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How would you re-write G5?


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2 hours ago, -Solstice- said:

@AlbaTross

I personally don't like the fact that they included phones and modern technology. How is a pony supposed to text with hooves? Makes no sense, plus the visual style is downright appalling to look at. To be fair, it does look great at certain angles but when the ponies are seen front on it just doesn't look right at all. 

At least the phone in Hitch's station makes sense. The number buttons are huge so he can press them with ease. Then again, there's no # or anything else like that so the phone is pretty limited.

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17 minutes ago, ExplosionMare said:

# or anything else like that so the phone is pretty limited

Old technology including telephones (or radios) seem fine to me.

It is the social media/smart phone/tiktok/youtube/emojismovie stuff that seems unnecessary to be include into the G5 world.

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13 hours ago, -Solstice- said:

@AlbaTross

I don't like the that they included phones and modern . How is a pony supposed to with hooves? Makes no sense, the visual style is downright appalling to look at. To be fair, it does look great at certain angles but when the ponies are seen front on it just doesn't look right at all. 

TBH, the technology level is quite low on my list of gripes with this series.  Ponies in FiM did all manner of things that should be impossible with hooves.  I do, however, dislike that there isn't much about the world of G5 that's all that different or exciting, or really all that magical.  Maybe there's potential to be had with pairing fantasy with the modern day...but the series is fairly light on the fantasy, and it's not as though the modern day stuff is being used to good effect either.  

I certainly prefer the animation style of FiM and EQG.  Neither MYM's 3D animation or TYT's 2D stuff really does much for me, as both seem like they're made on a budget.  The movie's look is fine, I suppose.  At least I can tell some budget went into that.  

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9 hours ago, AlbaTross said:

TBH, the technology level is quite low on my list of gripes with this series.  Ponies in FiM did all manner of things that should be impossible with hooves.  I do, however, dislike that there isn't much about the world of G5 that's all that different or exciting, or really all that magical.  Maybe there's potential to be had with pairing fantasy with the modern day...but the series is fairly light on the fantasy, and it's not as though the modern day stuff is being used to good effect either.  

I certainly prefer the animation style of FiM and EQG.  Neither MYM's 3D animation or TYT's 2D stuff really does much for me, as both seem like they're made on a budget.  The movie's look is fine, I suppose.  At least I can tell some budget went into that.  

I would have gone for a more dieselpunk or steampunk theme for it. It would appear somewhat industrialized with large variations in technology level depending on the area. There would be airships and steamships, for those more privileged. There would be nothing like modern day, and I would combine elements of fantasy magic with industrial revolution era technologies. I certainly prefer the animation style of FiM, G5 is hard to look at from several angles. Another thing that really bugs me is that the ponies in G5 have fuzzy and hard hooves. I always imagined the ponies hooves as squishy, and soft, not a hard, solid hoof like real ponies / horses.

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On 2022-06-05 at 10:52 AM, -Solstice- said:

Well, you can have even larger morals within a more complex story. Ones that drive deeper than most are willing to admit. MLP is better in fimfics anyways, at least that's what I think.

Stuff like that I think better suits something like Star Wars or Avatar (the cartoon). MLP managed to tell great moral without too much complexity. Some of the most liked episodes come from slice of life-esque episodes like Pinkie Pride and Amending Fences. The Perfect Pear even had themes of loss without mentioning death. It is cool to see action in MLP but the core of the series, at least for G4, is that friendship is important, and people can live in harmony and change, with some exceptions. Going for a more adult or ideological conflict direction doesn't seem ideal for the franchise. It's cool to explore it in fanfictions and whatnot but part of the appeal is that it's based on already established characters and settings, at least that's how I see it. It's an exploration of stuff that can be cool and enjoyable but most of the time wouldn't fit the series at least in my opinion.

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18 hours ago, -Solstice- said:

@GreenPile101

I don't agree with that. My main enjoyment comes from ideological standoffs, intense scenes, and stuff like that. I like mlp, so naturally I combine the two. 

If that's what you like that's fine. Point is that while some people may like it, plenty others don't so trying to make that a core part of mlp would probably not be the right direction. People enjoy mlp for different reasons. Some enjoy it for its comedy, some enjoy it for its lessons about life and friendship, some enjoy it for the characters and/or lore. Fans are pretty divided on different things.

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I don't usually speak up when I see things going in a direction they should not be, but as it pertains to this topic I felt the urge.   The solution here is pretty obvious.  Things got off course more than once since the inception of this topic.  At the end of the day, the initial point of this topic was pretty straight forward, which is ... what, if anything, would you rewrite of G5?  What it was not intended to be, at least from my point of view, is a critique of the OP's idea.  Nor was it intended to be a debate about the popularity level of g5 in general.  As has been pointed out, in the future, there will be a space for such things.  For the interim, it would be far preferable to just stick to the question put forward to begin with.

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(edited)

I only watched the G5 movie as of making this post.

So far, the main changes I would make is on G5's link to G4, and G5's time period.

If G5 is to take place in the same universe as G4, I think there should be better continuity. For instance, if the main characters were descendants of the Mane 6, or if we had an adult Princess Flurry Heart, etc. If the world is, as a whole, very different from G4 (such as what happened to the Windigoes), then it would have been better to explicitly set G5 as being set in a separate universe from G4.

I also would have preferred to have not seen... Ponemoticons, Ponemojis, livestreamers and/or Youtubers in MLP. I think one of the G4 artbooks stated that they were using 1900 as the time period of G4 (with very generous flexibility). If that is the case, then perhaps I would have had G5 take place in the 1920s: there would be some form of rapid communication such as radio and telephone. Television is a bit too new for my liking. The latest [equivalent] time period I would want MLP to take place would perhaps be around the 1980s: still pre-internet era.

I do not have much to say about the main characters of G5.

 

Edit: 

Here is an excerpt from My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria on page 172 on the technology that exists in MLPFIM. 

"In terms of the taxicabs and stuff, we don't have combustion engines. We know that there are no streetlights, for example. If we had streetlights, there would be fireflies or lightning bugs or magic lighting them. We have kind of set rules about technology--you can't have anything that's post-1900s." -Jim Miller, DHX Media.

Also, Luster Dawn also could have been used as a way to bridge G4 and G5.

Edited by Luna the Great of all the Russias
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23 hours ago, Luna the Great of all the Russias said:

Here is an excerpt from My Little Pony: The Art of Equestria on page 172 on the technology that exists in MLPFIM. 

"In terms of the taxicabs and stuff, we don't have combustion engines. We know that there are no streetlights, for example. If we had streetlights, there would be fireflies or lightning bugs or magic lighting them. We have kind of set rules about technology--you can't have anything that's post-1900s." -Jim Miller, DHX Media.

Also, Luster Dawn also could have been used as a way to bridge G4 and G5.

Well, they already threw that rule out the window way back in Season 2 of FiM with Button Mash playing an arcade machine and in Season 8 with Discord using a phone in class dressed like a trendie, just the examples off the top of my head. G4 normalized the cell phone stuff first with Equestria Girls, a norm that was continued in Pony Life and was always inevitably going to continue in G5. They also at least designed the phones in a way that explains how the ponies hold them. If I was re-writing the show, I wouldn't have an emphasis on social media if Hasbro were to not be breathing down my neck to include one in order to market their products better, but I'd be perfectly fine with it being there, as modern conveniences would provide more creative freedom for the plots and jokes that I'd want to do. MLP's never been a historical fiction story, after all. 

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(edited)
29 minutes ago, CloudMistDragon said:

Well, they already threw that rule out the window way back in Season 2 of FiM with Button Mash playing an arcade machine and in Season 8 with Discord using a phone in class dressed like a trendie, just the examples off the top of my head. G4 normalized the cell phone stuff first with Equestria Girls, a norm that was continued in Pony Life and was always inevitably going to continue in G5. They also at least designed the phones in a way that explains how the ponies hold them. If I was re-writing the show, I wouldn't have an emphasis on social media if Hasbro were to not be breathing down my neck to include one in order to market their products better, but I'd be perfectly fine with it being there, as modern conveniences would provide more creative freedom for the plots and jokes that I'd want to do. MLP's never been a historical fiction story, after all. 

I expect a different standard was set for the spinoff series. 1900s is the (very loose) rule they have set for the technology of MLPFIM, though I would be interested to know on what basis they were permitted to break the 1900s rule (other examples would be the advanced sound equipment of Vinyl Scratch, and Twilight's computer when she was monitoring Pinkie in Feeling Pinkie Keen).

There is one thing I will mention on characters. I would have preferred the... pegasus dynasty, for lack of a better term, to have been treated more like royalty and less like celebrities.

Edited by Luna the Great of all the Russias
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Buck it, let's go full magicpunk city with all the different kinds of magical creatures.

 

First main character would be Sprout of Sprout Industries. He's the big bad corpo with all the cool tech shit and mommy issues. Second main character would be Izzy, the manic pixie dream girl unicorn occultist. Guess where the plot's going. The third would be "Princess" Pipp the influencer who's faking her personality and is actually an introverted tomboy doomer IRL. Hitch can also be there cause every such movie needs an incompetent security officer.

 

The plot: some activist bitch is disgruntled by the fact that there's strife and inequality in the world, so she tries to suck up all the magic into a crystal thingamajig in order to take control of the entire city while playing the morally superior savior. She gets rekt by the squabbling trio that are slowly but surely becoming friends but aren't quite there yet at the end of the movie.

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1 hour ago, Goat-kun said:

The plot: some activist bitch is disgruntled by the fact that there's strife and inequality in the world, so she tries to suck up all the magic into a crystal thingamajig in order to take control of the entire city while playing the morally superior savior. She gets rekt by the squabbling trio that are slowly but surely becoming friends but aren't quite there yet at the end of the movie.

I like the idea of having character development happen, but be incomplete by the movie's end:  it keeps the door open for future stories.

 

Some things I forgot to mention about my re-write:  it'd make the split-up worlds feel a bit more world-ish if there were other species besides just ponies.  I dislike how G-4 ended with ponies living in harmony with lots of other races, and the G-5 suddenly showing us just ponies---with the three tribes living apart from one another, no less.

In my G-5 concept, I'd planned to have Dragons living in the Earth Pony world of Volcland, along with a couple more fire-themed creatures from G-1:  Salamanders and Lava Demons.  (Lava Demons weren't necessarily evil, by the by, nor did they look it; imagine Grimer from Pokemon made of lava, and you'll get the right idea what they looked like.)

The Pegasi in Cumuland, with the sea and islands beneath their cloud home, would live alongside Sea Ponies and Kraken, as well as Ice Orcs---another G-1 fantasy creature.

Unicorns in Unicornia had a mishmash of leftover races in their forested, volcano-abutting home:  minotaurs and cat-folk were there, as were lizard-folk who were, you guessed it, also from G-1.

 

I even had all different accents for the different races, inspired by how the creators wanted better diversity in their casts:

Earth ponies had American accents, Salamanders had Jamaican accents, dragons had (of all things) Hawai'ian accents, and lava demons had eastern African accents.  My goal was to pick a diverse array of accents from hot environments.

Pegasi had Australian or New Zealand accents, Sea ponies had Mexican accents, kraken had Japanese accents, and Ice Orcs had Italian accents.  I chose, again, a diverse array of accents from countries that had a lot of coastline, since Cumuland wasn't just a cloud-world, but an ocean-world, as well.

Unicorns had British accents, minotaurs had Chinese accents, cat-folk had Russian accents, and lizard-folk had German accents.  I wanted older, established civilizations with a lot of history for the Unicornian accents, again from a variety of locations.

 

...I wonder sometimes if I put too much thought into a fanfic project I never really invested the time into to actually write it, but you can tell, I was aiming for vibrant, living, pre-existing worlds that already had a lot of diversity of thought and diversity of peoples in them.  But each world was meant to be incomplete---missing something that the other worlds could've provided if they had been connected:  Volcland has ample food, and Cumuland has little farmland and starvation was a problem.  Unicornia had frequent and unpredictable fires, but pegasi's weather-control was good at controlling them, and earth ponies could walk through the fire unharmed to rescue anyone trapped by the fire.  Cumuland's meteor problems could render a pony homeless and orphaned with no warning, but unicorns' magic could stop meteors in their tracks.  Volcland's unpredictable weapon could kill an unprepared earth pony, but pegasi could control that weather and make it a controlled and predictable means of irrigation.  And that's not getting into how effective the three pony tribes and their allies are in combat, or what they can do economically when they team up.

Once Twilight accidentally went from one world to another, she and the earth ponies with her weren't shunned at all; in fact, they were accepted almost immediately---like a fish takes to water.  In fact, the more the three sub-worlds connected with each other in terms of friendship, economics, and even mutual defense, the more it felt like them-being-connected was how it was always supposed to be, which calls into question the Princesses' decision to split up the world in the first place.

Friendship would still very much be Magic in that world, and it'd have a lot of continuity with G-4. 

 

I just worry that my treatment of Celestia and Cadence would've done to them what Last Jedi did to Luke Skywalker...

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(edited)

If nothing else, it wouldn't be a sequel. IMO, that decision was the worst of both worlds: doubling down on the canonicity of the most-contested Season (9), while overriding what positive impact it did have.

I'd have it be an AU, G4 would be akin to the Power Ponies, etc.

Edited by Even Evil Has Standards
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Personally I liked where G5 was going but there's a LOT of things I would change, starting with the characters. I would keep Hitch, Pipps, and Izzy design. They make great contrast color wise. I would like for Sunny to keep that steam punk look, and for Zipps hair to be rather dark purple and blue, with really light purple fur. (Almost lavender) In the older designs Zipps red, blue, purple and Hitch's electric blue is almost too much. And Zipp and Sunny's color's would be too similar. 

For their personalities. I don't know how and why Sunny is the main character, she has so much wasted potential. Her personality can go two different ways. She takes after her father in learning about old equestrian magic, making her a historian. Or she can be an inventor. (Or she can be both, but I need to save some personality for the other characters)

For Izzy, she's way to similar to Pinkie Pie. And in these recent TYT episodes she's really annoying and an awful character. I'd would give her whatever personality Sunny has (and just make her really zen too) I don't mind Izzy a bit ditzy. 

For Sprout, which I'd say he can do no wrong. But his character is a little confusing, instead of being a coward perhaps, he's just not liked by many ponies because he's mean and lazy. 

For Zipp, which I'm not a big fan of Zipp. She's just so bland. I'm not jiving with the whole "I don't wanna be a princess wah." Other than hearing that trope a gazillion times, I think Zipp should be honored because princesses were really important in G4 lore. I think she should have a rebellious personality for this reason, but like in a good way. She can still get a long with Hitch this way without her just wanting to be a lousy detective. And speaking of Hitch, he's fine in my opinion and so is Pipp. However If I had the energy I would consider changing their names and cutie marks, but it's whatever.

Worldbuilding-

So, it kinda makes sense as to why dragons are nowhere to be seen. No magic, means no dragons can fly. (Probably) And why the world seems so flat. However, there's a lack of abandoned building, or even just artifacts. There was only one scene in the movie showing an abandoned place, but I think there should be more. 

Zeypher Heights 

The Pegasai should be living in a fallen city, like hello. Why are they still living on mountains? When magic disappeared they all would've fallen from the sky, including their city. I think the should've adapted to living on the ground. And this could've probably started a bit of anarchy so they form a monarchy.

Bridlewood

I wish it was more of a city type of setting, (think of New York) the ponies are really mean and snobby which still makes Izzy stand out tbh. Unicorns were the biggest magic users, I'd feel like they adapt to technology if given the chance.

Maretime bay

I like the setting for it, it's a nice mixture of technology and primitive landscaping. However I'd get rid of the unicorn traps, and add more deputies. And if the Earth ponies really fear Unicorns and Pegasai, they should just build a wall around their country. (Like in one of the original plots)

Story

Sunny, inspired by her father goes out to find Unicorns or whatever to prove that they're really nice. Hitch figures out about this plan because Sunny would be dumb enough to leave a note saying she's going to prove Unicorns and Pegasai are truly nice. So Hitch warns his community and goes out to stop Sunny from getting hurt. By the time he's doing that Sunny's already out and she finds Izzy (Or Sunny gets lost  and Izzy helps her) excluded from her own society and they sing a song about being left out from society from how different they are. They befriend each other and idk Sunny asks Izzy if she has magic and she's like. "lol no." So this gives Sunny a new motivation to bring back pony kind by restoring magic. (Because she knows Twilight, the whole friendship is magic thing.)

So Izzy and Sunny go find the Pegasai to befriend them but they get arrested and threatened to be executed. Zipp comes in and frees them but risks her own safety because the people did NOT like that. While they're on the lam that's when they discover the crystals and blah blah they go on a theft mission.. Either way Pipp is sent out by her mother to interrogate Zipp because they want to know who freed the criminals. This gives Pipp a real opportunity to decide if she's okay with the existence of Unicorns and Earth ponies.

Zipp, I mean Pipp agrees and Pipp holds a concert to distract everyone from the crimes that are going to be committed. 

Meanwhile in Maretime Bay, Sprout prepares to wage a war. And Hitch finds his way in Zephyr Heights because Sunny has a littering problem. He runs into Sunny telling him to run because they're probably going to be killed. (Oh and they have the crystal) Then they run off to Bridlewood to get the crystal. Instead of Sunny playing DDR for a crystal, Sunny has to trade something valuable to her for the crystal. Which she does lol. (Of course before this they sing their little Unicorn song.)

But Alphabittle watches the news and sees that there are Earth Pony criminals out on the loose. (Don't ask me why Unicorns have Pegasai oriented TV stations, they just do.) And he recognizes Sunny, and Zipp, and Pipp, and maybe Hitch. Blah blah, the Pegasai arrive at Bridle wood and the Unicorns are not happy. Sunny gives a dumb speech, slaps the crystals together. It doesn't work. It makes the Unicorns and Pegasai even angrier. 

Cue, the ending from the movie and bam. Including the fact that Sprout did not apologize because...For the 44 minute special it's just the stuff in "A maretime bay adventure." Near the end the Earth ponies DO get magic. (But they don't realize it) Sprout apologizes of course, and instead of a random Alicorn, it shows the rise of I guess griffions and dragons and all those mystical creatures. 

Other changes

-The crystal doesn't respond to small arguments between pony tribes, instead it does if it's only on a really big scale.

-They have cutie marks on both sides of their flanks

-They don't grab things with their hooves but their mouths

-They mane 5 don't all live with each other, instead they live in different parts of Maretime bay. (Except for Izzy? She lives in bridle wood still.) 

-Make the mane 5, mane 6. Sprout is such a good contrast with their personalities.

-They REBUILD SUNNY'S HOUSE IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE.

-The crystal is NOT hovering over Sunny's home, I don't know where it will go. But I don't want it over Sunny's home.

-Izzy doesn't unicycle Sunny's lantern

-Holes don't randomly open when magic is disappearing.

-Pipps minions need some re-designs urgently

-At the end of MYM the dragon egg doesn't hatch and they only discover the egg near the end of the movie. and it's name is NOT SPARKY SPARKAROONI WHAT. (Also the baby dragon could lead to a nice plot point where the momma dragon comes looking for her baby 

-I'm apart of the writing team for G5 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
(edited)

I would rewrite G5 this way:

Have the official voice-actors of the characters be the voice-actors of them in the MLP: ANG movie (The premiere movie of G5)

The 2D spin-off show for the very young viewers (the main characters would be the 3 foals at the end of MLP: ANG)

I heard that the CMC from G4 were meant to have their own spin-off show but that didn't work out. I think giving G5 a spin-off show for the little kids would have been a good idea.

The 2D Make your mark. (The return of magic would not return harmony among the 3 pony kinds, but they would consistently suffer misfortune when the magic is fueled by hatred, so they resist hatred and active fighting to avoid losing themselves to the magic.)

Some ponies would try to remove the anger which would remove the other emotions, similar to what the Kirins did, though it would not remove their voices.

But it would still cause the pony kinds trouble, for example, how the confidence of the Pegasi would plummet, causing them to plummet to the ground at times.

3D two-to-three minute Tell Your Tale: Shorts that don't greatly affect or progress the overarching plot of G5. It would mostly be about the personal problems among the Mane 5 and the Royal Family,

Edited by Rosy Moonlight
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(edited)

Other than writing the premise of G5 canon, I would rewrite G5 as a separate continuity because having G5 as the same continuity as G4 inherently gives it big issues.

Issues such as the extreme happy ending override, endless questions, lore inaccuracies, and constant comparisons, among others.

Edited by Rosy Moonlight
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2022-06-07 at 12:53 PM, -Solstice- said:

I would have gone for a more dieselpunk or steampunk theme for it.

I'd have gone with more sophisticated examples of combining magic and technology (think Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, or Tank's propeller) rather than just fancier real-world technology, which could easily end up with a steampunk-ish vibe (like, say, The Golden Compass).

Plus if we're going to handle themes of racism, I'd make the initial plot about preventing the sort of total societal collapse that led up to the G5 movie.

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  • 2 months later...

I would have preffered that Pipp Petals was also a fitness/stunt celebrity, allowing fitness/stunts to be something she has in common with Zipp.

Pipp wouldn't enjoy it very much but she does it for her social media status.

It would show a layer of Pipp being willing to make herself suffer for her own goals.

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1 minute ago, Rosy Moonlight said:

I would have preffered that Pipp Petals was also a fitness/stunt celebrity, allowing fitness/stunts to be something she has in common with Zipp.

Pipp wouldn't enjoy it very much but she does it for her social media status.

It would show a layer of Pipp being willing to make herself suffer for her own goals.

I strongly dislike Pipp's social media aesthetic, I don't like it at all because it doesn't make sense for ponies to have phones and her social media status thing is just a personality I very much an incompatible with.

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