d say earlier seasons had more freedom, but later seasons had more effort. 

[Metemponychosis 1,239]

Self-awareness. Later seasons became high on its own success. The cartoon didn't always know how to deal with it. Those 'epic awesome' episodes kept trying to one-up the previous ones. The lore became excuses rather than world-building.

[Splashee 28,538]

Biggest difference is something you can notice in the latest "Friendship is Forever" episode "Cakes For The Memories", where the facial expressions are very blank and flat in the earlier seasons compared to the current season (Season 9). Even in Season 3, the nostrils of the ponies from the front view were farther down, than in later seasons. But the blank expressions from the early days had their charm: Many Bronies of those times likes Rainbow Dash to look innocent and somewhat lesser bright. Just being cute with no brains, kinda?

 

When it comes to story and world building, I think they had something going for Season 2 that I really liked. Then I heard Lauren Faust got fired, and you could see how fast Season 3 dropped in quality, and was cut in half.

 

Too much Mane 6 in the later seasons, when they weren't needed. We had new characters, Student 6, Starlight. There were regular voice actors as well. It was so different from the early days, but still didn't take it seriously. Absolutely a waste.

 

The quality was always there, throughout the entire run. It never dropped in quality, like other shows especially Anime.

[ExplosionMare 18,015]

The animation wasn’t afraid to include more movement and facial expressions than the early seasons. The humor also went from small jokes to bigger jokes and references to the fandom.

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

2 hours ago, Metemponychosis said:

Self-awareness. Later seasons became high on its own success. The cartoon didn't always know how to deal with it. Those 'epic awesome' episodes kept trying to one-up the previous ones. The lore became excuses rather than world-building.

What do you think the lore became an excuse for? And what purpose do you think the world-building of MLP should have had?

2 hours ago, Super Splashee said:

Biggest difference is something you can notice in the latest "Friendship is Forever" episode "Cakes For The Memories", where the facial expressions are very blank and flat in the earlier seasons compared to the current season (Season 9). Even in Season 3, the nostrils of the ponies from the front view were farther down, than in later seasons. But the blank expressions from the early days had their charm: Many Bronies of those times likes Rainbow Dash to look innocent and somewhat lesser bright. Just being cute with no brains, kinda?

 

I think it like this : ponies from MLP are cute because they kinda look like puppies rather than people.

[Splashee 28,538]

16 minutes ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

I think it like this : ponies from MLP are cute because they kinda look like puppies rather than people.

I think I need to put together some research on this, especially the early days of FIM. Next time I go through the entire series, which will be a few months from now, I will pick screenshots where I see this effect that is very visible in Season 1, and how different it became just a few seasons later.

I have never thought of them like puppies.

[Oleks 1,983]

Some key differences that I noticed:

1. The first few seasons created the lore, and the later ones had to maintain it while adding something new.

2. More main characters in later seasons. The show went from the Mane 6 + Spike and CMCs to around 20 important characters in the last seasons.

3. Self-awareness and experimentation. Nods to the fandom, "heavier" continuity, and episodes like "Slice of Life", which were unthinkable in the early seasons.

4. Attention to detail: better and more interesting settings, locations, and diverse background ponies in later seasons; the general animation quality was steadily growing higher as the show progressed.

[Megas 27,218]

Later seasons really suffer from a lack of unity from the writers and keeping everything together. They were more obsessed with pushing their own ideas while ignoring developments of others yet would rarely follow through and would drop them introducing concepts and characters then abandoning them shortly after or severely demoting them(the Pillars, the Student Six), and the ones they stuck with were often the ones people hated the most(like the school and making it Starlight's future). It suffers from having such a bloated cast of characters by the end that a lot of them end up suffering for it with a lot of characters, even from the mane 6, getting severely underwhelming, undeserved sendoffs.  Lastly also suffers from thinking it was bigger than it really was, obsessed with epic scale battles or subverting expectations, it instead suffers from having it's head up its own ass.

3 hours ago, Cagey said:

I’d say earlier seasons had more freedom, but later seasons had more effort. 

Actually it's reversed. The earlier seasons were more prone to following the toyetic nature of the show. S6 onward actually had significantly more freedom, which was backed up by Jim Miller. Given the more negative reception of the later seasons, kind of tells you a lot about the direction the show had in the second half

Edited May 4, 2020 by Megas

[Sepul-Coloratura 756]

11 minutes ago, Super Splashee said:

I think I need to put together some research on this, especially the early days of FIM. Next time I go through the entire series, which will be a few months from now, I will pick screenshots where I see this effect that is very visible in Season 1, and how different it became just a few seasons later.

I have never thought of them like puppies.

I didn't mean specifically puppies, I mean something like cute animals. And the first thing comes to your brain as a friendly cute animal is a puppy.

[Kevin Tang 2,422]

This is mostly a joke

Later seasons : kirins

Early seasons : no kirins

[Dark Qiviut 22,221]

1 hour ago, Oleks said:

Some key differences that I noticed:

1. The first few seasons created the lore, and the later ones had to maintain it while adding something new.

2. More main characters in later seasons. The show went from the Mane 6 + Spike and CMCs to around 20 important characters in the last seasons.

3. Self-awareness and experimentation. Nods to the fandom, "heavier" continuity, and episodes like "Slice of Life", which were unthinkable in the early seasons.

4. Attention to detail: better and more interesting settings, locations, and diverse background ponies in later seasons; the general animation quality was steadily growing higher as the show progressed.

^ Mostly this. To expand on what he wrote, when the show already developed so much lore early on, it becomes very difficult to add new pieces of it. You can add pieces, but rewrite the lore, and you’re contradicting continuity, which you can’t do for a show such as this. For the most part, they handled that expectation of maintaining that lore. Such examples include creating the Tree of Harmony, adding backstory to its creation years later with the Pillars, and dragons naturally growing up via the molt effect.

Yes, the entire show had self-contained episodes (including the two-parters — they always recapped and added bits of detail here and there within the story so you wouldn’t get lost), but the first two seasons were even more so. Very few episodes directly referenced a past episode; Best Night Ever, Return of Harmony, and Lesson Zero were among the only ones at the time. The subtler character development was the sometimes the only time continuity was referenced. Starting in season 3, DHX began to directly call back previous seasons more and more and sometimes added to things that were left intentionally loose for separate reasons.

For example, Twilight skipped Moondancer’s party invite, showing that her urge to get to the library had a higher level of importance to her. Well, five seasons later, we now have a consequence with Moondancer feeling rejected after working tirelessly with Minuette, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine behind the scenes, and further backstory of how Twilight had folks who cared for her, but she never returned those feelings back; MD’s reclusion was her realization that Twilight didn’t care, and it broke her heart to pieces.

To add my own observations, S4 introduced more mature themes and messages, which is very important to children. A big one not talked about much is the feeling of home. Twilight lived in her castle, but stayed away from it because she felt more at home with the library. Castle Sweet Castle’s primary lesson of home being where the heart is reflects that. But it isn’t just the primary lessons. Toils reminds us not to jump to conclusions, yet it has a much deeper moral of not to use anger or jealousy to make you commit a regretful act, and Sweetie Belle’s creepy nightmare really showed us how she learned that lesson the hard way.

Lastly, more males were added, and more of them were written respectfully. Just because girls are a preliminary demographic doesn’t mean the opposite sex gets the short end of the stick. Blueblood was really hilarious, but like Snips and Snails, he wasn’t written to be pleasant. Outside of Spike and Big Mac, the first two males to be written with any level of morale were Shining Armor and Flash Sentry. From that point forward, things changed for the better for the males. Cheese Sandwich, Quibble Pants, and especially Grand Pear are great. Even though Zephyr acted repulsively, he got his due by being able to get over his fear of failure. Sans Smirk had a great lone outing in The Last Laugh. Sandbar stood up to his “teachers” in What Lies Beneath and for Yona after feeling humiliated. Gallus was a great snarker who admitted greater pain about not having a family or sense of home in Griffonstone, and he helped encouraged Silver Stream to stand up to the “Storm King.”

[Kadeda 178]

The later seasons are of higher quality and personally more enjoyable with world building. It's not afraid to tackle heavier topics and just felt like every episode had background stories in them. Even background ponies had a uniqueness to them. The characters and colors felt more saturated and something I notice that most show and anime fail to do. The main characters actually feel like they were getting older... adults compared to season one where they feel a lot younger in general. CMC especially feel a lot older in season 8 or 9 than they did in season 1.

[Thrond 3,258]

The later seasons saw increased pretense of maturity alongside decreased consistency. 

This show changed a lot from year to year and never stopped offering great stories; I have my personal opinions about how effective certain developments were, but aside from those two factors I think specific qualities could waver over times. It's clear that the later seasons sought to be more mature in a number of ways, be it more sophisticated morals, increased worldbuilding and continuity, or even a heavier tone in parts. There are a lot of interesting things which happen in the later seasons which could not have happened in the first few, and it's impossible to deny that the show became a lot more ambitious. 

I would also argue, however, that these efforts were not accompanied by enough change in fundamentals - many writers got stuck on writing characters in ways that fit the morals, even if it doesn't align with more mature portrayals to be found in the same season. You could probably see this best in season 8, where you had episodes where we were supposed to believe characters are teachers even though their behaviour seemed highly inappropriate for people with that level of responsibility. And these were placed alongside episodes where those same characters appeared as mature authority figures. Because of this, I argue that the attempts to be more mature and ambitious in the later seasons, lacking a unifying vision, led to the show being more inconsistent as a whole. 

[Latecomer 438]

8 hours ago, Sepul-Coloratura said:

What do you think is the biggest difference between the earlier srasons and the later seasons?

Hmm... before I look at anyone else's answers, I'm going to say "the writers/staff". An almost complete turnover backstage will inevitablu mean differences in the product.

As for how those differences manifested...I'll say later seasons had more complexitu and continuitu, but less pure sincerity. (Of course there were countless more specific changes, but uou asked for the biggest.) 

 

 

[Dark Qiviut 22,221]

To add to my post, existing males were written a lot better in the latter seasons than in the middle.

• When Shining Armor was first introduced, he was a very flat character. Better than Cadance, but still flat. Over the course of the series, his characterization improved here and there, such as openly hugging Cadance during Cranky and Matilda's wedding and having a really difficult time managing both Flurry Heart's birth and FH in general. Andrew Francis did a great job portraying him as astronomically fatigued in The Crystalling.
• For the first five season, WildBrain had no clue how to write Spike. It's as if one writer had one idea and another had a second. They were as consistent with his characterization as produce with zero quality control. To make it worse, he was the buttmonkey, constantly the butt of offensive, abusive humor at his expense. Josh Haber got plenty of grief, but he was very consistent in keeping Spike respectfully written. Haber's Spike was consistently characterized, written with respect, and normally got the best possible outcome. The days of Spikeabuse were (thank Luna) gone with him at the helm.
• Big Mac's speech was mostly "Eeyup" as a gag. Despite being written with the best of intentions, Where the Apple Lies provided really disturbing background to why he speaks less now: By intentionally talking too little, the writers create the implication that Big Mac suppresses what he wants to say, even if it's urgent, and that he intentionally made himself shy to not interrupt or hurt anyone. That's not healthy! Fortunately, the latter seasons got him out of that shell, communicating more actively with Discord, Spike, and Sugar Belle and not keeping his feelings to himself anywhere nearly as much as before.

[ZiggWheelsManning 7,801]

23 hours ago, Super Splashee said:

I think I need to put together some research on this, especially the early days of FIM. Next time I go through the entire series, which will be a few months from now, I will pick screenshots where I see this effect that is very visible in Season 1, and how different it became just a few seasons later.

I have never thought of them like puppies.

Would the puppies thing explain the detailed Scootaloo blush scene in the end of the "Marks and Recreation" cold open?  

[Splashee 28,538]

46 minutes ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

Would the puppies thing explain the detailed Scootaloo blush scene in the end of the "Marks and Recreation" cold open?  

Well, the fillies have some extra puppy eyes installed to them, I can see that. But I don't look at puppies and thing "cute" the same way as I look as the FIM design. I wouldn't want to simply call them puppy design, but something else.

[Metemponychosis 1,239]

On 5/4/2020 at 2:32 PM, Sepul-Coloratura said:

What do you think the lore became an excuse for? And what purpose do you think the world-building of MLP should have had?

What I mean is that the lore became plot-serving. Which, honestly isn't that bad, just something I believe brings down the quality of the story. For example: that big evil from the past that nobody ever heard from that suddenly came back and had no effect on the world coming forward. It happened because the cartoon didn't have a singular 'view'. Probably because the people making the cartoon didn't think it was important, given the mostly self-contained nature of the episodes. It became very evident in the season openers and finales, but also in episodes that tried to expand on the lore/worldbuilding.

In my opinion, things like King Sombra's return, and re-return were part of the problem, as well as Discord and Tirek, and also the whole thing about the movie. Such things should be avoided as the story progresses. I wanted to avoid mentioning it because I do all the time, but I think that the best example still are Celestia, Luna and Hearth Warming Eve, and then Royal Problem (EDIT: and Horse Play, and to an extent Between Dark and Dawn. Pretty much everything revolving around the Sisters) going forward with the way the cartoon has handled the Sisters. But it is hardly the only example of the problem. You could even use Twilight's brother and Cadance parachuting into the story when they should've been at mentioned earlier.

It limits the range of what the writers can do with the story, but constantly revisiting the past hurts the whole thing, so it's not so much what I think they should've have done but what I think they should have avoided.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Metemponychosis

[Lucky Bolt 35,014]

Character development I’d say is the biggest one, as well as overall better animation quality as the seasons went on. Oh and Applejack’s voice got deeper with every season. 

[Splashee 28,538]

1 hour ago, Lucky Bolt said:

Applejack’s voice got deeper with every season.

That actually sounded a little bit cute there.