Rewriting Season 8 Of MLP: FIM

[TheDarkMare1939 11]

When I was looking back at My Little Pony's 8th Season, I thought that it was A decent season that had an interesting concept, but it does make its flaws that makes the execution A bit disappointing. The main problem I had with Season 8 of MLP was how the episodes of S8 started to go up and then went down. The first half was pretty good and I was excited to see where the show would go next with its new concept, but when I was watching the next half of Season 8, It wasn't that good to me, and Season 8 didn't really improve towards the end either in my opinion. 

I don't think of myself as better than Hasbro's show-writers for My Little Pony, but I'm gonna take A shot at improving the storyline of Season 8. I hope you all like it:

So in Season 8, The Mane 6 are in their castle of friendship and it starts off similarly in the same way that the first two episodes of the season started off. The first episode deals with The Mane 6 wanting to spread friendship throughout all of Equestria, but they start a Friendship Camp instead. The idea of The Mane 6 building A place to spread friendship was A cool concept, but A school wasn't the right choice, to me, so instead of A Friendship School, it will be A Friendship Camp.

A camp is where kids can just interact with each other and play games and have fun with activities and of course, make friends, So with A Friendship Camp happening instead, It could encourage friendship for others in the camp. Neighsay would be from Season 8 completely because he was just awful. The camp gets set up, and Twilight Sparkle will be the camp's counselor. The character out of the Student 6 that the season introduces will be Gallus, and he will basically be the main focus out of the Student 6. As the episodes progress, the Student 6 will be built up to become A strong group.

It will have Gallus as the main focus as he starts becoming used to his new friends. During Season 8's first half, it focuses on the Student 6 and others being encouraged by The Mane 6 to learn about friendship at the Friendship Camp, and they will some fun activities with them while learning lessons. What I would add is that the whole "spreading friendship" thing can work with each species wanting to offer their own perspective on the subject of friendship instead of suggesting that ponies are the only species to know what friendship is.

Episodes in Season 8 like "The Molt Down", "Surf and/or Turf", "Rockhoof and a hard place", "Hearth's Warming Club", and "What Lies Beneath" can stay the same, except with the episodes happening at A camp instead of A school. The Student 6 can also earn camp badges instead of doing school-related stuff. The midseason finale episode of Season 8 will be the "Hearth's Warming Club" instead, and towards the end of the episode, Gallus admits that he was the one who made a mess on the Christmas Tree, and that is the point where Gallus starts getting used to his new friends. The ending scene for the mid-season finale would reveal A mysterious filly enters the Friendship Camp undetected, and is seen silently starting to enact her heinous scheme. This would continue on and on when no one would suspect what was going on until later.

When we return after the month-long break, the season's story begins to take shape, as this mysterious filly steals six artifacts and planned to use them for her personal gain. 6 episodes later, the filly's name is revealed to be Cozy Glow. Cozy Glow would then secretly enact her plan, all while Chrysalis is unaware, and continues to make evil versions of the Mane 6, but this time, the main and knockoff counterparts would interact, with Twilight suspecting that this must be Chrysalis' hard work paid off. As Season 8 reaches episodes 17-18, Cozy Glow secretly digs a tunnel underneath the Friendship Camp and begins to enact her goals, not knowing that she is being watched by an enigmatic ram-like creature from the distance.

In episodes 19-21, Cozy Glow asks Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo if they could follow her, and they all agree, not knowing what Cozy is up to. Cozy then tells them not to let anyone else know of what she's up to, but if they do, she'll have no choice but to lock them in the hut of Zecora. With everything in place, Cozy's plan begins to make its' move. In Ponyville, Thorax notices that the ponies have started to lose their magic, and runs off to warn Twilight. The story continues into the events that lead up to the finale, being episodes 22-24.

Cozy Glow's plan is enacted. Cadence is the first of the four princesses to have her magic fade away, only for Celestia, Luna, and Flurry Heart to follow. As Cozy Glow is exploiting the CMC, Sweetie Belle accidentally discovers what Cozy is up to, and desperately tries to warn the Young Six, only for Cozy to lock her in. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo remain, having been unaware of both the disappearance of their fellow Crusader, but also Cozy's plan. With Sweetie Belle out of the way, Cozy Glow begins to continue manipulating her fellow Crusaders. Gallus, now lost, comes across a distraught Sweetie Belle, and she tells him that Cozy got to the other two Crusaders and that they don't have much time. The two scurry off to warn Smolder, Ocellus, and the others, as the magic began to fade. Discord takes note of this, and his chaos magic is starting to fade as well until Ember arrives with a message from Garble, stating that Equestria is experiencing magical difficulties.

The Season 8 finale starts off with 50% of Equestria's ponies having their magic drained. Gallus, Ocellus, and Apple Bloom determine that the magic drained was connected to whatever Cozy Glow is planning. The trio now sets off to stop Cozy, meanwhile, Tirek learns that his apprentice's plan is working perfectly. Cozy gloats and gloats, until the Young Six, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo arrive. Cozy struggles to defeat the Crusaders and Young Six, only for Ember to swoop in and make her dizzy. Ember blocks most of Cozy's attacks but is injured almost immediately.

Now out of commission, Ember tells the CMC and Young Six to get Twilight's help. The nine of them scurry off to warn Twilight and her friends. Cozy Glow gloats some more. In the distance, the nine encounter Chrysalis, but she ends up getting blasted by Thorax, who tells the nine that he'll handle her, and they must get to Twilight. The nine told the Mane 6, and they get them to the location of Cozy Glow, and she is scolded by Twilight, who then summons the former's parents, and Cozy Glow gets locked up for her actions and doesn't get redeemed, but she meets Tirek in prison.

Shortly after Cozy Glow gets defeated, Twilight Sparkle reverses the magic drain, thus bringing things back to normal at last.

[Megas 27,565]

Get rid of the School of Friendship entirely, about 90% of the season’s problems would be gone right there

[TheDarkMare1939 11]

5 minutes ago, Megas said:

Get rid of the School of Friendship entirely, about 90% of the season’s problems would be gone right there

I see that, and I replaced it with A Friendship Camp instead. Is that cool?

[Megas 27,565]

Moments ago, TheDarkMare1939 said:

I see that, and I replaced it with A Friendship Camp instead. Is that cool?

CMC already had something like that in S7 so a camp seems somewhat redundant. If anything I would have either established a school(NOT the School of Friendship) run by the Pillars, or have the S6 be the M6 personal students

[TheDarkMare1939 11]

Moments ago, Megas said:

CMC already had something like that in S7 so a camp seems somewhat redundant. If anything I would have either established a school(NOT the School of Friendship) run by the Pillars, or have the S6 be the M6 personal students

Those suggestions don't sound bad. 

Do you like the way I rewrote Season 8 at least?

[Landi 600]

If I were to rewrite season 8, the first thing I would do is get rid of the School of Friendship. It was a bad idea from the start and it's further execution caused many of season eight's problems. Along with that, I'd get rid of the student six aswell. They were pretty bland overall and just took time away from the well written main characters. Instead, we could give more screen time to the pillars, who were just introduced the previous season, but still make sure to keep the mane six as the main focus. Introducing another set of characters just after introducing the pillars never made sense. With the pillars getting more screentime than they did in the actual season 8, it could really help develop their characters, rather than ditch them to the curb.

As for the mane six themselves, there are two major things that could be done with their characters that come to mind. First is to showcase how they are advancing through their actual careers and how friendship can be utilized in their own respective jobs. This would make much more sense for their character archs than Twilight forcing them into random teaching jobs. Secondly, they could travel around Equestria itself and help spread friendship to others, and even learn more about it themselves. There is so much untapped potential when it comes to Equestria and it's locations and I wished that the writers explored it more. From Cloudsdale to Stratusburgh to all of the Real-life counterpart cities, there is so much that could've been explored, yet we didn't get to really see any of that. It would be great for this to be a part of a rewritten season 8.

I think these changes would vastly improve season 8, and help the ending of the show be a bit more enjoyable. Of course, a major part of this hinges on how the writers would execute it, but I'd hope they would be able to properly do so.

[Toastypk 923]

25 minutes ago, Landi72 said:

Along with that, I'd get rid of the student six aswell. They were pretty bland overall and just took time away from the well written main characters. 

Not saying at all that you can't have that opinion, but I thought I'd share that I commissioned this last year.

Cause I honestly adore him.

[Misty Shadow 7,842]

I don't mind the School of Friendship anywhere near as much as some do, but these aren't bad suggestions. A camp instead of a school, that would work fine, since the characters did go camping multiple times in the series and the Student 6 did participate in outside activity. Neighsay, very few people care about him, so he could easily be axed. Gallus was my favorite Young 6 character, so putting him in the spotlight to be the one who needs to learn about friendship more than any other character, I'd like, even as Smolder was just as rambunctious and adverse to friendship as he was. I like your rewrite to the build of Cozy Glow turning out to be the villain best, since that plot twist was just too abrupt even with the bits of minor foreshadowing.

[Tom Gallagher 33,581]

I’d just like the Student Six gone.  Kaput. They should never have existed just to take the spotlight away from ponies I actually care about. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by TomDaBombMLP

[North Star 5,218]

I like the school and the student 6, but I like the build up in your S8  MLP doesn't always hang together and your version is better for that.

[JMTV99 1,352]

You know I should rewritten Season 8:

By NOT renewing this show after Season 7.

[Toastypk 923]

In all seriousness though even if the School addition felt a bit janky, it didn't bother me enough to care at all. It brought in a lot of new characters, story possibilities, (though some more iffy than others, Non Compete Clause ahem) but I enjoyed it all at its face value. Then again I didn't really majorly dislike any episode from the series.

3 hours ago, Landi72 said:

we could give more screen time to the pillars

This so much, though. I realize we have a lot of characters we could cram into 26 episodes, plus new ones, including the much beloved Autumn Blaze, so that would be a somewhat hard order. I do enjoy they all came back for the Rockhoof episode, but I do wish I could have seen more of them, especially Stygian. (I wanted to see them follow up on him with more than just a verbal update, maybe even a line or two... but I adore that he showed up with the others at the coronation.)

[Evil Pink One 13,506]

I don't mind the student 6.....

They should've focused MORE on the student six to fix the problem.... The student 6 was not heavily loved due to them not having much good episodes aswell.... Cozy glow should have more air time and made everyone love her at the beginning... Then make her evil and tear the hearts of everyone.... Cozy is reverse diamond tiara....

[Thrond 3,263]

As someone who thought the school generally made season 8 better - or at least that it showed off everything season 8 did well - I think the summer camp idea would help with some of the things that bugged me about it while keeping most of what made it so appealing. I think I would miss the part where Twilight gets to be a principal, and it would still seem weird that the mane six all have 2-3 jobs now (is Rainbow Dash still a weatherpony?), but it would still be better than teaching friendship in classes. 

I'm generally defensive of Neighsay, because I really like the idea of the main six fighting against xenophobia. I had hoped that he would be the main seasonal villain rather than the lesser evil. The problem of the mane six teaching pony values to non-ponies predates the school - the Cutie Map episodes often had the same implication - and I think the school is actually an improvement, because it's inclusive rather than intrusive. That is, the mane six are welcoming non-ponies into their school rather than going to another country and telling people how to behave. A way to fix the problem might be to have non-ponies inspired by the mane six become teachers, or at least yaks and hippogriffs, who already seem pretty friendly. But that introduces even more characters, and there's already too many. 

I liked the idea of Cozy Glow being a student because it seemed like she was just another part of the school storyline until suddenly she was too suspicious to ignore. Gaining people's trust so she can abuse it is pretty clever, and it's more clever if it's authority figures rather than some kids she just met. Having her be an outsider who infiltrates and steals McGuffins kinda seems like the same thing we got every year from this show; I've seen it. 

Would that seasonal storyline be the B-plot to the usual episodic stories? It seems like that could all be condensed into a single two-parter. I don't really mind the actual season 8 finale, I just think it needed tighter pacing. Honestly, what you're laying out doesn't seem that far off from what we got. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by AlexanderThrond

[SunsetShimmerStan 35]

On 2021-05-03 at 4:24 PM, Landi said:

If I were to rewrite season 8, the first thing I would do is get rid of the School of Friendship. It was a bad idea from the start and it's further execution caused many of season eight's problems. Along with that, I'd get rid of the student six aswell. They were pretty bland overall and just took time away from the well written main characters. Instead, we could give more screen time to the pillars, who were just introduced the previous season, but still make sure to keep the mane six as the main focus. Introducing another set of characters just after introducing the pillars never made sense. With the pillars getting more screentime than they did in the actual season 8, it could really help develop their characters, rather than ditch them to the curb.

As for the mane six themselves, there are two major things that could be done with their characters that come to mind. First is to showcase how they are advancing through their actual careers and how friendship can be utilized in their own respective jobs. This would make much more sense for their character archs than Twilight forcing them into random teaching jobs. Secondly, they could travel around Equestria itself and help spread friendship to others, and even learn more about it themselves. There is so much untapped potential when it comes to Equestria and it's locations and I wished that the writers explored it more. From Cloudsdale to Stratusburgh to all of the Real-life counterpart cities, there is so much that could've been explored, yet we didn't get to really see any of that. It would be great for this to be a part of a rewritten season 8.

I think these changes would vastly improve season 8, and help the ending of the show be a bit more enjoyable. Of course, a major part of this hinges on how the writers would execute it, but I'd hope they would be able to properly do so.

Then how would you get to do a plot for different specifies integrating and befriending each other? After all, that's partially the idea behind the School of Friendship and the Student Six. Like surely the species integration aspect could've worked?

[FirePuppy 733]

I would have had Non-Compete Clause replaced by a Pinkie/Fluttershy episode, no doubt, and have them interact with the Student Six instead of Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

[SunsetShimmerStan 35]

On 2024-03-19 at 12:09 AM, FirePuppy said:

I would have had Non-Compete Clause replaced by a Pinkie/Fluttershy episode, no doubt, and have them interact with the Student Six instead of Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

Then what story would you make from that? Pinkie and Fluttershy competing would be more out of character than Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

 

Plus considering they teased AppleDash in the finale, AppleDash could've used at least one more episode given it'd been a while since the last AppleDash outing.